Vanar in spectacles on Mahakavya Shri Ramayan Katha poster sets off online jokes

Mahakavya Shri Ramayan Katha, a new film version of the Ramayan, is now in theatres, and one of its posters has become the talk of social media. The poster shows Sugriv in human form, and a vanar character in it seems to be wearing a pair of glasses. The story is set in the Treta Yuga, so that one small detail was enough to start a flood of memes.

Social media users had plenty of fun with it. Many asked if people really wore spectacles in the Treta Yuga. One X user decided the character must be a time traveller, and another simply asked what kind of movie had been made. The film comes out while Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana is still getting ready for its own release in theatres.

Abhishek Singh directs the film, which tells the story of Shri Ram through the eyes of a young boy named Shashwat. In the official synopsis, Lord Hanuman appears as a sage and tells the boy about Ram's life and journey. The idea is to bring the epic to younger viewers while keeping its spiritual and cultural value. The film is playing in Hindi and Chhattisgarhi, and reports say it opened on September 25.

Dev Sharma plays Shri Ram and Anjali Arora plays Sita. Sheel Verma is Lakshman, Nirbhay Wadhwa plays Hanuman and Rajniesh Duggal plays Ravan.

Dev Sharma was already in the news after the trailer launch. There he said he had been in line to play Lakshman in both Prabhas' Adipurush and Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana. His look tests for both were almost final before things fell apart. He said his size was the problem. In Ramayana he was two inches taller than the actor playing Ram, and in Adipurush he was as big as Prabhas, who played Ram.

The actor said being turned down again and again left him disheartened, and he began to wonder if his bond with the Ramayan was just not meant to be. This time, he leads the film as Ram himself.