The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

Aspire to be the Falooda

Song of the Chapter: Rang de Basanti from Rang de Basanti

Even as the sun (finally) entered the sky, and Lakshman had long since left the room, shoulders eased and burdens dropped, Ram sat there, immobile, feeling empty inside. His heartbeat was irregular, occasionally skipping beats, and his fingers fumbled as they curled around each other. His eyes were still trained on the ocean, watching as the waves crashed into each other almost playfully, and winced.

Flashback

"Lakshman." He began, turning around towards his brother, who looked around at the mess with a pale face. "Why did you leave her? Why? Why did you listen to that crazy woman's pleads? Why did you give her up to be eaten up by monsters and vengeful rakshasas? WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO RASH?! Why would you leave her here like bait for a monster? She's dead! She's dead! " He stood up, pointing a finger at Lakshman, before pointing all around him, driven by anger and sorrow.

"You did this? Why did you? Do you not trust me enough to know that I would not fail at retrieving a simple deer? I have killed fourteen thousand demons, and you didn't trust me enough to do this?" he tilted his head. "Do you underestimate me so much? That must be why you have come here! Because you thought that I couldn't do anything!" He looked around, moving sluggishly.

"She was a helpless, harmless, pious woman! You left her here, unprotected, left to the laws of a jungle, confined by a mere line! You, who was supposed to be so rational, who came her to help! Well, you did more harm than help, that's for sure! She was killed, Lakshman! SHE WAS KILLED!" He held his head. "Innocent blood was spilled, Lakshman. You should not have left her. Why did you leave her? She can't be. D-Dead, No."

Present

Ram hissed in pain, placing his head in his hands and rubbing his temples. For a person like his brother, the wounds from words like that would be fresh. "He loves me so much," Ram whispered. "He didn't even say anything. I thought that it was out of guilt then. That he felt terrible for leaving Sita and going against my wishes. But it wasn't." His shoulders shook slightly as he combed his hair back with his fingers, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat.

In that moment, a terrible burden developed inside Ram, something he had never felt before. A big mass of guilt clogged his heart. A mass that would never leave, that would remind him whenever he felt happy of how he had wronged his loved ones, how he had wronged the baby brother he had raised, who loved him more than the world itself. And in that moment, the first small tendril of anger Ram had felt extended towards Sita.

"It's my fault that I left that cottage and said such things to my brother, and I admit it," Ram murmured. "But Sita. Sita saying things like that to him. I thought that Lakshman doubted me , but it was Sita who thought that I was truly in trouble. Sita, who said that I was the best warrior on the planet." He cleared his throat, speaking to himself indistinguishably. "It was out of love," he told himself. "Love. That's all it was."

"But then-" he countered. "She told my Lakshman things like that. Why? Hadn't he done all the chores and left his own wife and cared for us and loved us and never complained? Hadn't he only made sure neither of us were ever hurt and helped hunt and gather food, and didn't he built the cottage under which we slept? Did she forget all of that in a second?"

Ram barely slept a minute that morning.

-----O-----

Ravan, King of Lanka, (if you haven't figured it out) thought that he had killed Lakshman for good. He was not that unfounded in his thought process either, because, for what he could see, the monkeys seemed to be huddling in a big mass on their side of the battlefield. Some weird monkey mourning customs, he decided. "Monkeys!" Ravan guffawed. "Such uncivilized creatures!" At this, he tore of a piece of unidentified animal meat, shoving it into his mouth as he played dart practice with a rakshas (not with him, technically on him).