In this episode, we’re continuing with the Ramayana, including how Hanuman searches for Sita. The Ramayana is one of two major epics in Indian mythology, the other being the Mahabharat which we’ve also covered in other episodes on this show. Today we’ll continue with Ram and Laxman’s search for Sita, starting with a little help from their new friends.
But first, let me summarize the story so far.
Ram was an avatar of Vishnu, who is the Preserver in the Holy Trinity, together with Shiva the Destroyer, and Brahma the creator who is also my dad.
Ram was meant to become King of Ayodhya. But things didn’t go his way. In some ruthless power play, one of his father’s queens had him exiled for 14 years.
But Ram did not go alone into exile. Ram had recently married and his wife Sita decided to go with him. So did his brother, Laxman.
In one forest after another, Ram, Laxman, and Sita tackled one danger after another. One of those was the demoness Surpanakha, followed by her brothers Khara and Dushana.
Ram and Laxman managed to tackle them easily enough. But they weren’t quite prepared for the sequel.
Ravana, who was Surpanakha, Khar, and Dushana’s brother, stepped in. Ravana was the ruler of Lanka and also the mega villain of this story. He took revenge not by direct action but by carrying off Sita.
Ram and Laxman searched all around but all they found was a clue from their Vulture neighbor, Jatayu. Jatayu told them about Sita’s abduction before passing away from injuries he sustained in his attempts to stop Ravana.
The Ayodhya brothers next released a good guy in a demon’s body, who returned the favor by directing them to Sugreeva. Sugreeva was a Vanara who could help them find Sita. Unfortunately Sugreeva was in a bit of a pickle himself. He had painted himself into a corner with his brother Vali, who was arguably the most powerful creature in the Universe at that time.
The brothers met Sugreeva and his loyal friends, including Hanuman. At Sugreeva’s insistence they made a deal – Ram and Laxman would help Sugreeva with his Vali problem in return for his help in finding Sita.
We had left the last episode on a cliffhanger with Sugreeva and Vali engaged in battle. Well, if you could call it that. It was as usual a totally one-sided contest with Vali crushing Sugreeva as usual. But this time, Ram in his sniper position had just fired an arrow.
That’s precisely where we’ll continue the story today.
Ram’s arrow as the saying goes never fails. Personally, I can totally attest to the accuracy of that. And I’m not just saying that as Vishnu’s number one fan.
Ram had taken into account all kinds of things like air resistance, wind speed, structural integrity of the arrows, the height of the tree, the buckling of the tree branch on which Ram sat, a passing butterfly beating its wings near the calculated path of the arrow, the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field on and a hundred other such factors.
Ram’s arrow struck Vali squarely in the chest. The force of the impact sent Vali flying and eventually pinned him to the ground.
“What was that?” asked Vali. “You haven’t played fair brother”
Sugreeva instantly replied “It was their idea, not mine. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to be King again, and get a little bit of revenge for what you did to me”. When Laxman glared at Sugreeva he hastily added “and oh yes, I wanted to rescue my wife”
“She’s fine.” Vali replied. “I don’t suppose there’s a way I can persuade you to lend me your ambulance team? I’m really hurting here”
Sugreeva glanced back at his medical staff who were all looking shocked at the scene. They had lost count of the number of times they had to patch up Sugreeva after a Vali fight. But today was so different. Finally they had a marvelous story to tell their grandchildren about.
Sugreeva replied to Vali’s question. “It was your own arrogance that led you to ignore the possibility that you might get hurt. But hey, I’m your King now. I can’t appear to be heartless. Especially not to my brother”
He gestured to his emergency medical technicians who then rushed to the scene with a stretcher.
The chief doctor mumbled for a long time and finally said. “I spent 20 years at Vaanar Medical University and even longer in the Vriksharaj Memorial Hospital and I can honestly say I never saw a more complicated case. What is causing this vaanar to be rooted to the spot? Is it paralysis?”
Quick sidebar here. Vrikshraj was Vali’s father, and Sugreeva’s adoptive father.
Another white-haired, bearded and bespectacled doctor spoke up with the voice of experience. “It’s psychosomatic. He believes he’s been glued to the ground. And he doesn’t have the willpower to overcome the inertia in his limbs”
“You idiots! I’m shot. Don’t you see this big arrow pinning me to the ground?”
“Delusional too,” added another doctor. He held up fingers and asked “how many fingers am I holding up”
Vali grimaced “An arrow, a big pointy arrow stuck in my chest!”
“He’s dodging the basic question,” said a doctor.
Vali ignored the doctors and addressed the Ayodhya brothers directly. “You, I’m talking to you, Mister. Who asked you to meddle in my affairs? This is between me and my brother. Why are you taking sides? And if you had to take sides at all, why not me? Did you not hear about how I single-handedly defeated Ravana? I wiped the floor with him. If you want Sita back, you could have just asked me politely. I would have done it, and made Ravana write you an apology and send your children gifts for the next hundred Diwalis”
Laxman looked at his brother with an I-told-you-so expression. But Ram calmly answered Vali.
“Aside from the fact that Diwali won’t be invented until the end of the story, I can address your claim easily enough. Yes, I want Sita back more than anything. And yes I can go to any lengths to get her back. But one thing I will absolutely not do is tolerate wife-abduction by anyone!”
“Funny you should mention that,” said Vali. “Did you know that Sugriva had abducted Ruma in the first place? And your buddy Hanuman helped him do that. Sure, I abducted Ruma from Sugriva, but because he had abducted her in the first place, I was really rescuing her, don’t you think?”
“No, Vali. And that’s where you’re making a big mistake. Yes, of course I know about Sugriva and Hanuman carrying off Ruma, but that one was with her consent. It was called an abduction only by Ruma’s father who really didn’t want Sugriva to be his son-in-law.
When you carried off Ruma, you did so without her consent. Ravana did the same with Sita”
“Consent? Huh, I never thought of it before. But what if I want to abduct her and she says no?”
“Then you don’t carry her off. Consent is everything. Here’s an analogy. When you’re about to carry someone off, it’s like offering someone a cup of tea. If they say no, you don’t pour the tea down their throat, do you?”
Vali was dumbfounded. He had never really thought deeply about this before. It had seemed like a minor technicality in the beginning. But now it made sense. All he could do now was to hand over the palace keys to Sugriva, sign the papers transferring all his powers over to his brother.
Vali did all that and then asked to be left alone with his thoughts.
Sugriva, Hanuman, Ram, Laxman and the other Vaanars all walked off to leave Vali with his own thoughts in his final moments.
“Alright, the first order of business is…,” began both Ram and Sugriva together. They both stopped and Ram courteously asked Sugriva to continue.
“First order of business,” Sugriva said “is to change all the currency.”
Not what Ram and Laxman had in mind. They had thought they could restart the search for Sita.
It made some sense. It was important to consolidate and assert authority, which is important especially when there is a change of administration.
So the Ayodhya brothers decided to wait.
But then it took longer and longer for them to decide. After fixing the currency to show Sugriva’s face instead of Vali’s, Sugriva had to next change all the uniforms of the Vaanar military and the Vaanar police force. Then he had to redecorate the palace. He had to rename the roads, which also meant redoing the road signs. This took a while. Ram and Laxman began growing a little impatient. Things got to boiling point one day when Laxman on Ram’s behalf asked to see Sugreeva and was told by Sugreeva’s secretary that most certainly he could. But, he would first have to fill in a form and leave it with the front desk and someone would get back to him in 2-3 business days.
Laxman was angry and disappointed and would have reacted a little violently had Hanuman not coincidentally arrived on the scene.
After the usual pleasantries, Hanuman realized that his King, his buddy whom he had pledged to serve and protect, was not keeping his side of the bargain.
Maybe he needed a reminder. Hanuman told Laxman that Sugriva would come to meet the brothers tonight.
The secretary who had been listening to all this quietly cleared his throat and reminded them that Sugriva really had a packed calendar today.
Hanuman glared at him and the secretary quickly backed down.
Hanuman went in for an audience with Sugreeva. Sugreeva in the throne room greeted him warmly. “Hanuman! Just the Vaanar I wanted to see. Come, tell me. Should we have red drapes here or green? Personally Ruma tells me Red will look great, but Tara says Green is better and me, I’m leaning more towards Blue”
“Sugreeva, what are you doing?” Hanuman asked
“Decorating my throne room of course. I didn’t get a chance to do it last time, when I was King for a short spell. I also just heard my application to join the Kings’ club has been accepted! So I’m going to their Summer pool party this time for sure!”
“Stop this! This isn’t you. I mean just look at you.” Hanuman said “And stop” he quickly added as Sugreeva began moving towards a mirror. “I meant that metaphorically. Think about the Sugreeva in a cave and look at what being a King has done to you. Have you forgotten how you became King? What about your promise to Ram?”
After that Sugreeva was a little bit sheepish. Yes, he’d gone a little too far, he admitted. But it was to be expected. Months of living in a tiny damp cave, and now suddenly ruler of all Vaanars, it would be rash to not let that go to your head.
But he got the point now, and he would do all he could to try and locate Sita.
The time was indeed now. And Hanuman would be in charge of operations himself.
That perfectly suited Hanuman. To us in the 21st century, he’s most famous for being a servant of Ram. But Hanuman was so much more. He could lead. He quickly called up the cartographers, the military generals and divided them into groups, dividing different sectors of areas around them. Different groups of Vaanars would go out and seek any information they could find of Sita. They were armed with thousands of copies of WANTED posters. He even had a sketch artist draw an impression of what Ravana probably looked like. Thankfully some Vaanars remembered what he had looked like when being beaten up by Vali.
At Vaanar HQ, he had Vaanars monitoring a helpline 24*7.
Hanuman himself would be part of the search. He would head south.
He met the chief cartographer who handed him a map of the south.
Hanuman unfurled the map and said with surprise “this map is blank!”
“Oh yes” the cartographer said, “our entire department would thank you very much if you could fill it in as you go along”
Hanuman shook his head and took off.
At the command center meanwhile, Ram and Laxman, and even Sugreeva personally sat as various messengers brought back reports. Every time a messenger returned the map at HQ would be updated with a green yes, red no or yellow maybe.
A couple of days later, the map was looking depressingly red and very few yellows. The big unknown was the south. There had not been any news from Hanuman.
So let’s follow the action and see what Hanuman was upto.
That brave Vaanar along with some of his followers were pretty far from home. So far, they hadn’t seen any evidence that might lead them to believe Ravana had taken Sita south. True, there was a little bit of jewelry which was very likely made in Ayodhya. But it could have been anyone’s earring which had accidentally dropped off a passing airplane. There was nothing to connect it with Sita.
Hanuman’s companions were ready to give up and head home. But Hanuman had asked for 3 days. “Give me 3 days. And I’ll give you new evidence” he had assured them.
Well, that was 3 days ago. And they had decided to rest just a bit before finally turning back when all of a sudden something very large swooped down and landed on a tree nearby. It was a vulture.
That by itself was not remarkable. What was remarkable was that the vulture politely tipped his hat and wished them good evening.
“You talk?!” asked one of the Vaanars, surprised.
“That’s a strange thought, coming from a monkey who can talk,” said the vulture. “Anyway, I’m Sampati. You probably don’t know me, but maybe you know my brother, Jatayu?”
“Jatayu?! Why, yes. Well, that is to say I didn’t know him personally. I just heard about him” said Hanuman.
“Why are you talking about my brother in the past tense?” asked Sampati.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this. But your brother was trying to stop an abduction and was murdered by Ravana”
That was a shock to Sampati. He was silent for a long time. No doubt reminiscing about all the times he had had those friendly flying jousts with his brother.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “I loved Jatayu. If I’d known what Ravana did to him, at least I could have tried to stop him”
“Sorry, stop him from what?” asked Hanuman
“You know, flying back to Lanka. And I’d have tried to intervene and rescue the woman he was carrying off. Now in retrospect, it did seem like she was being carried off against her will”
“You saw Sita?!” exclaimed Hanuman. “Where? When? How? Which way did Ravana take her?”
“This was just a few days ago. Ravana was heading back to Lanka, his home. He had a good tailwind, so he’d have made it in time comfortably in pleasant weather”
“I don’t suppose you could guide us there could you?” asked Hanuman
“My wings no longer work except for the shortest flights. Narada explained how that happened when Jatayu was character of the week in Episode 11 – The boy who lived. Anyway, I can direct you to the coast and point you in the general direction of Lanka, but I can’t fly across the ocean myself.”
That was good enough for the Vaanars. So Hanuman dispatched a scout back to HQ to update Ram, Laxman, Sugreeva and others. Meanwhile, with his remaining companions he headed in the direction Sampati indicated. One thing I should mention here is that not all of Hanuman’s companions were Vaanars. One of them was a bear. This one was Jambuvan. Character of the Week from Episode 2. He was to play a very important role in Hanuman rediscovering some of his powers.
Yes! Hanuman had completely forgotten some of the amazing superpowers he had acquired in Episode 25 – Hanuman. And it was going to be upto Jambuvan to fix that. How exactly he did that will be explained in the next Ramayana episode.
We’ll close things here this week
Some Notes
Check the links below for previous Ramayana episodes.
Valmiki’s origin story is in Episode 6 – Fish Highwayman
The Ramayana kicks off in Episode 7 – Kingdom by Horse. Episode 15 – Rishi vs Rishi: Un-civil war! and Episode 16 – Six….teen Flags are about Rama and Laxman’s encounter with Vishwamitra
A flashback to Dasharath’s past is in Episode 24 – Promises made, hearts broken
Ram, Laxman, and Sita begin their exile in Episode 30 – Banished! and continue it in Episode 41 – Forest Life and Episode 64 – The First Kidnapping of Sita
They encounter Shoorpanakha in Episode 78 – Ramayana – An Indecent Proposal
We have also covered three episodes that aren’t part of the main storyline but feature some central Ramayana characters:
Hanuman’s origin story is in Episode 25 – Up, Up, and Away!
Episode 55 – Saturnine is about an encounter between Shani and Ravana.
Episode 81 – Ramayana – Wolverine Claws is the origin story of Ravana and Shoorpanakha.
And Episode 92 – Ramayana – Shanta is the story of Ram and Laxman’s sister – Shanta.
Episode 101 – Ramayana – A Wild Stag Chase explained how Ravana engineered a diversion so he could abduct Sita. In Episode 112 Ram and Laxman got their first hint of what had happened to Sita and also were told that Sugriva could help them
In Episode 118, Ram and Laxman learned more about Sugriva and Vali’s rivalry before finally meeting Hanuman.
And most recently in Episode 125 – Ramayana – Sugriva and Vali
Vali was also the character of the Week in Episode 21.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do a folk tale again. This is another Punjabi folk tale. I know we just did one a few episodes ago, but one of you listeners specifically asked for this one. This one is about a bear who is a little hungry.