RAMAYANA FOR CHILDREN--AYODHYAKANDA THE THIRD PART OF CHAPTER 12

                                RAMAYANA FOR CHILDREN—AYODHYAKANDA CHAPTER 12, THIRD PART

Dasaratha continued his righteous speech: “The love I showed you have only produced hatred for me. My favours, gifts and my benefits have turned into so many scorpions. Now you have thrown off your mask. You stand in your naked wickedness. My folly comes back to roost. I have been very stupid. I have never bestowed a thought of love to Sumatra. She will be terrified by my action. She will ever after shun me like a plague. And to think of poor Sita I tremble. The word “Dasaratha is dead and Rama is banished to the forests will scorch her heart. Deprived of Rama she will seek peacefulness in death. Do you, Kaikeyi, expect me to survive the shock of Rama’s banishment? Rama and myself will begin our journey at the same time. He will go to the forests and I will go to the halls of Death. You will look well in your widow’s weeds. I married you, deceived by your fatal beauty. I thought you were a model of virtue and wifely devotion.  And now when a chance has come your way you have thrown off the mask. Your insidious flattery enslaved my heart. I am going to sell my eldest son into bondage to please a woman’s caprice. Every man in this territory will point the finger of scorn at me. My name will be a byword of reproach and shame. Never have I experienced such a misery in my existence.”

“Ah! Woe unspeakable! I am a wretched sinner. I am a fiend in human shape. I preserved the rope that is to be my halter now. I invited my fate. I sought my fate as a hounered guest to my house. The end is near. My guest will redden my hearth with my heart’s blood. Alas!  I have spent countless years by your side. All the time you were sharpening the dagger that will be sheathed in my heart. I have behaved like a baby which fondles the fangs of a cobra. I have been caressing you all the time. Dasaratha is in his second childhood. He is an impotent slave to his ill-placed love. Who but a dotard would exile his eldest son to the forests? He did all this to win a smile of a faithless woman.” Dasaratha was full of grief. He continued to speak: “I have to say ‘Rama! Take yourself to the dark forests.’ And he will gladly reply, ‘Of course, my master.’ He will utter no word of complaint. Won’t he obey me? It may seem all undutiful. But nothing would please me better. But, alas! I know he will never disobey me. He will take my order of banishment seriously. And he will obey it to the very letter.”