After Rama departed into exile, Dasharatha was grief-stricken, unable to leave his bed.
"There was a boy," he said in his delirium, remembering the boy he had shot, the son of the blind parents. "All my fault. That is why I have lost Rama."
Tossing and turning, Dasharatha repeated, "Rama. Rama. Rama."
Sitting by Dasharatha's bedside through the night, Sumitra and Kaushalya fell asleep. In the morning, they discovered the king was dead.
All Ayodhya was plunged into grief.
Bharata and Shatrughna were away in Kekaya with their grandfather, and they did not know what had happened in their absence.
Inspired by: Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik
Notes: This story is on p. 89 of the book. Urmila figures prominently in Gupt's Saket, which you can find in English here: English translation of Cantos 1-5 5 of Gupt’s Saket.
No comments:
Post a Comment