Padma had once again found enought
time to herself to return to her ancestor's adventure filled
diary. She found where she had left off before and turned the
page.
My Path to
Follow Was Far From
Straight
After the fiasco of finding
the love of my life, thinking I was losing him to another man, and then
finding out that both these men were one in the same, I expected to
settle into a quiet and comfortable life with my husband. Of
course life never goes as you planned it and as I had learned before,
fate was something predestined. It wasn’t long after Rama and I
got married that his father, King Dasaratha, had decided that he wanted
to step down from ruling the kingdom and thought that the power could
not be bestowed on a better person than Rama. I would have been
happy either way, but it was secretly nice to think that my own husband
would use his influence and good judgment over the entire
kingdom. I thought that Rama would have had at least some sort of
reaction when he was told that his brother Bharata would instead be
taking his place and that Rama was to be banished to the forest for
fourteen years. Instead he took the news with the same calm
manner
that he had received the previous news of his father’s original
plans. He said goodbye to his mother and father and made plans to
leave the kingdom by himself. Both Lakshmana, his other brother,
and I would not allow him to leave alone and so we prepared to leave
with him. Several of my maidens and even my father were shocked
that I would chose a life of simplicity and hardship by following my
husband into exile for so long, but for me the choice was easy because
all
I had to do was look into his eyes to know I was doing the right thing.
Padma’s
first thought was that Sita was insane! Why would someone who
didn’t have to be exiled for so long choose to do so, especially when
they lived in a giant palace full of excitement? Padma, in her
immaturity, thought that she would have rather dealt with the
loneliness that Sita might have felt being left behind to living in the
forest that was surely full of dangerous creatures. Then again,
Padma had never felt about anyone the way Sita felt about Rama and
figured that love wasn’t exactly rational. She skipped a few
pages that mostly detailed their journey into the forest and stopped on
a page entitled, “My Infatuation with a Golden Deer.”
We had been in the forest
for several months now and so far nothing out the ordinary had
happened. I had yet to even see any interesting creatures until
one day a hint of gold caught my eye as it moved gracefully through the
forest. I knew before I had even said the words that it was
childish and stupid to ask for, but I had grown so bored that I just
couldn’t help myself with a little entertainment. I asked Rama if
he would catch the creature for me. He had noticed that my
normally lighthearted demeanor had sunken a bit in the past few weeks
and so he granted my wish and went after the deer. He made
Lakshmana promise not to leave my side while he went into the
forest. Rama had been gone for half an hour when I started to
worry and then I felt a sharp pain in my heart when I heard Rama’s
voice crying out for help. Lakshmana refused to go after Rama and
would only do so after I said I would go after Rama myself if he
didn’t.
Suddenly I was uprooted from the ground into the air and as the green
of the forest swirled around me, the image of my Rama’s eyes was the
last thing I thought of before I passed out.
Padma
had gotten so caught up in the story that she had forgotten to breathe
when reading the last few intense sentences. She was filled with
questions. Why was something as unique as a golden deer wandering
in the forest at that exact moment? Who or what had taken Sita
and was it connected to Rama’s disappearance in the forest?
Before she could turn the page and find out, Padma’s mom yelled at her
to come downstairs for dinner. She hoped to find out what had
happened to Sita soon before the curiosity got the best of her.
Author’s Note:
I decided to tell the story of Sita and Rama’s marriage from the time
after they had gotten married to the news that they would be exiled to
the incident with the golden deer and Sita’s capture. Since the
story is being told from Sita’s point of view we don’t get to hear
about why Bharata is chosen over Rama or why he is being exiled, like
we do in the original Ramayana. We also don’t get to hear why
Sita wanted the golden deer or why Rama would have said yes to such a
ridiculous request, which is why I wanted to include that in my
story. I changed the ending of my story a bit from the original
in that I have Sita writing that she didn’t remember anything but being
pulled from the ground and captured. I did this because I felt
being taken was such a traumatic event for her that she wouldn’t have
remembered all the details later and possibly even blocked out anything
painful, like Ravana being disguised as a hermit shortly before he
removed it and revealed his frightening ten heads. I plan on
starting off the next story right where this one ended, with Sita
waking up to her captors.
Bibliography: Narayan, R. K. (1972) The
Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic. Buck, William (1976).
Ramayana: King Rama's Way.
