Ramayana – Ravana Falls – {Ep.263}

Today’s episode is a story from the Ramayana that begins with the final battle between Rama and Ravana, and ends with a non-stop, emissions free direct flight from Lanka to Ayodhya

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 talking about the story of the Ramayana. We’re nearing the end of the main storyline. Normally, in an effort to keep each episode standalone, I recap the story so far. I’m going to break from that pattern. You’ll hear a recap, sure. But not from me. Let’s go straight to the commentator’s box. Harsha Shastry and Ravi Bhogale – over to you.

“Good day, ladies and gentlemen! This is Harsha Shastry. I’m joined here at the Esplanade by my friend Ravi Bhogale. The weather is sunny and warm. But the seats are all cool, because they are full of Lankan fans. There doesn’t seem to be much support for the Vanars here but that is to be expected. This is home territory for Ravana.

And what a fascinating tale we have for you today, one that’s as epic as a nail-biting match with twists, turns, and dramatic innings. The run-up to this grand final battle has been astounding. And now we’re at the ultimate showdown between Rama and Ravana.

It all started in the kingdom of Ayodhya, the home ground of our star player, Crown Prince Rama. His innings started strong, with the crowd cheering him on as the natural successor, the man to lead the team, if you will. But then came an unexpected googly from Queen Kaikeyi. She used her boons to send Rama into exile – a classic case of a batsman being sent back to the pavilion on a dubious LBW decision, where no DRS can save him.

So, Rama went off – not to the pavilion, but to the forest, for a challenging 14-year stint. But he didn’t go alone. Laxman, his trusty brother at the non-striker’s end, and Ram’s wife, Sita, stood firmly by his side, showing the solidarity of a strong batting lineup. Together, they faced dangers in the wild, which threw at them a series of bouncers and yorkers, and even a few beamers.”

“Absolutely, Harsha. Now, let’s fast forward to the crucial middle overs. We have the sly demon Ravana, the 10 headed ruler of Lanka, who played a sneaky reverse sweep by abducting Sita while Rama and Lakshmana were completely caught off guard. Rama then teamed up with Hanuman, the all-rounder in this lineup, who always plays an aggressive T20-style innings even in test matches. He leapt over the ocean, scouting the opposition’s territory, and setting Lanka on fire – literally.”

“Spot on, Ravi. Hanuman’s recon revealed Sita’s location and he returned with crucial intelligence that could swing the advantage back to the Vanars. Then began the epic team huddle, where Rama assembles his army of monkeys and bears. They built a bridge to Lanka, showcasing their superb teamwork.”

“Absolutely, Harsha. The stage is now set for the final match, the clash of the titans. Rama’s squad takes to the battlefield with the precision of a well-prepared team ready for an Ashes series. And we’re in the final overs. Ravana, the seasoned captain of Lanka, with his ten heads – ten strategies, ten variations, if you will – stands firm. But Rama has truth and justice and morals on his side. And some divine weaponry not to forget. He seems ready to face anything Ravana can bowl at him.”

“Yes, Ravi. As the match progressed, we saw some brilliant strokes from Rama. Ravana threw everything at him – his son Indrajit, his brother Kumbhakarna, and all his generals – the equivalent of pace, spin, and more than a few bodyline deliveries. But Rama, composed and focused, countered each one with skill and precision, and now Ravana is left with no one to rotate the strike with. This has been a battle of wits and endurance, a match that is reaching its thrilling final moments. Most recently, Hanuman had a sleepless night after he dived into the underworld and rescued Rama and Laxman from Ahiravana.”

“No rest for the wicket, eh Harsha? And there you have it, folks. The stage is set for the ultimate climax, the final delivery. The Rama-Ravana face-off is not just a match, it’s the crescendo of an epic innings, where strategy, skill, and sheer willpower will determine the victor. 

Let’s go down to the pitch for a little inspection. Sachin Gavaskar, what is your report on the pitch?”

“Good morning Harsha and Ravi, this is a lovely day, and the grounds are nice and wet, maybe even slushy – which will favor Ravana. No chance for the Vanars if they try to spin rocks his way. But then again, the Ayodhya brothers Ram and Laxman have a lot in their arsenal that they could use here. Not much to watch out for the bounce, rocks and other projectiles may not turn much on this surface. Their best bet is to vary their pace and dodge all of Ravana’s volleys. Ravana may have the advantage of being immune to attack from every angle. Sure, with Indrajit, Kumbhakarna and a bunch of generals gone he has little in terms of support. But we’re talking about Ravana here – the one who casually dropped a mountain on someone, he can’t be defeated by any demon or God. To him every delivery is basically a free hit.”

“Here comes Ravana onto the pitch. He’s in his fancy new chariot, and he’s got a fancy new bow, and fancy new arrows after Rama broke all the old ones, a few episodes ago.

This is a tense moment right away, with Rama stepping up to the crease to confront Ravana. I must say that is brave. Rama doesn’t have a chariot or even Hanuman’s shoulders right now. Hanuman seems to be fighting his own demons on the other side of the field. Ravana has the high ground here. It’s a precarious situation to be in.”

“Right, Ravi. You could say Rama has the moral high ground, but that’s not going to help him in this very physical battle. Ooh that was a close one! That arrow from Ravana almost hit Rama. If the Ayodhya prince hadn’t dodged quickly that might have been the end of his innings. I have to say, Ravana’s batting average against the Vanars is pretty impressive. Indrajit was supposed to be the archer extraordinaire on the Lankan side, but Ravana’s skills here show that the tree isn’t very far from where the apple’s been falling”

“Right you are Harsha. Rama is on the counterattack now. He readies a different arrow and this looks like a formidable one. He launches it towards Ravana. Ravana in a panic now, tries to swing at it with his sword and makes a complete hash of it. And oh my! Ravana takes a tumble and slips. Mighty fortunate there the 10 headed King of Lanka. If he hadn’t caught a deflection and slipped at the last moment, the arrow would have gone straight through him. I’m pretty sure there was some brief contact there as we’re just getting UltraEdge visual confirmation here”

“Nasty spill there Ravi. Ravana is enraged now. Probably more to do with his own undignified fall. How clumsy can you get? But it might also have been a lack of balance there. Can you imagine going through life balancing 10 heads?”

“I can’t Harsha. And not many of us can. I know Brahma has 4 heads for example, but even those are symmetrically distributed in every direction. Having 10 linear heads doesn’t do much for his field of vision. But what is this now? I see him taking a massive arrow – is this Ravana’s secret weapon? The arrow is shaped like a snake. How does it fly straight in the air I don’t know”

“It’s not the Nagapasha that his son used previously. It’s obviously snake related though. Oh I see it now, goodness gracious, look at how the arrow has multiplied into thousands of snakes and they are all headed straight for Rama. Could this be the end?”

“Howzzaat,” screamed all of Ravana’s 10 heads.

“And I can’t see Rama, he’s obscured by the cloud of snakes. Can he break out? And he does, my goodness he does bream out of that in style! What a clever idea to use a Garuda arrow to counter the snakes.”

“Quite right Ravi. Garuda as most of you know is the King of the Birds, he’s Vishnu’s mode of transport and he’s had more than a simple rivalry with snakes. That was a very effective defense from Rama there. I wonder what he’ll do next, but I have to say that this lack of a chariot is putting Rama on a sticky wicket.”

Let’s cut the scene over to Swarg or Heaven where Indra the ruler of Swarg and the King of the Devas was listening intently to the commentary.

His wife Shachi was with him, and she had an important input at this point.

“Hadn’t you better do something about it? Rama needs an advantage”

“But my dear, the umpires might consider that outside interference”

“Face it Indra, this is not a fair game anymore. And you won’t be playing dirty. You could go visit the battlefield in person. And just accidentally you could forget your chariot there. You don’t need a chariot to travel”

Indra considered that and decided his wife was right. So that’s what happened. And in a few moments, Indra’s charioteer, Maatali, was offering his services and the chariot to Rama. Rama took it. I have to clarify something here. Rama was awesome and chariot or no chariot the outcome of the battle would have been the same. It may have saved him a few minutes but that’s all. Let’s go back to the commentary box.

“Look at Rama’s magic arms Ravi. He’s moving so fast now they look like a blur. Arrow after arrow – he’s been firing nonstop at Ravana. And now it looks like Ravana is on the backfoot here. Sublime timing there from Rama and what a nice square cut. Straight away knocks off one of Ravana’s heads!”

“What’s happening here – it looks like – yes, Ravana’s head has sprung back up. The lankan fans are cheering wildly. From their view all 10 wickets, I mean heads are protected.”

“Yes Ravi, the Indian fans are dejected now. How could they hope for victory now, if this is the kind of sorcery Ravana has on his side? It’s not quite as simple as the hydra, where you cutoff one head and 3 more appear. In the Hydra’s case you could soon end up with more heads than body by weight, and the Hydra will be unable to move at all. The strategy of cutting off heads won’t work against Ravana – he’s going to keep his balance. I have to say the Vanar side may be completely stumped here”

“But now, Rama is getting a different arrow, something I have not seen before. Interesting that he had a quick word with Maatali before reaching for it. This arrow looks like it was made by Brahma. I definitely see a Brahma logo on it. It’s a brilliant arrow. Never seen one so pointy and with such a gleam. Rama has launched it, Ravana is trying to counter. And that’s a googly – Ravana went left, and the arrow swerved right. And it has hit Ravana right in the chest. The King of Lanka has been thrown out of his chariot. I repeat the King of Lanka is out of his crease and has collapsed. Could this be the end of a mighty fine innings?”

“Ravana stays down. Is this just a trick? All the action has suddenly stopped. Everyone is silenced. The Lankans have dropped their weapon. And the Vanars have stopped attacking as well. Rama, and Vibhishana step up to Ravana. Yes, Ravana seems to be definitely out of the game here. But just to be absolutely sure, they’re going to send it upstairs, they’re going to review it with the DRS – the Doctors Review System”

“Sushena, the Vanar who’s the medical examiner here, and third umpire almost you might say is rushing onto the scene with his little black bag and stethoscope. He’s examining Ravana. And he’s given the signal that confirms it. This is victory. This is the mission that Ram, Laxman, and all the Vanars set out to accomplish. They have finally done it. Full credit to them for an amazing victory here. Rama has managed to defeat a King who could not be defeated by any God or Demon. This is a day that’s going to go down in history. I’m sure thousands of years from now, people will point out this day to indicate when Good overcame Evil. The day Rama conquered the 10 headed monster King.”

“Yes Ravi. I agree with you on the significance of this day for future generations. We probably should start by taking a day off every year from now on. It’s the 10th of the month, and Ravana had 10 heads, so I propose we call it VijayaDashami. But folks that’s all we have time for this time. Let me hand over the mic back to Narada who’s going to take you listeners through the celebration here.”

Sure, I will take you through the rest of the story. But to call it a celebration isn’t very fair. There was joy of course. But there were many Vanars who had died. And besides they weren’t done. Defeating Ravana was just a step. They needed to find and free Sita from the dungeons or wherever Ravana had imprisoned her. 

A search was launched. Ram and Laxman and Hanuman at the head of it. It was a very short search. They found Sita quickly enough in the first place they looked. The same Ashoka Vatika that Hanuman had first found her in, all those days ago when he had come alone. 

Sita looked at Ram, and Ram looked back at her. It was an emotional moment, not just for Ram and Laxman, but for everyone assembled there. There was not one dry eye in the whole crowd. Tears flowed freely, including, I confess, my own.

After all the hugging and crying, and after things had calmed down a bit, Rama asked Sita about how she had been treated by Ravana. He was not suspicious, or fishing or anything. He genuinely wanted to know. 

Sita said that Ravana hadn’t laid a finger on her. Other than during the abduction itself. And even then he was probably wearing gloves so as not to leave behind fingerprints. And if Rama didn’t believe her, she was willing to step into a fire to prove it.

Rama said that wasn’t a bad idea at all. Not that he doubted her. Absolutely he didn’t. If she said Ravana hadn’t touched her, Ravana couldn’t have touched her. But the fire was a good idea, because it was a disinfectant. All these foreign germs and viruses that were probably floating around here. What better way to cleanse them? They didn’t want to accidentally carry any diseases back to India from here, surely. And hand sanitizers didn’t exist yet.

So believe it or not, that’s what Sita did. She stepped into a big fire that was lit just for her. And she was completely unharmed. That’s entirely because she is a Goddess herself. Maybe she should have challenged everyone else to go through the same cleansing fire. They all had been here in a foreign land after all. They might carry infection as well. But she didn’t. 

There wasn’t much after that. Other than that Vibhishana became King of what was remaining of Lanka, Indra came down and granted Rama’s wish of bringing back to life all the Vanars who had passed away in this conflict. You might ask why Indra didn’t also bring back Dasharath, and Jatayu back to life. The simple answer is that they didn’t want to. Indra asked them, but Jatayu was past his prime. And Dasharath decided that returning to Ayodhya would mean that Ram would stay crown prince and Dasharath would become King again. For an octogenarian, that would send off majorly Biden vibes. Smart decision.

Ram, Laxman, Sita didn’t want to stay on too long. Their priority was a return to Ayodhya. Coincidentally, the 14 years of their exile were just up. Not that anyone was keeping count, Laxman just happened to notice when saw the calendar in the Lankan palace.

No, they couldn’t attend Ravana’s cremation, which Vibhishana was performing. No, they couldn’t even stay back for Vibhishana’s coronation. It was a long trek back over the ocean, the hills, the plains, the Deccan plateau, more mountains, more plains, all those rivers and lakes to cross in between.”

“Hey, it doesn’t have to be a long trek, you know. You can take Pushpak.”

Pushpak was Lanka’s flying chariot. Vishwakarma the great builder had made it for my dad, Brahma, the creator of the Universe. But Brahma has his own ways of getting around and didn’t need a flying chariot. So he passed it on to Kubera, the God of Wealth. Ravana had stolen it from Kubera back when he took over Lanka. Now this Pushpak Vimana was Vibhishana’s to command. So obviously Ram, Laxman, Sita could fly first class non-stop to Ayodhya. And the chariot was driven by birds, so there was practically no CO2 emissions to worry about. About as low a carbon footprint as could be hoped for.

That was something the Ayodhya folks gladly accepted. So they bid their goodbyes, wished Vibhishana the best of luck in ruling Lanka, they wished the Vanars the best of luck in getting back to their kingdom, back across the bridge. And they took off.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

That’s about it. I do get the story may seem less interesting once Ravana is destroyed, but there are a few moments of drama left in this great epic. There is the birth the Luv and Kusha – Rama’s twins. And there are a number of peripheral stories left outside the main storyline. We may cover some of them. Not anytime soon though.

Fun fact, Vibhishana, Hanuman, Jambavan are Chiranjeevs meaning they are immortal. There are other Chiranjeevs too, many from the Mahabharata. Sometimes, I’m fortunate to be considered part of the club, so to speak. We do occasionally get together and talk about the good old days. Which in our case happened a really really long time ago.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll cover a story from the Mahabharata. This won’t be from the main storyline but it does feature one of the very main characters – Arjun. And a surprise cameo by a character you may not have expected to encounter in this epic.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

MCKS – yes an Akbar Birbal story is lined up.

Jenn, Kaira, Hiranmayee, – thank you as always for the support.

Shikha, I wish you a happy birthday and I hope you have a wonderful time. 

Unfortunately 2 days is simply too short a notice for me to put together a specific episode, but the next Chandrakanta episode is not too far away.

Abhinav – well Ravana’s dead. You got your wish.
Samay – cricket really doesn’t feature in Indian history much. So I can’t really do much with it other than anachronisms like we saw today.

Shalu – thank you for the honest feedback, I will keep that in mind for next time. I have to admit, with all the body-swapping that was going on in the previous episode, it might have been hard to keep track of who was in whose body at what time. Maybe I should make a pretty visual to go along with that story.

Madhu, yeah. The Minister was totally giving off Tantri the Mantri vibes.

Druhin – thank you for the kind words! Yes, I do plan to cover Anasuya’s story soon.

As for Ravana’s encounter with Shiva, I have already covered that. Check out Episode 202 of this show.

Previous Ramayana episodes are linked in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com, check them out:

https://sfipodcast.com/category/ramayana

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook. You can listen to the show on all podcast apps, and that now includes Youtube. If you want to send me an email it’s stories.from.india.podcast@gmail.com.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

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