Ramayana Read online

  on the power of a thought alone.

  Yet Raavana hankered after more boons,

  so many boons that even Vishnu, according to natural law,

  had to hand them over.

  Vishnu showed Raavana earning these boons by

  fasting

  atop a mountain

  dining only on the air’s moisture

  for a hundred years.

  Boon-packed rock-hard Raavana was

  now shown standing on a toe

  without shifting a muscle

  through heatwave or

  whirlwind! One

  tough-nut

  toe

  whilst simultaneously

  reciting Vishnu’s beloved mantra

  ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  for nine

  hundred

  solid years!

  No surprise, in Vishnu’s next vision, Raavana was losing

  his mind

  and was holding a blade

  to cut off his own ten heads.

  Vishnu, from on high, stopped him by asking

  what he is wanting.

  Raavana boomed back,

  ‘Am I not a worthy King of the Universe, Lord?!’

  Vishnu must have hoped Raavana would become

  pure shanti, a bit like himself,

  yet soon as Vishnu’s divine engine

  touched

  across each Raavana atom

  in a somewhat unparalleled way

  His ten heads, his ten sets of arm, trapezoid, rump, knuckle

  and whatnot

  juddered tsunami-volcanically

  into a hardcore fierce firming-up!

  His every milli-inch was muscling –

  pinnacling with indestructibilitiness.

  Roaring Raavana

  simply leapt through

  a spatial portal and

  pegged it straight down

  into the seventh, into

  the lowest underworld,

  Patala. The underworld

  loaded with jewel-bubbling

  gardens

  from where he brought up

  the vile hoard of the race

  known as

  raksassy!

  Vishnu’s final vision displayed Raavana

  and his raksassy chums

  lording it from an earthly island.

  The gods pitched in chaos, chorused,

  ‘What is to be done, Lord?’

  Vishnu revealed a loophole in Raavana’s boons.

  It’s true Raavana sought immunity

  from demons and deities but he never

  sought immunity from mankind.

  So who’s to say a man

  can’t make him meet his maker …

  Said a god, flabbergasted,

  ‘How is it a measly ilk can dash him, Lord?’

  Vishnu said that as the power bestower

  he would become the power breaker.

  He himself would end this havoc

  by incarnating himself

  as a human

  god-killing

  juggernaut.

  The gods gasped.

  Said one, as much to himself,

  ‘Lord, is it true you will turn into a meagre mortal …?’

  All gods dropped to their knees, lower much than before

  for Vishnu said that his conch

  and the wheel in his hands

  and the serpent coils he currently sat on

  would all be born on earth as his brothers!

  And some of the gods here now … be born as monkeys.

  A god checked his hearing and spluttered,

  ‘Monkeys, my Lord? Is it monkeys?’

  Vishnu explained that Raavana had been cursed

  in previous lives

  to expect his end from man and monkey.

  Said Vishnu, that as humans and monkeys,

  they would live normal-plus on earth –

  a tiptop team plotting

  against ever-toughening Raavana.

  With his conch, wheel and coils, Vishnu

  readied to find suitable couple

  seeking strapping male babies

  albeit with a tad complex background.

  In the process, Vishnu hoped he may learn

  what it feels being human.

  Book First: Becoming Rama

  CHAPTER ONE: I NEED SOME HEIR!

  CHAPTER TWO: MARRIAGE/MISSION

  CHAPTER THREE: KILL THAT MOTHER!

  CHAPTER FOUR: OUR EXCHEQUER GANGA

  CHAPTER FIVE: UTTER FOUL SACRIFICE

  CHAPTER SIX: ROCKY WOMAN SHOW UP!

  Chapter One: I Need some Heir!

  A king needs male heirs. A sage is sought to help the king’s wives become pregnant.

  King Dasaratha’s broad open-mouth laugh

  reflected a kingdom where it was the bog-standard norm

  for all and sundry to enjoy their ample corns and golds

  and have time on their hands for travelling

  across the double-wide roads

  on polished horses and elephants that wore frilly tattoos

  for no end of

  festivals and general arty-crafty jocundity.

  King Dasaratha’s palace was in Kosala’s capital, Ayodhya.

  Ayodhya, famed for its tasteful stately mansions

  that were gaudy in gorgeous ways

  with jewels embedded to complement marble,

  even modest homes were neat constructed so no leaks

  loosened the masonry.

  And forgetting now the houses

  would you please notice all about abounding

  nectars from sugarcane

  or palmyra for wicker-workery

  whilst the river Sarayu flowed

  mellow from the mountains

  to lay at each Ayodhyan foot

  gems, flowers, sandalwood and peacock feathers.

  Rose upward no war-fires

  but many coloured smokes from fragrant incense woods, from

  sacrifices and kitchen kilns for breads,

  while steams performed their aerial sauna

  when vegetables and meats tonked alike in the pot:

  ecstatic bumper veggie and meat side by side harmony.

  Nature loves mankind and puts itself on the plate!

  But why today, why was the king

  with his toddy tipple –

  why was he from pearly-teeth drollery

  utterly departed?

  ‘My Lord, is it possible, your solar dynasty,

  notwithstanding your three wives, is destined with no son

  to end?’

  said a priest who’d been summoned by the king.

  The mighty king, in despair, adding,

  ‘My line – any-decent-how can it be saved?’

  The priest recalled to himself an inner vision

  which revealed help might be on its way

  from one of the …

  lords of the cosmos!

  The priest advised, ‘King Dasaratha, you must be ordering

  a sacrifice

  to win the gods for your cause

  then your three wives

  most likely can balloon with masculine babydom.’

  The only sage with boost enough to flame a fertility sacrifice

  and best butter-up the gods

  was bottom’d in the bowels of a mountain retreat.

  Meditating.

  ‘Dear Priest, how best can I recruit this sage?

  I know sages must no way be disturbed

  or their wrath may end one’s life!

  Especially if they are disturbed from their meditation.’

  ‘Dear King, I have a plan to best recruit this sage.

  If reports about this sage are correct

  you must get hand-picking

  the most beautiful damsels in your kingdom.’

  The damsels were picked enough-quick
r />   for Ayodhya abounds with super-beauteous damsels.

  Said the priest,

  ‘Now send these super-beauteous maids

  for stirring out the hidden sage.’

  The super-beauteous damsels

  traversed the valleys

  and the mountains,

  the woods and forests

  to uproot the hidden sage.

  The sage, who the damsels soon found and roused,

  had never before seen a human, except his dad,

  with only boars or goats for companionship.

  So was he dazzled

  by the sweaty

  robe-flowing

  damsels!?

  He was almost cross-eyed

  as he wondered what are these creatures …?

  Sensing straight off their double curves

  and extra-ample legs and feathery but cut-back handsome

  eye-brows.

  How juicy his loins jostled!

  He enjoyed wondering why their faces seemed painted:

  were they born with vermilion lips and hunter-green

  lash lines?

  His instinct was to put upon their gorgeous lips

  what juiced about his loins.

  Tact his conduct kept up.

  Thankfully.

  Despite the damsels distracting his meditation

  the sage was far from upset and did not instant kill them.

  Instead he see-sawed in a swoony mood

  whilst being swept along by the jasmine-scented damsels

  in a palanquin

  across the misty mountains

  then placed in Kosala,

  in its capital, Ayodhya, and finally, in the king’s hall.

  The sage admired the king,

  a king whose creatures

  had such beauteous bodywork!

  He felt flush-feeling for one maid greatly

  but would he be her magnet?

  Luckily, the maid was drawn.

  The sage bowed in admiration while the king said,

  ‘She is your wife, on one condition:

  that you for a year will brave a sacrifice

  with all its multiple tricky prayers

  to help me with my … issue.’

  The sage couldn’t begin his term soon enough!

  One year braving

  multiple tricky intensive mantras

  at the banks of river Sarayu.

  At the end of which he grew a sacrificial fire

  with clarified butter and spellbinding mantras.

  Kapow!

  Shot up through the flames

  a vast chubby being in a white shirt

  with a hairstyle like the mane of a lion

  and a golden medallion at his hairy chest.

  This floating spirit held aloft a plate with special rice

  which he placed before the king

  before swizzling

  head-first back down

  the fire.

  Before departing with his beauteous bride,

  the sage told the king, ‘This rice is gharam-gharam.

  A portion each, please, must be eaten now

  by your three wives!’

  Lo and behold, skipping past a few moons,

  look how the first wife is ballooning baby Rama,

  the second, the king’s favourite, ballooning Bharat,

  and the third popping up with Lakshmana and Satroogna.

  One morning, everyone awakes to hear

  heavenly instruments twanging droll sounds across the sky.

  And why so? It is the day of the same-day births

  and no one knows the king’s sons are:

  Lord of the Cosmos, Vishnu,

  the lord’s serpent-seat

  the lord’s divine wheel

  and his conch.

  No one knows because the detail is not relevant. Only godliness

  turned manliness is relevant.

  Also relevant only is that the kingdom

  is simply visiting and cooing:

  what gorgeous boys!

  what gifted king!

  Chapter Two: Marriage/Mission

  Sage Viswamithra attends the king’s ceremonial party and is offered a gift of his own choosing.

  A stonking new hall built to honour the king

  and advertise his fit-for-marriage quartet boys

  who have passed with flying colours

  courses in spirit knowledge, law and latest science,

  plus too sword fighting, archery and suchlike.

  Into the hall for the ceremonial party

  from the neighbouring states

  comes each big wig, fat cat and hot shot

  hoping his guava-yummy daughter

  be blessed

  by the promise of a bold Dasaratha boy!

  To pamper the king’s prospects –

  last guest in is a broad-foreheaded chunk-armed

  one-time warrior king

  famed for his tough-guy leadership skills and ever-expanding

  kingdom. He had renounced it all, becoming instead an air-

  sucking sage.

  On his arrival, King Dasaratha rushes forward,

  the guests part away to hear the exchange,

  ‘Sage Viswamithra.

  What a fortune greeting the supreme sage.

  My boys will be thrice blessed.

  But please, from our salvers, come feast with us!’

  ‘No need,’ retorts the sage.

  He has mastered bodies cravings, bodies stacked

  famished pleadings for pamper and knick-knackery.

  He is clean self-denial.

  Uncomplicated male!

  As the king’s fate becomes assured by this guest’s visit

  custom demands a public gift; silence still,

  ‘O Sage, it is an honour to be honouring you.

  Please request whatever is befitting.’

  The sage, knowing an honour will come on cue, says,

  ‘I wish to perform a sacrifice

  before the next moon.’

  The sage knows how to steady

  the storm to be stirred

  by his party-pooper request

  so he stirs it slowly,

  ‘Sidhasrama, you know the place … beyond the Ganges.’

  ‘But of course, it is the foul goondastan ground

  bordering our kingdom. It has been dead-like since my sons

  were born. Dead-like by those god-and-human hating

  arsoora.’

  The king hooked. The sage stirs further,

  ‘Man-and-nature killing province.’ The king

  latches on, ‘It smirches our kingdom.’

  ‘The gods are granting me powers

  to execute a gargantuan sacrifice.’

  ‘Sage Viswamithra, how buoyed we all are

  that you will float a classic sacrifice

  at the site

  where the resonant priests once plied their craft.’

  Applause from the audience.

  The sage stays quiet.

  In steps

  the king, ‘But what

  the purpose of this sacrifice?

  Would you jeopardise your life

  before the teeth of raksassy and overhead arsoora?’

  Now booming his voice somewhat (this one-time king):

  ‘I seek to diminish these god-and-human eating

  arsoora and raksassy

  who not ever repent!

  Our region once more will be safe for mankind.’

  Again applause.

  Words that act like arrows: unpullbackable,

  once out in the unpluckable open, come from the king,

  ‘But Sage, my army and I will ensure your safety,

  I, myself, the army will lead and protect your praying.’

  The sage,

  ‘You are too kind to support my sacrifice.

  But only is needed one … sole person.

  Your son

  Rama

 
is all,

  all

  -or-

  none.’

  ‘Rama?

  Rama

  mine

  stripling

  son!?’

  The air in the room

  kills itself into a brittle ice mirror

  which is magnifying the king’s tension wrinkles.

  Yet how can he swallow his promise?

  Or crack his pride before so many?

  The king knows this goodly sage

  is prodigiously versed in weapons unknown to all

  except the gods

  and may wish to hand these on to Rama,

  yet he makes a final bid to keep

  his connubially ripe, turned fifteen, son

  by counting aloud the countless pleas

  made to the gods for male heir … And now his heir

  slipping from sight!

  The sage replies, ‘Under my wings

  Rama will bear a princely stature.’

  The issue boils down to kingly face-saving,

  and honour, which gives a name its lustre,

  ‘Rama has never been parted from his closest brother.