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Continued from yesterday’s instalment
 Lakshmana appears to be a little too rash on two or three scenes in the second book. One of them is when Sumantra asks for the message of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana to the king and the mothers. 'Convey my respects to the King and the queens and take care of parrot,' is the innocent message of Sita. 'May my mother ever follower her Dharma and honour my father; may she be good to Kaikeyi; may she never forget her duty to the king!' is the essence of Rama's message. When he says 'duty to the king' Rama, by the word 'king' refers to Bharata. Listen to the message of Lakshmana that Sumantra has taken back to the ears of
Dasaratha.
"For what offence has this prince (Sri Rama) been exiled? Having quickly promised to carry out he command of Kaikeyi, the king executed it, not minding whether it was worth doing or not, as a result of which we have been subjected to excessive suffering. If the event of Sri Rama having been exiled was brought about through greed (for power) or because a boon had been granted to that effect by the emperor), a wholly undesirable act has been done………I at any rate perceive no parenthood in the emperor, Sri Rama (a scion on Raghu) is my (elder) brother, master, kinsman and father too." (Valmiki Ramayana, Ayodhya Kanda, Canto LVIII, Sloka 26-28 and 30)
 He
(Dasaratha) can neither be called the emperor nor my father. I do not see any reason why I should send soothing words to that person! He failed to keep his word. Lakshmana calls Dasaratha
'meyyan' sarcastically in Kamban. He has his own way of interpreting it. 'You say that Dasaratha sent Rama on exile because he could not break his word given to Kaikeyi. Do you realise that he did not keep his word given to my brother to make him the king? How do you call him a truthful person any more? May be he kept up his promise made to Kaikeyi; but he broke the one made to my brother. I cannot call him
'sathya vratha' any longer.'
'urai seydhu em kOmagarkku uRudhi aakiya tharai kezhu thiruvinaith thavirththu,' In violation of the words given to my king (Rama) 'matru oru virai seri kuzhali maatu aLiththa meyyani,' he, 'that truthful person' handed over the crown to that lady.
'araisan endru innam ondru arayar paaladhO' Does he deserve to be called a king any more?
Love has strange ways of interpreting events. While the entire world celebrates Dasaratha's unswerving love for Truth, Lakshmana has another, very logical, convincing and irrefutable way of disproving it! 'I agree that he kept his word given to that woman. But what happens to the word given to my brother? Why did he fail there?' However, Rama did not approve of this argument. That is a different story altogether.
Lakshmana's message to Dasaratha is made up of the choicest of harshest of words. But if one would observe, it is born out of sheer love for Rama. Lakshmana's anger is selfless. It is born, takes shape and finds expression only due to one reason, and the reason needs no restatement.
More follows...
Published on 6-03-02
Hari Krishnan
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