Saturday 27 July 2013

Human Resources Management in Valmeeki Ramayana

4. Human Resources Management - S.Ganapathy Subramanian


Definition of Manage Project team:

Tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and coordinating
changes to enhance project performance

The scene from Ramayana:

After killing Ravana and making Vibhishana the king of Lanka, Rama sends for Sita. When Sita
arrives, he tells her cruelly that he defeated Ravana only to uphold the honor of the family and
he is not interested in her as she has stayed too long away from him. He tells her that she can
freely choose to live with anyone else like Lakshmana, Bharatha or Sugriva. These words
gravely hurt Sita. She enters fire vouching that she shall be protected if she is truly chaste in
her heart. Fire God brings her back alive and gives her to Rama. Rama accepts her
wholeheartedly. The whole world finds what Rama already knew that Sita was pristine pure.
How the scene maps to the process:

This scene is usually misunderstood. But this scene should be seen in conjunction with an
earlier scene. When Rama goes behind a deer that Sita desired, He orders Lakshmana to stay
back and safeguard Sita. Sita was disillusioned to believe that Rama was in danger by Ravana’s
sting operation. She tells Lakshmana to go after Rama. Lakshmana replies that Rama will never
need his protection whereas she does. But suddenly Sita gets into a fit of anger and accuses
Lakshmana that he has come to the forest not to help them but lusting after her and that is
why he is letting Rama die away. She says, “May be Bharatha sent you to kill Rama and get
me.” For a character as spotless as Lakshmana, these were like arrows of fire into his ears that
he leaves. Soon Ravana comes there and abducts Sita.

When Lakshmana reaches Rama, Rama chides him for leaving Sita alone. Lakshmana explains
his action. Rama says, “Still it is a mistake that you disobeyed my order. It is going to lead to
great grief.”

For Rama his team includes both Sita and Lakshmana. He gave Lakshmana feedback on the
same day. Rama wanted to show Sita how it feels if one’s character is assassinated when one is
innocent at heart. So he created the scene, where he disowns Sita and then accepts her again.
Thus he gave feedback to Sita the very next time he met her after she was lost.

In another case, when Rama wanted to accept Vibhishana, Ravana’s brother who seeks his
shelter, into the team, he does not do it unilaterally. He takes the opinion of all the monkey
heroes. Among them, only Hanuman supports the idea of taking Vibhishana into the camp while
five others oppose it. But Rama convinces them that he can protect himself and the monkey
army from any danger and gives shelter to Vibhishana.

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