Storytelling Week 4: The Voice of Queen Mandodari

Queen Mandodari hurriedly entered the royal court.  As she ran to appeal to Ravana to quit his fight against Rama, she thought back to the words that a servant had told her.  The servant had told her that one of the other servants had had a premonition that spoke of a monkey that set fire to the city, Ravana being humiliated, then Ravana being killed.  The first event had already occurred and she was worried that the other events would come to pass.  She saw Vibhishana and ran toward him.

“Vibhishana!”  Queen Mandodari yelled, “one of the servants told me of a premonition and it has been true so far.  If Ravana continues to desire Sita and starts a war it will mean his death.”

“We must convince him to not go to war,” said Vibhishana, “but do not mention the premonition, for if he hears of this he will discredit it as gossip of women and will desire to prove it false.”

Therefore, Vibhishana and Queen Mandodari entered the audience chamber of Ravana.  Queen Mandodari threw herself at the feet of Ravana and said to him, “Abandon your fight with Rama, and return Sita to him, for he will destroy us all.”

“Hahaha” said Ravana, “I will prove to you that Rama is just a puny human.  I will kill Rama and make Sita my queen.”

So Vibhishana then approached Ravana during the war council.  “Ravana, we should not go to war.  Rama is no ordinary human.  He broke the bow of Siva and he leads a mighty army to take back his wife that you stole from him.  Return his wife and let us end this matter.”

“No!  I will not return Sita, who should be my queen, I will never submit to this Rama.  Get out of my sight” said Ravana.

So Vibhishana left Ravana but before he departed Lanka, he visited Queen Mandodari.  “My Queen, I have been abandoned by Ravana.  I now depart to join Rama’s camp.  I pray that we can meet again when this war is over” spoke Vibhishana.

Queen Mandodari began to prepare for the arrival of Rama’s army.  “If Ravana wants to desire other women and bring about his own ruin I will have nothing to do with this,” said Queen Mandodari. 

When Rama’s army entered the city Vibhishana went to Queen Mandodari and said “Rama is going to spare Lanka and make me king over the land.  Will you be my queen?  Let us rekindle our love for each other that Ravana forced us to abandon all those years ago.”

Queen Mandodari mourning Ravana's death (Source: wikimedia)

Author’s Note

I got my inspiration for this story from The Divine Archer by F. J. Gould.  I decided that while I would follow the lore of the story for the most part I wanted to tell the story from Queen Mandodari’s point of view.  I decided to make her similar to Vibhishana.  While she was a raksha, I made her not needlessly violent and one of the voices of reason to Ravana.  I also wanted to make her a more approachable and a character that the readers’ could identify with.  Because Queen Mandodari would later marry Vibhishana, I thought that it would be interesting to have Vibhishana and Queen Mandodari love each other but had to abandon their love because Ravana desired Queen Mandodari to be his wife.  The reason it was at the end and not at the beginning of the story was that I thought that it would be more interesting for Queen Mandodari to play the role of a loving wife rather a queen with a lover.  I wanted to make them both loyal subjects to Ravana until Ravana’s folly of desiring Sita spelled their doom.  Which I hope was shown when they both try to make Ravana return Sita. 

Bibliography

The Divine Archer By F. J. Gould (1911)