The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

The return of Phool Jani the Great & Powerful-Part 3

   Everyday, like clockwork, after he got out of bed, Lakshman wondered out loud, "Will I die today?". His logic was that he had not died so far, so either the mantra worked, or it was just a mere coincidence. It appeared that the latter was true because Lakshman was pretty sure that he most certainly would die that day.

First, there was Rajkumari Phool Jani. After the elephant thing, it seemed she was always bumping into him, or speaking with him, and dedicating all her attention towards him. Maybe she wanted to die, and because he had caught her, she would take him with her to the heavenly abodes? Maybe she wanted to continue her childhood campaign of killing, or at least boring the heck out of him? Perhaps it was all a mere coincidence. His life was full of coincidences indeed, so that wouldn't surprise him.

What did surprise him was the fact that Urmila looked very upset as well. She would constantly fold her arms, and scowl at her with such a fire fuelling her anger that even Lakshman tried to steer clear of it. It didn't make sense! Urmila wasn't complaining all about her lost toys to him as she would have, Urmila didn't listen to his words. Heck, Urmila wasn't even talking to him! What on Earth was going on?

Did she not like him anymore? Was she not able to humor his horrible manners, stuttered words, despicable temper, or abominable presence? He swallowed at the thought, and a sorrow overtook him like a tsunami would to a small sea village. Did she simply not like him anymore? Was it even possible? He was a bad friend, perhaps, but so terrible that she refused to even look back at him, not meeting his eyes? What had he done?

Urmila wanted to throw that scheming princess to the ground and stomp on her body relentlessly until she was just a heaping mass of flesh. Gruesome, yes, but it seemed like exactly what her mind wanted. Besides, the day was not going so well. As they paraded all around the palace, Lakshman kept on occasionally glancing at her worriedly.

Not only was this a large insult to her acting skills, as she thought she had been doing great at masking her emotions, but if Lakshman could recognize them, then apparently not, but also, it was quite hard to not look right back at him at the piercing deep gaze that he possessed, and was currently diving into her forehead. For if she looked back, the words would come tumbling out of her mouth without hesitation, and her entire life would be ruined.

He would laugh at her stupid feelings, one of a mere child. He would ridicule her, sneer at her, never forgive her. Humiliation at its worst! He wouldn't feel the same way back, and her heart would be broken. Worst of all, he wouldn't speak to her ever again, if not with harsh intentions as humiliation, because he was embarrassed. Urmila couldn't imagine a life where he didn't look at her for fear of bursting into laughter. She wouldn't be able to stand such mockery, and that too from him, a person she held to such high regard!

"Look at the rivers in Vaideha! So clean, so cool! But nothing, honestly, Raja Janak, compared to the ones in Mahisthami! Our waters are so clear that they are blue, and we'd give you a hundred thousand golden coins if you could spot a speck of dust in them, for there aren't any!" Rani Roshni cried, and Bharat smiled.

"Your palace is quite tiny, isn't it? What happened, run out of materials?" wondered Raja Vanshik as they turned around to look at the tall, dome shaped structure in the sky. Shatrughan frowned after smiling fakely. In no way was that gigantic castle "tiny". Even if he had grown up in Ayodhya's gargantuan castle, most everything in Ayodhya was larger than normal size. You couldn't possibly compare anything there to anything else in the world. Just look at how his twin had turned out! So tall that he could reach up to the top of an elephant and drag a princess down! Now, if anyone else in the world could do that, he would be damned. Well, if anyone else would try to help that princess at all other than one of his brothers, he also would be quite shocked, but that wasn't the point!