The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

Ram and/vs Urmila-1

TW-Mentions of Suicide later in chapter. 

  Ram felt a certain obligation towards Sita 's sisters that he didn't feel for his own siblings at that time. A certain feeling to protect them from every argument they had with his brothers, even if it meant he had to side against the three boys he had grown up with. He didn't know why he felt this way. Was it a wish to prove himself to Sita ? Or make himself feel accepted?

"Come on, Mandavi. Let's try to hit that idiot Shatru with this egg, shall we?" Urmila mumbled, holding up a large, raw egg. Mandavi grinned widely, almost feral, and held up another one. They peeked over from the edge of the balcony, to where all four brothers were practicing archery, and the two sisters took their aim.

Splat! "Ouch!" cried Lakshman, wiping off the remnants of the egg disgustedly. He and Shatrughan had just switched spots, and so, unknowingly, since from behind, the twins looked exactly the same, Mandavi and Urmila had just hit Lakshman instead. He turned around and scowled, to where his soon-to-be wife and sister-in-law were both laughing.

"Oh my gosh! He looks so surprised!" shrieked Mandavi, through her heavy laughter. Suddenly, she choked, as Lakshman turned around, and Urmila hastily thumped her back. "Oh no," she mumbled. "Urmila, look!" Urmila shook her head and focused on if Mandavi was alright. "Urmila, look!" cried Mandavi, stomping her foot.

"Oh honestly, you're so stubborn..." she trailed off as she caught her to-be-husband's face, focused on where they were standing, with scowling eyes. "Oh no, is he upset that we hit his twin brother? I never thought he would be so protective! Let's go explain ourselves before he stupidly loses his temper." Mandavi smacked her forehead and pulled her back.

"Have you lost your mind? First of all, his temper is terrible, not even you could counter it, and second-" but before Mandavi could explain that it was Lakshman only that they had hit, Urmila had interrupted her. "I think I could match his temper easily! Come on."

And with that, she dragged a grudging and ominous Mandavi towards the courtyard where Lakshman was tracking their movements carefully. "What happened, got caught by an egg?" asked Urmila, snickering. "That's too bad." Lakshman scowled, and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Why would you throw an egg?" he asked in frustration, forgetting to include the part where it was he that had been hit and not Shatrughan. "Why would you do that? That hurt!" Urmila turned towards him and rolled her eyes. It couldn't have hurt too bad! Besides, how would he know? He hadn't even been hit. "Why would you do that?" he inquired again.

"Lakshman, they didn't throw the egg," Ram stated gently, cutting in. In his haste to defend his sisters-in-law, he didn't realize the obvious clues. "You can't go around accusing them like this! Besides, I'm sure everyone is fine," For he too had mixed up the twins, and thought Shatrughan was hurt.

"Shatrughan had been teasing them for days now, they had a motive to," At this point, Shatrughan was looking between them confusedly. Yes, he had been pranking the two sisters, but that was no reason to throw an egg at Lakshman! And since when did Ram bhaiyya not take Lakshman's side? He wouldn't have thought that was even possible! "Apologize, Laksh." Lakshman was very confused, and only slightly hurt, but would not ignore his brother's direct command, and did as he asked.

"What on Earth was that about?" asked Bharat as Ram offered to walk the two princesses back, and they agreed graciously, though Mandavi sent a worried look back at Lakshman who was staring at the blue sky, trying to make heads and tails of the situation. "It was Laksh that was hit without reason, so why should he apologize? What kind of reasoning is that? If you ask me, Ram bhaiyya has completely lost his mind, honestly, after this whole marriage extravaganza. Maybe he should take a break."