At Ramayana’s Dussehra event in Kolkata, the film’s core message briefly turned into its opposite. On October 20, Ranbir Kapoor took the stage with Yash and Suvendu Adhikari, intending to say that good wins over evil. The sentence did not cooperate.
What happened on stage
Ranbir opened with “Jai Shri Ram”, thanked the crowd and called Kolkata a holy land. Then came the slip. He told the audience that Dussehra reminds us that no matter how strong evil is, at the end it is “goodness and honesty that perishes”.
The line was meant to land the other way: evil perishes, and good endures. The moment is visible in clips now doing the rounds on social media. Those on stage exchanged glances and clapped awkwardly before Ranbir recovered by urging people to spread love and walk a righteous path.
For a film named after the definitive good-versus-evil story, the stumble is an ironic, human moment. It is unlikely to dent the campaign, but it has given the title one more round of visibility just before release.
West Bengal makes the film tax-free
The event also carried a policy announcement. Suvendu Adhikari said Ramayana would be tax-free in West Bengal, joining films such as The Kerala Story, The Kashmir Files and The Bengal Files. He added that films on Shri Krishna, Arjuna and the Mahabharata may follow.
For viewers, a tax-free status typically means the state waives its entertainment tax, which can lower the ticket price for a Diwali family outing.
Release plan and cast
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Namit Malhotra and Yash, Ramayana Part 1 opens on November 5 for Diwali; the second part is planned for 2027. The cast includes:
- Ranbir Kapoor as Ram
- Sai Pallavi as Sita
- Yash as Ravana
- Ravi Dubey as Lakshmana
- Sunny Deol as Hanuman
- Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi, Rakul Preet Singh as Shurpanaka and Kajal Aggarwal as Mandodari
The speech slip is a small footnote. The campaign now has a release date to build toward: November 5.
Source: Hindustan Times