The man's face hardened, "So be it." Jambavati's heart beat so loudly against her chest, for a moment she thought it was audible to him. Go, she wanted to scream at him, no one has ever defeated my father in battle!
---
Jambavan was the son of Brahma, the creator. He had spent aeons roaming the earth. They said there wasn't a single corner of the globe that he hadn't seen. He had made many friends and a lot more enemies. In the previous yuga, he had, upon the request of Surya, the sun god, taken up residence at the court of the Vanara brothers Vali and Sugreeva. He had then met Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, and travelled to Lanka to rescue his abducted wife. Jambavati often made him recount in great detail, the places he had seen and the people he had met while travelling across the land of Bharata. Of all the people Jambavan talked of, very few stood out to her. Hanuman, the magical monkey, was one of them. She had hardly been able to believe her eyes, when one day, the mischievous super-monkey from the realms of her father's stories had pranced into the village court.
Jambavan had rushed down from his throne to embrace him and kissed his forehead affectionately. "It feels like it was only yesterday that you were that green intern at Sugreeva's court. Look how far you've come, a regular superhero!" At dinner that night, he had introduced him to Jambavati. At ten years of age, Jambavati had not yet learned the art of subtlety. "Shouldn't you be dead already?" She had blurted out. Hanuman had laughed with such intensity, it had woken up a family of bats hanging from the huge banyan tree nearby. Then her father had explained how the goddess-princess Seeta had blessed him with immortality and immunity from fire. Turning to her father he had said, "See, as a fellow immortal, I have very few people I can be myself with!"
Later, he had demonstrated all his magic tricks to the children. Jambavati, along with her brothers, had taken great pleasure in flying into the night sky on his shoulders, and watching as he walked in and out of the fireplace, unscathed. Later, Jambavati had overheard him conversing with her father over late-night snacks. "Why didn't you help the kids? They needed more than a vague blessing from across the mountains!" Her father had asked their guest.
"Well, why didn't you?" Hanuman had retorted.
"I was depressed." Her father had replied.
"Well, so was I!"
"It was deeply unfair, what happened to them. For a while, I couldn't get that image out of my head. Even today, I see it so clearly in my mind! Seeta, with her eyes blazing and strands of matted hair flying in all directions, all while the ground swallowed her up! I couldn't sleep for so many months after that!" Her father had rubbed his temple. She shivered at the very thought of it. She had often tried to imagine herself in that goddess's place, but could never really relate to her.
Hanuman had nodded solemnly, "Yes, that. I had vowed to never return to Ayodhya when he exiled her! Even then, I had hung around the forests where she was, keeping an eye on the kids, but I couldn't resist when my Rama called me back for his yajna! And then his sons defeated and tied me up. Oh, how mother Seeta had laughed upon seeing me all trussed up. We both had such nasty flashbacks! It was the last time I saw her! Then, she set me free, with a bunch of snacks tied to my belt!" Hanuman laughed sadly, "Then she left, and then he did too. I had promised to take care of his people, anyone who loved and trusted him, but I couldn't! I lost my best friend, and I ran! I ran to the other corner of the world, drowning myself in penance, focusing my entire being on remembering what he was, so I didn't have to remember that he was gone!"
Jambavan had sighed, "So, what brings you back now, after a yuga?"
"I don't know, something in my heart said it's time." Hanuman had stared off into the direction of their house. Jambavati knew he was just drifting off, but somehow she felt he was looking straight at her through the crack in the door.
Jambavati
Start from the beginning
