Ramayana

by Daljit Nagra

stood by a hall, cross-armed and whistling

  whilst admiring the black smoke he’d roused.

  Hanuman lifted a shining golden pillar,

  from the hall he’d crushed, then attacked the bruisers.

  He killed a flank of raksassy

  before Jambumali arrived on the scene.

  Jambumali was one of Raavana’s friskiest bruisers,

  with great tusks pronging from his gob,

  with his trademark

  blazing white shirt and ear-rings

  he stood atop a gate and assaulted arrows at Hanuman.

  A half-moon tipped arrow slaked a monkey cheek.

  Hanuman’s face glowed like a full-blown autumn lotus.

  Hanuman broiled with rage: a boulder at his feet,

  he lifted it and chucked it with great hurl at Jambumali!

  But Jambumali’s thunderous arrows were a stymie.

  Hanuman was rage-hard! Hanuman

  smashed his wild body, like a rock, towards Jambumali

  and as Jambumali fell down

  Hanuman roared his fists into that pronged beastie.

  Jambumali was overwhelmed like never before

  and felt a few body-crushing blows queasy his guts.

  Then Hanuman smashed the tusks

  back into Jambumali’s cheeks!

  He knocked Jambumali out for the count

  so bad

  it became hard to distinguish Jambumali

  from his shirt, his bow and arrows, his chariot and horses.

  All was one vile heap thanks to one hot monkey!

  Hold on though.

  Raavana’s son, Indrajit,

  who’d been praying when he heard the monkey mayhem,

  with his lethal powers he summoned a mantra

  that can be applied just the once on a fellow.

  The mantra shot forth Shiva’s net.

  Hanuman fell to the ground tied by a net of sunlight.

  Unable to move.

  And trapped in a hot-net for good.

  Before Indrajit could reach Hanuman, from the distance

  he saw the army rush forward and chain up Hanuman.

  The soldiers hadn’t worked out why the monkey was

  arms down-his-side and writhing in light.

  The chains came on: Indrajit’s net came off.

  Indrajit bit his lip, for Shiva’s noose cannot hold

  if any other bond has been laid over it.

  Boundless ignorance takes charge, thought Indrajit

  as he returned back to his nook and resumed his meditation.

  Hanuman was scuffled away by the glory seekers.

  When Raavana saw the giant white creature,

  he was appalled, ‘This is no mere monkey.

  He must be a new creature

  made by the gods to tax me.’

  Hanuman, who was bound and held, said,

  ‘Yo, Raavana, I am here to tell you

  Rama is invincible. Change or be changed up.’

  Said Raavana, ‘So you support Rama.

  But how did you get to Lanka?’

  ‘I walked.’

  When laughter in the hall ceased,

  ‘The reward for your long walk is a short walk

  to death!’

  ‘If I must die, one favour only I ask,

  that you pick my death from two ways.’

  Raavana, perked by this queer fellow, waved a hand

  so Hanuman be heard.

  ‘If I die the way of the monkey mother –

  lock me in a store-room

  with tastiest dishes and I will choke to death.

  If I die the way of the monkey father –

  wrap my tail in cloth

  pouring oil on it then setting it alight.’

  To placate the hall roars of kill him!

  Vibishana said, ‘Remember, the one murdering an envoy

  violates the ancient law and descends

  to that hell of heated jars, Taptakumbha.’

  Raavana agreed and said, ‘Let him be shamed;

  a bezti that befits his punishment, his guilt.’

  Vibishana muttering, ‘I hear monkeys regard

  the tail as precious. Let us serve him with his father’s fate.’

  Hanuman was dragged away to the Gentle Room.

  His tail was dunked in oil and set alight.

  Raksassy blew conches and trumpets made monkey-mocking

  ooh-oooh-ooohs at Hanuman’s tail.

  Except those of you who are monkey fun-makers

  you must desist now your oooh-ooohing too

  for that monkey, with swiftness wits, to escape his shackles

  shrank! Shrank! Once out of his

  traps he began

  enlarging and as he began carefully over-enlarging the flame

  about his tail too was large

  so that when that monkey was big as a building

  Then that mere monkey went ooh-oooh-ooohing as he leapt

  from rooftop to rooftop with the wind

  helping him swing and slap his flaming tail

  wherever he ooh-oooh-oooh’d!

  Hanuman swung his thing all over the capital

  before shrinking in size to flee.

  In his wake: mansions, ramparts, gateways, watch-towers

  loosened

  and leaked

  their ores, coral,

  pearls and silver …

  So to end present proceedings,

  all you who would mock a fellow humanoid

  by jesting how they’re a monkey,

  I say it’s neither a fun-mock nor a wise-jest.

  I hope it has been shown how insulting a fellow

  by calling them a monkey is dread ironic!

  Now call a mate a monkey

  and see how proud he feels when on his mind is

  hero-Hanuman

  who by magic had not a hair singed on his tail!

  You monkey.

  Chapter Eight: Emergency Raksassy Jaw Jaw

  Raavana with his war cabinet.

  Demons have all the backhander shortcuts

  for getting a job done in double-time.

  So Raavana had coolest denizens built

  with fullest dodgy means in next-no-time.

  Raavana was in no mood to enjoy his revamped palace,

  stating to his advisers, ‘This monkey has shot off

  having shot down our capital.’

  Spoke, mighty commander-in-chief, Prahasta,

  who’d led Raavana’s armies against Kubera and the Devas,

  ‘Rama has been bold sending a monkey in disguise.

  Would it not become us if we changed into mortals

  meddling in Rama’s army to kill freely from within?

  Otherwise what began with a monkey may not end

  with a monkey. Next, challenging our rule

  might be a flood of pesky mosquitos!’

  He was cut short by the goofy giant, Mahodara,

  a lumpen giant amongst giants,

  ‘Let me get this monkey and all his allies.

  I’ll fee-fie-foe and drink their blood!

  I’ll piss it red in the lakes and wells

  from where sages sup water!’

  Iron-club wielding, Vajradamshtra was straight in

  spilling his unequivocally comic beans, ‘Daaaat faaat

  monkey has prepared us

  dat fooood is making its own way for our mouuuuths.

  It will be good fill for my club. Looook at my club!

  Looook at its dribbling blood and flesh-lumps.

  My club is ’ungry-’ungry! Listen, my club is saying,

  Dis Rama, dis Hanuman is the gooooiest

  smell I ever been tell about.

  My iron tummy is ’ungry-’ungry!’

  The advice was getting samey. Vibishana stood

  till the cheers were snapped shut and all were seated,

  ‘Great brother,

  do not allow yourself to enter this manner.
/>
  You are everything to me, to us all:

  a father, a leader, a guru.

  What grieves is that you may lose your throne

  after all your austerities to gain great boons.

  In a sense it was not a monkey tail

  that hurt our great city

  but the rightness flame raging inside Sita.

  Let us cleanse ourselves of this sin.’

  Silence.

  Vibishana spoke softly, ‘Anyone ever conquer the gods

  and live victorious … long? Retribution

  shadows each affronting action. My lord, I do not think

  you sought protection from mankind

  so why be rousing them to stand behind a flag?

  What mighty force is commanding or commanded by such a

  one

  as Rama if his bow alone is sleep to armies? How simply

  these two brothers scattered to the fourteen worlds

  Trishira and the mighty Kora.

  Dear brother,

  you may also remember Nandi’s curse

  after you mightily heaved the Kailas mountain … that

  your end would be aided by monkeys …?’

  Vile silence.

  Indrajit’s eyes were yellow with venom,

  ‘Winter clouds are big with thunder

  but do they bring

  fresh rain? So it is false relations seek our favour

  but secretly, I think they seek change …

  Protection? Were anyone so blind

  seeking such a hand

  as my foot-strong father who is holding our island

  bound? This Rama dropped his throne

  losing it to a kid brother. Would this befall my father?’

  Vibishana persevered with his brother, ‘O brother,

  I beg you give up this wrangle with the gods.

  Let us be dwelling in our sun and delighting in our fruits.

  Should not a king be seeking alliance with his equals?

  An army should never be undervalued

  especially one devoted to a bloodthirsty cause. Do we have

  cause in kind? Why keep a lovesick wife? Return

  the damaged goods and win victorious peace, brother!’

  Finally, Raavana rose, ‘Remember

  before Rama was born, I seized three worlds.

  I have grown stronger: whatever Vishnu have I have more.

  So what power in Rama?

  You grieve me, Vibishana.

  Leave Lanka. I give you leave.

  Look all about you and go, there I grant you freedom.

  I say to you all, who could tolerate this,

  what this saint Rama is, if he, not even touch,

  but cut our sister!

  Do we even touch his wife? Did he not freely murder

  Mareecha, Trishira and the galloping Kora!

  Is this the work of a saint-scholar or a butcher?

  Even if we were to return Sita, we would capture Rama

  and offer the bride as freedom’s price.

  But why be returning Sita? I brought her freely

  from my own forest where she has been tenanted.

  If she is comforted by our haunts

  let her be haunted by our comforts.

  I declare she is my own property.

  So be readying for some major bishboshing.

  Let the lowerworlds and the ooperworlds come too!

  Did we not kick out Kubera and take Lanka?

  Did not Maya, so cower’d by me, give me his daughter,

  my dear Mandodari, in marriage? How many cities

  in the underworld have we not attacked and taken?

  How did I unseat each foe –

  by taking the tusks of his elephant,

  tusks never shattered under great thunderbolts,

  that under the force of my jolts cracked like radishes.

  How many gods? Did I not shake Shiva’s hills

  like a rag

  and loosen them from goblins and imps you all feasted

  full year on?

  I say, bring on man and bear and monkey and bird

  and we shall thunder them past the chasms

  swirling about the cold universe!

  Our pleasure grounds are verged on eternal victory!’

  Raavana continued his riotous speech

  till his fighters were whipped into wanton fury

  and each atom of their being sparked for annihilation.

  Chapter Nine: Madu Madya Honey-pot Hairdown Day!

  The monkeys and bears celebrate their success.

  O golly golly gosh what a lot of dirty hooting

  drunkard monkeys bonking any lot of lady

  fellows in the randy vineyard with all for swinging

  fulsome column donging orgy virility no-end

  and every josser monkey

  got some jiggy game

  till arm-linked hill-top

  bawdy song-along!

  Hanuman forgetting himself on his way

  to see his king and instead before the big

  battle and for one last final fling leading Angada

  and the gang not forgetting wise bear Jambavan

  and his crew

  to Maduvana

  to Daddymuck’s

  vineyard.

  There they rifled through the treasured store

  and got a bit madu, or sozzled, on honey-wine madya,

  drowning potfuls and banging for the female

  honeypot! The female monkeys and bears

  guarding the vineyard for bread-head boring

  Daddymuck couldn’t believe their saucy fortune!!!

  Their uber-cock-

  a-hoopery when

  they’d put down

  their weapons

  and taken up

  an entirely

  lustier sort

  of weapon.

  O golly golly cheeeeeky gosh!

  Monkeys and bears bumbling down the hills

  and chucking pot or vat in the air and crocking

  across the grove. More bosky freedom! More madu!

  More tupping! Till Daddymuck roared Enufff!

  Enough? Not quite enough just yet, sahib!

  They thumped the partypooper who galloped off

  to find King Sugreeva. The king settled the debt.

  Daddymuck

  stroked his

  white beard

  with gold-bag

  gleeeeeee!!!

  Rama and Sugreeva were sure good news only

  could be the upshot, so they found Hanuman

  and his army.

  Hanuman’s sapped groaning

  two-day leave-me-alone arms-

  about-the-head shush hangover

  army …

  Chapter Ten: Calling All Monkeys Here Now Please!

  Sugreeva summons a monkey army.

  The fighting season was at them.

  King Sugreeva gave sober notice for a great army thus …

  ‘Now all hear this, yo!

  Go forth my clarion-calling monkeys,

  go forth you who leap and in leaping sip the clouds!

  You who simply blot the sky at full span!

  You who are built like elephants and buffaloes!

  You, my boldest monkeys

  leave no cave, mountain or bunker in the ocean unchecked!

  Go forth bringing bounding out the million billion monkeys

  lapping the global mantle

  by plying them with standard inducements and gifts

  and telling them there is a king of the monkeys

  who calls them raging forth for the celestial battle!

  Let the world reckon in millennia to come

  that once in Kiskinda

  King Sugreeva stood before a prophecy of monkey power

  fulfilling! Where a mission to save the earth entire

  was consummated and monkeys were freed ever after!

  Summon them all by the tenth day from now.


  Go! Go hooting forth at once my beloved ochre couriers!’

  Now all should check the speech riposte, yeah.

  Within ten days, monkeys spilled from forests, mountains,

  caves and seas. Three hundred million monkeys,

  mascara-black, came from Mount Anjana,

  a thousand million who live on roots and fruits

  clamoured down from the Himalayas,

  one hundred million dazzling golden monkeys down

  from the Sunset Mountains,

  millions rose up from pale-peaked Mount Mandara,

  millions were tawny as a lion’s mane

  and stirred from Mount Kailasa,

  millions were fierce as Indra and came from Vindhyas!

  Flanked and ranking leaders of armies

  from sun charmed land upon land,

  monkeys handsome from eating only berries,

  monkeys who could fly across mountain ranges,

  monkeys who could morph into bears and serpents,

  monkeys who could swallow a fireball

  spitting it back with missile might,

  monkeys flashing tiger-teeth and diamond nails

  that with tooth or nail alone could dizzy the foe,

  and all the uncategorised monkeys, all the monkeys

  never named or known

  who would fight to the final limb!

  Through forest and thicket the earth thickened –

  where they amassed they drank up the sun,

  they blotted the sun as a huge dust cloud blinkered the sky.

  The ground shook to the leaps and whoops

  riddling the tottered world with apocalyptic din!

  Chapter Eleven: By Nala to Lanka

  Rama’s army seek a way for crossing into Lanka.