Week 3 Storytelling: Monkey Business - A Story of Hanuman

            I seem to have found myself in a bit of a… fiery situation. But let’s rewind a little – back to when I first met Rama, a bright, young king-to-be. It was just your average day in the jungle, until Sugriva heard a noise coming from afar. As much as I love him, King Sugriva has been wayyy too paranoid since his brother, Vali, exiled him from his own kingdom and stole his wife. Sugriva thought that the noise was, in fact, men sent by Vali, and as his friend, I went out disguised as him to confront the noise. Little did I know, I would meet two valiant brothers, Rama and Lakshmana, who willingly desired to help me and Sugriva gain his kingdom back in return of our help in finding Sita, Rama’s stolen wife. And both promises were kept.

            Fast forwarding after the recapture of Sugriva’s wife and kingdom, we waited for what seemed like forever for the rainy season to end until we could go search for Sita. After that long wait and a very impatient Rama, Sugriva and Jambavan, king of the bears (long story), sent four search parties (or search armies) of monkeys and bears into different directions. I, fortunately, was part of the army that found Tamraparni, an island of Lanka, AKA where Sita and Ravana would be. We even found Jatayu’s brother Sampati, a bird who can’t fly due to… sun problems, who told us we were headed in the right direction!

            Anyway, the new situation was: How do we get to the island to make sure Sita was actually there?? None of the monkeys could leap that far to get onto the island in the first place! Now, this is when I figured out I have amazing super powers. Remember Jambavan, that bear king I mentioned earlier? Well, he reminded me about my gifts, my history, and my invulnerability, which was a great mood and self-esteem booster. As I made my way to Lanka, I got into a little rakshasi trouble, but it wasn’t too much to handle.

I began searching the entire city of Lanka to look for Sita, but ended up finding myself in Ravana’s room where a 10-headed sleeping beauty lay. (Side note: I have no idea how he’s able to sleep with so many heads, but props to him.) I ended up finding Sita later on, but she was being guarded by rakshasas. Hiding in trees, I witnessed the beautiful Sita’s hilarious rejection of Ravana, staying loyal to Rama. She wouldn’t even let me carry her back to him because she wanted to be faithful and not touch another male. She gave me a token to bring back, but I can’t come back empty handed! Rama wanted me to bring her back to him, and that is what I will do. So as any other reasonable being would do, I set out to destroy the city of Lanka, which may or may not have lead to my capture.

Now, instead of having me killed for being allied with Rama as Ravana wanted, his people advised him not to.  Unfortunately, that did not mean I was going to be free to go at all. No. Ravana decides to SET. MY. TAIL. ON. FIRE. which brings us back up to the present time. Anyway, who does that?! Who just sets someone’s tail on fire?! Ravana does not know who he’s made an enemy out of. Now… This is monkey business. Time to save Sita and kill Ravana once and for all. But first, it's time to burn down the whole city.

Hanuman Burning Lanka

Author's Note:  The events of this story was inspired by Part C of the PDE Ramayana. I wanted to focus on Hanuman, the monkey god, in this story and write in his point of view. Hanuman played an important role in Ramayana, but his opinions weren't vocalized too much although his actions were clear. I thought it would be interesting to look into his thoughts during this adventure, specifically during his time in Lanka and when his tail was set on fire. I started off in the "present" time with his fiery tail, and had him flashback to tell his part of the story to lead to his desires after his tail was burned. I decided to end the story with his vengeful thoughts to keep the story on a cliffhanger and also to keep it interesting.

Bibliography: Public Domain Edition Ramayana

Reading Notes: Ramayana (Part D)

The plot of Part D is fairly action-filled compared to the previous three parts. In an abridged summary of the events, Rama and his allies barge into Lanka, and have to face Indrajit (Ravana's son) and Kumbhakarna (Ravana's brother). While it was as very tough battle for Rama and friends, Garuda appears to heal their wounded so they all can fight once more. Watching from above, the gods watch the battle, and Indra decides to send Matali and his chariot to help them in battle. After an eventful and destined battle between Rama and Ravana, Rama is able to defeat Ravana by slaying him with a weapon of Brahma, and all is supposedly well and Rama becomes king of Ayodhya. However, once Sita is rescued, Rama begins to deny her faithfulness and pureness because of her time in Lanka, although she went through a fire to prove herself. Rama exiles her, she gives birth to twins (sons of Rama), and the boys somehow find their way back to Rama. When he figures out they are his sons, he sends for Sita to return because he cannot live without her. Ramayana ends as Rama returns to the gods in the form of Vishnu.

            As I read this part, I thought it was interesting how intense the battles were, and the helpfulness of every character Rama had come across throughout Ramayana. The most interesting part of this section, in my opinion however, was the aftermath of the destined battle between Rama and Ravana. After wanting to rescue his beloved wife Sita for so long and going through so much trouble, Rama was so quick to deny Sita's loyalty and her exile made his fight for her seem pointless. He realized his mistake of exiling her only years after he comes across his two sons he did not know about because Sita gave birth to them after her exile.

Here are some ideas that I could write about:

• The outrage Sita feels after being accused of not being pure after her time in Lanka
• Vishnu's return to the heavens and being celebrated by the other gods
• The perspective of the gods watching the events of the battle, after waiting so long for it to happen
• Ravana's last thoughts as he is killed by Rama
• Bharata's thoughts as he sees Rama return, and his relief when he realizes that he doesn't have to kill himself
• Rama's coronation day

The Reunion of Rama & Bhrata

Bibliography: Public Domain Edition Ramayana

Reading Notes: Ramayana (Part C)

The plot of Part C continued with Rama and Lakshamana's search for the monkey king Sugriva to ask him to help them find Sita. Along the way, the brothers were able to ally with Sugriva, Hanuman (the monkey god), Jambavan (the bear leader), and their followers. After sending four armies to look for Sita, one group found her location on an island in Lanka. As Hanuman went in to retrieve Sita, he was captured and Ravana decided his punishment was to set his tail on fire. Hanuman then retaliated by setting half of Lanka on fire with his tail, and then went back to the rest of his army to tell them what happened. Meanwhile, Ravana's loyal followers are willing to wage war with Rama but Ravana's younger brother Vibhishana thought he should return Sita to him instead. However, after being refused by Ravana, Vibhishana decides to leave Lanka and ally with Rama.

            As I read this part, the end was interesting where Vibhishana, a rakshasa AND Ravana's younger brother is the voice of reason and sides with Rama against his own brother. I also thought it was interesting that Ravana simply decided to set Hanuman's tail on fire instead of having him killed or something more torturous. There is also a character development of Hanuman during this section of the Ramayana. He is a devoutly, courageous follower of Rama, who risks his life to find Sita and revolves his actions around what he should do to protect both her and Rama. Something new I could do this time around is to write in a verse style and/or have a first point of view of one character.

Here are some ideas that I could write about:

• Hanuman's thought process during Ravana's court deciding his punishment, which leads to his burning of Lanka
• Vibhishana's perspective and his last straw with Ravana, causing him to team up with Rama
• His story could correlate to Week 2's story with Shurpanaka
• Sita's perspective awaiting her husband, and her annoyance with Ravana as he tries to seduce her
• Backstory on how the monkeys and bears allied together (maybe a love story?)

Hanuman

Bibliography: Public Domain Edition Ramayana