The moment Kaikeyi asked for Ram’s 14-years banishment to the forest, Dashrath lost everything – his aplomb, his self-esteem and even his will to live. He had fits of swooning every other moment, while Kaikeyi, his most favoured wife, watched callously. The alienated couple spent the tormenting hours of night, with the husband alternatingly cursing his wife and pleading with her, and the wife telling him to be a man and stand by his word. A new day set in. No one outside Kaikeyi’s chamber had an inkling of what was going on inside. The morning rituals had begun. The palace attendants, as also everyone else connected with the raja’s routine, were astonished that he had not yet woken up. So much had still to be done for Ram’s anointment that was scheduled for that very day. The auspicious hour was approaching.
Sumantra was asked at last to go inside the palace and find out –
Pachhile pehar bhoopu nit jaga/Aaju hamhi barh achraju laga//
Jahu Sumantra jaggavahu jai/Kijiya kaju rajaayasu paai//
The Raja regularly gets up in the night’s last quarter, but today it comes as a surprise to us (that he has not risen till now). O Sumantra! Go (inside) to wake up the raja. We will set to work on receiving his command.
Ramcharitmanas, Ayodhyakand, 37(i)
Sumantra obliged, only to find his master a broken man. Dashrath could not utter a word. Instead, Kaikeyi said to Sumantra, “Figuring the whole night the anointment (issue,)he is exhausted. Sumantra, summon Ram to our place urgently.”
To her astonishment, the faithful old minister did not move at her explicit order. It was not until the raja himself had requested him in his failing voice to fetch Ram, that Sumantra rushed to Ram’s palace.
Unaware of what had transpired between his father and the step-mother Kaikeyi, Ram sat fully dressed up for the august ceremony. On receiving the urgent summons, he set out immediately with Lakshman to meet them. People greeted him heartily on the way. Women standing in their balconies showered flowers on them. It was going to be a gala day, after all.
But Ram, to his consternation, witnesseda sombre scene when he was led to Kaikeyi’s Chamber of Rage. His father was deathly pale and incommunicative, while Rani Kaikeyi sat by his side, calm and collected. Ram bowed to both of them. In response, Dashrath could merely utter “Ram!” and then he lay supine on the floor.
Ram was hard put to turn to his step-mother to find out what had happened. Kaikeyi was too keen to brief him. She began with the incident of the early years of her marriage when she had twice saved Raja Dashrath’s life while he was fighting the rakshasas in support of the devas. The raja had agreed to grant her two boons in turn and left it to her to redeem those boons at the time of her choosing. Now was the time that she had asked him to fulfil his promise. The first demand that she had made was that her own son, Bharat, and not Ram, be anointed to ascend the throne and the second was that Ram should be banished to forest, there to spend 14 years observing the austerities of a hermit.
The raja, Kaikeyi said, was nonplussed. He did not want to be untrue to his word, nor did he want to part with Ram even for a day. It was only Ram himself, she added, who could pull his father out of such a quandary.
Ram sensed the coldness of Kaikeyi’s heart. Yet, he put filial piety first before his personal feelings. Smiling benignly, he spoke thus to her –
Sunu Janani soi sutu badbaghi/Jo pitu matu bachan anuragi//
Tanay matu pitu toshnihara/ Durlabh janani sakal sansara//
O Mother! Listen! Fortunate is only the son who is devoted to the words of his parents (carries out their wishes). A son who makes his parents content (by complying with their directions), O Mother, is difficult to find in the whole world.
-Ibid, 40(iv)
Ram’s calm words gladdened Kaikeyi’s heart, but Raja Dashrath was shocked at their intent. The aged raja lost consciousness again. Ram himself was at crossroads. Was he to undo Kaikeyi’s tactical gambit to supplant him with Bharat for succession to the throne; or would it be still better for him to be instrumental in fulfilling his father solemn promise? Ram could have practical reasons to follow the first course of action, the foremost being the need to relieve his father of the emotional distress. Then there was his mother, Kaushalya, who had to be protected from Kaikeyi -the woman was demonstrably not above tormenting the senior queen for perceived rivalry and rancour. Most important of all, Ram had a fair understanding that his wife Sita was not prepared to live separately from him, and fourteen years was a long stretch of time by any reckoning. Besides, would it be justified to expose the elegant princess, who had been brought up in the lap of luxury, to the rigours and risks of jungle life?
Nevertheless, Ram chose to follow the second course, placing filial piety above all else. Making up his mind, he retraced his steps to seek the permission of his mother, Rani Kaushalya, to set out for the jungle. On the way, Lakshman, his fiery brother, fulminated against their father who he said had become foggy with age and his infatuation with Kaikeyi. Lakshman went even so far as to threaten to stage a coup to set the matters right. Ram, however, calmed him down. He faced a still harder time to becalm his mother. The news of his banishment had struck her like a thunderbolt. She urged Ram to allow her to accompany him to the jungle. To that, Ram came up with the failsafe argument – her first and foremost duty lay with her husband and she would have to stay with him through thick and thin. Ram tried to dissuade brother Lakshman as well, but the latter wouldn’t listen to him. And asking Sita to stay back overtaxed his extraordinary persuasive skills. When he had countered all other arguments that shemade to be with him during his impending banishment, Sita asked him something which only a wife could ask her husband. Was he going to leave her at Bharat’s mercy? Ram had to submit to her will.
Ominous clouds were gathering on the royal house of the Raghus, as Ram, Lakshman and Sita chose to prefer the hard path of uprightness over a life of ease and luxury.
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