In Okhla, Ramlila is Ramayana beamed on a large white screen

The switch was made 10 years ago, when staging a Ramlila became too hard on the pockets.

“Earlier we used to get the main actors from Mathura or Aligarh. They would come with their entire troupe and we used to pay them Rs 25,000. Now, it would cost us almost Rs 2 lakh. So we came up with the idea of screening Ramayana. This costs us about Rs 60, 000,” Kishan Lal, president of the Ramlila committee here, said.

Kailash Thakur, a resident who occasionally used to don the role of Lakshman, said the cost of providing food and lodging for the troupe had proved to be too expensive. “There used to be at least 15 actors. They were mostly peasants who performed during the off-season to earn some extra money. So we had to pay them decent wages,” he said.

As a cost-cutting measure, the committee first shifted to hiring local residents as actors. But, these actors were not skilled and the idea had to be dropped. Then, senior residents of the village thought of screening the TV series. Now, Manoj Kumar Gautam, a young tech-savvy resident, sits on a makeshift stage and plays the CD as hundreds gather around the screen.

“Earlier Ramlila was staged in three places — Okhla Village, Tikona Park and Nayi Basti. The other two could not sustain themselves.

Ours too would have shut down had it not been for the donations from all residents, including Muslims,” Mohammad Meherban, a resident who once did side-roles in Ramlila, said.

One would expect that playing the same TV series, year after year, would not appeal to the residents. But that is not the case. “I think the theatre version is noisy. This is much better,” Udal, a rickshaw-puller, said.

Sonu (16) too gave his thumbs-up for the screened version. “I find this more entertaining and educating,” he said.

Reporter is an Exims student