Hey, so here we are again, eh, Doc? You know I'm not into all that
small talk so let's get on with it.
So,
Rama. Oh, man, I'm not even sure where to start. I'm going to just give
you the nitty gritty on this one, alright? I mean, we could be here for
days if I told you everything. Well, wait; how much time do you
actually
have? No, no, I won't do that to you, really.
Well you
see, many
years ago there lived an evil demon on earth, Ravana. Ravana was a
hideous and evil Rakshasa (that's what we call demons). When I say
hideous, Doc, I mean just awful. We are talking one ugly guy with ten
heads. Unfortunately, though, Ravana's appearance was not the worst
part of him, not at all. You see, he was just evil as could be. He was
causing all kinds of trouble on earth and he needed to be destroyed.
The problem was that Ravana had a divine protection and basically the
only being that would be able to kill the monster was a human. You can
probably see where this going already. That's right, I stepped up
again. I offered to go down to earth, be born as a man, and kill Ravana.
So,
then Rama was born. Now, Rama faced a lot of hardships in his life. He
was always a good person though, always took and understood what life
gave him. Even though it was fated, I think Rama's troubles really
started the day he met Sita. Of course, it was nothing intentional on
her part, though. You see, Doc, Sita was the most beautiful woman who
has
ever lived. She was absolutely magnificent, and the sweetest girl, too.
It
was never a wonder that Rama fell in love with Sita at first sight, and
she
loved him back just the same.
This
sounds like your perfect love
story, I know. It wasn't long before the trouble really started,
though.
See, Rama was to be made King of Ayodhya when his father, the King,
retired. However, because of the evil scheming of others, Rama was
instead
exiled from the kingdom for fourteen years. His brother, Bharata, was
made
king for the time being. Of course, Rama's new wife Sita joined him,
along with his brother, Lakshamana.
Rama was
devastated by the
exile, but he never showed a bit of protest. That's the thing about
Rama, Doc; he was never really able to show his anger. He just did as
he
knew was right, no matter how he really felt about it. There was this
other time, during the exile, when Sita saw a golden deer running
through the forest. She begged Rama to go and catch it for her. Even
though he knew something was not right about it, Rama went after the
deer anyway. That started even more trouble! It turned out the golden
dear was just a trick so that Ravana, the demon, could steal Sita away.
See
now, if Rama had told Sita he didn't want to go catch the deer in the
first place, well, he just would have avoided so much. Again, though,
it
was all fated so that Rama could fight Ravana. Of course, in the end,
Rama was able to save Sita and kill Ravana just as planned. It was a
hard battle though, Doc.
If that
was only the end of the
troubles! After Rama saved Sita, they soon returned to Ayodhya and Rama
was made king. It seemed as if all their troubles were finally over and
they lived peacefully for many years.
However, after some time, the people
of Ayodhya began to question Sita's loyalty to Rama. I mean, she did
live with another man for such a long time. See now, I wish this next
part had gone differently but, well, Rama just couldn't live like that.
He couldn't let his people question him that way. He had no other
choice than to exile Sita, who happened to be pregnant with his twins.
Can
you imagine what that was like? Having to exile the woman you love?
Having never met your children? Doc, it was just awful! You're
married,
right? Just imagine how you would feel if you had to live without your
wife, without your children! It was just awful for Rama, but back then
there just weren't any other options. He had a duty to be king and he
couldn't do that if his people didn't trust his judgments. He missed
his wife so much though! Every day he thought about her and every day
he
wished things could be different. It still gets to me Doc- it's still
so hard. So, so hard.
Author's
Note: I chose to re-tell the story of the Ramayana
for Vishnu's second therapy session. Rama was an important avatar of
Vishnu, with a very specific goal. I told this story from the first
person point of view rather then the third person, as is done in the Ramayana. Since the Ramayana details
Rama's entire life I left out much of the story. In sessions with his
therapist, Vishnu wouldn't need to discuss all the details of Rama's
life, just the events that were most important or significant to him.
The events in Rama's life that seemed most significant were his meeting
Sita, being exiled from Ayodhya, fighting Ravana, and then finally
having to exile his beloved Sita. It is obvious from the Ramayana
that Rama was a generally kind and honest person. He never fought or
argued his fate. When these devastating events happened, Rama seemed to
show no emotion towards them. However, Rama was human. He had to have
felt anger and pain through out these tragedies. These built-up
feelings would have eventually caused issues for Rama, or as I showed,
for Vishnu. I tried to express these hidden feelings of Vishnu as he
told his therapist about Rama's life.
Bibliography
Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose
Version of the Indian Epic
