The mystery called Ravan

No one ever names their kid — Ravan, yet he is such a powerful character that everyone knows him

I recall from my childhood days, early sunday mornings were all about sitting with folded hands in front of TV to watch Ramayana

So, I knew the story,
but while growing up, I got lost with the moral of the story

If Ravan is the villain who kidnapped Sita, wasn’t he still of very high morals because he treated her with utter respect
whereas Sita’s husband asks her for a character test
( there is a whole background story on this too, we will keep it for some other day)

Sometimes, I even thought, what if Ravan did what he did, because Ram and his brother Lakshman, chopped off, Ravan’s sister’s nose?

I remember once my father told me,
“Ravan was a brahmin, very knowledgeable and a Great Shiv Bhakt
He actually took Sita, because he was a father-figure to her and treated her for fertility issues”

I was like, “I’m never going to say this version of the story papa, kids will laugh at me”

he didn’t stop at that, he said
“Do you know, why we are called Saryuparin Brahmins?
After killing Ravan, Ram had the karma of Brahma-Hatya and to remove it,
he did all the yagnas and Brahmins helped him with that

But there were few Brahmins who refused.
Well they didn’t want the karma of Brahma-Hatya on their head
So, they came to the other-side of the river Saryu, hence the name”

This was still a little digestible fact to me

Couple of months back, because of my mother’s ailment and everything,
we finally decided to do SatyaNarayan Puja which lasted for almost 7 hours :D
(Despite being Brahmins, we hadn’t done that Puja for ages, so I was pretty excited about it)

The Panditji kept telling me stories, while both my parents were getting irritated :D

So, he narrated to me the origins of Ravan
Born to a Brahmin father and a Rakshsi mother
So, despite being the most knowledgeable and devout Brahmin, he had few traits from his mother as well

Ravan wanted to attain Moksha and kept requesting Ram to kill him
but Ram being the Maryada Purushottam that he is, refused and couldn’t commit a crime like that

So, during Ram’s vanvas, when Sita created a chaya/ shadow of her to go with Ram in the forest,
Ravan kidnapped the Chaya of Sita

and still kept requesting Ram to kill him

The point here is,
to be killed at the hands of Ram, the man of highest character, is to attain salvation

So, Ravan persisted with this humble request to the Lord

and the rest is history, as we know :)

However, think about it….

What if — — Ravan being the Grand-master of knowledge and medicine, really brought Sita, his daughter-like, to treat her for an ailment
(he even had an aircraft at that time, got to be wise guy)

What if, it really was the Chaya of Sita, that was kidnapped

What if, it was all for achieving Salvation, that Ravan persisted Ram, to kill him

What if ….

(You know, what hurts the most..
People of SriLanka don’t even know, the great wise man that lived in the Sone ki Nagri ….
Actually, that entire nagri/ land was his
What an utter failure of history. ……………)