And so the tradition of telling and retelling the Ramayana began. It is that tradition that Kamban, Tulsidas, Vyasa, and so many others were following. It is through the works of these bards through the ages that this great tale continues to exist among us. If it changes shape and structure, form and even content, it is because that is the nature of the story itself: it inspires the teller to bring fresh insights to each new version, bringing us ever closer to understanding Rama himself.
This is why it must be told, and retold, an infinite number of times.
By me.
By you.
By grandmothers to their grandchildren.
By people everywhere, regardless of their identity.
The first time I was told the Ramayana, it was on my grandfather’s knee. He was excessively fond of chewing tambaku paan and his breath was redolent of its aroma. Because I loved lions, he infused any number of lions in his Ramayana retellings—Rama fought lions, Sita fought them, I think even Manthara was cowed down by one at one point! My grandfather’s name, incidentally, was Ramchandra Banker. He died of throat cancer caused by his tobacco-chewing habit. But before his throat ceased working, he had passed on the tale to me.
And now, I pass it on to you. If you desire, and only if, then read this book. I believe if you are ready to read it, the tale will call out to you, as it did to me. If that happens, you are in for a great treat. Know that the version of the Ramayana retold within these pages is a living, breathing, new-born avatar of the tale itself. Told by a living author in a living idiom. It is my humbleattempt to do for this great story what writers down the ages have done with it in their times.
Maazi naroti
In closing, I’d like to quote briefly from two venerable authors who have walked similar paths.
The first is K.M. Munshi whose Krishnavatara series remains a benchmark of the genre of modern retellings of ancient tales. These lines are from Munshi’s own Introduction to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan edition of 1972:
In the course of this adventure, I had often to depart from legend and myth, for such a reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little imagination he has. I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination.
I could not have said it better.
Yuganta, Iravati Karve’s landmark Sahitya Akademi Award-winning study of the Mahabharata, packs more valuable insights into its slender 220-page pocket-sized edition (Disha) than any ten encyclopaedias. In arguably the finest essay of the book, ‘Draupadi’, she includes this footnote:
‘The discussion up to this point is based on the critical edition of the Mahabharata. What follows is my naroti [naroti = a dry coconut shell, i.e. a worthless thing. The word ‘naroti’ was first used in this sense by the poet Eknath].’
In the free musings of Karve’s mind, we learn more about Vyasa’s formidable epic than from most encyclopaedic theses. For only from free thought can come truly progressive ideas.
In that spirit, I urge readers to consider my dried coconut shell reworking of the Ramayana in the same spirit.
If anything in the following pages pleases you, thank those great forebears in whose giant footsteps I placed my own small feet.
If any parts displease you, then please blame them on my inadequate talents, not on the tale.
ASHOK K. BANKER
Mumbai
April 2005
KAAND 1
ONE
Rama.
From a thousand yards above the ground, the lord of Lanka surveyed his kingdom. Lanka, beautiful Lanka, lay in a shambles. The great sprawling city-state, so recently recast in a pristine white avatar, was a morass of smoke and ash and the smouldering embers of a thousand fires. Seen from this high vantage point, the city’s aspect appeared as the face of a once-beautiful courtesan, besmirched and soot-blackened, scarred and dishevelled. Long lines of dark, scorched ground marked the trail of the vanar’s burning, like mascara left in the tracks of dried tears. Lanka’s beauty was marred beyond recognition. Rama is responsible for all this.
Smoke curled skywards from still-seething hotspots that only yesterday had been palatial mansions and fabulous estates. Virtually all of the city’s finer structures, being clustered close by the innermost ring of the city, near the tower palace of the king, were either destroyed, rendered uninhabitable, or hideously scarred. The unusual nature of the source of the fire meant that even miles out from the centre, entire neighbourhoods had been ravaged, as if whipped by an uncaring lash applied by a blind scourge-master.
Oddly enough, the farther out he looked, the less evidence of fire damage he saw. The most modest residential tenements, entire colonies comprised of the closely clustered cave-like rock-and-mud houses that rakshasas traditionally favoured, had escaped unscathed. This was probably because these poorer localities were on the outskirts of the city, some as much as a full yojana from the heart of the metropolis, and separated by ponds, lakes, and tributaries of the rivulets that snaked their way down from the mountain ranges to the south.
And farther out still, where the few farming tribes lived, using hybrids and half-breeds for farm labour—for rakshasas did not herd or cultivate—the rich plantations of savouries and spices were completely untouched by the vanar’s antics.
No, not the vanar.
Rama.
The vanar only acted as his emissary, carrying out his orders. This was Rama’s hand at work.
He finally deigned to lower his gaze to the place directly below the hovering craft which bore him aloft. To the spot where the great white tower had stood.
His self-control was tested to the limit. The site of the greatest edifice ever raised in this world, the soaring white and gold tower constructed through the power of his asura maya and the ingenuity of the Pushpak, the celestial device, was nothing more than a blemish now. He had scarcely believed his eyes when the vanar had expanded himself and leaped upon the tower’s peak, pounding it down, down, until it was crushed into its very foundations. How could the monkey-being have escaped the sorcerous spell he had wound around him? The chains with which the vanar had been secured were ensorcelled as well, and yet, when it pleased him, the creature had simply shrugged them to pieces, as if they were nothing more than paper fetters. But it was the power and size of the vanar that had taken him by surprise. Even the vanar’s antics in the realms of the tower, the great slaughter he had wrought on those sorcerous levels, had not prepared him for something of this magnitude. To grow himself so large that he could pound the tower into the ground thus, that was beyond Ravana’s expectations.
Hanuman.
He had underestimated the vanar from the very beginning, he admitted now with chagrin—but he admitted it only to himself.
The vanar was a tool of Rama. But a dangerous tool. It would take some scheming to eliminate him. And before he was eliminated, he must be made to pay for what he had done here. Pay with blood and agony. When the time came to face him again, Ravana would not make the mistake of sending out ordinary rakshasas to deal with him; he would call on someone who was more than Hanuman’s equal in size as well as strength. Someone who could pound him down into the earth as he had pounded the tower.
Time, then. Time to awaken the killing machine. And prepare to let loose the hounds of hell.
‘Rakshasa.’
Her voice was small and soft. Weak. For she continued to fast despite all his entreaties and admonitions. Yet she retained the ability to command his attention.
He turned. She stood in the cupola of the flying vehicle, wan and pale, a sallow shadow of the woman he had carried away from the wilds of Panchvati. Her eyes were clear and met his own without hesitation. He corrected himself: weak, yes, but in body only. In spirit, she was as strong as ever.
‘Do you yield now?’ she asked. As quietly, as proudly, as would a warrior-queen on a battlefield, with her armies around her, her spearpoint at his throat, and near-mortal wounds
on his person.
He admired her pride. Respected her strength of will. And there was that stirring in his breast he had begun to feel every time he set eyes upon her. Could it be, that despite everything, he had come to feel a smidgen, a smattering, just a smear or a swab of some deeper emotion? Why else did he find the sight of her heart-shaped face, those sallow cheeks and dusky eyes, undimmed and unafraid even after all her travails, so hypnotic? Why did he find himself unwilling to use force to ravish her even though that was his right by sheer fact of possession, by rakshasa law. Why did he, instead, feel so desperately inclined to prove himself to her, to show her somehow that he was every bit the king that Rama would never be? To earn her respect and hope to win her over peaceably instead? And why was it that after each encounter with her, he always felt himself lacking in some immeasurable way, as if his best efforts to turn her feelings in his favour were futile? Why should what she felt even matter?
‘Yield?’ he repeated. ‘You expect me to yield? Why? Because your husband’s monkey messenger danced a fire-jig through my city? Tore through a few legions and yes, slew a few good warriors and even my youngest son? So you think I should therefore yield and surrender all?’
She kept her chin high, painfully thin though it was. ‘I meant only that you yield this particular round. Surrender me to be returned to Rama. Perhaps then I may appeal to his clemency on your behalf.’
He almost laughed. But she was so earnest, so bright-eyed and proud of her champion’s exploits. He had seen her looking too. Gazing round-eyed at the destruction wrought by a single vanar in one night. And he knew of the conversation between Hanuman and her the night before, wherein the vanar had pleaded with her to go back with him and she had refused, had insisted that Rama come himself to fight for her release, to restore his honour. ‘This is a tired argument, Princess. Rest it. If you wish to discuss clemency, then it is my clemency towards your husband and his people that you should demand. I do not deny that the vanar committed more havoc than I expected. I expect you will find it was more than even your precious Rama expected. But such surprises are part of the game of war. The vanar was an unexpected hand your husband played. It was also the last hand he played. There will be no more war games now. Only a massacre. Of Rama and his forces.’
She looked upon him, unperturbed by his words. He observed the way her eyes flitted from one face of his to another in quick succession. She was a clever one too. She had begun to understand his secret. ‘Once Rama and his forces arrive on the shores of Lanka, you will be done for. This burning was only a prelude to the final devastation that will be unleashed. But you will not understand. I see that even with this evidence you still do not comprehend the full extent of his powers. So be it. Let Rama come to Lanka. And then suffer the consequences. Just remember that I warned you and gave you every chance to relent and repent. And you refused.’
And incredibly, she turned her back upon him. On him! Who was the captor here and who the captive? Her courage was admirable, her audacity marvellous to behold. He chuckled despite himself. Her back stiffened at the sound but she did not turn back to face him even after he began speaking.
‘Princess Sita, you delude yourself. Or perhaps you assume that because you have been in Lanka awhile and seen a few of its sights you know all there is to be known about this kingdom and about me. You would be in grave error to think thus. The truth is, you do not realise the full extent of my powers! Perhaps it is time you were given a glimpse that you may better understand what your husband and his monkeys and bears are up against.’
He willed the Pushpak to take them down, down to the wrecked tower. He had the satisfaction of hearing her gasp as the vehicle fell out of the sky like a stone falling to earth. Even though the Pushpak protected those that rode within it, it could not influence the way the sudden loss of height affected them; and he felt the loss in height cause a buzzing even in his ears. In her depleted state and delicate condition, it would probably cause vertigo, nausea. It gave him malicious pleasure to let the Pushpak fall faster instead of slowing down as they reached the ground. From the head on the extreme left side of his rack, he watched her discreetly. She turned deathly pale and held on to a golden pole to support herself, but she did not utter another sound of protest, nor appeal to him. Ah, what a woman. She was wasted on Rama.
As they fell to earth, he continued to watch her. She could see now that they were heading straight for the ruins of the tower. Hurtling. Yet, she did not flinch or turn away. Merely gazed steadily at the rapidly approaching ground. In that instant, he almost hated her. Hated the calm, serene steadfastness she displayed in the face of certain danger, the stoic resolve, the unwavering assurance. Rama! Waugh! How could she even think for a minute that the mortal would stand a ghost of a chance against him, Ravana? Did she not know Ravana’s history of triumphs? The long roll-call of foes he had slain and defeated? The …
He snarled softly to himself. He would show her. He would make her tremble at his might and power. Before this game was played out, she would beg for mercy. Plead to be given another chance. To grace his bed, if only for a night. She would bow and cower and …
The ruins parted like the petals of a giant flower, opening a space just wide enough for the sky-chariot to fit through, and the Pushpak slipped in snugly. Darkness overwhelmed them as they moved beneath the surface, and even he felt the thrill of travelling at such speed without being able to see where they were going, or what lay ahead. The Pushpak was infallible, of course, but that still did not keep the hackles on his necks from rising. The darkness was absolute, impenetrable. He probed with his other senses and smelled her fear, fear not just for her own person, but for the unborn life within her. That was something she cared intensely about, the child in her womb. It was her only weakness. Perhaps if he threatened to kill the child … or to harm it, maim it, endanger it … ?
They emerged into a brightly lit place. After several moments of darkness, the light seemed blinding. One of Ravana’s faces grinned when he saw Sita throw her hand over her face, shielding her eyes. It was good to see her respond in some way other than haughty posturing and misplaced pride. As the Pushpak slowed, hovering in mid-air, she sensed the change and uncovered her face. He watched as she blinked several times, unable at first to accept what she was seeing.
One of his heads looked down at the view that greeted her stunned eyes, attempting to see things from her perspective. They were floating near the ceiling of a great subterranean cavern, so vast that the bottom lay almost a mile below, and the walls as far apart. It was roughly hewn, jagged spurs of mineral rock and blackstone giving the walls a shadowy texture that held the light in pockets and crevices. It made the whole cavern seem eerie, as if anything could be lurking in any one of the million shadows. At the bottom, the floor was covered with a great number of what seemed to be little egg-shaped rocks standing on end. He knew, of course, that they were not rocks at all. He gave her time to absorb what she was seeing. She peered down at the floor, frowned, unable to quite make out what the objects below were, then looked up at him. Already she had regained her queen-like composure. She waited with supreme patience, clearly expecting an explanation. He decided to provide one.
‘Watch now, Princess. See for yourself why Lanka is the most perfect breeding ground for the rakshasa race in all this mortal realm.’
She stared dispassionately at him, coldly, as if unimpressed by his words, but he saw her eyes flicker from one to another of his many aspects, and in that flicker he sensed uncertainty. Fear of the unknown. Mortalkind’s oldest phobia. It was gone almost at once. Outwardly, she seemed never to have lost her composure. She glanced down carelessly as if unimpressed by anything she saw or might see, as if nothing he did or showed her could possibly matter.
He allowed himself a smile of bemusement, admiring her resilience. What impudence. What spirit. What a woman.
He raised his arms, all six of them, for the mantras were complex and required a great deal of his energies,
physical as well as spiritual. He began the complex four-by-four chant, one of his faces watching her react with pleasing shock to the familiar Sanskrit shlokas. No doubt she had heard the mantras recited before, or had heard of them. She was a well-educated one, his Sita. It was yet another of the many qualities that endeared her to him. She respected the Vedic arts and the shastras. The sacred Vedic tradition of upa-ni-sad, which few of the women he bedded even knew meant literally ‘learning at the feet of the guru’. Once all this was over, he would be her guru, and he would teach her all he knew. Well, perhaps not all. But a great deal. Enough to make her a potent enough sorceress that she might keep pace with him. What marvellous magicks they could weave together. She would not even have to sit at his feet.
It had long been his bane that Mandodhari strongly disapproved of asura maya and went so far as to attempt to ban his use of it in her presence when they were alone together. Not that he actually heeded her words—he merely concealed the fact that he was using sorcery, and went on using it nevertheless. But with Sita, he felt hopeful that she might learn to love the wielding of power, the unleashing of shakti, and that he might finally have a partner in magick. He watched her with one of his faces as she fought to blank out her expression once more, trying not to respond to the sound of the Sanskrit mantras flowing from his many tongues, which must seem an act verging on blasphemy to her mortal ears. He relished her discomfiture, and his mastery of the shlokas. Perhaps now she would begin to understand: Things were not always black and white as most foolishly believed. He was no less adept in the arts of brahmancraft than any brahmarishi of her race. The only difference was that he used the power to meet very different ends. He saw the confusion reflected on her wan, pale, but still beautiful features, and loved her more than ever for her exquisitely mortal weaknesses.
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 46