Chapter 6
Kaikesi saw Ravan get up and run. She tried calling him but he just kept on running. She thought that he would return once he cooled down. But morning had come and he was yet to return. She had remained awake the whole night. She started getting worried about him and was just about to search for him when Kashyapa came forward.
"Don’t worry, rest a while. I'll go search for him" he said. He then left the mountain. As he left the mountain smoke and fog covered the mountain. After a while the whole mountain disappeared like it didn’t exist at all.
Ravana
He ran for quite a while. Maybe it was due to his emotions running high or the tears streaming down his face, he didn’t realize that he was running faster than normal. In fact he was running really fast, so fast that the surrounding passed in a blur. He ran for the whole night with tears in his eyes and fell unconscious without any knowledge of the surrounding.
When he came to, he realized that he was in a crudely made bed. He also saw his drool in the pillow made from straw, which he chose to ignore. As he sat there on the bed, he recollected what happened yesterday and him running away. He also remembered the promise made to his father. He felt ashamed for acting in a child like manner, but what was done had already been done. There was nothing he could do to change that. So, thinking that he must have run to the village near the mountain, he tried getting up from the bed. Just as he was about to do so, the door to the room opened and in walked an old woman. Seeing the unfamiliar woman walking towards him, he spoke "Granny, where am I?" the granny instead of answering him looked at him with a sweet smile and said" So, you have woken up huh? Really a young one like you should take care about where you nap. If I hadn’t found you in time, who knows what might have happened?" Thinking that some wild animals might have made him their prey, the old woman frowned in disapproval.
Hearing this Ravana was a little embarrassed. He then got up from the bed and went to the granny. Seeing that the granny was carrying a bag which looked heavy, he went forward and took it from her and asked her where should he put it? He thought that he must not have wandered too far from home if only a night had passed. This was mainly because he didn’t realize the speed at which he ran.
As he went outside the room and the house helping the old woman in tow, he saw the village he was in. it was a normal looking village, but the strange thing was there were mainly children and some women around. However the men were seen rarely in the whole village. He found this strange but didn’t think much about it thinking they must be working or something.
He thought that the village he was in must be one of those that present just below or near the mountain. But as he walked down the village, he realized he had never been to this place before. Although there was a total mountain which looked somewhat similar to the one where he and his family lived in, he knew it was a different one. Because he had lived there so long he knew each and every parts of the mountain, so he knew he was in a different one. And then it finally hit him. He was lost. He didn’t know where he was. He got a little scared thinking what might happen to his family when he wasn’t there. But then he thought about the sage that was there. He unconsciously relaxed a little. Perhaps he himself didn’t realize this but he had started trusting the sage because of the influence of the tale his mother told him. The old woman seeing Ravana with a glazed look in his eyes reached out and slapped him in the back of his head. The startled Ravana looked at the scary looking old woman and meekly smiled and asked" Where is this place?"
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Hearing this, the old woman was dumbfounded."Little boy, did you hit your head somewhere? What were you doing in this place if you don’t know where you are? Are you a traveler? Do your parents know where you are?"
Hearing such a barrage of question come out of the mouth of the old woman he felt a wave of dizziness in his head and started turning a little green. The old woman saw this and started fussing over him, urging him to return to the hut. As he returned to the hut and talked to the old lady, he learned that her name was Sundari. Hearing this name Ravana was a little stunned. Sundari meant beautiful but looking at the old woman the meaning really didn’t match. She had lost the front row of her teeth and her skin was full of wrinkles. She also had her back crooked. It could be said that time hadn’t been merciful on her. However her eyes were still full of vigor. Sundari seeing Ravana looking at her weirdly, humphed and said" If you had seen me during my young years then you wouldn’t be looking at me so. You would be drooling all over me." Hearing this Ravana got even greener. Seeing this Sundari cackled and moved to the kitchen that was in another room nearby. As she left Ravana relaxed his shoulder which he didn’t even realize were tense. He looked around the hut as Sundari kept on cooking something. Although the hut looked small and shabby from the outside it wasn’t so inside. It was a four roomed hut including the kitchen.
When he had gone outside he had seen similar hut but with less occupying space. Mostly hut only contained two rooms, one as a kitchen and another as the room where people slept. Besides the old woman lived alone in that hut and at most occupied two rooms with the kitchen granted that she didn’t sleep in the kitchen.
Seeing this, he got a little curious as he realized the granny must not have lived alone. Thinking this he went to the kitchen where the granny was carrying a bowl of soup and asked" Granny Sun, where are the rest of the people that lived here?" Hearing this question the smile on her face suddenly disappeared to be replaced by a pale whiteness. She started swaying as she heard this and would have fallen on the floor had Ravana not caught her. Ravana quickly brought over a jug of water and fed it to her. As she got stable she weakly smiled and said in a weak voice" So you realized it, huh." Ravana nodded to that.
"What happened?" he asked realizing through the action of the old woman that some calamity must have oocured to the inhabitants of that hut.
Sundari took a long sigh and sat up. Taking a deep breath she replied" When you went out did you realize that this village had very few men?" Ravana too had thought of this before but hadn’t put much thought into this. As he thought so, she continued speaking" This was because the men of the village were taken away by force. Each month at the full moon night they come and take the men remaining in the village away. Many other villages are also suffering the same problem."
"How come no one is doing anything about it then?" Ravana asked thinking that if all the villages nearby banded together then they could easily take care of the people who took those men away. Sundari laughed bitterly. With despair and hopelessness in her eyes she spoke" If they were men or devils (Rakshas) then perhaps we would have fought together. What can we say when the one that took them away are the people that we cannot touch? What can we do except feel despair when we realize that our savior is the one taking our loved ones away? What can we feel but powerless when we saw that the one that took them away was a god?" saying this she started bawling out loud.