Ten heads

Ten heads.

He looked down from the top at the massive hall full of rakhshas of various sizes but the one he was interested in was the king who was sitting on a throne which looked like a hood of a cobra. It had to be wide enough to accommodate all of his ten heads. He was amused at the sight of the king. Many questions were racing through his mind about the ten heads. He was wondering,”How does he sleep with ten heads?Certainly he can’t sleep on his sides. Which mouth exactly used for feeding and which one for speaking. He observed that all ten heads were glaring at him from the lower position of the throne.

“How dare you sit in front of me?”

Yes, the rakhshas around also wondered how someone dared their king by sitting and not standing before him with bowed head.

He spoke tauntingly from the top, “You call yourself a Brahmin but you did not have the decency to offer a seat to your guest. You are yet to learn the etiquettes.”

The king growled at his words. He heard the growl as echo as all ten heads were together growling at him. He noticed that all the heads moved in synchronous with each other. He rubbed his eyes thinking that he was hallucinating because of the Brahmashtra which had hit him. Indrajeet was not amused at the discomfiture of his father Ravan. On his order he had brought the monkey after a fierce fight when the monkey rose to the sky, he had to hit Brahmashtra to bring him down. Then he tied down the usual size monkey by a rope and brought him to his father who was the king of Lanka.

He actually brought manasputra of Shiva the great Hanuman. Who willingly allowed him to get captured as the arrow had Lord Shiva’s blessing. In reverence to Lord Shiva he surrendered.

When tied by rope he came with Indrajeet then all courtiers were amused thinking that small monkey had destroyed the loved Ashok Vatika of Ravana where Sita was kept  captive.

But Vayuputra Hanuman was not amused because he had a mission and the mission was to locate Sita. Having located her he wanted to have fun so after tasting the delicious fruits of the garden he went on rampage and destroyed Ashok Vatika. When he found that he was not offered a seat in the court he expanded himself ,  his tail which went on growing with his body until he was looking down at Ravana by sitting on his coiled tail.

Again ten heads bellowed at him for his audacity to laugh at them. The ten heads with 20 eyes were looking at Hanuman at the top.Hanuman could not make out how ten heads were joined with the body, he was getting the top view.When he came in as a small monkey then he had to look up at Ravan so never got the chance to have a look at the neck. He thought probably a side view would clarify his curiosity . He was wondering whether all the heads sneeze together, he was tempted to tickle the nose of one of the heads to find out about sneezing but then he thought why not humor Ravana by asking how he assigns duty to each head. Hewas about to ask Ravana when the ten heads growled again at him.

“What are you doing sitting there?" this time I heard the sound and with a start I got up in my sofa and found my wife yelling at me. I had fallen asleep while reading Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik and just finished Lanka Kand and then the posto which I had taken for lunch took over my senses and I fell asleep with the book Sita on my chest. I was wondering about the ten heads of Ravan when I dosed off. The explanation of ten heads is pretty contentious , it’s more of a symbolic in nature but on the Dashera day we burn effigy of Ravana with ten heads.My fertile mind was busy with the riddle of ten heads when i fell asleep. I thanked the book for giving me a first hand glimpse of the Ramayana's Lanka Kand.

Thus a Sadhu was born

Thus a sadhu was born ………………….. Baren was returning from his work in the evening. The dark cloud was hanging on the rice field, the zig zag lightning often was flashing. Baren could feel the static in the air. His body hair was charged, he was feeling as though he is a human battery carrying charge with him. He was wearing a rubber sole shoe so the charge was not discharging to the ground. The feeling was funny, as per science, he was full of electron on his synthetic cloth and hair. He was hesitating with his cycle to go any further towards his house in the village because of that eerie atmosphere. He had heard many stories during his childhood about ghosts coming out in such weather. Lucky that it was not raining yet, he was not carrying his umbrella. The blinding flashes of the lightning was scary, he could see lightning strikes on the field. As a precaution, he avoided standing below any tree, as a science graduate he knew that lightning would strike the tallest structure or tree. He was keeping a safe distance from the trees as if the lightning strikes a tree then the heavy current will fan out in the ground, if he stood near such lightning struck tree then he would get shock from the ground because of the rush of that current.He was transfixed by that celestial show. Suddenly he heard an ear splitting sound when a big ball of dazzling light fell on a mound, which was within his visibility range. He was scared , like a magic the dark cloud cleared and the thunder stopped. He could see the reddish sky to the west where sun was setting. The refracted light of the setting sun created a magical atmosphere around him; he heaved a sigh of relief. He cautiously approached the mound where the fireball had fallen. To his surprise, he discovered that it was no lightning strike as there was no sign of any burn instead there was a round object which had impacted the ground with such a force that it had formed a cavity in the earth. The object was lying in the ditch; it was of a size of football. Some invisible force was pulling him towards the round object. The handle of the cycle turned toward the object and started taking him towards the object. First he was scared as he thought some demonic force is pulling him but then he thought that there is no such thing as ghost or demon. He did not resist and reached the object by getting down from the cycle. His cycle flew towards the object, and got stuck on it. But as he was going nearer to the object he was feeling a repulsive force, still he kept on walking towards object as he had to retrieve his cycle . Suddenly he felt himself levitating. He spread his hands to balance so that he can stay vertical.

A group of people who were passing by watched with awe the miracle of a person levitating in the air in that diffused sun light of setting sun. They all ran towards Baren ,who was still suspended in the air. He acted nonchalant as though it’s nothing. Those villagers took him to be a yogi with supernatural power. They ran to the nearest village, a big crowd gathered around to witness the miracle. Baren with a beatific smile started blessing the crowd and thought to himself that it was time for him to leave that shitty work in the shop and cash on this godsend chance to become a spiritual guru. He addressed the people, “ I am happy that I could demonstrate my yogic power to you all. ‘’ The crowd was spellbound by the show of supernatural power , they requested ,”Sir you please climb down and come to our Kali temple, there is a guest room where you can stay as long as you want.” Baren replied, “I will come back after a week and spend some time with you all.”’ Somehow he managed to climb down. In the dark, the villagers could not make out that while getting down he had to more or less eject himself from that invisible force. He decided to sharpen his knowledge of magic mostly sleight of hand and study some medicine book for easy remedy. Also he would have to brush up Ramayana and Mahabharata for discourses. He had French cut beard but now it had to grow full. But first within those 7 days he had to make arrangement of a spherical container for that diamagnetic object. After getting down he removed his rubber sole shoes and thus literarily grounded himself, all accumulated negative charge in his body got discharged. Then how come the cycle is positively charged! He had been negatively charged peddling the cycle so the cycle must have got opposite charge,that was what he derived. That extraterrestrial object was negative diamagnetic he reasoned.Baren thought that his first priority would be to get in touch with Babulal so that he could garner help from Samaranand for his journey to Sadhudom or may be Samaranad himself would be interested to seize the oppertunity to become Sadhu. The crowd in the dark could not see his face so he can switch place with Samaranad and he could be the side kick like Babulal. Note: Though Baren used his knowledge of Physics to explain the invisible force as magnetic but can the repulsive magnetic force be strong enough to hold his weight? Chances are it to be some antigravity phenomena associated with that strange globe. I am Samaranand and heard the above story from Babulal. I could have made the journey to find out more about the terresterial object but because of Lockdown could not go. In the meanwhile I have to organize a Geiger Counter to make certain that strange object is not radioactive!