In this episode, we’re talking about Shanta. She’s Ram and Laxman’s elder sister. I had a listener specially request this story, so here we are.
Shanta was the Character of the week, a long time ago, back in episode 22 – Slow Cooker.
She exists in many versions of the Ramayana. Not the one attributed to Valmiki, but that never stopped me from describing things the way they were. Remember, I’ve experienced parts of the Ramayana. First hand, sometimes as you’ll soon find in today’s story.
This story does stand alone. If you haven’t heard the rest of the Ramayana that’s perfectly okay. All you need to know that the hero of the epic was Ram. And the villain? That was Ravana.
Ravana was the emperor of Lanka, who at the start of today’s story was not in Lanka. He was visiting my dad!
Now before you jump to any conclusions about my family fraternizing with the enemy, let me caution you.
My dad, Brahma is the creator of the Universe, and a member of the Holy Trinity, together with Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
As the Creator of the whole Universe, you can’t blame Brahma for trying to be nice to all his creations. Sometimes he gets carried away though, and unfortunately, there are far too many examples of that. He gave Ravana quite a few superpowers, making him invincible to everyone.
Naturally, Ravana made it a point to visit and thank Brahma often.
It was on one of those visits that Brahma accidentally let it slip that a child of Princess Kaushalya and King Dasharath would destroy Ravana.
That got Ravan head-scratching. Which is a tough thing to do when you have 10 heads and only 2 hands, as Ravana did.
In the middle of the conversation, Ravana suddenly stood up, apologized for the suddenly remembered appointment, and said he had to rush off.
“A tall story,” Brahma told me later. “The dude had 10 heads, how could he forget anything?”
Of course, he hadn’t forgotten. Ravana merely wanted to secure his means of immortality. All he had to do was to prevent Kaushalya and Dasharath from getting married. When he looked up the files on the two of them, he thought it was a good thing then that Kaushalya and Dasharath hadn’t even met yet.
He headed straight for the Kingdom of Southern Kosala. This was the Kingdom where Kaushalya lived. The idea was a simple one, but purely evil, and the moment Ravana’s head no. 4 suggested it, the other 9 heads had readily agreed to it.
In the night, Ravana set his flying chariot, or Pushpak Viman, into hover mode and lowered himself using a rope ladder into the palace gardens, where Kaushalya was known to play. He sneaked and hid behind the bushes. It was a bit of a struggle finding the right size bush that could hide all 10 of his heads, but it was a large garden. Morning came, and with it Kaushalya stepped outside her chambers, warming up for her morning jog.
Ravana rushed out of his hiding spot. While two of the heads looked menacingly at Kaushalya, 3 others looked down for obstacles, 4 more heads whirled around looking for any possible bodyguards around the final head whistled for Pushpak Vimaan to lower down the rope ladder.
Within a minute, he had grabbed Kaushalya and loaded her onto the flying chariot.
He tried to step on the gas, but his dashboard blinked a warning.
“Oh I’m sorry, can you please put your seatbelt on?” he asked Kaushalya “The plane won’t move without it”.
Kaushalya who had been stunned into silence finally found her voice and let out a loud scream.
Getting impatient, Ravana put on her seatbelt himself and then stepped on it. He guided the plane north. And soon they had left the palace far behind. “It had been super easy,” he thought! “Like taking candy from a child. I’ll have to be careful not to make a habit of it”.
Finally turning on the auto-pilot he switched his attention to Kaushalya.
“So, dear princess. Now back to you. Did you really think I’m the evil Hollywood villain who patiently answers all your questions until help arrives? Sorry, I’m not that kind of evil guy. Now get in the box” he said, gesturing at a box in the corner.
Kaushalya, with no choice, got in. At which point Ravana promptly lifted the box and dropped it down in a nearby river.
Head no 7 said “we shouldn’t have done that. What if she survives?”
But the other heads quickly shushed it. “Who could survive that fall?” asked head no 8.
“Besides, said head no 3, we don’t have to be completely opposite from every Hollywood villain. There is some satisfaction in walking away from the scene and assuming that the dirty work has happened”
Now despite what he had intended, Ravana was in for a surprise. I was around to foil his plan. Yes, me! I have knowledge of the past, present and future remember? Still, I don’t always think about everything, or I’d have prevented this abduction in the first place. Or maybe not.
As I rushed on the scene, I had a choice. I saw the box with Kaushalya in it. It was floating in a lake. But not for long. If it couldn’t be opened the princess would drown! Luckily I spotted just the person I wanted. It was Dasharath! He was on a hunting trip, but he’d come to the lakeshore, no doubt for a drink of water.
“Dasharath, quick. There’s a damsel in distress here”
That got Dasharath’s attention really quick. He didn’t even stop to think who I was or how I knew his name. Dasharath dived into the water and swam swiftly to the box.
He broke open the box and pulled Kaushalya out. A few minutes later, at the lakeshore, the two of them lay, gasping for breath.
“Thanks for saving my life,” said Kaushalya. “That’s the last time I am flying that airline. There was no in flight service not even a complimentary bag of peanuts and the pilot tried to kill me. But enough about me who are you exactly, and how did you know I was in the box?”
“Dasharath. Call me Dash. I didn’t know you were in the box. Some crazy guy carrying a Veena said you were in the box. I don’t usually believe every crazy stranger I see, but I took a chance anyway.”
That’s how the two met. That soon turned into friendship, and later more than friendship. After a few months of getting to know each other, their families met.
Kausalya’s parents especially thought it was a good sign that the King of North Kosala and Princess of South Kosala wanted to marry. They could just merge into one large happy family and one large happy Kingdom called Kosala.
Now if you think about it, this is a perfect example of situational irony. Ravana abducted Kaushalya in order to prevent her from marrying Dasharath but ended up being the reason they met in the first place. You’ll find many parallels in Science Fiction movies, and of course in the Voldemort decision to harm the baby Harry
In time, Kaushalya had a baby girl, Shanta. Doting parents that they were, they loved the girl. But something would soon happen that would change her life completely.
By this time, Dasharath had also married two other princesses – Sumitra and Kaikeyi.
As it happens Kaushalya’s sister and brother-in-law Vershini and Romapada were visiting about the same time.
Over afternoon tea Vershini and Romapada poured their hearts out to the hosts. Their chief worry was that they had no heirs. I’d rather not say whose idea exactly it was but somehow at the end of the conversation, it was decided that Shanta would go and live with Vershini and Romapada.
Dasharath could have objected strongly but didn’t. Maybe part of it was that he wanted a boy to succeed him. And he got a little carried away with the idea.
Also, contrary to what some revisionist movies may lead some people to believe, the reality in Ancient India was that Shanta, the Princess, would not be allowed to succeed her father to the throne.
So, anyway, that meant Shanta grew up in the Kingdom of Anga with her aunt and uncle believing they were her real parents. And yes, this is the same Anga that Karna from the Mahabharat ruled, many centuries later.
Now Shanta was not the girl who was destined to kill Ravana. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t smart and capable. She was wise, knowledgeable, and also skilled with weapons.
She would have made a fine ruler. Except she had something else in store for her.
That phase of life started for her when a Rishi, Shuvateertha, visited Romapada one day. Or rather, tried to visit the King. When he showed up at court, his visit ended up being as disappointing as a trip to the DMV in the US or RTO in India. He was asked to take a number and wait and ultimately passed around from one counter to another only to be told after a whole day’s wait that it was closing time and to come back later.
Well, he was one patient rishi. Because he did come back later. Unfortunately, Romapada was in the middle of a rather interesting game of monopoly with Shanta just at that moment. Instead of letting Shuvateertha in and at least delegating the conversation to someone else, Romapada decided that his time with his daughter was more important.
Shuvateertha was politely asked to leave the premises. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” he was told.
At that Shuvateertha shrugged his shoulders and moved on. But there was one person who couldn’t handle this behavior. And that was Indra, the chief of the Devs. This may puzzle you because Indra didn’t have a horse in this race.
Anyway, Indra cursed Anga – “No more rain for you”. He said
Let your people suffer from lack of rain. That figures.
All it takes to badly direct blame is one semi-engaged King attempting short-term corrective action over another.
The rains did stop. And the people did suffer. They complained to the King. Whose initial reaction was to say “If the people don’t have water, let them drink Beer”. A similar sentiment was made famous by a french queen centuries later.
But anyway, hearing a resounding no from the crowd, the King did the best he could. He talked to all his astrologers about what was needed here for it to start raining again. Just to be clear, he wanted medium-sized rain. Not just a few droplets here and there. And certainly not a storm on a scale seen by Manu and the Unicorn Fish in Episode 1.
The recommendation came back quickly. “Maybe they had anticipated me asking them the question,” thought Romapada. But the answer was weird. Get Rishi Rishyasringa. If he blesses the land, it’ll rain.
The astrologers were unanimous on this, so they must be right. Thought the King.
He dispatched people to find said rishi. Ultimately some people came back with some information. Shanta and Romapada were part of the debrief. They listened as the informers came back with, well, information.
“Your majesty, Rishyashringa is a Rishi will horns on his head!”’
Shock spread through the court
“But not in a bad way” continued the informer. “That just explains his name, but that was completely off-topic. He’s the son of another powerful rishi – Vibhandaka”
“Isn’t that the rishi who you knew had that affair with the Apsara a while ago?” asked the King who was certainly a keen follower of Page 3 gossip.
“The very same your majesty. The Apsara was Urvashi. And Rishyashringa is their child. Indra had commanded Urvashi to disrupt Vibhandaka’s prayers and she did. But the Rishi got a little miffed because she left Rishyashringa on his doorstep and went on back to heaven without so much as a goodbye note”
“So she was counting on the baby Rishyashringa to continue the distraction, no doubt? I can imagine it’s hard to concentrate and pray for superpowers when you need to change diapers and feed the baby every few hours” chimed in Shanta
“Yes, your highness” replied the informer. “And it worked. Vibhandaka himself did not acquire any more special powers. He was pretty upset about Urvashi’s actions. In a petty move, he’s kept Rishyashringa completely unaware of the existence of females.
But his son was born with superpowers. He can certainly make it rain”
“So let’s ask him,” said the King
“We tried your majesty, but he has no interest in anything.”
“Father, this needs a woman’s touch. Leave it to me” said Shanta.
Shanta handpicked a few of her friends and made for the Rishi’s ashram or home.
Rishyashringa’s first reaction was shock and surprise. And his first guess was that these lovely ladies in front of him were a new species. Aliens from another planet he thought. And yet they seemed peculiarly similar to himself.
Over time he got to know them and learned the terrible truth of his past, and eventually accepted it.
He learned a lot from Shanta and her friends. So, months later, when Shanta asked him, he was certainly more than happy to bless her father’s land so it would start raining again.
He suddenly got nervous and asked if he could continue to learn from her, about everything. “Sure we’ll all help you” replied Shanta
“Well, not all of you. I mean you specifically Shanta. And for life”
Not exactly the sort of proposal she had hoped for, minus the ring and going down on one knee and all that. But she was happy to accept.
The two were married, and it did start raining in the land again. Rishyashringa became the prince of the land.
Later on, Shanta’s Uncle and Aunt from Ayodhya who were really her mom and dad would invite the couple over to solve their little problem. But that’s a story we have already covered in Episode 7.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
Check out Episode 22 – Slow Cooker when Shanta was the character of the week.
You might have heard the name Lomapada rather than Romapada. They are not different characters. Those two names are quite interchangeable.
Previous Ramayana episodes are here
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’re doing a folk tale from Punjab! It’s about a boy who is very much like Aladdin from the Arabian Nights stories, except he doesn’t have a genie. He has a Bee. With a long beard. Thankfully, this Bee does more than buzz and fly around and pollinate.