Neringa Ramayana: the final chapter

Writing after a looong time!

Need to finish this ramayana story once and for all. Have dragged it along for far too long. No more chapters after this, this is  the last installment.

Before that, here is something I stupidly neglected to do for previous chapters, a link to all the previous posts:

part 1  part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5     part 6

Analysts in the audience feel free to dissect my writing style as it has changed over the course of these 7 posts...

So, as usual, lets start with a recap:

We had Ram, dutiful son of Dasharath. Banished with wife Sita and brother Lakshman. lives happily in the forest. Wife kidnapped by wily intelligent villain. Much gnashing of teeth. Alliance made with the monkey kingdom under dubious circumstances. The story is coming to fruition as Hanuman locates Sita, burns half the city down. 

Last time we left Sugrive and his army ready to march down to Lanka, to confront Ravana and return Sita to her lawfully wedded husband. This bit is basically the climax fight sequence. 

So Ram and his posse reaches the shores of the sea. Not everyone was Hanuman and could jump the sea to reach the island kingdom on the other side. A seemingly irrational Ram gets angry with the sea for obstructing his path and nocks and arrow and threatens to shoot the sea. Somebody call the psychoanalyst, this guy is losing his marbles... Wait, he is god though. So yes, indeed the sea god is afraid and begs his forgiveness. He says to Ram, in your army there are two twins, who have impeccable architectural pedigree. They know the solution to your problem. [He did something to this drawn arrow which was cool. he had to shoot it somewhere. I forget the details. If anyone remembers, please comment]

Ram seeks these youths out, and they do indeed know a solution to the issue. They ask the other soldiers to brings big rocks to them and write "Sri Ram" on the rocks. That was simple! These inscribed rocks, very conveniently are exempt from physical laws of the sea and they float on the ocean. Read what you will on this episode. To me, making a bridge out of floating rocks seems to be a larger problem than to build an actual one, but as I said, the architectural provenance of these youngsters is undeniable. Sons of the greatest architect of all time or something like that. So you have the bridge, troops can now move in.

Sidenote: When I was a kid, we lived near the beachfront studios where the smash hit TV rendition of Ramayana was shot. There were two shows, Ramayana and Mahabharat, chronicling the two epics, that were so epic hits that the guy who played Krishna [The god incarnate hero in Mahabharat] later ran in parliamentary elections and won comfortably! Anyway, Si we visited these studios, and I remember picking up some rocks from the beach, scribbling Sri Ram on them in Roman and Devnagari scripts and hurling them into the sea. Didn't work. Obviously I do not have the right pedigree. If only my dad had decided to become an architect... If only. 

During this time, there was another incident of note. Ravana was himself prepping for battle. Battle Royale. So he tried to enlist the support of his mighty brothers and skillful sons.

Brother #1 was Vibhishana. He told it to Ravana straight. Dude on the other side is too strong. You are in the wrong. Give up. He went so far to defect to the Ram camp and offer his services to Ram, to be on the side of the Moral Right. 

Brother #2 was Kumbhakaran. If you remember how Ravana got his 10 heads, he basically prayed to the gods, proved his devotion and got a boon. So his brothers had also done that. Kumbhakaran's superpower was the ability to sleep for long periods. My kinda guy. A huge army of servants armed with trumpeting elephants, huge drums, pungent foods was deployed to attempt to wake the sleeping giant. he didn't wake up right away, rather during the middle of the battle. i will fast forward there for a bit to highlight the point I am trying to make here in the midst of all these tangential observations. When he woke up, he immediately assessed the situation and came to the same conclusion as Vibhishana. His stance however was to follow his brother and do his duty. 

Since the whole point of Ramayana is to teach us Dharma and Duty and Morality etc etc, please note a couple of points here. First, only the people who were almost equals of Ravana in his stature were able to tell him that a spade was not a club. Also, both guys did what seems to be right thing, but in diametrically opposite ways. Who was right-er? You decide.

Back to the war! 

This part is mostly the fighting. 

One skilled warrior from one side meets a similar guy from the other side and each fight has its moments.

Ravana's son uses the power of goddess Maya [Illusion] to create magics and trickery, but is eventually defeated by common sense. Another son preforms special rites before battle that renders him invincible. He is defeated when our heroes manage to disrupt his rites one day. Our heroes once get bitten by poisonous snakes, for which the remedy is one tree in the north of the country. Hanuman immediately flies across the length of the sub-continent and locates the hill. Presumably he didn't pay attention to botany in school, and cannot find the right tree. So he uproots the hill [yes, the whole hill; did I mention he was strong?], brings it to the battlefield and poison can be treated yay. etc etc etc and many fights and blood and carnage. 

Skipping the action movie stuff, When our heroes win finally [no suspense about who won, right?] and Ram and Sita are united. Happy ending? no sir!

He has to ask her to prove her purity in front of his army. She has been in another man's house after all. The pathos of this scene is striking. My favorite part. 

Sita wants to just go home and end this harrowing episode, but here is her loving husband asking her to prove she didn't cheat on him. Here is an excellent movie told by a westerner for Sita's point of view culminating on this issue.

Ram presumably has multiple emotions in his mind too. He did his duty, his Dharma, wife is rescued. However, Dharma dictates [since he is a public figure] that his and his family's image be squeaky clean [never mind the 14 year exile, his dad having 3 wives etc etc... sign of the times] 

Her test is administered by the fire god and as she steps into a pyre, she is unscathed. Purity is proven, happiness and joy all around

Incidentally, 14 years have ended. Ayodhya welcomes their beloved son with open arms and lots of celebrations. The festival of Dusshera in October celebrates the killing of Ravan [symbolic of evil] by burning huge effigies of Ravana and his brothers with firecrackers and stuff. Jolly good show. Also, in many villages, theater troupes perform Ramayan on this evening. Exactly 20 days later, is the grand festival of Diwali. This is when Ram returned to Ayodhya, and all the citizens celebrated by decorating the city with lamps and lights and ornaments and what not. Generally a time to rejoice. So this is what we do even today. Biggest festival of the year. Woohoo.

The story has one little twist at the end though.

Married life and life as a king suits Ram well. Technically he was still king for these 14 years. If you remember, the son of the lady who exiled Ram was supposed to be king. Bharat his name was. however, Bharat is such a dutiful brother, he runs after Ram, begs him to not go. Ram cannot disobey his father. So Bharat borrows Ram's sandals, installs the footwear on the throne, and rules as a steward in his stead. Again, lessons learnt on how to follow Dharma etc etc. So when Ram came back, he was delighted to get his old sandals back, and he was able to sit comfortably in his throne, without any other person smushing the cushions, making it the most comfy chair around. 

One evening Ram and Sita are canoodling in the royal palace, when they overhear a washer-man beat his [unproven] adulterous wife. She asks for mercy, he says I am not Ram, to forgive my wife when she consorts with other men.

Dharma kicks in again! how can a king rule if his subjects have lost respect for him?? Banishing Sita is the only solution. According to Ram. You may think otherwise. Write a 1000 page essay debating the morality of Ram's actions in this situation. Do not show it to me. It is for you. Treasure it. You are welcome.

Twist is that Sita is preggers! Totally! and twins too! whoa! bet you didn't see that coming! She is still completely in love with Ram. She doesn't understand his actions, causing some anger, but the underlying love isnt lost. She raises her sons with the help of a learned sage who has given her refuge and they teach the twins Luv and Kush the glories of Ram, the original UberMensch. 

Story has come full circle, because as Valmiki [the author of the epic. You didnt it was me, did you? I didnt make all of this up. Valmiki did] writes the whole story as sung by Luv and Kush in the court of Ram. Thats right. Sita sends her sons armed with tales of Ram to sing his glory throughout the kingdom, and they end up doing that in Ram's court, in front of Ram himself. He is a shrewd fella, and he asks the right questions and deduces that these are his sons. Tears in the eyes of everyone in court, I swear.

Struggling with his extant love of wife versus love of Dharma, Ram rushes with his kids to find Sita. He finds her. She refuses to go with him, and for all that she has suffered, she asks mother earth to accept her as sacrifice. Mother comes along, gobbles up the saintly wife of Ram, and says thank you very much!

Many points to ponder here. What are the motivations of Ram, Sita and the kids and indeed, all the other people in the story. Is Dharma really so important? Can you live a happy life if you follow your principles strictly? Is there a duality involved somewhere? Does this apply only to public figures? Who was right, who was wrong? What angle were Luv/Kush playing at? Did I tell you the story has ended, finally?

Neringa Ramayana Six!

Chapter 6: Pyrotechnics :)

Ok, 

Quick recap:  old king, no kids, gets kids, eldest is Ram, awesome dude, one queen plots, kicks ram out to place her son at the throne, ram with brother laxman and wifey sita out in the jungle for 14 years, sita is kidnapped, ram is distraught, allies with sugrive to find her. Hanuman, strongman from sugrive's army, flies to lanka, finds sita. assures her safety and gets caught delibrately to recon the city of the enemy. 

So, here we are. in the court of our villian, ravana. A monkeyman, all tied up, is brought into the court. to everyone's amazement, as soon as he is bought in, hanuman frees himself, makes a seat for himself out of a coiled tail, and sits. Sits as if her was sitting on a throne. 

Ravana is furious. Hanuman directly addresses him, tells him he is a diplomatic messenger from ram, and that ravana should immediately release sita. Furious, ravana orders the monkey to be killed. executed. His younger brother vibheeshana along with a few senior ministers immediately rush to him and try to talk him out of it. it is not courteous to kill a diplomatic messenger. against protocol. Ravana heeds their pleas. he has an idea. "Get oil, old rags. Bind his tail and burn it! I wont kill you, but i sure will make you suffer for your insolence."

Sita came to hear this, somehow. She immediately lit a pyre and started praying to the fire god. Meanwhile, the wind god [hanuman's father, also appealed to the fire god, not to hurt hanuman] Moved, the fire god made sure that thoughhanuman's tail burned bright and true, he felt no pain due to it :) [how nice!]

they lit his tail and left him on the sea shore. Seeing that it wasnt hurting, hanuman grew in size [remember he has the power fo changing his size, from miniscule to very huge.] This big hanuman leapt back into the city, over rooftops. spiderman style, he jumped from building to building. Quick as lightning and big as kingkong, no one could do anything. before you knew it, all of lanka was ablaze, on fire. He saw that all was burning, made sure sita was safe, took her leave and dunked into the sea. His fire extinguished, he leapt back and flew to India, back to angad and jambuvant who were waiting for him there.

They bought back this joyous news to ram. Ram literally cried tears of gratitude when he heard this awesome news. now he knew where she was. all they had to go was to go and win her back. 

Sugrive called all his generals, assembled his army and all of them marched down to the sea, to confront the big rakshas, to see if they could get sita back.

to be continued next time :)

Neringa Ramayan 5

Chapter 5: Hanuman

Ramayana: Chapter 5 : Hanuman

Quick recap:  old king, no kids, gets kids, eldest is Ram, awesome dude, one queen plots, kicks ram out to place her son at the throne, ram with brother laxman and wifey sita out in the jungle for 14 years, sita is kidnapped, ram is distraught, allies with sugrive to find her.

Now, hanuman. 

So, now that sugrive is back to his senses, he call out to all monkey people [vanars] to come and assemble, and help ram.

Ram distributes them in 4 groups, to go in 4 directions. To each group, he gives a few of his ornaments  [ rings, amulets etc] so that if they meet sita, they could convince her to come with them. 

we will limit ourselves to one of these groups, the group that went south. This consisted of Vali's son Angad, A wise old bear-man Jambuwant and Hanuman. Now this Hanuman is a general in the army, a very strong person and all. They get ram's ring, which Jambuwant keeps safely. 

So, they set out in search of sita, southwards and encounter the sea. Go here to look at the actual map, http://davidderrick.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/adams-bridge.jpg [Ceylon = sri lanka = lanka = ravana's kingdom]

At the sea front, they fall to the ground disappointed, as there is endless sea before them and no sight of sita. Just at this moment, a huge, ugly wingless vulture comes up to them, licking his chops, proceeds to try and eat them. Jambuvant says, "what creatures these vultures! one this ugly creature, about to eat us all, and one the brave and valint Jatayu, who gave his life trying to save sita." 

At these words the vulture stops, and says "jatayu? you know of him? tell me more..." 

Jambuvant proceeds to tell him the story of how noble jatayu laid down his life fighting ravana. The vulture bursts into tears... "that jatayu is my brother! I am Sampati, lord of Vultures... when we were young, we would fly higher and ever higher. once, jatayu flew so high, the sun began to burn his wings. i spread my wings over him to protect him, and got burnt in the process. Hence the winglessness. i thank you for giving me news of my brother. This sita you talk of, i know where she is held captive. King Ravana has held her captive in his kingdom across the sea."

they duly thank him and he goes off, full of grief for his brother. Now angad is worried. He asks jambuvant, if ravana is on the other side of this sea, how can we get there?

Jambuvant says, this is the time to tell hanuman his true story. he says to hanuman "You are Hanuman, son of the cursed angel Anjani, incarnate of lord shiva and son of wind god, Pawan. You have supreme strength and divine prowess. When you were small, you didnt know the extent of your own power. you once flew up to the sun and swallowed it whole. The gods wished to punish you, but wind god got angry. he wouldnt blow and the earth suffered due to this standoff between the gods. So they reached a truce, whence you would go unpunished, but you would have no knowledge of your true power. It was ordained onto me to tell you this and return to you the knowledge of your power at the appropriate time."

He tells him this and hanuman Becomes awesome. better than superman of batman, this is HanuMan :) lol .

So, hanuman learns that he can change size at will, become really huge or really tiny. He also possesses super strenght and eternal life [he is one of 8 people in indian mythology who (suffer) have this eternal life ] . 

So, he at once become huge and takes a huge leap, landing at sri lankan shores. 

But, before he reaches lanka, he has to pass a test. there is a serpent demon, Surase, in the sea. She says "you are food for me, you cant go any further without going into my mouth."

 Hanuman, intelligent that he is, becomes as small as a thimble and goes into her mouth. then comes back out and says, now that i have gone into your mouth, let me pass. She is pleased with his wit and lets him pass.

Reaching lanka, he becomes really tiny, and goes past the gaurds and starts looking for sita in this magical and rich city of lanka. Known as सोने कि लंका [sone ki lanka] or the lanka of gold. All houses have loads of gold on them, everyone is quite rich. 

finally, he reaches a garden , known as ashok vatika, where he sees a lady, who looks like it is sita. he is about to investigate, when suddenly ravan comes up to this place with his entourage bearing something on a plate. he crouches down on some branches and bides his time, looks on. 

Now, ravan has been trying to seduce sita, and induce her to submit to him so that she could be his. This time, he resorts to Rakshas magic. he recreates a severed head of a ram, and shows it to her. He tells her that he has killed her husband and she should submit to him. Brave sita, though quaking with fear inside, puts up a brave face and says nothing. Ravan decides to give her some time and goes away. As soon as he goes away, she breaks down and starts to cry. 

Now sita is a sweet person. Even the rakshashi [female rakshas] gaurds she has like her. One of them cant bear her crying, and goes and tells her of ravan's treachery. Sita is relieved, and goes to sleep.

Hanuman waits till nightfall, for the gaurds to sleep, and appears in front of sita, with ram's ring. She is skeptical at first, as she thinks maybe this is another one of ravana's tricks. but, he convinces her and gets ready to whisk her away to safety. 

She forbids him to do this, as she feels ram should be the one to rescue him. Not from a misplaced sense of propriety, but she feels it is appropriate that way. By kidnapping the prince's wife, ravana has challenged not just Ram, but the royal family. So, Ram should defend his honor and duly rescue her himself. only then would the stain on the family be wiped of or something.

point to be noted. how, even in times of extreme duress, everyone thinks of dharma first and then of their own life. This is how highly valued principles are. Were. Should be.

So, back to the story. So hanuman decides to do a little recon and frighten off the lankans. He deliberately gets caught and lets the soldiers take him to ravana's court. here i will end this chapter and we will continue with his adventures later.

Florida!

I took down the pics because it seems it ain't safe to put up pictures on an open source blog. If you want to see them, or want to hear my story of the blog, send me an email, and I will send you the email version of the post. 

Read the rest of my blog till then! :)

I'll put up some of the non-sensitive pics...

Or just have a laugh off the internet...

From: http://s3.hubimg.com/u/346986_f520.jpg

Growing pains

I used to think that growing up means a slow realisation that your actions have consequences. As a child, I never saw time beyond the next academic year, never knew what to expect, never cared. Being embarrassed in front of the girls in the class was the epitome of shame, the end of the world. However, it was also soon forgotten. As I grew up, became more independent, my actions had larger consequences. In college, you wouldn't think as much before grabbing the keys to the bike and going out. Now, I make sure I call a few people up to say where I am going. 

After spending some time thinking about it though, I have found an even bigger difference, which defines being older. It lies on a continuum of a changing perspective where you start off from a self centred childhood, where I genuinely think all the world is for me, grow up to be a cocky teenager, where the world is my oyster and I am at the forefront of this human endeavour for progress to a sudden and crashing realisation that this oyster is crowded with 7 billion other individuals -all in different stages of their life, granted- and that you have to join the long queue. 

The feeling that you can draw inspiration from individuals past and present and that by the dint of hard work and ingenuity you can jump this queue persists for quite a long time though. It takes a long time for us to realise what Leo Tolstoy wanted to tell us through war and peace all along, when you zoom out enough, to look upon the society as a whole, we are mere mites, swept along the current of history. That these individuals are few and far between, percentage wise. That they had some or the other remarkable thing, that certainly I do not possess. It is not the curse of mediocrity, it is just that you can be superb, but just be a drop in the ocean. It is not a despair of oh I will never be that way, it is just a realistic judgement of the self. 

As this is such a reverse face, such a paradigm shift in world view, it lead to a deep depression which still hasn't left me. It leaves its stamp on whatever I do. I am scared to plan ahead, afraid of the vagaries of time. This fact is borne out even more so in science, where we see every day, the amount of effort, as one professor pointed out to me, put in by hordes of scientists, for one single paragraph in a textbook. 

As the world grows ever larger and ever smaller, as I grapple with such paradoxes and an unprecedented change in the landscape of society within my lifetime, this notion of 'living in the moment' suddenly appears magically attractive. I know that everything I do now must have some basis, must be a part of some plan, must lead to some goal in my head. However, the mind bogglingly vast scale of things I had only recently thought to be within my oyster, so to say, makes it difficult to reconcile a few goals. They were never concrete, but they were really attractive, the goals of a teenage me. 

Sometimes I think, I think too much. Most times I think, I think not enough. Somehow, some middle path must be found, a way of redefining life as I see it now, living in the moment, yet working towards a realistic goal. Some way must be found to grow up and yet enjoy the fruits of youth. 

Fair Play

Long time! I have never used this space to talk about society and economics, a subject that is close to my heart. Have spent many a long night discussing or thinking about the symptoms and remedies of this complex and intricate net of 7 billion disparate souls connected, it seems, by six degrees each. I was prompted to think about one particular situation by a discussion I had earlier, and nothing helps spur the thought process better than writing it down. So here goes. 

The situation as it stands today, is that many first world capitalist countries have governmental policies that encourage their industries to outsource labour intensive jobs to populous third world countries. Almost everyone is publicly against this mode of operation. The people of developed nations have long decried losing lucrative jobs to cheap labour, whilst enjoying the fruits of cheap consumer goods. The social activists of third world countries, the only people who can be bothered to spend time on this and raise their voice are against this as 'cheap' labour usually translates into inhuman sweatshops harking back to the industrial age. It is especially horrible when you see underage kids yoked into driving this cart of 20th century progress. Is it really progress if the majority of the world population works its heart out for less than minimum wage? What can we do about it, if anything. Is it time for us to abandon the free market system? Abandon that turn of the century buzzword, Globalisation?

One reason for this dichotomy in standard of living is the dichotomy in governmental policy. Developed countries demand a certain standard of care and benefits for employees. Developing countries have no such qualms and will take any work they can get. In a way, this is history repeating itself. I mentioned the industrial age before. It set the stage for us to learn the ill effects of pure capitalism. What is happening today is something similar, only over a larger scale, worldwide.

So what is the root cause of this situation? Why are we repeating our mistakes? I believe that we dont really learn from others mistakes. We make them again, possibly on a different scale, and progress quite slowly. Human memory is not much longer than a generation. This is why trends cycle in 3-5 decades, as newer generations re-invent the wheel, again and again. What helps with having made the mistake before is that you tend to know what to do in times of crises. The first time this happened, it gave birth to hugely successful worker unions. They became, over time, too successful, strangling growth and losing direction themselves. The power see sawed, leading to an unsteady balance prevalent today in industrialized nations. What history taught us, lead to a shorter refractory period in the newly formed nations post world war. They did the same mistakes, tried to avoid them, overcompensated, went back the other way etc etc. We are at a stage when people are sacrificing much to the altar of industrial development. Some say way too much. 

In my opinion, public policy should not directly tell anyone to do something. Like tell companies that that give your employees this this and this, mandatory. Or that you cannot outsource or something. 

One thing you can do is tax unseemly practices. If labour is too cheap, tax it and make it not so cheap and unfeasible. But this doesn't always work when companies are global conglomerates. All people are equally ingenious and it becomes a lawyers arms race of regulation and loophole exploitation. 

In my opinion, the best way to tackle this is to tackle the social aspects of this problem. Why is there cheap labour in Asia? There is a huge untapped resource, population. Supply and demand skews the wages to a ridiculously low amount. Apart from governmental regulation to fix wages to a decent amount, what we can do is educate and empower everyone. Yes, thats my one thing fixes all answer. Education. 

Whenever I pull out education, people give me facts to the contrary. Look at all these educated people who are still stupid. Education can teach you but it is up to you to learn and so on and so on. Yes, I agree that a man who can read write and do math is not necessarily more intelligent then someone who cannot. I agree that a woman with a degree can be colossally stupid. Education is no guarantee to rationality. However, I doubt that anyone would agree that being learned enhances your chances of thinking for yourself and knowing your options. First world nations face similar problems with their poor people, who spiral in a cycle of debt and drug addiction. They do not know that there are people and organisations out there to help them out of this. They do not know anything outside of their circle of violence and addiction. Ditto for uneducated people. They do not know that there are options to that money-lender. They do not know that they can go to a higher authority, tall them about the sweatshops and with some effort, shut it down. Yes, it is possible. 

People who are stupid are stupid, and people with wit will always have that. Education merely opens the door to possibilities that are there for you to exploit. This is one thing governments can do. It is exceedingly sad to see developing nations in Asia and elsewhere not spending enough on education. It seems obvious to me that if your most valuable natural resource is Human, with such a large untapped demographic advantage, that should be the focus of whatever you do.
I recently heard that the job of a high school teacher is the most highly sought after job in China. One of the reasons is that it is very highly paid. Everywhere else primary and secondary teachers are underpaid. When I went to an interview for a teaching position at KV, in Pune, I got the shock of my life. This was one of the premier school systems in India. There were about 30 odd positions to be filled. More than 500 people had come for the interview on the final day. As far as I could see, I was the only, the ONLY person with a masters degree. If we cannot attract more qualified people to schools, to teach, what are we teaching? I had taught in KV for 2 months before the interview. I was so ridiculously overqualified for the job of teaching Science to 13-17 year old students that I was selected for all the positions I had applied to. On the basis of a 2 minute interview. I am not bragging here. Just want to illustrate the dearth of good qualified teachers. Surely, I thought, there are tons of experienced teachers out there. Not apparent from what I saw.
Why dont we have courses that teach how to teach? We have all seen how people who know a lot arent necessarily good teachers, and sometimes those who may not everything may be the best teachers. Why dont we have a system to nurture this talent? Surely a teacher's job is equally [if not more] important that a doctor engineer or scientist! Why not incentivise it?

Look at the situation in India. School fees are spiraling. I wont even go to the current fads and trends in school teaching today. It is so horrendously difficult to get a kid admitted to a decent school. How do you suppose an average child from a poor country like ours is supposed to get educated? If s/he is not, surely you are condemning him/her to a life time of low wage unskilled labour. There lies the crux. Increase the amount of skilled personnel and you will get a better life style, a better economy. No one opposes the software sweatshops where people work 18 hour days and develop software solutions for companies in the US. No one except the Americans. This is because this is skilled labour, that you are paid a lot to do. 

This may seem too simplistic, but a rock solid education system will start a cycle that will slowly but surely tackle all the problems we have. More educated people, more progressive the economy and manufacturing base. More the manufacturing and infrastructure base, more job creation. More job creation, better the economy, better the standard of living. Better the economy, more resources diverted to education.

We need to somehow make education and science and know-how cool again. Too many folk tales warn against the narrow minded hubris of the learned man versus the simple wit of a salt-of-the-earth fellow. It is true, a valuable lesson, however not the full story. Education may not give you wisdom, however it surely gives you the tools to do so. Makes it a lot easier. Makes it more likely that you better yourself in life. 

I know this is a very slow process. People need to be aware of it, it needs to percolate through, public policy needs to change. Even after this, it will take a whole generation or two for the good cycle to emerge. However, once this wheel starts rolling, there is no stopping it. 

All inequality stems from the inequality of means. If everyone is guaranteed an empowered chidlhood, we can eliminate one of the inequalities and go forward. 

  

Change, no change...

So. It has been a long time since I have been here. Let me dust off the the place a little, and lets do this. A lot of things have happened in the last few weeks, so there is tons to say, tons to talk about. 

To begin with, I have changed countries. I know reside in the United States of America, working as a PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The transition has been easier for me than most other people I know because of the incredible luck of getting admission in a place where I already have a couple of good friends and a city which also happens to be the current address of my brother and sister-in-law. Let me tell you the best part first, SHE IS AN AMAZING COOK! So I can just go home any time I want and have all the home food I want. Most of transition to the school was smoothen-ed by the presence of Sa and Sw. So, all in all, the transition has been nice.
The campus here is very nice. It is smack in the middle of downtown Atlanta. I am lucky enough to have an office with a window, overlooking the skyline. Yes, I have an office :). I do share it with a couple of people, but that is okay. Our department is a small one, looking to aggressively expand in the next few years, so that is a good thing. I am currently rotating with a fun lab, a fun PI and life is good. 

That's the view from my office window

Its been a month of living in Atlanta. I have a student pass to the Woodruff arts center, the self proclaimed vangaurd of performing arts in the city. There are other places in the city, that have more offbeat things happening and I hope to discover them too, in my time here. I saw a play at the Woodruff yesterday, and I liked it, liked the experience. 

In terms of food, they say Atlanta is a great hub of good food places. The problem is, that it is also a great hub of costly places. So it will be a while before I can discover the gastronomic landscape of the city. Meanwhile, I subsist on dining hall food on campus. Also, I am trying to set up my kitchen, to do a bit of cooking now and then. 

Atlanta is a spread out city, not really made for walking. the sidewalks are in disrepair, and walking is said to be unsafe at night. Indeed, the few times I have ventured out at night, the place is deserted and dark, and anyone with ulterior motives could easily get away with crime on those streets. I am waiting to get a few formalities out of the way, and getting a driving licence as soon as I can. That way, it is easier and safer to roam the city. That also ties in with my plans to explore the country in the five or so years I have at my disposal. 

All in all, life is good. Future life looks good. Work is splendid, home is splendid. There are a few issues, like cost of living, homesickness etc., but they will sort out in time. 

 Also, did I mention I live a block away from the studios of Cartoon Network? 

An exercise in Tragedy

Let me tell you a story. There is this man I know, lets call him S. All his life, S has carried an unusual burden of misfortune on his back. Recently, something more was added to this heavy load, which has triggered this blog post. Let me start at the start, though.


S is the youngest of four siblings, an eldest brother, and two sisters. His dad was a big leader, a do-gooder in their village. Being a bit more privileged than their peers, all four enjoyed a happy childhood. Big brother is a large, caring man. Big sister is the rock of the family, the practical person. Little sister is the emotional one, the one who takes care of everyone. S is a combination of all three. He is by far the most naturally intelligent person I have met in my life. He is practical, caring and all that, but the most striking thing about him is his ready wit and intelligence. He was literally the apple of his parent's eyes. "S will become the most famous doctor in this land" his dad would often say, with good reason. 


When he was young, S was a carefree youth. he had a big future in front of him, everything to look forward to. At this juncture, he did something inexplicable. He skipped his 12th exams. Just didn't go. You ask why, but I do not know the answer to that question. He just did. His dad got him a job in the local sugar factory he had started. He was married off to a cousin. His dad soon died in a haze of alcoholism, leaving behind a shambles of an estate. The vultures soon moved in. 


The sisters married off to men outside the village, into big cities, soon lost touch with the family. The men were hot-headed, up and coming engineers who shunned their 'callow' in-laws as they moved up in the world. They had forgotten the all important push S's dad had given them when they started. It was left to S and elder brother to take care of the mounting debts and old family home. Hoping to avoid conflict and acrimony, S left for a nearby city and elder brother took care of the family farms. 


In the city, S supported his wife and small kid by starting a small business of his own. Very precarious, but he managed to get a toe hold in by dint of hard work, ingenuity and his innate ability to talk his way into any situation and setting. This is the first time we meet his daughter. Looking at the precocious girl, you could shades of S in her. Very self aware, she had realised at a young age that her dad would have to slog all his life to keep his family and her just above the water and surviving. She vowed to lend a hand as soon as she could. She, with her single minded devotion, applied herself to her studies, building a dream to someday be an IAS officer. In time, S gave her a baby sister too. Big daughter looked at her and was spurred on. Things were looking good. 


One fine day, the business he had set-up went bust, and S's partners ran away with a load of cash. He was broke, jobless with nowhere to go. During this time, S and elder quarrelled over the family estate and the farms were divided into two. So S did have something to do, go home and start farming. Mrs S didn't want to go and live with her in-laws. She persuaded him to go and live at her folks place, them being old and alone and all. This is at a nearby village, so he could easily tend to the farms and such. Since education is such a costly business, he scrimped and saved every tiny penny and shored it up for the future. You'd be amazed at his resourcefulness and a rare capability of extracting the maximum use out of any object.


Farming in this area is hard. There is a severe shortage of water. S has a well near his farm, but its source has dried up. So his well is essentially a tank. What he and a couple of neighbours  do, is borrow water from the well in the vicinity that has water. Now since everyone wants more water, you have to be constantly aware of the levels of water, best times for use etc and make sure no one is cheating and that you get the best deal. 


In any case, he started to re-build his life, at his in-law's place. Farming is a tough business, but he stuck to it. Daughters went to good schools in the area, progressing steadily. Mrs S found a job at a local school. Stability looked just around the corner. I use the word stability very loosely here. What kind of stability is this? The whole village laughs at the two brothers, for squandering the family fortune. They forget that most of it was spent in the betterment of the village and the villagers themselves. Their sisters try to find time and come and spend some time with them, as and when their husbands allow and help in their way. S lives with his in-laws, with taunts and jabs at every corner, not sparing even his small daughters. Everyday is full of hard work in the farms and come home to this. Each paisa he earns, he saves. Nothing for himself. His life is a patchwork of hand-me-downs and second hand things. S, though, is content. He knows, all this hard is going to pay off, when he see his daughters grow up to be strong, confident and independent human beings soon. 


As we enter the present, we see that elder daughter has passed 12th with flying colours. Trained at mofussil schools and a junior college at the local taluka place, it is a miracle that she secures a seat in a big engineering college. S is loath to send her away to big city centres like Pune or Mumbai, considering the cost of living. He decides to send her to a very good college in a middle sized town, keeping everyone happy. Without making a fuss, he somehow manages the gargantuan task of getting together enough funds to get her secured in this place. Here too, his in-laws mutter behind his back, saying why make such a big investment, who is paying etc. He ignores all, happy in the fact that his efforts have borne fruit. 


Her studies are going swimmingly well. He manages to talk her every day, go and meet her as often as possible. He has started a parents group of people who have sent their kids to that college and live nearby. She is also happy at her college. She works hard on her weak points and manages to get through the first year. 


This week are her year end examinations. On the eve of her 2nd paper, her room-mates call up S, reporting her missing. A frantic night is spent canvassing relatives and locals to see if any trace can be found. They wait till the exam time, to see if she turns up and immediately inform the authorities. 


It is 5 pm. We come into the police station where he is waiting for any news. There is no place to sit, he is standing in the courtyard. He cuts a forlorn figure, waiting for any news of his little girl. No sleep, no food. His sister has come to see if she could help. There are about 4-6 people around him, sounding out suggestions and strategies. After the discussions, everyone turns to him. What do we do now? My heart breaks into tiny pieces as he says "I cannot think of anything right now, please do whatever you think is best. ". A "Help me" goes unsaid. 


Around 6 15, about 24 hours since he last talked to his daughter, news filters in through the police station, that a body has been found in a local well. No one tells S. He immediately figures something is up. By the time they reach the site, he knows something is wrong and makes up his mind. You wouldn't believe me, but he doesn't shed a single tear. He has made his mind up. As we move towards the hospital to retrieve his daughter, he is the one who handles everything. His sister, a few friends and relatives who have come with him are all lost for words. Crying. He calmly identifies her. He is told there will be a few procedural delays. He relays the information home, where they prepare for the funeral and the word spreads. 


Here was a daughter who was the most rooted girl you will ever meet. She had a meticulous diary, written from the first day of college to the birthday in February. She outlines her hopes and dreams and daily expenses in simple and straight-forward details. No one among her friends suspect an affair gone wrong. The pressure of success was there, as is omnipresent in all engg. kids, but it wasn't blown out of proportion. She would talk about everything to S, or at least to her cousin sister, who was especially close. There are close to a thousand people at the funeral. Each and everyone is saying the same thing. There has to be foul play, this cannot be something she would do. The post-mortem and police action remove all traces of doubt or foul play. It was truly one of those random events. 


A note here, on the funeral. As soon as word spreads, that S is arriving by afternoon with his daughter, people start coming to the house. Not his in-law's place, this is the family place. As soon as you enter, you see S's brother sitting on the floor. He is weeping copiously, a husk of his former self. Inside, a bevy of ladies surround Mrs S, trying to console her. S's sisters sit in a corner, their faces twisted in agony as they denounce the cruel God who doles out this fate to their kid brother, silently, as tears roll down unhindered. A group of S's nephews stand outside, faces blank, wondering how did this happen. Slowly, the place fills up. People turn from all around the village and nearby places. Large carpets are soon laid out on the road outside, to accommodate everyone. Some people stand along the roads. As we stand outside, you can feel the grief mounting to a peak, as the news of the hearse filters through. Half an hour away. Now 15 min. 5 mins. Just around the corner. 
As he disembarks, S heads straight for the house. He embraces elder brother, who bursts into tears, piteously crying out aloud. The calmest man in the whole mêlée, S consoles his brother. As the daughter is brought out, the women rush out. There is a lot of shouting and crying. One of S's sisters faints and her kid and husband revive her. A couple of kids keep a glass of glucose water handy. The bier is quickly whisked away to the funeral home, to be cremated. The ladies all array themselves around the grieving mother. She cries out, her sharp comments tearing at every heart in the vicinity. As we move over to the cremation, a group of enthusiastic organisers quickly get it over with. Some politically minded person addresses the large group of people assembled there. The family quickly disperses, sickened by the whole process. 
Some semblance of sanity returns as everyone goes home. Only the close relatives are left in the house. To dispel all doubts and rumours, S tells the whole story in detail twice. To see him speak with an even voice, emphasizing each important point, you wouldn't know what a titanic struggle must be raging in his breast. 


He married according to his dad's wishes. He was duped out of his business just as he was starting to break even. He has to live in a place infested with taunts and jibes. He has two pillars of strength, his daughters, but one has been taken away from him in her prime. 


Fiction has a sense of balance to it. Even tragedies, they end. But real life doles out its emotions without regard for aesthetic equity, a novelist's sense of equilibrium, of justice. It just goes on. We are left with a tragedy of colossal proportions, apparently without rhyme or reason.  


We stumble through life, thinking we have seen sad and joy and everything. It is precisely when you least expect it when life slaps you hard on your face, and says look! Someone else has it worse. 


As we depart the village, leaving this grieving family to their lot, you can see a house near the end of the village all decked up in finery as the sounds of dhol waft through the air. There is a wedding here. Life, it seems, goes on. 




p.s.: I havent spent much time on the reactions and implications of S's younger daughter. This isn't because it isn't important or that I haven't given much thought to it. It is simply because I cannot string more than 2 sentences together without choking up. It is simply too much for me to handle. Probably, S could do a better job. 


p.p.s: Some details have been embellished or downplayed for privacy. This voyeuristic portrayal of S seems to be a selfish thing to do. He doesn't know I wrote this, and I don't think many will agree. We all have our ways of grieving. Some cry. Others are S. I hope to think that the memory of this sad turn of events will live through this post, and that at some level, in some unexplained way, it will help. 

Himachal Parikrama.

[For those who dont understand Hindi, Himachal is a state in the north of India and parikrama means circuitous trip]

So. Some of you may have noticed that I was out of the grid for the last 15-20 days. I was trekking in the Himachal :) . This is an account of that whole trip... [Kindly forgive the hindsight-y digested account. Didnt have pen-paper to record live reactions.]

18 May
left from Nashik. AC chair car, nice reserved seats and all.
Met Mandar and Sharvari in Mumbai. Usual frantic last minute purchasing [camera, in this case] and we are off. Again nicely booked, reserved seats.

19 May
Delhi. Long haul to a place, where we had to keep Sharvari's extra luggage. some rest, and off to see Swapnil. bus to manali at night.

20 May
Woke up [still in the bus] to see the Beas parallel to the road, completing a beautiful sunrise frame. Beas showed us the way right up to Kullu, and onwards to Babeli, that was our base camp. Mild excitement about the beautiful valley turns to OOOOH LA LA when we see our first snow covered peak from the road.
Once we get set up in the camp, rest of the day is off. We meet Naval uncle, one of the nicest people in our group [SK-26]. Later in the evening, me and Shar go off to explore Kullu. We meet Naval uncle there, and have a pleasant 7 km walk back to camp.
Food is superb

21 May
Early morning exercises leave everyone a little buzzed. Excrutiating and fun at the same time.
Acclimation walk. Much discussion about the difference between acclimation, acclimatisation and adaptation. Started meeting people. Kalyan has organised tent-14 into one group. We meet Ajinkya, also a Punekar. Naval uncle and I trade stories. Walk is over in a short time. Rest of the day is off, we decide to go to Kullu for more shopping after the orientation.
Kullu is a pleasant town. After coming back, SK-26 preps for camp fire. people sing and tell jokes. Hits are Mandars ghazal and Rishi uncle's Saurkundi dhaam story.

22 May
Everyone is a bit bored, the schedule leaves us loads of free time. Today we just have the usual exercises and some rock climbing and rappelling. This is fun. Mandar becomes famous in the group by climbing many rocks. Later in camp, girls ask about the singer who can climb rocks.

23 May
D-Day. We move to higher camp. We bid adieu to the field director Mr Gogate [he won't be there when we come back]. Our group has 48 guys and 3 girls. Unusual combination. Off to Patlikuhl to start the walk to the first camp, Segli.
The walk is pleasant, through thick pine forests. A bunch of locals walk with us, plying us with buttermilk, rhododendron juice and food at every rest point.
Camp is in a village, in an old wooden house. after settling in, we roam around a bit. Later, everyone chats up Ajay, the youngster who is the scion of the family who owns the house. He is a big audience guy and gets going very nicely. Later, he also sings at the camp fire.

a note on the groups : we begin noticing groups and people of SK-26 by now. there is a big Gujju group, a tent-14 group [mostly from NITs]  , a telugu group of four, our group of 4-5, an older people group of 5-6 and 2 groups of four from mumbai and nagpur each. The rest assort themselves. There is a group of Deaf-Mute guys, 3 of them. Expert trekkers, they regale us with jokes and in general have loads of fun.

24 May
Farewell to camp leader Manoj kumar as we move to higher camp Hora. a brief interlude to a water-fall is the only new thing. Walk is good, the peaks move closer. After settling in, me Mandar and Ajinkya venture upwards for a bit of exploration.

Camp is nice, our first without electricity.

25 May
Since there is no camp leader here, some enterprising people light a camp fire in the morning. Much fun and talking. Some people organise cricket. Around 10, we move. shortish walk, we reach Maylee. Nice camp on a slope with a view. Best camp leader yet [and overall too], Mr Jignesh welcomes us. Camp has nice rolling greens, nice place to sit and chat. Some play cricket, some of us chat. Akash shares his love of movies with me.

Camp Fire is highly energetic today, this is our last one. We sing Beatles songs out of tune, play garba and whatnot. much fun. After everyone sleeps, a few of us go to the guide's tent and ask them to sing local songs. they regale us late into the night. Super songs, that we hum all the way down to Babeli.

26 May
I wake up early today. Decide to foray along the sides of the mountain we are on, to check out the view from the ridge that is just visible. It is deceptive, and I walk through fields and brambles and whatnot to the ridge, a long way across. Its worth the view.
Short climb today, but virtually vertical. First sight of snow, small patches just before Camp Dora. After camp, again we explore the top. We see our first view of the full Kullu-Manali valley. We can hear a faint roar as Beas rages below.
The walk down is a run. The terrain has unexpectedly gouged holes and this is our first adrenaline rush as we miss the holes by mere inches, running at full tilt.
Dora has the best views so far.

27 May
Usual sunrise. Everyone preps for a long day, the longest so far. Even our lunch is just biscuits and Frooti, to avoid high altitude nausea.
We reach the top. Snow is ubiquitous now, though it doesn't cover more than 50% of the land. We have left the tree-line far behind.
Guides change, we wait and play in the snow.
New guides lead us downwards.
    Snow-Slides.
            There are two slides. Long steep patches of snow, where you slide down on your bum. The first one is quite long, about 1 km. But people clog the lane, we cannot go down full speed. A few of us climb back half way [walking on snow is fun!] and come down again, no brakes. Super fun! The next slide is a small one, but very steep. This time we are all experts and we slide down nicely.
Camp is a bit ragged, and in a not-so-nice spot. But the food is ample and we are high on the euphoria of the slide.

28 May
Climb down to Lekhni is fun, but nothing new to look at. A few people make some excuses and climb down all the way, to go home early. We stay put and reach the beautiful bungalow at Lekhni. Here we eat a local steamed sandwich, siddu. A lively game of dumb charades sprouts up, much fun is had.

29 May
We amble down to Alu Ground, chatting all the way down. On the way, we eat the most exquisite strawberries ever seen by yours truly. they are selling small cup-full of berries, at 10 bucks a cup. we finish all the cups they have. The base camp is almost packed up as we reach Babeli, since we are one of the last groups. We have lunch and depart for rafting. Rafting is fun, but not out of this world. Everyone makes plans, departs. Fond farewells.
We plan to go to Srinagar via Pathankot. We change our plans midway and get down at Dharamsala in the night.

30 May
Short naps in the hotel room at Dharamsala refills out batteries. We set out to explore Mcleodganj. It is a nice little touristy place, with a high concentration of Tibetan refugees. We cannot decide on a plan of action till 6 pm as loads of alternate plans crop up. Finally, on the insistence of Shar's parents, we decide to stay put in McLeod, and leave on the morrow. we go down to Dharamsala, get our bags up and spend the night in the most awesome guest house ever. No frills, it is nice a clean place, with open spaces and pleasant styling. We eat tibetan food at Hotel Tibet. Gyathuk with mutton momos. Gyathuk is a soup-like thing, a kind of tibetan ramen, with noodles meat and veggies. It is heavenly.

31 May

We get up and visit the temple of His Holiness The XIVth Dalai Lama. It is modern boxy structure, but it excudes charm and peace and quiet. The tibetan chants lend the place a spiritual aura.
We eat a HUGE breakfast at Jimmy's italian kitchen. Off to Bhag-su Naag temple, the Kul-Daivat [Home God] of the Gurkha Regiment. It is a nice temple, chock-full with tourists. The Bhag-su Naag waterfall is long and nice.
We buy some yak and rabbit wool clothing from friends and family.
Lunch is at Tibet Kitchen. We eat bhutanese and tibetan food that leaves us smiling with joy. The food experience at McLeod has been awesome. Awesome.
Bus to Haridwar leaves from Dharamsala at 5 pm. Route is scenic, and we sleep as the sun goes down. Bus breaks down in the middle of the night and we spend a sweltering 45 minutes in the workshop of Uuna bus sand.

1 June

We wake up to the hustle and bustle of Haridwar. Uttarakhand is a big change from Himachal. We dont venture out from the bus stop at Haridwar. We somehow manage to get a bus to Rishikesh, an incomprehensible task at the chaotic bus stand. The bus is stuck on 3rd gear half way through, and we chug our way into a desolate Rishikesh bus stand.  We do not know that the stand is a little way out of the city proper, and the first look at Rishikesh is a bit surprising. We check into the nearest decent place. We are advised to take a 410 rupee rickshaw, that will show us all the sights of the nice little town.
We cross the Ganges via the Lakshman Jhula. Me and Mandar dip into the Ganga at a nice semi-isolated place. As we walk towards Ram Jhula, our way back, we start seeing the crowds that are expected at such a place of pilgrimage. We have tea/coffee in a hippy cafe, and walk back across the Ganga using the Ram Jhula to our rickshaw. He shows us some more sights. We go to the hotel and rush to the bus stand.
Here too, chaos reigns. Though we are in time, it seems the bus we had planned on using is already full. We catch the next one to Delhi.

2 June
We wake up as the bus pulls into Anand Vihar bus stand at Delhi. We make plans, and go to Mr Ganeshan's place, where Sharvari has her bags. We eat some breakfast, take naps, say our goodbyes to Sharvari and leave around 2 to the railway station.
In the hustle and bustle of the last 2 days and the tons on conflicting instructions, We haven't been able to book tickets back. We decide to rough it in the general compartment. The ticket person suggests Paschim express, we rush to New Delhi station to catch it. I cannot believe how full it is as it pulls into the station. We enter, somehow. Mandar goes left, I go right. We never see each other until we alight at Mumbai. I get to sit after a couple of hours, as some people get down. Once I sit, I get up only twice, momentarily to stretch my legs. No food, no bathroom breaks, nothing. We get down at Borivili, rush to mumbai central. Mandar gets me something to eat as I buy a ticket to Nashik.
Here, though there is a big crowd, I get to sit in the door. A breezy 4 hours is nothing compared to a sweltering 22 hours. at 8:30 pm, I step out of Indian Rail property after a total of 28 hours.




Weirdly, I am not tired at all.

p.s.: http://goo.gl/maps/dzvr

The blue line is the valley. Saurkundi is just to the left of the line [near Patlikuhl]. 

Dharamsala is marked. Mcleodganj is about 10 km away, sitting pretty right on top of Dharamsala [on a mountain]

In the bottom right corner, you can probably see Rishikesh. 

Neringa Ramayana Part 4!

[for links to previous parts, scroll down to previous post..]

"

Ramayana: Chapter 4- Alliances

As always, I will begin with a quick recap...

Dasrath - king of ayodhya - has no kids - then 4 kids - eldest is Ram [the hero] - one of the queens wreaks havoc - ram, sita and laxman go in exile - are kinda happy - sita gets kidnapped - a dying vulture tells ram who took her.

So,
 Grief stricken, ram and laxman are trying to re-concile themselves to the situation.

meanwhile, i will tell you a side story...

Pawan Putra Hanuman ki Jay! [Hanuman, son of the wind, is Awesome!]

This is the story of two brothers, Vali and Sugriva. These are the vanars or monkey people [another class of people like humans and rakshas and gods etc]. attaching a photo of hanuman, a major player in this story later, who is a vanar or monkey person. this photo depicts a later scene from our story, i will come to that later.

So, vali and sugriva. Now Vali is the elder brother and the king of the vanars. these vanars are brawny creatures, known for their strength and valour. So, once, when a terrible demon [like the bigfoot or kingkong  or something] comes and troubles theri kingdom, both brothers set out to kill him.

terrible fight ensues and all that... the demon flees into a cave. Vali tells sugriva that he is going in, and sugriva should put a stone at the entrance and block it so that it cant escape. once he has slayed it, he will call from inside, that would be the signal for sugriva to open up.

sugriva agrees, and stands guard. After a while, he sees blood seeping out from under the stone. Afraid that the demon has killed his brother, he flees from there, in the hope that atleast the demon would die cooped up in the cave [as he has blocked the entrance]. he is kind of an asshole of a brother.

sugriva returns to his palace, triumphant at having defeated the demon and promptly installs himself as the king. he takes over vali's possessions, wife and kids and all.

Now, it turns out, the blood was vali's but he aint dead. in fact, he had killed the demon, in a very awesome fight [which, sadly, no one could see, inside of a cave being dark and all ;) ] . so,  after a few days, vali manages to dislodge the rock at the mouth of the cave and comes back to his kingdom to find his brother has usurped all. he immediately assumes his brother has plotted against him and betrayed him. he banishes sugriva from the kingdom and takes his family under his protection.

so, end of side story.

now, ram and laxman are roaming the forests to find out where ravan has taken sita, and in the same forest, they meet sugriva.
he tells them his sad story, tells them it was all a misunderstanding and being an asshole and a non-brave person is not a crime after all. But the clincher is, that he promises ram, that if ram helps him defeat vali, he would help him find sita.

so, the moral of this is, in politics, you have to make ugly allainces with ugly people to achieve good things. So ram allies with sugriva. Sugriva goes to the capital and challenges vali to a duel to death. They fight and just as sugriva is losing, ram fires an arrow from behind a tree into vali, and sugriva wins.

Vali accuses ram of breaking the rules and cheating, basically doing a thing outside of his dharma or principles. here, as a lesson to all readers, ram expounds on how this wasnt breaking his dharma but was acting exactly according to it. he had promised to help sugriva. It basically says that you cant do stuff that is good for someone, even according to dharma, isnt good for everyone. You have to make a choice and live with it, that whatever you do, everyone cant be taken into account. if you help someone, someone else is going to be affected, maybe for the worse and you cant help him too. etc etc

So, sugriva gets back his kingdom and family. in a rage, he plans to kill off vali's widow and son. ram stays his hand and reminds him that these are his family. mortified, sugriva installs Angad, vali's son, as prince in waiting and gives vali's widow an honoured place etc.

now, all done, sugriva starts enjoying his kingly lifestyle once more. In this, he forgets about his promise to ram about helping him and lending the manpower of the vanar army to look for sita [which is what ram needs, more eyes to look for his wife.]

Ram asks laxaman to go to sugriva and his wife, tara, to make them see the light and not renege on his promise. Sugriva laughs off an angry laxman [who is held back by tara]. The wise wife, tara, realises the urgency of the situation and convinces sugriva to make good his promise. he does and how that helps our heroes, we will see in the next chapter, titled "hanuman" .



"

Neringa Ramayan: 3

No intro needed... [for background refer to part 1 and part 2]

"

Ramayana, Chapter Three: The premise

so, to recap: dasarath, has no sons, then has four sons, then by machinations of his wife, sends his awesome son ram to the jungle, in exile, and bharat is the ruler in his stead.

last time we saw Ram, he was wandering in the jungle sans shoes, [ :D :D ] with wifey Sita and bro Laxman. So, he roamed and roamed, saw a suitable place, and asked laxman to build a camp in this place. This place was a jungle named dandakaranya. In this jungle, they build camp at Panchwati. literally, this means:

panch : five
wati: banyan tree

so, this is a place with 5 banyans... this place is still there, in the old parts of the city of Nashik, where my parents live, there is still a place called panchawati and it has 5 banyan trees.

so, they build camp here, and start living. after a while, they strike up a routine, and are living quite happily.


meanwhile, in the kingdom of lanka, [this is the island in the south of india, the country of Sri Lanka or Ceylon] there is a brave and valliant king of the rakshas.. Ravana.

He was a very good king to his subjects, Lanka was enjoying its most prosperous period in this time. It was so rich, it was known [still called by some] as "sone ki lanka" that is , "the lanka of gold" or "the land of gold, called lanka" . he had defeated Kubera [who was the earlier ruler of Lanka, and Ravana's half brother], the God of wealth, in battle and had amassed his wealth and all that...

now, i will describe Ravana's family in some detail:

His wife: Mandodari, a dutiful and pious wife, who was as good and brave and a follower of dharma as her husband

His Son, Indrajeet: An extremely capable and skilled warrior who had learnt everything about warcraft there was to learn, he was also skilled in the magical techiniques...

His Brother, Kumbhakarana and Vibhishana

Now these Three brothers share a peculiar story... They had, during thier  youth, all prayed to the gods, for boons...

Kumbhakarna got the ability to sleep for long periods of time [quirky fellow]

Vibhishana was a devoted kinda guy, he asked for eternal servitude to the gods...

Ravana was very passionate and dedicated. In order to impress brahma, who he was praying to, he cut his head off, [curiously, a new one would appear everytime] and give the head up as offering to the god. This is he did 9 times, giving brahma 9 of his heads as offering.

Brahma was happy, came to offer him his boon.. Ravana asked for eternal life, which brahma said no to. But in lieu of this, he gave him the next best thing. He gave him a pouch of nectar, which he could keep in his navel and as long as it was there, he couldnt die. Also, brahma gave him back his 9 heads. So, Ravana has 10 heads, which is kinda symbolic of many things. That he was a learned fellow, very intelligent etc etc...

so, ram and ravana are quite similar to each other. both are strict adherents of Dharma, highly skilled and learned fellows. Only thing is, ram has control over his senses, being an incarnation of the gods. Ravana, being a rakshas, doesnt have that.


Now, back to ram/laxaman/sita.

There, In dandakaranya, there lived a rakshas lady named surpanakha. She saw these three people there and immediately fell in love with the handsome and comely Ram... Rakshas have the ability to shape-shift, and she made herself into a beautiful lady and tried to snare Ram with her charms.

Ram was amused at first and humoured her for a bit. Then he told her that he was already married to and loved Sita. She said she was a rakshas and would eat sita, after which she and ram could live happily ever after. by this point Ram was pretty much pissed off at her and told her to go to laxaman and he would take care of her.

Laxman also toyed with her a bit [seems a bit cruel, but her intentions werent pure either.. :P ] but when she talked about killing his beloved sis-in-law, he got angry, picked up a sword and chopped off her nose..

THe city i was talking about, where my parent live, is named Nashik. nose in sanskrit is 'Nasika' . so you see the connection there too...


it turns out, this buxom lass, this rakshas surpanakha, was actually ravana's sister. She ran to another brother of hers, Khara, who sent 7 of his rakshas friends to kill these humans...

ram and laxaman dispatched them easily. Then , seeing that 7 weren't enough, he got together 700,000 soldiers, leading them himself and went to fight ram . [talk about an over reaction! :) ]
But, as can be expected, they were all killed by our heroes as well...

this time, surpanakha went to ravana's court in lanka, and asked him to revenge the death of her brother and her nose. Ravana had an airplane, "pushpak vimana" whiich he used to immediately go to dandakaranya and see for himself who it was who did this to his sister.  One look at sita, and he was filled with lust for her. he immediately hatched a plan to make her his. He found an old rakshas, his maternal uncle, who he forced to imitate a beautiful golden deer and cavort near sita and run away..

as soon as she saw the deer, she fell in love with its coat, and she asked ram to get it. Ram, exasperated, asked laxaman to protect sita, and ran after the deer.

the deer [maareech] ran quick and fast, but after much running, ram killed it with an arrow. Maareech imitated ram's voice, shouting out "laxaman, help me please!"

sita, upon hearing this, quickly ran to laxaman, asking him to go and help his brother. laxaman was torn between his brother's orders and his sis-in-laws pleading. Although he had complete faith in his brother's ability to take care of himself, he had t relent to his sis-in-law's crying. He took up an arrow, marked out a circle around the hutment. This was a Laxaman rekha or "laxaman's line" . anyone who crosses the laxaman rekha, without laxaman's permisssion, is burnt by flames which come from the line.

so, thus protected, he goes in search of his brother. Ravana, hiding in the forest nearby, is happy that everything is going according to plan , and, in the guise of a mendicant, approaches sita's hut.
He asks for alms, and she says, i will keep the stuff outside, you come and pick it up.

in india, mendicants are highly respected people and people dare'nt disrespect them .

Ravana [as a mendicant] flew into a mock rage and said how dare you disrespect me and say such a thing.

afraid of committing a sin, she rushed out of her hut, ventured to the edge of the line and offered him alms and food.

seizing the opportunity to seize her, ravana pounced on her and kidnapped her. He put her onto his airplane and flew away to lanka...

meanwhile, laxaman reached Ram and both, seeing maareech was the deer [rakshas turn to the original form on their death] realized it was a trap and rushed back to their hut. seeing the signs of an obvious kidnalpping, they were stricken with sorrow....

they immediately rushed out in all directions, looking for Sita.

after some time, they saw a hideous vulture lying on the ground. In his grief stricken state, ram assumed this was the vile creature who had taken his sita. he drew his arrow to the vulture and told him to tell all, at the pain of death.

The Vulture, it turned out, was the brother of the lord of vultures. He was Jatayu, an old friend of Dasarath, Ram's father. He saw ravana making away with sita and tried valiantly to fight him and rescue the damsel in distress. Ravana cut away his wings in the battle and Jatayu fell to the ground. Ram, sorry for assuming this noble creature had done him wrong, gave him some water to drink and made sure his last minutes would be in a safe and comfortable position.

so now, i we are at a position where ram knows ravana has kidnapped his wife, and in the next chapter he will mount a rescue mission...

ciao!

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