Week 12 Story: Battle with Khara

As the battle around him, Rama looked around him and instantly spotted Khara. Khara was sitting on a horse riding into the battle swinging left and right. He was slicing Rama’s men to bits. Rama decided that was enough and turned around. 

He looked at Sita and said, “I do not know where this battle will go but you must go and be safe. I will come find you at the castle. Now hurry!”

Sita looked at him and nodded, then proceeded to run back into the castle and had the guards barricade the door.  Rama then put on his helmet and got on his horse and charged down the hill towards Khara.

As he neared Khara he yelled, “We are going to finish this Khara!”

He then proceeded to jump off his horse and tackle Khara to the ground. Khara and Rama both rose quickly to their feet and drew their weapons.  Khara struck right and left swinging widly while Rama tried to parry each blow. Unfortunately, he missed a few and was struck twice, once on his arm and another on his leg drawing a lot of blood. 

Rama grimaced and yelled, “You got lucky, Khara. Now it’s my turn!”

Rama lunged and started slashing left, right, up and down. He never swung the same way twice so that it would confuse Khara about where he was going. He landed a multitude of hits and after swinging he looked at Khara.

Khara could not believe what had just happened. He thought he had this battle won but as he looked down he saw blood gushing from the cuts on his body and fell to his knees.

He cried out, “Rama, strike me down if you must in hate, but know killing me will never bring back the ones you lost.”

Rama was about to swing his sword down to behead Khara when he realized he was right. 

He stopped himself short of beheading him and said, “Today, Khara, I spare your life and you now are indebted to me. Whenever I call on you or your army you must answer the call.”

Khara looked started and nodded in agreement. Now since the battle was finally over after 15 long grueling days, Rama raced back to the castle and was reunited with Sita.  From that day on word of his mercy spread throughout the land.

Rama. (1816)

Na. Source: Wikicommons

Author's Notes: 

I wanted this story to go a different direction than the original. In the original one Rama sent a flaming arrow and destroyed Khara. With this one I wanted it to drag out a while but instead of Khara dying, he was spared.  I think it is more impressive to show mercy to people who don't deserve it than to kill.

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Battle with Khara. Battle with Khara

Reading Notes Part B: Battle with Khara

For Part B I decided to choose the story Battle with Khara. I actually liked that this story did let us know what had happened in the story before it so that way I wouldn’t be lost. There really is not a whole lot of positive things to say about this story because it is rather short.  What I will say I like is that Rama does protect the ones he loves and defeats his enemy.

I hate how short the battle is. Why not make the battle between the main two people last longer than shooting a flaming arrow? When I read that line I was thinking, “That’s really the whole battle?” There needs to be more sustenance so that way anyone who reads this story can feel like they aren’t wasting their time. I just do not understand who a story that has led up to a big confrontation can end in such a little fight. Heck, it was not even a fight, all Rama did was fire a flaming arrow and catch Khara on fire, where’s the fun in reading that sentence. This story was such a letdown. Sometimes short stories are ok but in this case a longer one would have been preferred because it lacks a powerful punch.  I thought judging by the title of the story it would have to do more with Khara than with Rama and boy was I wrong. It seems weird that Indians don’t have their stories focus on bad guys but just on the good. If we got to know more about the bad guys and why they were doing what they were doing then the story would flow smoother. At first I thought I was going to write my story on part A but now I have a strong feeling I will focus on this one.

Rama Fighting Demons (1916)

Chitra Ramayana. Source: Wikicommons

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Battle with Khara. Battle with Khara

Reading Notes: Part A Rama Goes into Exile

For Part A I decided to read about Rama going into exile.  I thought that this was a great story. It showed how loyal everyone was to Rama, not only that but that his wife was going to share in the punishment that he was facing.  The loyalty that follows Rama is strong, with the fact that his brother and wife are insisting on doing his punishment with him. What I really enjoyed was that, at the end of the story, even though he had been banished he promised to come back and honor the person who banished him.  Like, who does that, because I know if I came back from banishment I would want to see the person who sent me away die and I wouldn’t stop until they were hurting or dead.  I guess this why everyone thinks that Rama is a just and equal god.

One thing I was wondering is that if he is so powerful and mighty, why doesn’t he just destroy the people who put him into exile? I wonder if it is because he is showing the rest of his nation that he is just like everyone else and that not even he is above reproach? There is really not a lot to dislike with this story.  Rama knows that he has done something wrong, even though we aren’t told what if we haven’t read the stories before, and he takes his lumps like a man.  The only thing that I wished this storied included was a brief summary of what happened in the story before it so that we knew why Rama was being exiled again.  Overall, I felt this story was a great one and very strongly written. I think I might end up writing my Week 12 story on this.

                                  Rama and Sita. (September 17, 2013)

                                        Myknow3. Source: Wikipedia

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Rama Goes into Exile. Rama Goes Into Exile