The King of Krushtha(Shashank Shrivastava) As I stood on the balcony of my sleeping chamber I saw men and men all over, from the walls of the city to the hall of justice, men dressed with the armor on, some holding swords in one hand and shield in the other, others holding spears, bows and wipes. Thousands of soldiers all waiting for my command, all willing to give up their lives for their city and their king. As I turned towards the gates to leave for the battle; I saw women and children looking at their king for protection. I saw fear, I saw insecurity, I saw sorrow in the eyes of those children; but most of all I saw hope, hope that their city will survive, hope that their king will triumph, hope that they won’t have to bow their heads in front of the false god king that threatens their lives.

They say all people think about their past in the most troublesome moments. As I walked for the gate of my room my mind started filling with all the memories of the past. I started thinking about all the events that lead to this day.

I was born in a Brahman family, but my mother was a princess of Shivatman dynasty. They named me Jaiveer, the brave one who always wins. I was born to be the king of Shivatmans. But my mother told me about the fact that our city Krushtha, our kingdom, was taken away, taken by the people of Vasudevic dynasty for all the glory our city had. She told me about all the sorrows and miseries of our people. She told me about the children that were starving, she told me about the women that were abused, she told me that one day I would have to take their revenge, that I would have to fight to get our home back.

My father was a very non violent man and hated wars. When I became a teenager he gave me a choice either to stay with him as his son or to chase my mother’s dreams. I admired my father a lot, I wanted to stay with him; but right when I was about to say that I’ll stay; the image of my people popped in my mind, I started imagining their poor faces, I started to think about all those people and their miseries, their home was taken from them, they had to struggle to get food for their children, most of them had already lost hope, and worst of all their king was about to give up on them. What was their fault, what did they do so wrong. No I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stay with my father, I did respect him a lot but I realized that I am no commoner, I am their king, they are my responsibility, and I am going to stay with my people. That day I promised myself that a new day will come, a day when my people would be given their homes back, a day when our revenge would be complete, a day when I’ll slaughter all the Vasudevic solders with my bear hands.

I was a man of my words then as I am now. I worked hard to get all the magical powers I needed to conquer them, and one day we attacked the city and snatched it from the hands of those unholy Vasudevic freaks. And thus I became the king of Krushtha.

Time does not stop for anyone. the horns of war started blowing, I too started to walk fast towards the armory. The gates of the armory were black but there were stains all over them, red stains, blood stains. When we threw away those Vasudevic scum, they still kept on trying to attack us. We searched for the source of their power. it turned out that they were using black magic to strengthen themselves. That magic was forbidden and hated by the Shivatmans. I decided to cut that source out. In order for them to gain powers their sorcerers had to do the spells repeatedly. We went to the sorcerers and tried to convince them not to help those scum, but they denied and turned some of our men into animals, and then cut their parts and returned to us. I was their king and I could not tolerate such a thing, so I gave those sorcerers a punishment that they deserved. I commanded my men to kill each and every one of them. I myself brought some of the sorcerers in the city and beheaded them in front of the armory. Those stains reminded that anyone who tries to threaten Krushtha or the Shivatman legacy would have to pay the same price.

I went inside the armory, the whole chamber started to fill with the holy enchantments of lord Shiv. I looked up at the statue of lord Shiv, my wife Aadhira the queen of Krushtha came forth and helped me to wear my armor. I looked her in the eyes. My wife was a strong lady but I saw drops of tears in her eyes. Those drops of tears were like drops of blood for me. I wiped her eyes and said “save them my dear, save them for all the men I am going to kill in the war, save them for all my enemies, save them for the false god king. I don’t need your tears, I need your wishes, and even if I die today promise me that you will not cry, you’ll feel proud that your husband died protecting his people, he died protecting you”. She could not utter a word for some time, but then she gathered her strength to say “come back as a victor my king, or die trying”. I was so glad to hear that, those words were not just of my wife those words were not just of a woman; those words were of a true queen, not every man is lucky enough to get a partner like that.

Then I saw my sister, she came forth and handed me my sword. She was fully covering her face; I held the cloth on her face and took it off. I wanted to see the reason why this war began. I saw her face and started to think about the day when it happened. I was sitting on the throne dealing with the affairs of the kingdom, my sister Kanika came running in. she was bleeding badly from her face. I jumped towards her, held her in my arms and shouted for the Vaidyas (doctors) for help. I couldn’t bear a look at her face, it was disfigured badly, her lips ,her nose, her eyes, she was bleeding from every corner of her face, her eyebrows were split into half, her cheeks were burning with the scar that split her nose. Soon my worry started to turn into rage. I looked in her poor disfigured eyes and asked “who did this?”. I couldn’t speak any more than that. She replied “They were two men and a woman, they lived in the jungle. When I asked the woman about who they were she said that her husband is the GOD KING. She said one day they will rule the whole world. I said that only my brother has the strength to become the one true ruler of the world. On hearing this they got angry on my, the younger brother held my hands as the elder one started to tear off my clothes. I fought, I fought with all my heart, but they were much stronger than me, they did all the worst things with me, raped me, humiliated me, and when they were done the woman told them to disfigure my face so that I would remember them for the rest of my miserable life.”

My whole body started to burn with vengeance as I heard the misery of my sister. The whole world trembled when I shouted loud. Just then my younger brother Kartik got in there and said “wait brother we need to give a rational thought on that. I suggest we should go and talk to those people about this”. Just then my sister approached him and said “look at my face dear brother, look at the blood that is flowing like a river and dropping on the floor, look at the scars they gave me, look at my pride that was taken from me when they raped me. After all this you still want to talk to those monsters. I give you a suggestion, why don’t you go and sell me to them as well so they can torture me a bit more”. My brother again tried to say something but this time I silenced him by punching him on his face. I decided that there will be no talking, there’ll only be justice. They had abused the pride of my family by abusing my sister, now the whole world would laugh at Shivatman legacy, I couldn’t let this happen. I said “I will make sure that everyone laughs at their family before they laugh at ours. I’ll kill that woman who did this to you; I’ll slaughter her into pieces and then I’ll let the dogs eat them”.

Just then the vaidyas arrived and started to treat kanika. I told them to take care of her and rushed towards the city gate. I had a very special Viman that could fly with the speed of wind itself. I jumped into the Viman and left for the jungle where they were. When I reached their wooden hub, I saw her inside. My rage was at its top, even my own body was shivering with my anger. I imitated the voice of a girl to call her out. As soon as she got out I held her left hand and took my sword out. Many times I had already thought of the moment when I would kill her. When my sword would cut her piece by piece, and that moment had finally come. But right when I was about to do what I deeply wanted to do, my hands stopped following my command. I realized that if I did that, then there would be no difference between jaiveer the king of krushtha and those death-worshiping scum. I just couldn’t think what to do with her at that moment. So I grabbed her and smashed her on the viman and left immediately for krushtha where the whole justice council would decide what to do with her.

When we reached krushtha I held the council the same night. The council decided that we shouldn’t kill her as she is a woman, but we must punish her for what she has done. The council decided that in order to compensate for the pride they have taken from us her family’s pride would also be taken, but not in the same brutal manner. Council decided that even though she is already married she would have to marry me so that the whole world would laugh at their family that their daughter-in-law married someone else. She resisted from marrying me, so I ordered the guards to imprison her until she agreed to respect the council’s judgment.

Years after that we received a message from her husband; it was less of a message and more of a warning. The messenger told us either to surrender the woman Nalika or be ready for war with the God King. That was the first time I even learnt the name of that woman. And then I again heard the words God King. All the memories of that day became fresh just by the sound of those godforsaken words. I told the messenger “Nalika is our prisoner and we will not surrender her, and if it is a war your so called God King wants; it’s a war he’ll get”.

I had worn the armor, I had taken the sword and now it was the time to address my army. I gathered all of my army heads and said “My men, half of the city has been destroyed, the enemy is knocking at the door, my son, your prince, has been assassinated, my own brother Kartik has allied with the enemy. A battle that seemed easy to win has now become a war almost lost. These are tough times, but as they say only a real man can stand to his honor in tough times. So am I addressing an army of real men or is it just dead flesh I am talking to?” The whole army shouted loud to match my pitch. I continued “I swore an oath to protect this city and so did you, so let’s teach that God King a lesson that he’ll remember when we’ll send him back to heaven. Men let’s ride for honor, let’s ride for pride, let’s ride for victory”. The whole army shouted “for victory” and we rode for the battle ground for the last day of the war.

We reached the battleground, the mighty sound of thousands of our horses scared off the hyenas that were feeding on the dead bodies of previous 9 days. We saw the enemy coming from the south. Warriors of both sides started shouting as the armies collided. I was at the center of my army and the god king was at northern corner of his. It was quite obvious that they wanted to lure me into a trap by making me march away from my army. But they didn’t have any idea about my power. the no. of men surrounding the god king was only around 50, I could easily kill 50 men and the god king. Their plan was about to backfire. I started marching towards the god king, I slaughtered all the enemies that got into my way. When I reached the northern corner I was quite away from the reach of my army, just as they wanted, huh, just as I wanted. All of the 50 men attacked together. Poor men, they had no idea of the person they were dealing with. I killed them as well and approached the god king. Then it was just me and him. We started by clashing the swords. With the very first strike I became aware that he was nothing like his army, he was strong, maybe as strong as me. I didn’t underestimate him. We fought hard; the entire battleground seemed to have filled with the sound of our swords clashing. He was the first one to manage to land a strike, a scar on the left hand. I looked at the flowing blood, it reminded me of the blood that was flowing from my sister’s face. I didn’t give him any further chance to land a strike. I unleashed all of my rage on him. His hands, his chest, his back, I gave him as many scars as I possibly could. Then I land the final strike that made him drop his sword. He was down on knees, probably because of the blood he had lost from his legs. I raised my sword high and swung it to take his head, but something struck me from my left side and I missed. When I turned left to see what it was; I saw that it was my traitor brother kartik. His knife had pierced the lower left corner of my armour. That was the only weak corner of my armour, and he knew about that. He twisted his knife and my whole armour tore off. I pounded a massive punch on his face; he fell on the ground, his nose started bleeding. My heart filled with anger and disgust. For some time I forgot about the god king; and all I wanted to do at that moment was to free his head from the prison of his shoulders. My eyes started to fill with tears as I started raising my sword to kill my own brother. My vision became blurred because of the tears, I twinkled my eyes to drop them off. I still felt the blur in my vision, I looked left, it was also a blur, I looked up it was also blur. Then I looked to my right, through that blurred vision I saw a man that looked like the god king, he was holding a sword, and that sword was inserted deep in my belly. He took advantage of the situation to lend a fatal strike. I started feeling unbearable pain in my belly. I dropped down on my knees. I looked up; the god king, his brother and my brother all were standing there. I looked at them and said “you say that you are fighting for honor and you assassinated my son when he was praying. You call yourself the god king and you stab me by distracting me. If all gods are like you then I wish for me to go to hell. I fought with all my heart, I fought with all my honor and now I am dying for the right cause. Look at yourself you so called god-king, you are looking down as I die and my head is still held high.”

I fell on the ground, I could taste the soil that was touching my lips. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I saw my son. He gave his hand so I could get up. He hugged me tight and said “it’s over father, it’s finally over”. I smiled and said “I thought you died, I thought that I would never see you again in this life”. He looked me in the eyes and said “you were right”, he pointed down on the battleground. When I looked down I saw my own body lying there. At that very moment I knew that my soul had left my body, I knew that I am dead.

And that’s the end of my story, the story of a man who fought for his kingdom, who fought for justice, and who gave his life for the cause he believed in.

Surprised. I bet you were not thinking for an end like this, after-all who wants to hear a story where the hero dies at the end right. But the thing is that you haven’t heard the whole story yet.

I always valued my family a lot, so when my sister Kanika told me what happened to her I couldn’t stop myself from punishing the woman responsible, ‘Nalika’. But the reality was different. My sister was never raped by those people, she attacked Nalika in the forest because she became jealous of her beauty, and in Nalika’s defense they wounded my sister. My sister lied to me because she knew that if she told me the truth I myself would kill her. I was tricked in this war, a war that never should have happened in the first place.

I also changed some names. I thought that for you to understand my pain and my loss you first need to hear my story with an open mind.

It’s true that I was born in a Brahman family, but my mother was not a Shivatman princess, she was a Rakshash princess. The people who we defeated to get our city back they were called Devtas. The sorcerers that we killed, some people used to call them the Rishis. The name of the woman that I took prisoner was Sita, The GOD KING was Ram. And I; I am Ravan the king of Lanka. The man who’s death you celebrate at Dashehra. The man that your children have nightmares of.

For thousands of years I have been portrayed as the ultimate villain, the bad guy, the Demon King. Till now I never had a chance to tell my story. But now I have returned from the death just to tell you about me.

So what am I? A sadly misunderstood person or just the Demon that the Vedic Texts suggest. Before you jump to conclusion let me ask you something. Did you feel my pain when I was dying, did you feel that this is wrong, it should have not ended this way? Why? Why do you feel sympathy for me? As far as I can understand, you feel sympathy because you can relate yourself to me. You feel sympathy because given the same circumstances most of you would have taken similar actions. But why? Why would you take similar actions? I never knew the meaning of true justice. But you know it don’t you? You know that while doing justice both sides should be given fair chance to tell their part. Then why would you behave like I did? Don’t explain to me, I don’t need your answer, explain it to yourself.

Now I ask again. Am I a sadly misunderstood man, or is it you who’s thinking has become parallel to that of a Demon King? Perhaps former is right, perhaps the later; or perhaps both. But again, who am I to decide. I am already dead. So ask yourself what I was and what have you become?

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