Ramayana – Lav and Kush – {Ep.270}

In today’s story, we conclude the Ramayana with a couple of mysterious boys defeating Rama’s armies and his 3 brothers in battle. A battle fought over ownership rights to a horse

Namaskar and welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back to the Ramayana. If this is your first Ramayana story on this show, where were you all this time? But it’s alright. Because I am to make every episode standalone. So I will give you a quick recap, while also urging you to checkout the links in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com for previous episodes.

This epic began with Rama, the Crown Prince of Ayodhya and the eldest of four brothers. Ram was almost King, except for his stepmother’s intervention which landed Bharat as the King and sent Ram into exile for 14 years.

Ram could have gone alone but his wife Sita and his brother Lakshman insisted on going with him.

Years passed reasonably quickly. The trio defeated some demons here and there and met some rishis and everything was fine. Except in the mind of one particular demoness who was upset at having her nose cut off. I know there’s a phrase in Hindi which means being insulted, but I mean it literally. She made a big deal out of it, playing innocent though she was the one who was about to gobble up Sita. Lakshman had just been protecting his sister in law. Well that demoness went on to Ravana, who was the 10 headed mega villain of this epic. Ravana, the almost invincible demon King of Lanka could casually toss around mountains and crumble rocks with his bare hands.

He abducted Sita. Which led to a chase from Rama and Lakshman, and their new Vanar friends. The Vanars were a kingdom of monkeys who built a bridge across the ocean. They fought the Lankans, defeated every last evil general, and killed Ravana himself.

Interesting side note here is that two of the larger festivals in India originated from this story – the destruction of Ravana and the trio’s return to Ayodhya.

You might think that with Ravana gone the story is over. But it’s not. All it did was to unlock a bonus level. And the bonus villain here is psychological not physical.

Now we begin today with Ram. He had become king and there was a much needed sense of calm after the last 14 years of anxiety. Could this have been just the calm before the storm?

Ram was satisfied with the Kingdom’s state of affairs. Lakshman was happy to be back to Ayodhya and to chip in with the administration. Ram’s other brothers were happy to have the trio back. Sita was happy to be back to palace comforts. Not to say that the 14 years in exile had been a problem. She hadn’t minded it as long as Ram was with her. But then, there was a period where Ram wasn’t with her – and that was during her captivity in Lanka. 

Hanuman was happy too. Being the Vanar ambassador in Ayodhya was just an excuse. He was happy as long as he got to serve Ram.

The citizens of Ayodhya were happy too. Why shouldn’t they be? They got the King and Queen they had long been waiting for. Well not everyone. There was one lady who was unhappy.

Let’s find out about her. Rama was making the rounds in his kingdom. This seems to be a common theme in many of these stories – Akbar did that, and so did Bhoj, and Vikramaditya. But the key difference is that Rama wasn’t out in disguise. He felt his citizens would give him candid feedback. There was no reason for them not to.

While walking around like so, Rama passed a hut near the outskirts of town. He deduced it was the washerwoman’s hut. Rama was no Byomkesh Bakshi, but he deduced the woman’s profession from looking at the bright white clothes outside – far too many for a single family to own. And the Nirma poster only confirmed his suspicions.

He had never seen cleaner sheets and he decided he must go in and congratulate this Nirma lady. But before he could go into the hut and shake the hand of this marvel of a Dhobhi, he was met by loud voices coming from inside the hut.

“Where were you last night?” An irritated man’s voice said. No doubt that this was Nirma’s husband. Let’s assume his name was Rin.

Nirma answered “I told you, I was stuck across the lake! The ferry wasn’t operating because of the major storm last night. I pled with the boatman, but it was dangerous for  him to attempt to make the crossing.”

“So why did you have to sleep in the boatman’s hut?”

“There was nowhere else to go! You’ve seen the other side!”

“You could have slept out in the open then!”

“In the rain?!” she asked. “Are you out of your mind? Besides this is regular for him – he has special sleeping pods in his hut for exactly this purpose. He even charged me money for it!”

But when Rin demanded a receipt, Nirma couldn’t produce one. Nirma tried to point out that many businesses including her own did not issue receipts. This was ancient India after all. But Rin wouldn’t listen. He proclaimed that this was one Daag she wouldn’t be able to get rid of. Because it was a stain on her character. He was disowning her!

At this point, Nirma should have pointed out that she was the breadwinner in the home. All he did was to sit around on the couch all day, drinking his sharbat, and eating all the bread that Nirma was winning. If he tried to get alimony she wouldn’t pay him a single phooti kaudi!

But before she could say all that, Rin said something that immensely disturbed Rama. He said “I’m not Rama. He easily accepted Sita when she spent several nights in a stranger’s home. For me, even a single night is too much.”

There are several things wrong with Rin’s comment – victim blaming is just the least of it. But the essence of Rin’s comment stuck with Rama. He didn’t wait to hear Nirma’s retort – it was a proper dhulai if you like that hindi term that means scrubbing – metaphorical scrubbing, not literal.

The very next day, Rama had made up his mind. He decided that Sita must go. Into Exile again. And this time by herself. Based on Rin’s one comment, Rama had decided that all of Ayodhya didn’t want Sita to be their Queen. As King, he couldn’t do the job himself. But he must delegate this. To his trusty brother Lakshman.

And so it was that Lakshman and Sita went for a chariot drive the next evening, at Ram’s request. They got pretty deep into the forest and evening was fast approaching now.

“Lakshman, I don’t quite get this. We’ve come here looking for those wildflowers which I absolutely love. But are you sure it was a good idea to come here during the evening? You can’t appreciate colors in this low light.”

“Uh, ummm. Look at this forest Sita. It’s just like old times, huh? Remember those exile days?”

Sita looked at him quizzically. What was Lakshman talking about?

“Lakshman, what are you talking about?”

“You can’t be Queen, Sita. There are too many unresolved questions. You must leave us and go into exile by yourself.”

An average human would probably have screamed and cursed at this point. And pointed out that she sat through a burning fire just to “prove” her purity to a patriarchal audience that wasn’t entitled to any such proof. She would have cursed a husband who couldn’t talk over his differences face to face. And the brother who couldn’t distinguish right from wrong and blindly followed his older brother’s orders.

But Sita did none of that. Because she wasn’t an average human. She was a goddess. She understood. And in her magnanimity, she accepted her fate.

Lakshman offered her some survival gear, but Sita passed on that. What was the point of tiny gestures like those? They made no sense when the person she loved the most lost trust in her. She turned and walked away without saying goodbye.

Lakshman said that he wished he could stay but Rama had a Kingdom to run, and would need Lakshman’s help and all that. Seriously, the other brothers wouldn’t be able to help you know. Bharat seemed not to know the first thing about ruling a Kingdom – he didn’t even know what thrones were for. The dude had put Ram’s slippers on the throne, instead of seating himself.

Lakshman was sorrowful as he sped in his chariot back towards Lanka. Ram’s decision to cast out Sita had been one thing, but he was much more emotionally moved by the grace with which Sita had handled the news. But what could he do? He wiped his tears in his clean new silk handkerchief, and then tried drowning his sorrows in a dollop of Kulfi which he took from a refrigerated compartment in the chariot.

As Sita walked away from Ayodhya, she longed for Kulfi in this beastly heat, or even just a medium clean handkerchief to wipe away her sweat. 

There were wild animals in this forest, for sure. But none of them bothered Sita. Demons, Demonesses, nothing could do more damage. For there was one secret that Sita had not revealed. Neither to Rama, nor just now to Lakshman. She was expecting.

Let’s cut forward several years. Ram continued to rule Ayodhya. All was well and good but not nearly as it was before Ram had heard Nirma and Rin talking. There was a certain something missing. A spark of joy in his life. Sita, his constant companion, was not with him. Every single day, he missed her. But he had made a decision and intended to stick to it.

Now he tried to take his mind off of her by thinking about something to do. And Bharat had just the suggestion – an Ashwamedha Yagna. Which made Lakshman proud of how far Bharat had come along since his earlier struggles with adopting the ruler mindset.

But at this point if you’re like – hey what’s the ashva-thingamajig, this deserves a quick sidebar. An ashwamedha yagna is a horse sacrifice. At its core the idea is for a ruler to expand their kingdom. The way they would do it is to let loose a horse, and wherever the horse went, that territory would be taken up by the ruler. And what would happen if a neighboring King didn’t want to give up his Kingdom to a horse, you ask? Well, that’s where the army came in. This wasn’t a one horse show. The horse was closely accompanied and sometimes nudged by an elite set of troops, capable of changing any reluctant King’s mind. Purely as a courtesy, the event was also announced in advance in the Ancient Indian equivalent of newspapers. Many a King of a small kingdom dreaded these newspaper announcements of Ashwamedha yagna by their stronger neighbors.

There was a sticky end to this for the horse unfortunately – it was ritually sacrificed at the end of its journey. We saw this at the very beginning of the Ramayana in episode 7 Kingdom by Horse. How fitting that we should encounter this ritual again when we are at the end.

And so, Rama’s kingdom began the process, and let loose a magnificent horse. Followed closely by plan B – a huge contingent of troops led by Shatrughna, which was followed by plan C, another set of troops led by Bharat, and if all that wasn’t enough – plan D led by Lakshman. 

Lakshman was pretty confident he would not be needed at all. He was viewing this as a holiday in the countryside. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now call it coincidence or not, but the horse went in the general direction of the forest that Sita had been abandoned in, all those years ago. It was the forbidden forest – not forbidden because of the wild animals and magical creatures, but because of the dread that an average person may one day make a gruesome discovery there.

The horse made a less than gruesome discovery. It discovered new friends. There were two little boys who were playing in the forest, and who jumped for joy when they saw the horse. They were so mesmerized that they didn’t pay any attention to the army behind the horse. 

“That’s not in the rulebook, is it?” Shatrughna asked his advisor. “They can’t just horse around like this. The horse is on important official business”

But the boys paid Shatrughna no mind. Suddenly Shatrughna realized that the boys were twins. Not identical but they resembled each other closely. And in fact, they reminded him of someone, someone close. Now who could it be?

But he came back to reality with a jerk as he realized the boys were now leading the horse away.

“Boys, shop, let the horse go. You’ve had your fun, now scram”

For the first time, the boys looked at Shatrughna and then they both burst out laughing.

“You’ll regret this boys. I’ll tell on you to your parents, I’ll make you get extra assignments at school. I’ll, I’ll…” Shatrughna was struggling for words.

“Oh yeah?” challenged one of the boys. “You and that army?”

This infuriated Shatrughna to the point that he actually took up his now and arrow and was about to fire a warning shot. But he never got that far.

Shatrughna may have been quick, but the boys were quicker. Out of nowhere they pulled a bow and arrow of their own and one of them fired a shot that cleanly  broke the Prince’s now.

Angered, he ordered his troops to attack. But the boys were fast, and extremely skilled. There was a shower of arrows and within five minutes not a soldier remained on his feet.

Shatrughna called for plan C. This was no time to worry about the ribbing he would get later for being humiliated by a couple of children.

Plan C had been caught napping, they hadn’t expected to be pulled into action. But to their credit they got ready really fast, and Bharat himself at the lead firing arrow after arrow. Their fate was no different than Plan B’s. Shatrughna and Bharat were hurt. Physically but more psychologically. They lost to two little brats. Who were these children?

Lakshman did the smart thing by using his most powerful weapons. Unfortunately for him, that was still not good enough. The boys were incredibly fast. And there was something about their stance, their plucking style, their technique that reminded Lakshman of someone. But he couldn’t place his finger on it.

Finally Ram got the news about his brothers and dashed to the spot. Not since Indrajit had there been anyone capable of defeating Lakshman himself, and even Indrajit was ultimately killed by Lakshman. Who then had the skills to defeat him?

Rama was going to find out. He brought along all of his weapons. Including the Brahmastra which could have destroyed the entire world!

As Ram’s chariot dashed to the scene amongst the remains of his army – his went from upset and angry to deeply disturbed. This was clinical work. He didn’t mean to brag, but to his knowledge he was the only one capable of reducing his armies to this state. Not that he had tried, because who in their right minds would do this to their own people.

And then he reached the front of the army, where Shatrughna, Bharat and Lakshman were being attended to.

Ram saw a couple of boys walking around and beckoned them over – “Bablu, Dablu, was there a fierce warrior here?”

“Warriors? Three of them, but fierce no,” one boy answered gesturing towards the three brothers.

“It’s those two, brother,” croaked Bharat. “They did all this”

Ram couldn’t believe his ears. But he did believe his eyes when he saw that the two little boys carried the type of equipment that could indeed cause this sort of mayhem. His anger returned, Rama swiftly picked an arrow, a double headed one and aimed it at exactly the midpoint between the twins. No he wasn’t aiming to miss. If the boys did all this, little or not, they had challenged him directly. And as a warrior he could not walk away from the challenge.

The boys positioned their own arrows and it was obvious they were at least as fast as Rama himself.

It was a very tense moment. Sort of a Mexican standoff if you will. But like many Mexican standoffs this one was resolved in the most unexpected way.

“Stop, don’t shoot!” came a shout. It was a voice that everyone there had heard before. Sita.

The first sign of recognition was from the boys – “Mummy!” They screamed excitedly. “Look at this beautiful horse we caught. There are these great bad men trying to take him away from us”

Rama dropped his bow and arrow in surprise and delight. Sita was alive! How?! Well it didn’t matter, she was there and that meant there was a good chance she might come back to Ayodhya. But wait a minute. The boys called her mummy. Did that mean? Could it be…?

Suddenly realization hit him. Now he knew why they were such accomplished marksmen. It was because he was an accomplished marksman. They were his boys! He didn’t know their names, he hadn’t even known they existed.

“Mummy! Help! This great big stranger is trying to hug us”

Sita had to step in to clarify. He was their father. And that meant they were princes and successors to the throne.

They accepted it after a little more convincing. Sita also had to explain her side of the story to Rama. She had wandered the forest a bit, making little bets with herself if she would meet a lion first, or a tiger, or a bear. In the end she met Valmiki. Yup the same Valmiki who wrote the whole Ramayana. Except maybe today’s story. But more on that later.

Rama was so thrilled to have his family back.

“I am so thrilled to have my family back! C’mon Sita you won’t believe all the things that have changed back in Ayodhya. And Lav, Kusha, you will love it too.”

It was the first time he had called his children by their names and he realized they were lovely names.

Lav and Kusha grinned and hopped on to the chariot. 

Rama’s brothers were still hurt, but they managed to be happy for their brother and King was reunited with his family.

Sita stayed where she was. “I am not coming, Rama”

Rama was stunned. He couldn’t lose her again! He protested. Sita said nothing but the answer was in her eyes. She had one duty to perform and that was to reunite Rama and his sons. That done, she had no wish to stay on. She simply said her goodbyes and disappeared from sight into a crevice that suddenly appeared beneath her feet. And no, this wasn’t a localized earthquake exactly where Sita had been standing. Rama and his brothers understood what was going on. But just for the sake of exposition Lav and Kusha explained. “You see, our grandma, mother’s mother, is Bhoomi, the earth goddess. Mummy always said she would return to grandma one day. I guess today is that day.”

Well that wraps up the Ramayana. Rama returned home with his kids, trained them to take over the Kingdom when they grew older. Sita was never seen again. She had risen from the Earth all those years ago, and now she went back into it.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

This bit of the Ramayana is not from the main storyline. It comes from a section that many historians believe was a late addition to the Ramayana, and not composed by Valmiki. The hints come from the way the verses are structured.

Previous Ramayana episodes: https://sfipodcast.com/category/ramayana/

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a story from the Kathasaritasagara.

Feedback

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The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!