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Continued from yesterday’s instalment
 ‘Do not stop me,’ fumes Lakshmana.
‘sENthaan thodar maanilam ninnadhu endru undhai seppap pUNdaai.’
Your father told you that this vast country is yours and you accepted it. Look at the scornful expression,
‘undhai,’ ‘your father.’
‘pagayaal izhandhE vanam pOdhi endraal,’ (and if in the next moment) you are told to leave for the jungle because of someone who has enmity for you, ‘yaaNdO ini adiyERkku seetram aduppadhu?’ when else do you think is the right moment for this slave to give vent to his anger? If I am not allowed to get angry now, when else would I be?
Lakshmana doesn’t stop with that. Rama’s attempts to pacify him with references to Dharma only help to fan his anger even higher. Sastriyar says, “And it is then that we have Lakshmana enunciating doctrines which are astonishing in the brother of Sri Rama. He says, ‘I am a strong man and I am your protector. I am the guardian of your interests. I cannot see you deprived of what is emphatically yours. If Bharata stands in the way, he and his partisans shall know what it is. A soft man like you will be continually humiliated. I’ll finish this Bharata and any man who calls himself his partisan.” (The Sloka that is referred to here occurs in the 21st Canto of Ayodhya Kanda as the 11th
Sloka.)
‘Lakshmana, you are endowed with faultless wisdom,’ coaxes Rama further. ‘iyaindha needhi vaLaya varum nal neRi nin aRivu andrE.’ This line is interpreted to mean, ‘your wisdom is set on the straight path of justice.’ A simple and more direct interpretation would mean, ‘your wisdom is the right royal road that justice chooses to trod on.’ Even justice would not be as straight as your wisdom my child. But what are you doing now? Your anger burns and blazes ‘uLayaa aRam vatrida,’ as if to dry up Dharma that is eternal.
‘Uzh vazhuvutra seetram viLayaa nilaththu unakku engan viLaindhadhu?’ You must be considered a fallow land as far as anger without reason is concerned. When such being so, how come this huge plant of scathing anger sprouted in you?
‘More over Lakshmana, ‘ayya,’ my dear sire, ‘nindhan vaai thandhana kURudhiyO’ are you speaking whatever that comes to your tongue? (Do you realise what you are speaking?) ‘maRai thandha naavaal’
(it is not right or proper to utter these words) with a tongue that has learnt and chanted the Vedas.
‘nee thandhadhu andrE neRiyOr kaN nilaadhadhu.’ What you have uttered now is not something that befits persons who tread the path of Dharma. ‘iindra thaai thandhai endraal avar mEl salikkindradhu ennO?’ You are speaking ill of our father and mother Lakshmana. That’s not right.
 ‘I don’t know all that and I simply don’t care.’
‘nal thaadhayum nee.’ You are my father. ‘thani naayagan nee.’
You are my only master. ‘vayitril petraayum neeyE.’ You are the one that bore me in the womb. ‘pirar illai.’ Not the other ones. Neither Dasaratha is my father nor any of the other three is my mother. You are my all.
‘piRarkku nalgak katraai.’ You have learnt only one thing. You very generously give away what is your right to others. ‘idhu kaaNudhi indru.’
Just see what I am going to do now. So saying Lakshmana tried to move.
‘kaim maRiththaan,’ says the Poet. Rama stretched his arm and stopped Lakshmana from moving.
Imagine the picture of the brothers in the inner eye. One is dark of complexion and calm and collected. The other is golden and is like the very flames. One is smiling and the other is seething with anger and is virtually quivering. One is trying to move wit the bow in hand, with the intention of destroying all and the other stops him with his outstretched arm. Rama is so happy that Lakshmana has quite unwittingly given him a very valid point to stop him and make him listen to him!
More follows...
Hari Krishnan
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