The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

Abducted

Such a beautiful day. Such a beautiful day. What a waste, for it to be ruined. Not by stormy skies overtaking the bright blue ones. Not by grey clouds pushing away the white ones. Not by the sun sinking into the green mountains. Not by rain falling from the heavy sky, pittering and pattering on the dirt ground. There would be many things going wrong, and nature would not be one of them. No, the day would be ruined, as it almost always was, by evil, making the first move in a mortal game of chess.

But three of those mortals did not know that. And two of those very three happened to be sitting on the front porch of a beautifully built cottage in the middle of the lush and alive Chitrakoot forest. Royalty, living in poverty. Divinity living amongst humanity. And one of those three was Sita, who sat on the front porch, staring into the distance, taking a deep breath from the warm air. It was the beginning of autumn, when the leaves started to leave the trees in search of, what she thought to be, worse fortunes.

"It is quite warm for an autumn day, don't you think, Raghav?" Sita wondered, and Ram simply hummed in response, continuing to dust the sawdust off of the bows and arrows with a small cloth, and looking at the ground as if peering into the dust and seeing every ant, every insect there. Sita was one of those three people, and Ram was one of those three people. All living in a careless world.

Ram finally looked up from his trance as Sita gave a tiny gasp. Right in front of her was a deer. She was always good with animals, but this one enchanted her. She stood up, and walked closer. A deer, a young buck from what she could see. It was a deer, fur sparkling in the sun. But was that fur? Or was it gold? Sita reached out, but the deer shifted back a little bit, and she did too. A deer, with the skin of gold.

Sita should have been alarmed at that very moment. Always one in tune with nature, knowing how to speak to every animal, but not recognizing this one, a deer made of gold. But she wasn't. She was too distracted, too enchanted by the beautiful magic of the deer that seemed to escape her grasp whenever she reached out. And it was then that Sita experienced a momentary weakness to the evil clutches of greed.

She walked back to the porch, her eyes not leaving the body of the deer not even once. Ram looked up from his bow the moment Sita's hand touched his shoulder, and he looked forward to see what had caught the desirable attentions of his wife so. It was a deer. A golden deer, that was leaning towards the ground, nibbling on the little shoots of young grass that escaped from the Earth.

"Can I have that deer?" Sita asked hopefully. "Please, Raghav? Please? It is so beautiful, so young, so shimmery! It catches the rays of sunlight in such a way that it gleams at me, as if beckoning me to come closer." The Sun hid away in the clouds with shame at causing this event. "It is so sparkly! The blue sky seems to reflect back on it, such a pretty periwinkle blue!" The blue sky immediately turned gray, trying to decrease her desire. It did no such thing. "Please! Oh please! It would be so wonderful to take back to Ayodhya!"

Ram looked at Sita for a moment. Not once, in their entire exile, had he seen her so happy. So excited. So pleased. It reminded him of times less harsh, when they were back in the palace. If this golden deer made her this happy every day, made her smile look like a wide beacon of sun, well then he would catch it. "I shall." he proclaimed, and reached down to grab his bow, having uttered words he would thoroughly regret for the rest of his life.

But Lakshman was not one of those three people. Those three people who didn't know that the day would suddenly turn worse. His heart beat with a melancholy, and he stepped out of the hut, looking around. "That deer-it doesn't look right." he muttered, eyes narrowing. "I think that it may be a trick of the demons, bhabhi. Don't go after it. There is no such thing as a golden deer. It is not possible."