I had a listener request today’s story. It’s a story with Ramayana characters, but it runs parallel to the main story.
We’re featuring Ravana – the 10-headed demon antagonist of the Ramayana. And it features the nine planets, all down here on Earth! And there’s also a guest appearance from Hanuman!
Our story begins with Ravana himself. He was in his palace in Lanka. He’d just returned from a long day at the office, involving general evil mastermind activities, including, but not limited to, making his people suffer, denying them healthcare, playing golf on taxpayer money, cheating on his taxes, and of course all the looting and killing and robbing on the side.
His wife Mandodari rushed in to greet him, just as he was taking off his crowns. All 10 of them!
“Honey, you wont believe the news”
“I already dont believe it” said Ravana’s 5th head, and the other 9 heads nodded vigorously, agreeing. Ravana was not very fond of his wife. She always wanted him to use his powers for good. And he’d pretty much given up trying to convert her to the dark side.
The feeling was mutual, but Mandodari thought maybe the news she had would change him for the better. She ignored his attitude and announced – “we’re going to have a baby!”
She was right, 6 out of 10 heads reacted with joy. Head numbers 2 and 8 maintained a serious expression but did not disapprove. Heads 1 and 10 had drifted off to sleep.
Ravana, at this stage of his life, had already attained superpowers that made him the terrorist of the Ancient world. One of those powers included Astrology. Ravana firmly believed that the planetary alignment at the time of his baby’s birth would decide its fate. Despite the obvious incompatibility between this theory of his and his own exercise of free will, Ravana remained convinced about the inevitability of his baby’s future.
All he needed for the baby to be all powerful was for each of the 9 worlds or planets to align in a particular part of the sky. Not too much to ask for, was it?
Well, a few months later the baby was born! To Ravana’s disappointment and Mandodari’s relife the baby only had a single head.
There had been some vigorous debate between Ravana’s heads about what the child should be named. But when the heads and Mandodari heard his cries for the first time, they were unanimous. The crying sounded exactly like thunder. Meghanad was the name he was given.
Ravana was thrilled. And he started off with a half decent attempt at parenting. That is, until he glanced at Meghanad’s astrological chart. He was stunned! This was not what he’d been expecting. The planets were not all aligned according to his unspoken wish. Well, most of them were aligned. Except for Shani.
Shani is the personification of Saturn and the son of the Sun. As in he was the male offspring of the star the Earth circles.
And before you ask, the answer is yes, Shani does love showing off his ring collection.
Ravana flew into a rage and flew off the Earth. What use were all his powers if he couldnt force his will on innocent third parties, millions of miles away. And so, he pretty quickly grabbed Shani and brought him back to Earth, as a captive.
Now you have heard that Saturn is much bigger than the Earth, in fact you can fit 700 Earths inside. That doesnt really matter for our story, because Ravana captured Saturn and shrunk him down to the size of a regular human being. Because… superpowers. Yes these same superpowers that were granted to him by none other than my dad, Brahma – who was moonlighting as the Ancient Indian version of Santa Claus – but with the difference that he had no naughty or nice lists. Everyone got the same level of Earth shattering powers.
So anyway, Ravana had Shani captive. To send a message to anyone who might dare cross Ravana, he had Shani chained face down right in front of his throne. Ravana used Shani’s back as a footrest!
There was one thing that was very remarkable about the whole thing. All through Shani’s capture and his captivity, not once had Shani been able to look at Ravana. If he had things might have not been so terrible for Shani.
Shani had a super power himself. If he glanced at anyone it would bring them misfortune. It might remind you of Alakshmi whom we heard about in the recent Samudra Manthan episode.
Shani was like a level up version of her. He had had this super power since he was born. The moment he was born, the doctor accidentally spilled coffee all over herself and on the floor of the operating room. The nurse slipped on it and broke a leg.
Surya, Shani’s father suddenly had a bad toothache that pretty much ruined the moment for him. And Shani’s mom, had to deal with post-natal depression.
As this continued, Shani’s parents patiently endured all the misfortune in their lives, never once thinking of putting a pair of dark glasses on the boy or something. Seriously, it worked with Cyclops in the X-Men, no reason some kind of misfortune rate limiting optical control wouldnt work here.
Anyway, Shani remained in captivity, but the Devs, or the Gods, were trying to do something about it. A bitter debate was already in progress when I reached Indra’s home. The big question was the major emergency facing them. Shani in captivity meant he could not bring bad luck to anyone. Half the Devs wanted to do nothing about it. They thought this was totally fine. They said Shani’s suffering was regrettable, but they would send flowers and cards to his family.
The other half of the Devs wanted to rescue Shani. But truth be told, they were a little scared of Ravana. They werent really sure what to do.
That’s where I decided to help. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll remind you that I have knowledge of the past, the present and the future. I knew exactly how this was going to work out and what I was going to do.
I wasn’t going to rescue Shani myself. Too risky. Ravana could have crushed me easily, and I my promising career as a podcaster would not have materialized.
I decided to trick the guy. It seemed incredible that Ravana just did not know about the Shani curse. Or maybe he chose to ignore the advice of his scientists. Or maybe that knowledge was simply fragmented across his 10 brains and somehow he failed to put it together.
Regardless, I made my way to Lanka. Getting in to Ravana’s court was no problem. I had actually been here before. People who have been given superpowers are generally hospitable to the family of the person who gave that those powers.
“I see you got a new footrest! Not the regular thing you get at Walmart” I remarked, though it pained me to do it. It was hard seeing Shani in that state.
Some of Ravana’s heads laughed his evil mastermind laugh. The rest seemed bored and clearly not very hospitable.
As I kept glancing left to right and right to left at all his heads, his heads grew serious. Head number 4 said. “Can you stop doing that? Just pick a head. One head”
I chose head no 6. That one from past experience was the slowest of all.
I told him “I think you havent gotten a hang of this whole torture and humiliation thing”
“What?” said head number 6. “Shani looks pretty humiliated to me!”
“You have a lot to learn, Ravana.” I said, shaking my head.
“What’s your point?” Asked head number 6.
“Well simply this. When you crush someone by putting your mighty foot on their back. It’s all great and stuff, but they arent seeing you do it. It’s definitely more humiliating to be helpless on your back with a foot on your chest than it is to be on your stomach and have a foot on your back. When you sneer and gloat, how can they see your face?”
“That’s a good point, Narada! I’m going to do that to Shani right away. Watch me!”
“Er, no. You go ahead, I have a lot of catching up to do elsewhere. Take care” I said and walked out of Ravana’s court quickly. I did not want Shani to see me.
Ravana did just as I had asked and Shani looked at him just as I expected.
The plan was in motion.
Many years later, Shani still remained a captive. Until one day he was rescued!
Hanuman did the rescuing. Hanuman, was a Vanar or Monkey-God who was Ram’s right hand man or rather right hand Vanar. Hanuman had entered Lanka. He’d been sent there on a mission. Never mind the mission itself, we’ll get to that when we get to that part of the Ramayana. But for now, suffice it to say that Hanuman was searching for someone. During the Search, he found Shani. Hanuman had a mission, but that doesnt mean he could ignore the pleas. He broke through the magic that was binding Shani. Shani was free! But before he could jump up into the sky and disappear forever, Hanuman had a teensy, weensy request.
Shani had obviously glanced at his rescuer. This meant Hanuman was going to have bad luck!
But Shani replied “Stop right there. You’re not going to have bad luck. In fact, quite the opposite. I will give you a gift. Ask for anything!”
“I dont want my fan club to be impacted by your gaze” replied Hanuman.
“Done! As a bonus, I’ll never bring you bad luck either Hanuman! And thank you for the rescue”
They flew off in opposite directions.
Shani did bring Ravana bad luck. But that’s in the core part of the Ramayaan that we will cover in a future episode.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
Saturday is Shani’s day. But Hanuman is especially worshipped on that day. He is considered the remover of obstacles. Shani presents obstacles, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. He’s just doing his job.
There are interesting stories around Shani and indeed all of the other navagraha or 9 worlds. But we can cover those in a future episode.
Interestingly two of those 9 worlds are concepts and not actual physical objects. Those are Rahu and Ketu. And they’re really two parts of the same Asur whom we encountered recently in the Samudra Manthan episodes:
Episode 51 – Oceans Rising
Episode 52 – Oceans Rising Higher
Episode 53 – Open the Quantum Gate!
We’ve previously met Brihaspati and Shukracharya who are two other planets – Jupiter and Venus. See Episode 27 – The Rise of Shukra and Episode 28 – His Girl Friday
Interestingly Shukra or Friday as I have called him on the show was Ravana’s teacher as well.
We have met Hanuman before in Episode 25 – Up, Up and Away!
That’s all for now.
Next Episode
In the next episode, we’ll do another tale of Vikram and Betaal. We’ll meet three extraordinary girls who could have been excellent insurance adjusters!
I’ll see you next time!