Fifteen years ago, I sat in a GRE classroom — the first and last coaching class I ever truly attended. The teacher had a memorable way of teaching vocabulary, and if you're from Hyderabad, chances are you've heard the recordings I mean.
He taught vocabulary in clusters, in teams, in associations that stayed with you long after the class was over. At some point he asked, in effect: why not teach it through Rama? Because Rama contained all the right virtues. Every quality had a word. Every word had a memory. Every memory had a story.
So he made a handout, almost like a poster. I still remember the force of that idea more than the paper itself.
Who Is Your Rama?
What are the virtues of Rama? Why is he Rama?
After all, Rama is remembered not only as divine, but as someone who accepted the discipline and suffering of human life without abandoning dharma. That is what has always stayed with me. However the world turned, however much it demanded, he did not let go of his values.
The Question That Struck Me This Morning
This morning, almost immediately after waking up, one question arrived with unusual force: who is Rama today?
Look at the answer Narada Maharshi gave when Valmiki asked him the very same question — is there any human today with the right qualities?
The Verse from Valmiki Ramayana (Bala Kanda, Sarga 1, Shloka 2)
कोन्वस्मिन् साम्प्रतं लोके गुणवान् कश्च वीर्यवान् । धर्मज्ञश्च कृतज्ञश्च सत्यवाक्यो दृढव्रतः ॥
ko nv asmin sāmprataṁ loke guṇavān kaśca vīryavān | dharmajñaśca kṛtajñaśca satyavākyo dṛḍhavrataḥ ||
Meaning: "Who is there in this world today who is truly virtuous, valorous, who knows dharma, who is grateful, who always speaks truth, and who is firm in his vows?"
चारित्रेण च को युक्तः सर्वभूतेषु को हितः । विद्वान् कः कः समर्थश्च कश्चैकप्रियदर्शनः ॥
cāritreṇa ca ko yuktaḥ sarvabhūteṣu ko hitaḥ | vidvān kaḥ kaḥ samarthaśca kaścaikapriyadarśanaḥ ||
Meaning: "Who is endowed with good character? Who is devoted to the welfare of all beings? Who is learned? Who is capable? And who is ever pleasant to behold?"
Narada's answer, of course, was Rama. Not merely as a distant divine figure, but as the one who embodied those qualities through conduct, restraint, duty, and unwavering inner order.
Who Is Rama in the 21st Century?
If we were to ask this question today — especially in the AI era — I don't think we would easily find anyone who matches that standard. More importantly, I don't think we even expect to.
Don't get me wrong. There are extremely great people living on this planet even today. But maybe we're asking the wrong question.
And to be precise, I am not trying to collapse Rama into an ordinary modern individual, or to make a theological equivalence. I am asking a moral question: what does Rama's standard reveal about the way we live now?
Maybe we should not be looking for one or two perfect figures in the world and placing them so far above human life that we excuse ourselves from even trying.
I think that is the most fundamental psychological problem in how we relate to ideals. The moment we place someone entirely outside the realm of lived human possibility, we begin negotiating with our own conscience. We begin finding reasons to not live up to that level. And the moment we say "Ham se nahi hoga" (it can't be done by us), something inside us quietly gives up.
The Real Question
In my view, the fundamental question that needs to be asked is:
What makes somebody not be Rama?
Everybody adapts. Anthropologically, biologically, psychologically — humans are built to survive, and survival often rewards adaptation. Once, the environment was forests, weather, scarcity, tribes. Today, the environment is made of institutions, incentives, platforms, codes, and invisible systems sitting on top of other systems. And most of them reward a narrow kind of life.
If you don't follow them, you either get ostracised or you don't get ahead. You are seen as naive, weak, impractical, or hypocritical. So at some point, almost all of us adapt.
Or maybe the right word is masking.
And the AI era has made that pressure more intense.
Today, we are not just adapting to family, society, or institutions. We are adapting to dashboards, feeds, recommendation systems, engagement loops, productivity metrics, and personal brands. We are constantly pushed to become legible to systems: ranked, rewarded, amplified, consumed. The danger is not just that we become more efficient. The deeper danger is that we become performative even to ourselves.
That is where masking becomes a civilizational habit.
A Drift into Political Philosophy
Let me borrow from political philosophy for a moment.
If we take Rousseau's point of view — that human nature is fundamentally good — then the problem isn't the nature we're born with. It's the nurture: the socialisation, the conditioning, the systems we inherit — our genes, our prarabdha, whatever else shapes us.
So the real problem to address is masking.
If somebody can be deeply honest with their own nature, maybe they can live with a little more integrity, a little less imitation, and a little less fear. Maybe that is where the recovery begins.
Rama in the AI World
So here's my take.
What matters in the AI era is not finding "a Rama" among us. It is refusing to surrender the qualities that make Rama worth remembering. Refusing to mask so much that we lose our identity. Refusing to compromise values for the algorithm, the system, or the crowd.
That person uses technology and AI to live a life — not to perform one.
That, to me, is the right direction of the question. Not hero worship. Not imitation. Not performance. Alignment.
If you've read this far, the question is not whether any of us can "be Rama" in a literal sense. The question is which of Rama's qualities we are willing to protect when the world rewards performance over character.