ENCOUNTERS IN EXILE (PART-3)

Rama felt it was time to end her visit. Even a moment of jesting with an asura is likely to lead to incalculable evil consequences. So he said, "Do nothing that will bring on retribution and suffering. Please be gone before my brother Lakshmana notices you. He will be angry. Please go away quickly before he comes."

"All the gods in heaven, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, Indra and the god of love, Manmatha himself, seek me and pray for my favors and attention. I'm unattainable and rare, as they all know. When this is the case, how can you talk so contemptuously to me, and go on desiring and trusting this treacherous sorceress at your side? Explain your inconsiderate and thoughtless attitude."Rama felt that any further conversation with her would prove useless. Obstinate and un moving, she built her edifice of falsehoods higher and higher; so he turned and, holding Sita close to him, walked back calmly and gracefully into his ashram.

When the door was shut in her face, Soorpanaka felt so distraught that she almost swooned. Recovering, she reflected, "He has spurned me in no uncertain terms and turned his back on me; he is completely infatuated with that woman." Finding that there was nothing more for her to do there, she withdrew to her own lair beyond the woods and went to bed. She was shrivelling in the heat of passion. As it had once been for Sita, the same love-sickness proved a great torment to this monstrous woman too. Everything irritated her and aggravated her agony. When the moonlight flooded the earth, she roared at the moon and wished she could set the serpent Rahu to swallow it; when the cool breeze touched her, she howled imprecations at it, and rose as if determined to destroy the god of love himself, whose shafts were piercing her heart. Unable to stand the pain inflicted by her present surroundings, she entered a mountain cave infested with deadly serpents and shut herself in it. There she was the victim of hallucinations. Rama in his full form seemed to stand before her again and again, and she fancied she embraced him and fondled his broad shoulders and chest. When the illusion passed, she cried,"Why do you torment me in this way? Why do you refuse to unite with me, and quench the fire that's burning me?" After the turmoil of the night, sheer exhaustion found her calmer when morning came. She decided on her strategy. "If I cannot attain him, I will not live any more. But I'll make one more attempt. He does not care for me because of the spell cast by that woman. If I remove her from his side and put her away, he will then naturally take to me." This gave her a fresh energy.

Daylight in some measure lessened the pangs of love, and she came out of her cave. She went along to Panchvati and prowled around, looking for a chance. She saw Rama come out of his hut and proceed towards the banks of the Godavari for his morning bath and prayers. "Now is the time," she said to herself. "If I miss it, I'll lose him for ever. It's a matter of life and death for me. After all, when he finds her gone, he'll begin to accept me." Though the sight of Rama had sent a tremor through her body, she restrained herself from falling at his feet and confessing her love. She watched him go, and presently Sita emerged from the hut to gather flowers. "This chance is not to be missed," Soorpanaka told herself. Every decision seemed to her a valuable step in her pursuit of Rama. She began to stalk behind Sita cunningly like an animal following its prey. She would pounce and grab and put her away, and when Rama came back, he'd find her in Sita's place. Excellent plan as far as the idea went, but she did not reckon there could be another outcome to it. In her concentration on the beloved image of Rama, and on the movements of Sita, she failed to notice that she was being watched. Lakshmana had posted himself, as normally he did, on an eminence shaded with trees, and was watching in all directions. When he saw Soorpanaka near the hut, he became alert; when he found her stalking Sita, he sprang down on her. She had just laid hands on Sita, when she found herself grabbed, held down by her hair, and kicked in the stomach.

"Oh! a woman!" Lakshmana muttered, and decided to spare her life. Instead of taking out his arrow, he pulled out his sword and chopped off her nose, ears, and breasts. When his anger subsided, he let go her hair.

When Rama returned home from the river, she was mutilated and bloody and screaming her life out. Lamenting to the skies, she called upon her powerful brothers, reciting their valor in all the worlds; repeating again and again how impossible that the sister of such eminent personages

should have to suffer this mutilation and humiliation in the hands of two ordinary human beings, dressed as ascetics but carrying arms and attacking people treacherously. To

think that human creatures, which served as food for her poor relations, should have dared to do this to Ravana's sister! …

Rama did not ask, "What has happened?" but "Who are you in such a bloody state? Where do you come from?"

She replied, "Don't you know me? Why do you pretend?We met last evening and you were so attentive to me! Ah!"

she cried, her infatuation reviving. Rama understood. "You are the same one, are you?" he

asked. He made no other comment.

She replied, amidst her agony, "You don't find me beautiful? No wonder! If one's nose and ears and breasts are lopped off, will not one's beauty suffer?"

Rama turned to Lakshmana and asked, "What did she do?"

Lakshmana answered, "With fire in her eyes, she was about to fall on Janaki, and I prevented it."

Soorpanaka now explained, "Naturally, it's just and right that I hate anyone who has deprived me of my beloved's company." In her mind she had treated Rama as her own property. "Would it not inflame a woman's heart to see her beloved taken away?"

Rama said simply, "Go away before your tongue utters worse words, which may bring you more harm. Go back to your own people."