RAVAN VS RAVAN

Chapter - 9

        As soon as Shambhu Kumara reached home, he visited the banks of Godavari the next morning. He was very eager to see Sita. There he transformed himself into a tree. He saw that both the brothers were busy building another hut next to their hut. Lakshmana used to cut branches of big trees from the forest and bring them. Later it was Rama's job to give proper shape to those branches and use them. From time-to-time Sita would come and help him in catching, cutting and tying those branches. By now he had erected the walls of the house. Now only the roof was left.

Today he saw that his mother had gone some distance away from him and was sitting in the form of a deer. She was very alert, looking around. Shambhu Kumara wanted to see Sita closely. Suddenly he felt that everything had become silent. When he looked carefully, he saw that the air, water, forest animals, birds and his mother had all frozen. When he looked up, there was no sky there. He and everything around him was shining. He got distracted by the sound of cutting trees. When he looked back, he saw that Lakshmana was carrying branches of the tree. Seeing this a brilliant idea came to his mind. He transformed himself into a branch of a cut tree and lay down along those branches.

When Shurpanakha heard a voice from behind, she got scared. She immediately hid behind a tree and was surprised when she looked in that direction. Lakshmana was cutting tree branches and collecting them there. As soon as she saw him, she sighed and kept looking. For the first time she was looking at him so closely. She kept looking. Her heart rate increased. She came in her true form. At that very moment Lakshmana's eyes fell on her. Both kept looking at each other. The wind started blowing fast. Their clothes and hair started fluttering in the wind. The trees started swaying and flowers started showering on them. A fragrant atmosphere was created all around. He took a step towards her. Seeing this she got scared. He could not understand what to do. Her heartbeat became faster. Before he could catch her hand, she started running away smiling.

Saying, 'Wait Shurpanakha, I have something to tell you', he also runs after her.

The wind gently lifts both of them up. A serpentine road of lotus flowers is formed under their feet. This road brings them to the top of a big tree. Around which peace was spread till infinity. Both of them run to different branches of the tree and start swinging on them. It seemed as if a dream scene was going on the stage. Then suddenly Lakshmana's branch breaks and he falls down from the tree. Seeing this, she screams loudly and jumps behind him to catch him. But she is unable to proceed, she feels as if someone has caught hold of her. When she looks back, she finds that she is hanging from a branch by her own tail in the form of a monkey. She looked around and found that she had reached the top of the tree and Lakshmana had crossed the river. She realized that it was a daydream. But whatever it was, it was beautiful. She laughs with both her hands on her head.

Shambhu Kumara was lying near the hut with cut branches. He was excited because everything was going as per his plan. But after coming here he decided to touch Sita instead of seeing her. He found that both the brothers were busy building the roof of the new hut. Suddenly the noise of birds increased. The cow started mooing loudly. Ants started running here and there on the ground. Dry leaves flew from there. The trees stopped waving their leaves. He transformed himself from the tree branch into beautiful vines of flowers and started moving towards the hut. But after going some distance, he could not move forward as if some invisible wall was stopping him.

He tried everything but did not succeed, then he realized that the hut was located in some invisible dome. Then he started spreading the fragrance of flowers, perhaps on this pretext Sita would come out of the hut and so it happened. Standing at the threshold of the cottage, she was mesmerized by the beautiful flowers and their fragrance. Sita turned and looked at both of them but they were busy in work. Sita thought that Lakshmana must have brought this creeper from the forest and planted it. She couldn't stop herself; She picked up a small bamboo basket from inside and came out to pick flowers.