Rama's Exile
The year was 1600 and the kingdom was mighty. King
Dasharatha and Queen Kaushalya ruled over the land with care for their people
and love in their hearts. They raised their son, Prince Rama, with the finest
morals in hopes that one day, he would be the most righteous ruler ever seen.
One day, young Prince Rama was playing his favorite game of
bows and arrows out in the garden. He loved to challenge himself with different
feats. One day, he might see if he could shoot ten arrows in the same ring on
the target. Another day, he might try to hit the dead center. On this specific
day, Prince Rama was attempting to hit moving targets. It was an incredibly
windy day, and the flowers and leaves were being brutally whipped around. As
Rama was aiming for a dainty, pink lily, he lost his balance and accidentally
let the arrow fly. As the arrow plummeted for the ground, a garden maid by the
name of Manthara was gradually making her way to a patch of yellow snapdragons.
Manthara bent over to pluck a weed amongst the flowers and the arrow struck her
in the back. Poor Manthara! Rama bolted over to her, apologizing profusely
along the way. Luckily, Manthara was at just the right angle so that the tip of
the arrow glanced off of her and did not pierce her, but it had struck so hard
that she began to form quite a large bump. Unfortunately for Manthara, no matter what she tried, the swelling never went away and so her hump remained permanent.
Rama felt terrible for years to come and despite his
apologies, Manthara never seemed to forgive him.
The day had finally come. It was Rama’s eighteenth birthday
and more importantly, the day that Rama was to be crowned King. Unknown to all,
this day was also the day for Manthara’s revenge. Almost since the day of the
accident, Manthara had regularly visited an old hag in the forest to pay the dues
for a wicked curse the witch agreed to place onto Rama on his eighteenth
birthday.
The ceremony began. Rama kneeled before his father and Dasharatha
attempted to place the crown onto Rama’s head. The crown flew across the room
and Rama fell backwards like two magnets opposing each other. An evil voice
sounded, “Rama, on this day you shall be exiled into the forest for 14 years.”
Manthara silently smirked.
 |
| Prince Rama with his bow and arrows. Source: Wikipedia |
Author’s Note
In
Buck’s Ramayana, Rama is exiled to the forest for 14 years because Kaikeyi uses
her two promises (given to her by her husband, King Dasharatha) to exile Rama and
to make her own son, Bharata, king. Kaikeyi is convinced by Manthara, her servant,
to use her promises. Originally, Kaikeyi is happy (just as everyone else is..except
Manthara) that Rama will be king. Buck has a simple line during this portion of
the book where Kaikeyi asks Manthara if she is still mad at Rama for shooting
her hunchback with a play arrow when he was younger.
I
wanted to have a renaissance setting to this story. I have previously written
from a modern day view, so I thought I would try to throw it back. I focused in
on the background story of why Manthara might dislike Rama, which wasn’t something
Buck did, so most of the story is different.
I
was actually attempting to write about Rama in the forest with Guha, but as I
was setting up the story it sort of turned into the story of how Rama was
exiled.
I
keep running into challenges when attempting to find an image. I really wanted
one of Manthara, but I was unable to find one of her that was labeled for reuse
on google images. Luckily, I did find one of Rama holding his bow and arrow,
which I thought was pretty relevant to my story.
Bibliography
Buck, William
(1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.
Emily, I really enjoyed your story and caught on to the Renaissance them fairly quick as it is one of the eras I have studied most and you did a very good job of portraying that time period. I also found it very easy to write about Rama's exile myself as I have thoroughly enjoyed his character development and the role he plays to the people. His exile is obviously a very interesting topic for the story but it practically creates the story. It would be interesting to see someone tell the story from the perspective that he never got exiled I think.
ReplyDeleteEmily, I loved this story. It flowed well and really shed some light on the story of Rama’s exile. It really was not only strange, but such a tragedy that he was not crowned as king, and I as a reader always wondered why, despite the story Buck and Narayan gave us. It is a story of karma, in a lot of ways and I like that you incorporated that aspect. This story is a really nice perspective of the whole situation.
ReplyDelete