Of course the element that hits one over the head is its transformation of the Ramayan into political cinema with current-day relevance — one that executes Ratnam's peculiar style of critical aikido, which seems to embrace a progressive (in this instance feminist) social agenda but ultimately spends this liberal credibility embracing a fundamental social conservatism.

Just to make certain that everyone gets it, the allusions begin with an explicit mention of the Ramayan, by one of the old women of the village — one that's slipped into dialogue as though it were an irrelevant detail, but which actually carries a great deal of political significance in this story of secessionist insurrection: the Ramayan, as an examplar of pan-Indian culture, is what knits together the village and the city, all the provinces of India, and indeed much of South and Southeast Asia in general. It and other unifying myths and beliefs give historical and cultural basis to India as a unitary political entity, one that should not be divided. The main Ramayan tale begins after Rishi Kumar, his mother, and Roja have left the village for the city:

Ram (Rishi Kumar), having married Sita (Roja), is reluctantly exiled (sent away on a mission to Kashmir) by his father King Dasarath (Rishi's ailing boss Mohan) who then dies of grief for Ram's absence (although Mohan doesn't actually die in the film, he is in hospital). A virtuous Sita insists on accompanying her husband into exile (Roja, on telephoning her sister Lakshmi, realises her lapse of faith in her husband and insists on coming along with him to Kashmir.)

Here's where the gender reversals begin. Who, in fact, is the Ram figure? Both Rishi Kumar and Roja participate in it, but as the film goes along it begins to become clear that it's Roja who owns the role. Even the phonetics give out this message: Roja/Rama, and sibling Lakshmi/Lakshman. Rishi Kumar initially fears (and we fear with him, as we've not seen where Roja has gone in the morning) that some harm has befallen Roja at the hands of the Kashmiri rebels — this scenario would be consistent with the gender roles in the historical Ramayan and would place Rishi Kumar as Ram.

Rishi Kumar goes searching for Roja, all ready to play the Ram hero, and finds her at the shrine, where she has just met her sidekick Chajoo (another face of Lakshman, the faithful companion, with a more C3PO-esque, reluctant-sidekick slant). At this juncture, though, it is Rishi Kumar rather than Roja who is kidnapped by an apparition of Ravan (the rebels led by Wasim Khan). That is to say, Rishi Kumar has assumed the wife's role of captive, leaving Roja to fill the hero's role. And fill it she does.

Roja's divine nature as Ram is prefigured in her relationship with the gods, and with God. It's she who visits her village's shrine to ask for Rishi Kumar's marriage to her sister Lakshmi, and it's she who calls at the shrine in Kashmir and says that all gods are one. Later, she says to the government minister, "You are a form of God for me" — in one reading this sentiment reflects the awe of a simple country woman in the presence of a powerful man, but in another, stronger reading it reflects her respect for all human beings, who participate in the divine.

An insistent Roja (now grown fully in the role of Ram) will not leave Kashmir (Lanka) until she has rescued her spouse Rishi Kumar (Sita). With Chajoo (Lakshman), she waits at the police headquarters for Colonel Rayappa (Hanuman), who helps her pursue Rishi Kumar (Sita). At Roja's urging, the government relents and agrees to release Wasim Khan in exchange for Rishi Kumar, but when Rishi Kumar hears of this deal he resists trading the blood of Wasim Khan's future victims for his own freedom (Sita refuses Hanuman's offer to carry her back to Ram, unwilling to be touched by a male who is not her husband).

In yet another sense, Rishi Kumar is neither the Ram figure nor the Sita but rather — true to his name — the character of the wise hermit (rishi) who inhabits the wilderness. His conversations with his captors — principally the leader Liyaqat — wax philosophical ("Is it justice to capture homes after driving away the families in them?"), and Rishi Kumar's triumph is his redemption of Liyaqat after the sacrifice of Liyaqat's young brother, turning him from a mere agent of the irredeemably evil Wasim Khan (Ravan) into an enlightened and merciful human being. At the end of the film Rishi Kumar leaves Liyaqat with a benediction — "Wipe the tears of people, instead of making them cry" — revealing the entire story — the mission into exile, the kidnapping, the chase and battle — as a mechanism of transcendance that has been necessary for Liyaqat and everyone else involved to realise their own dharma.

Having spent so much time in conversation and close proximity to Liyaqat and his other captors, though, isn't Rishi Kumar tainted? Hasn't he shown some sympathy for them and their plight, and mightn't that sympathy spill over into sympathy for their struggle and cause? To prove his continued loyalty to his country and its government, Rishi Kumar like Sita must undergo the agni pariksha, the test of fire. When his captors set the Indian flag alight, Rishi Kumar, his hands still bound, rolls in the flames, extinguishing the fire with his body, reserving the flag and the indivisible republic that it symbolises.

With the help of a Kashmiri woman who is the only free thinker in the bunch (another strong female character, and something of an analogue to the rakshasa defector Vibhishana), Rishi Kumar escapes, at risk to his life. After evading his captors, he crosses the river (the ocean separating Lanka from the mainland) to be reunited with Roja (Ram). At the end of their exile, the couple return to the kingdom of Ayodhya (the united and indivisible republic of India).

(This being a feel-good ending, we omit the later part of the Ramayan in which Ram (Roja?) banishes Sita (Rishi Kumar?) to Valmiki's ashram in the wilderness — but this parallel does make one wonder who ends up wearing the trousers in that marriage!)

The film has a great deal to say about the stratification of Indian society, and how this stratification must yield to democratic socialism. After Roja marries the professional Rishi Kumar the people of the village half-joke "You are a memsahib now." Roja, pleading with the minister to intercede for her husband's release, explains, "We are not influential people but we are citizens of India." After Colonel Rayappa scolds Roja for her selfishness in wanting to regain her husband, a man of status, at the cost of releasing Wasim Khan, who surely will kill many more innocents of no status, Roja throws his argument back at him by asking, "What if it were a minister's child?" — alluding of course to the then recent kidnapping of home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter Rubaiya by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, in which five imprisoned terrorists were freed as ransom. Later, after the deal for the exchange seems set, General Rayappa observes, "The minister will earn a good name by getting an eminent scientist released."

The script, of course, isn't the only memorable element of this film — the cinematography complements all of it, right from the beginning, when the blue-grey of Colonel Rayappa's battle against Wasim Khan cuts to the warm orange of sunrise in Roja's village. And in the middle, with the cuts between Rishi Kumar's fantasies of Roja and the reality of his beaten and bleeding body. And in the end, with the light of grace on Liyaqat as he begins to become redeemed by Rishi Kumar after the sacrifice of Liyaqat's brother.

Through it all, it's the women who rule — the grandmother who prevails on her son, Roja's father, to allow his other daughter Lakshmi to wed her sweetheart; Rishi Kumar's mother, who prevails on her son to allow his new wife Roja to accompany him to Kashmir; the Kashmiri woman who releases Rishi Kumar in an attempt to ease the suffering that she sees all round her; and of course Roja, who rules all with divine authority. The men, in contrast, are for the most part a bunch of fools who are too fond of playing with guns. My favourite scene/song is the one at the very beginning, Dil Hai Chota Sa, because in it Roja is a simple, provincial young woman, but already possesses all the divine nature — all the beauty and moral authority — with which she rules the rest of the story.

This is an action film subordinated to a love story, a love story subordinated to Indian nationalist political theatre, political theatre subordinated to a progressive, social-democratic and feminist message — but ultimately a progressive message twisted back on itself into an essentially conservative statement on the integrity of India as a nation-state, politically, and the faithfulness of women as wives, socially. It has so many levels, and says so much about India past, present, and future.