Week 4 Storytelling: Kaikeyi's Wish

Monday, The Fifth of October

                Dear Hubby has just invited me to go on his hunting trip with him! We leave Thursday morning! Oh, we’ll have so much fun out in the woods with all the cute little creatures! I just love bunnies and deer and…bunnies. What else lives in the forest? Oh, well. With Dasaratha there, I don’t have to worry about anything attacking me! What should I bring with me?

Saturday, The Tenth of October

                We’ve made it to the forest. Finally. It really took way too long to get here. Who knew it would be so far from civilization. The people here look wild. I don’t feel comfortable around them. I wonder why Dasaratha gives them so much respect. He’s the only real king here!

Tuesday, The Thirteenth of October

                The forest is terribly boring! There are so few things to do and even fewer people to talk to! The food isn’t that great, either. I miss my chef! One exciting thing did happen tonight, though. We were at the camp settling down for the night, talking around the fire when a deer barked in the bushes nearby. Hubby burst out in laughter. I asked him what was so funny, but he just said that it “would be lost in translation.” Why does he think I wouldn’t get it? I’m not that thick! It hurts that he would keep such a secret from me!

Anyway, it still made no sense to me how he could understand the deer. So I asked him about it. Jatayu the Vulture King taught him, he said. He had to agree that he would never translate anything for anyone or teach them how to translate, otherwise he’d die. I can’t believe that he would actually die. Nobody promises anything against their life!

So I asked him to teach me. He wouldn’t. I asked several times in various tones, but he kept saying how he couldn’t or he would die. 

Fire Source

Wednesday, The Fourteenth of October

                Last night in bed I couldn’t stop thinking of what that deer might have said. It upset me very much that Dasaratha wouldn’t tell me that one little joke. If he can’t share his secrets with me, why should I share my secrets with him? Why should I trust him? If we can’t trust each other with our secrets, what’s the point of us being married? I expressed these concerns with him and I could see him change his mind. He seemed upset as he verbally agreed to tell me. “Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I’ll tell you.”

                He left the tent before me and I could hear him mumbling something as he left. I’m not sure what it was. I didn’t care! He was about to reveal his secret to me!

                Several minutes later, when I was still getting ready, I heard Hubby call to me from outside. “I am prepared to tell you now!” he said. I walked out of the tent to find a large fire outside, as if for a funeral. Everyone except Dear Hubby was glaring at me as if I was the one keeping secrets from my spouse.

Then a sheep and a rooster came up making a racket. Dasaratha’s face changed. “No, Kaikeyi, I will not tell you. I’m sorry, but I cannot give up my life to make you happy. What would become of my kingdom or my family? It is simply not worth it.”

At that moment I realized just how close to death my husband had been. He wasn’t lying when he said he would die if he told. Now I feel terrible for nearly killing him for the sake of a secret he has no authority to tell.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Author’s Note:  This story is inspired by William Buck’s 1976 version of the Ramayana (pages 95 and 96). When I read this story I thought to myself, “Wow. Kaikeyi is a really terrible person.” So I decided to get into her mind a bit and kind of justify her terribleness.

Week 4 Reading Diary B

Rama is honest and truly cares for the people of Kosala

“Beyond Ayodhya people await you; they will offer you things that are really yours already. These things… take them, no fear of breaking Dharma to you!”—Dasaratha to Rama

People were healed and misers became generous when it was announced that Rama would be king

Dasaratha curses Kaikeyi to damnation

Vasishta promises (or blesses them?) that nature, the heavens, and the universe will take care of them

“Rama, be forgiving while it’s peacetime, but when people come against you, you’ll only win by force.”—Sumantra before Rama said his final goodbyes to his father

Sumanthra is very, very angry at Rama’s intended departure

“For every broken promise breaks away a little Dharma, and every break of Dharma brings closer the day the worlds must break apart. When Dharma is altogether gone the three worlds will end; they will be destroyed once more. If man breaks his word, why should the stars above keep their promises not to fall? Why should Fire not burn us all or Ocean not leap his shores and drown us?”—Rama pg 80

Dasaratha also called Maharaja

Sita’s allowed to wear her silks instead of the bark clothes worn by hermits

It became stormy immediately following Rama’s departure

Rama can’t hunt well

Lakshmana and Guha have a drinking contest

Is the bull Nandin Shiva’s mount? If so pg92 has a story with him

Shiva mistook Guha’s anger toward him as devotion

“The giver receives back the things he gives away.”—blind father of dead boy—foreshadows that Dasaratha’s son will be torn away from him and the king will die pg 109

Dasaratha’s last words were calling for Rama

Week 4 Reading Diary A

“Before Ramayana there was no poetry on Earth.” Pg 5

If Valmiki is so good at meditating, why would he be worried about the cold?

There’s such thing as a friend-gathering song

Brahma has four arms and four faces on one head; he brought a ladle, rosary, waterpot, and a holy book; he can read minds

There are multiple heavens

Valmiki faced the east while meditating; he could view the story of Rama and Sita in a pool of water

Rama kept a golden statue of Sita by his side because he loved her still

The song describes Kosala and Ayodhya as rich, beautiful, peaceful, filled with strong warriors

Indra is angry about heaven being in ruins, angrier at Dasaratha for asking for stuff at that moment

“Only Narayana [Vishnu] knows, or maybe he doesn’t.”—Brahma pg 13

“joyful black eyes” pg 14 strange choice of words

The humans heard Vishnu drop the things he was holding as they performed the sacrifice

Dasaratha gave half the rice to Kausalya, 3/8 to Sumitra, and 1/8 to Kaikeyi

All sons born the same day

Rama had green skin and hair, monkey arms, 40 identical teeth shaped like pomegranate seeds, lotus-scented breath

Each prince had an inhuman color of skin

Describes the creation of earth pg 20

Shiva lives in an unstable shack

“When the master carpenter no longer goes out into the forests to choose his own tree, when he no longer cuts it down himself and saws his own boards then say farewell to the arts!”—Viswakarman pg 23

“a courtly old demon kind to all” pg 23 kind demon? That seems like an oxymoron…

Vahana Garuda is mentioned on pg 24

“The Asuras are the former gods of old” pg 30

Ravana never said he wanted to marry Mandodari

Meghanada can change his appearance at will

Shiva’s bull foreshadows Ravana’s ruin pg 34

Peacocks, crows, swans, and lizards were blessed for letting gods hide in the form of them pg 36

Vasuki can change shape

Airavata is Indra’s white elephant—possibly a vahana?

Ravana gets injured by Airavata

Dasaratha’s reaction to letting Rama go wasn’t as strong in this version

Ahalya knew what was happening in her situation in this telling unlike the other

Janaka is the king of the land on which Viswamitra keeps his permanent residence—new detail

Sita is 14 when she marries Rama (16)

“Sita has the final consent” pg 53 in regards to marriage

Pg 59 had a long description of Rama