King Dasharatha was a man of his word. It was a lesson his father had drilled into him from a young age: "A sovereign's word is the currency of his realm. When he spends it on lies and broken promises, he devalues himself until his pronouncements are worthless."
This personal mandate had yielded the King many victories and had cemented his kingdom as an unshakeable powerhouse in the region. His subjects revered him. His enemies feared him. And his kingdom had entered a golden age of development with no end in sight.
However, this mandate wasn't without personal costs. Because often, truths can be poisonous.
King Dasharatha had many wives, yet no children. The King wasn't impotent, nor was he celibate. The fact was that his bouts of intimacy often resulted in failure upon remembering a curse laid upon him in his youth.
"You apologise, but you cannot fathom our pain. If there is a god in this forsaken world, then there will be justice. We curse you, oh Young Prince, to feel the same pain of parting we feel right now. The pain only a parent can feel when they are forced to separate from their beloved child."
Those were the final words of the blind old couple as they died, broken-hearted, beside the body of their son.
Dasharatha didn't have to tell them that he had mistaken their son for a deer and had accidentally shot him through the heart. But that wasn't how he was raised.
And now, every time he indulged in intimacy with his many wives, at the peak of ecstasy, his mind would revert to those words.
Just like every mortal, King Dasharatha was fearful of his mortality. No one wanted to die. And the shroud of death wasn't exactly an aphrodisiac.
Nonetheless, a Kingdom without a successor was doomed to fall. And King Dasharatha did not want his ancestral lineage to end with him.
Ultimately, he decided, with the approval from the court's Chief Priest, to conduct a Putrakameshti Yagna. It was a powerful fire ritual designed to please the gods and seek their blessings for progeny.
As a Kshatriya, propagating his lineage was his Dharma, and to turn to the gods to accomplish it for him meant that the ritual would have to be increasingly complex. To that end, King Dasharatha spared no expense. His wealth flowed like the river Ganga as he prepared everything necessary for his Yagna. He even invited the revered Sage Rishyashringa to preside over the ceremony.
On the chosen auspicious date, the King initiated his Yagna.
Due to its complexity, it wasn't something that could be completed within a day. Its conclusion could only be ordained by the very gods to whom the prayer was offered.
On the fifth day, the Sage stopped. The fire rapidly changed colours. It switched from an austere red flame to a piercing blue flame. The heat it emanated escalated as it transitioned through the shades before it settled into a translucent hue.
Then, the fire grew and burgeoned rapidly. The King and the various priests partaking in the ceremony retreated rapidly as the entire altar was enveloped in flames.
The flames burned for an entire day. The altar acted as a fuel that was consumed in its entirety and turned into ash. And once it all settled, amidst the ash, the King found a simple pot filled to the brim with a familiar substance - Payasam.
It was a milk-based sweet. Something the Royal Chefs had crafted many times, though frequently on sacred occasions. As he was about to dip his finger into the pot to taste the sweet, the Sage grabbed his hand.
"These are for the consorts, Your Majesty," he explained. "I wouldn't suggest that Your Highness consume it. It would lead to... unwanted consequences."
The King shuddered at the thought and carefully lifted the pot.
At that exact moment. A shrill cry echoed in the air. He looked up, only to see the tail end of a common kite swooping down at him. He instinctively raised the pot to protect his face. But it seemed that the pot and its content were the bird's target all along.
The creature dipped its talons into the pot, grabbed as much as it could hold, and ascended into the air.
The King quickly took stock and was relieved to find that only a small morsel had been lost. He ordered his servants to fetch a cover and carefully carried it towards the Inner Courtyard of the Palace.
___
Far away, in the heart of the jungle neighbouring the Kingdom of Ayodhya - King Dasharatha's domain - a couple were conducting a similar Yagna for a child of their own.
This was the Kingdom of Kishkindha, a sovereignty hidden deep within the treacherous Dandaka Forest. It spanned over 300 kilometres from north to south, and 500 kilometres east to west. The periphery was fairly tame, but the deeper you went, the greater the danger you would face. In these parts, one wouldn't just face deadly creatures and apex predators, but Rakshasas as well.
Yet it was within this dangerous and treacherous wilderness that the couple's love had blossomed. The two were young, devoted, and virile. They had celebrated the fifth anniversary of their union just a few days back, yet the miracle of childbirth constantly eluded them. Not because they weren't trying hard enough. But because they were separated by a biological wall.
The Kingdom of Kishkindha was known to many but visited by few. Because to reach it was near impossible for any mortal man. The Kingdom was ruled by Vanaras, a race of monkey-folk. And of the couple, the man - Kesari - was not really a "man" at all. He was a Vanara.
He was the Chief Commander of the Vanara Army, and his beloved wife was named Anjana, but she was only human. And as he gazed at her solemn face that twitched involuntarily under the assault of the soot emanating from the pyre in front, he couldn't help but let his mind drift back to the day he first saw her.
While scouting the kingdom's borders, his gaze had fallen upon a woman bathing in a forest pool. Her appearance was unlike any he had known; she had no tail, no fur upon her body, and her skin was as pale as milk. A pleasant scent emanated from her, and something about her serene presence enamoured him completely.
For Kesari, approaching and pursuing his affection with Anjana was a difficult task. Though it definitely helped that she wasn't beholden to the standards of beauty appropriate to her species, and she saw him for who he was inside. And it also helped that she did not have parents to object to their union.
When he proposed marriage, Kesari had promised that Anjana would want for nothing. It was only after a year into their marriage that he realised that he had inadvertently lied to her. Because Anjana did want for something, and it was something that Kesari could never give her, no matter how hard he tried. A Vanara and a Manushya were of two distinct species. And although the two were intellectually similar, they were biologically apart.
It was after many, many tries and prayers to every single god under the heavens that Kesari realised there was no way forward - he had given up. However, Anjana hadn't. She firmly believed that the purity of their love would supersede the physical limitations that held them captive.
Kesari could not bring himself to put down his wife's hope. He supported her through every prayer, every offering, every technique known on earth. And though he no longer carried the optimism he used to, his wife remained just as hopeful as they were in their first year after marriage.
Today's Yagna was another of his wife's forays, after she heard that the King of Ayodhya was also turning to the heavens to bless him with offspring.
Kesari stood by and watched as the fire started to diminish, regardless of his wife's incessant attempts to feed it with ghee. Evidently, the gods just weren't listening.
Once the fire died, a morose silence hung in the air. It was broken by the quiet sniffles of his wife. As Kesari approached to embrace her and let her vent her sorrows, his eyes caught movement in the trees.
The branches rustled, and a brown shade zoomed through. He followed the object as it receded into the trees and recognised its form as that of a common kite.
Kesari chuckled and commented, "It was just a-" but his words hitched as he noticed a mound of... something in his wife's palms.
"What is that?" he asked as he brought his nose closer and sniffed. "It smells... good."
Anjana furrowed her brows and pinched a bit off the morsel and tasted it. "It's sweet," she commented. A pleased moan escaped her lips involuntarily, "How heavenly!"
Without a second thought, she tossed the morsel into her mouth and let it dissolve on her tongue. She chimed a laugh in surprise as the flavours danced across her taste buds.
"Where do you think the bird got this from?" Kesari muttered as he scratched his head.
"Do you think this is a sign from the gods? Maybe they were pleased?!" Anajana posited.
"Right..." Kesari drawled. 'As if the gods would care about little old us...'
___
Apparently, the gods DID care about them. Because a month later, Anjana found herself with a child. The revelation caused Kesari to forget how to breathe and faint in shock.
Eight more months later, the couple welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world. And to honour the god that brought them this gift, they named him Maruti - the son of Vayu, the God of the Air.
Kesari was still doubtful about that fact. Although his son's conception was nothing short of a miracle, and was probably induced by the sweet his wife swallowed, he couldn't shake away the thought that the sequence of events wasn't some divine providence. A coincidence felt like a more apt descriptor.
But his doubts and disbelief were instantly shattered the moment his boy learned how to walk. Because instead of falling off tree branches like a careless monkey should, he floated gently to the ground.
From that point onwards, Kesari no longer questioned anything.
___
Maruti was a mischievous lad. Kesari and Anjana quickly learned that having a super-powered child brought with it a unique form of parental hell. All the usual problems were there - the tantrums, the boundless energy, the urge to put everything in his mouth - except Maruti's tantrums could level a small forest, and his energy was fuelled by the literal God of Wind.
He wasn't a bad kid. He was compassionate and respectful towards Anjana and Kesari. Just that when it came to interacting with strangers or outsiders, Maruti's first instinct wasn't to bow in greeting, but to figure out what would set them off.
He didn't hurt or maim anyone... physically. But his pranks tended to cause immense mental and emotional torment.
He was obedient to a fault. In that he never tormented anyone in the same manner.
He was intelligent. He could find loopholes through even the most stringent of rules.
He was a menace, through and through.
For instance, after a revered sage complained about being distracted from his meditation, Anjana sat Maruti down. "You are not to bother the holy men," she said, looking him dead in the eye. Maruti nodded dutifully. The next day, the sage found his meditation interrupted not by a child but by a singing puppet that orated all of his deepest insecurities. Maruti, sitting invisibly in a nearby tree, hadn't bothered him at all. The puppet, however, was a different story.
When that loophole was closed with the rule, "You are not to use your powers on the sages," Maruti simply waited for two of them to get into a heated theological debate. Then, using a carefully aimed puff of air, he caused a jumble of jungle vines to descend on them and tied their beards together into a knot so tight it took them three days to undo. He hadn't used his powers on them, merely near them.
Anjana and Kesari were at their wits' end. They knew that their son would get his comeuppance at some point; they only hoped that it would be sooner rather than later.
___
And the tipping point did come one sunny morning. Like any kid, Maruti woke up hungry. He looked around for a snack, and his eyes landed on the big, round, orange thing rising in the sky. To his toddler brain, the sun looked suspiciously like a giant, perfectly ripe mango. And when you're a kid who can fly, "seeing" and "getting" are basically the same thing.
Before Anjana could even ask where he was, Maruti was a rapidly shrinking speck in the sky, making a beeline for the solar system's primary heat source.
Maruti had his eyes set on the yellow ball in the sky, and after flying relentlessly for hours, he realised that he wasn't getting any closer. Frustrated, he gathered the familiar energy that coursed through him when he flew and condensed it. Then, with a mighty push, he released it.
A thundering crack echoed through the world as the little Vanara, unwittingly, broke through the barrier that separated Bhuloka from Svarga.
Imagine a person hitting a glass pane with a mace. Although the damage caused to the pane is equal from either side, it is the side opposite the perpetrator that suffers the consequences of shrapnel raining down on them.
Equivalently, it was Svarga that suffered the brunt of the damage caused by the little monkey's actions.
Svarga was a higher realm, and because of that, there was some leeway on what concerned the nature of reality. In general, the realm could be described as conceptual in nature. What resulted in a thunderclap in Bhuloka, caused the skies of Svarga to crack like porcelain.
The clouds roiled like a poisoned sea. The very air vibrated with the force of his passage, as Maruti darted through like an arrow hurtling at a velocity ten times that of the speed of sound itself.
The effect was catastrophic, to say the least. The Palace in the Kingdom of Heavens shuddered physically as the boy zoomed past. One could imagine this is how reality would behave if there were an earthquake in midair.
Nonetheless, this disturbance wasn't unnoticed. Indra definitely noticed as he was rudely awoken from his sleep.
In a fit of rage, he called upon his divine weapon - his Vajra - and called upon a storm of divine proportions. The skies darkened rapidly as thunderclouds started to form in earnest.
Maruti had barely enough time to take stock of his surroundings before a massive lightning bolt surged from the clouds and struck him on his chin, shattering his jaws instantaneously.
Then, like a kite with clipped wings, he hurtled towards the ground.
___
All of these events didn't miss Vayu's attention. In fact, he had a vested interest in the growth of his spiritual son.
Ironically, the God of Air wasn't as "free" as most thought him to be.
Unlike the other Devas in Svarga, Vayu's task was of supreme importance. The world could survive for a few days without water. But deprive it of air for even a minute, and you'd have a catastrophic disaster.
Needless to say, there were very few opportunities for Vayu to take a break, and he rarely intervened in the affairs of mortals.
His intervention at King Dasharatha's Yagna, for instance, was completely unintended. The kite's appearance and subsequent theft of the payasam were a complete coincidence.
The Devas were mandated by the Preserver to ensure the success of the King's Yagna, and thus all eyes in Svarga were on the ceremony. When Vayu noticed the bird flying away with the morsel, he felt it would be a waste for it to merely feed a clutch of kite chicks.
And so, with a gentle push, he directed the bird in the direction of the star-crossed couple in the forest.
When he noticed the child born of the divine intervention exhibiting some of his powers, he was elated. As the child grew, he was enamoured by the boy's mischievousness and gregariousness. In a way, Vayu could live vicariously through the child, experiencing a life of freedom he never could.
He particularly enjoyed the complaints. Vayu would be in the middle of managing the jet streams when a prayer, dripping with indignation, would ping on his radar.
"Lord of the Winds, your son has enchanted my prayer beads to spell out insults!"
"Great Vayu, the boy turned my entire week's supply of sacred ghee into butter sculptures of himself flexing!"
Vayu found it all deeply amusing. The sages were so uptight. In his opinion, the boy wasn't a menace; he was a much-needed agent of chaos in a world that took itself far too seriously. So, he'd let the complaints pile up, unanswered. What were they going to do, hold their breath until he responded?
This hands-off parenting approach worked beautifully, right up until the moment it didn't.
One morning, Vayu felt his son's energy signature, which usually zipped around the forest like a pinball, suddenly shoot straight up. And keep going.
Vayu focused his attention and felt a cold dread mixed with a bizarre sense of pride. The kid was trying to eat the sun.
There were very few entities in the world that could pass through the barrier between realms unhindered. Vayu was amongst this handful. It was too late before he found out that his spiritual sire had happened to have inherited this power as well.
Right as the boy burst through the barrier, Vayu rose to intercept him. But before he could take action, the King had already summoned his divine weapon and smote the boy.
Vayu, for the first time in his life, stood frozen in shock. After a beat, he dispersed and reappeared at the boy's crash site. What he saw was a large crater, amidst which lay the still body of the Vanara child. His breath was faint and fleeting. And his lower jaw was a mess of charred flesh and splintered bone.
A beat passed, and both the boy and Vayu disappeared.
___
The doors of Indra's throne room burst open as Vayu stepped in, carrying Maruti's still body. The hall was empty - the court wasn't in session.
Vayu didn't shout. He didn't need to. He simply lifted a hand, palm open, and slowly clenched it into a fist.
And with that one, simple gesture, the air all around Svarga disappeared.
It is hard for one to imagine what the sudden disappearance of air and atmosphere would result in. Needless to say, it isn't a gentle process.
Sound dies first without air to propagate its waves. The pleasant ambience that prevailed in Svarga went mute in an instant.
Then, simultaneously, all things living and "breathing" started to suffocate. Without air, the plants started to wither. The flames that burned eternally in the Palace's braziers snuffed out. The waving flags and rusting leaves halted without the blowing wind to nudge them into action. And worst of all, the suffocating beings couldn't even call for help, because in the vast emptiness, there was no sound at all.
Vayu closed his eyes and waited. A beat later, the empty hall was populated. A heavy thud resounded, and Vayu opened his eyes to see Indra seated on his throne, a grim snarl twitching on his lips.
"Explain yourself, Vayu!" Indra bellowed.
Vayu cast his gaze all around, taking in the audience. He then placed the boy on the ground in front of him and folded his arms.
"Explain yourself, 'your majesty'..." Vayu said with a mocking tone. Indra harrumphed and leaned back into the throne.
Vayu started to pace the halls as he expounded, "Does 'your majesty' believe that the punishment doled out fits the crime?"
"Are you questioning me?!" Indra snapped.
Vayu looked around innocently and said, "Yes. I thought I was clear about that."
"He's just a boy," Vayu contested. "Was it necessary to deploy the Vajra to strike him down?"
"He broke the peace with his actions. His comeuppance was warranted," Indra dismissed.
Vayu scoffed and looked around. "Do you all believe that the kid is deserving of our King's divine punishment?"
The crowd remained passive; some even looked away.
"You don't even care, do you?" Vayu expressed exasperation.
There was silence, which was broken by Vayu's dry chuckle.
"HE'S JUST A BOY!" Vayu bellowed.
His lips barely moved, but the voice was deafening, seeming to hit them from every direction at once. It wasn't an echo; it was a perfect, instantaneous unison, as if a thousand invisible Vayus were all screaming the exact same words from every corner of the room, and from inside their own heads.
"A boy capable of moving between realms as he wishes," Indra emphasised. "Do you realise just how dangerous that is?"
"So Your Majesty would rather quell a troublesome child in the crib than raise it to become an upstanding individual?" Vayu responded. "Forgive me, my Lord, but where is the justice in that?"
Faint chatter bubbled in the court as the audience discussed Vayu's challenge.
"He's right. Although the child is mischievous, it doesn't warrant such a fatal retaliation."
"Yeah! Look at the kid's state, he's barely alive!"
"The poor child's jaw is completely decimated. I don't know how that will even recover - the weapon used was His Majesty's Vajra, after all."
Indra's gaze flickered around the room, and an unpleasant frown formed on his face. He raised a palm, and the murmurings dispersed. He coughed lightly and said, "Fine. What do you want?"
"With all due respect," Vayu started. "Fix it."
Indra stared at the broken child, then back at Vayu. He couldn't refuse, but his pride wouldn't let him offer a genuine apology. He chose the path of petty compliance.
With a dismissive flick of his wrist, a golden light enveloped Maruti. The charred flesh on the boy's jaw healed, and the splintered bone knit back together, leaving only a faint scar on his chin.
"There," Indra said, his voice tight. With a sneer, he joked, "He's fixed. Now, give us back our air."
The silence that followed was heavier than the vacuum had been. Vayu hadn't moved. The air did not return.
"No," Vayu said. "You healed a wound. You didn't fix the problem."
He gestured around the hall at the other gods, who were beginning to look genuinely panicked. "The problem is that our King can use a weapon of annihilation on a child without consequence."
He turned to face Indra again and said, "You fixed his jaw. You didn't fix his vulnerability. What stops you from doing this again?"
Indra's face hardened. "This is ridiculous! My judgment is final. I have healed him. That is the end of it."
The other Devas looked from their stubborn, prideful king to the cold, unyielding God of Wind.
As the standoff progressed, someone in the crowd gasped and exclaimed, "The air in Bhuloka is being siphoned away!"
Indra's eyes widened, and he glared at Vayu, "Cease this childishness at once. Do not let our petty grievances bleed over to the realm of mortals!"
The Devas started to panic. Although the air was fickle and capricious, Vayu was the most stable of them all. Ironically, it also made him the most stubborn and enduring. They were certain that in a contest between King Indra's ego and Vayu's endurance, there would be no winner.
But amongst the two, the King's ego was the easiest to undermine.
From the crowd, a man stepped forward. He appeared bald, but those with a sharp eyesight could see faint, almost translucent, locks of hair dancing about. It was Agni, the God of Fire, who first broke the stalemate. He stepped forward, ignoring Indra completely, and addressed Vayu directly.
"Your concern is justified, Lord Vayu," Agni declared. He looked down at the unconscious child. "This boy has my blessing. My fire will never harm him."
A wave of power flowed from Agni to Maruti.
A collective shock went through the court, followed by a ripple of understanding. The play was evident now.
Varuna, the God of the Seas, was next. "As will my waters."
Then Yama, the Lord of Death, stepped forward. "Death will hold no claim on him. He will be immortal."
It became a domino effect. One by one, the other Devas stepped forward to bestow their own boons.
Indra watched, and his face furrowed in fury with each person who stepped forward. He had been completely outmanoeuvred by his court. To save the last shred of his authority, he was left with no choice.
"Fine!" he bellowed, rising from his throne. He pointed the Vajra at the boy, but this time, a blessing flowed from it. "My Vajra will never again harm him. His body will be as strong as the weapon itself."
He glared at Vayu. "Are you satisfied now?"
Vayu returned a measured look and nodded. Then, he disappeared along with the boy.
___
Unsurprisingly, adding more powers to an already super-powered boy did little to temper his mischievousness. If anything, it made him more creative. He now had a whole new toolbox of divine abilities to work with, and the local sages were his unwilling test subjects.
As he entered his teens, his behaviour grew more and more egregious.
The final straw came during the sages' most important ceremony of the decade. It was a complex, multi-week ritual, and it all came down to a single, unbroken hour of chanting on the final day. The sages were on the home stretch, deep in a collective trance. Their voices wove the final verses of a mantra that had taken them weeks to perfect.
Maruti had been explicitly warned: do not touch, speak to, or interact with the sages or their ritual in any way. He, of course, found a loophole. His boon from Agni meant he was immune to fire. More than that, he had an affinity for it.
The sages poured the last of the sacred ghee into the ritual fire. They watched as the flames leapt higher, burning with an unnatural purity and intensity. They took it as a sign of success.
They didn't realise Maruti was inside the fire. Correction. Maruti WAS the fire!
He had merged with the flames, absorbing every offering, every ounce of power they poured into it.
They reached the final, critical syllable of the mantra. Their concentration was absolute. Their connection to the divine was a hair's breadth from being sealed.
And at that exact moment, Maruti released the energy.
The sacred fire imploded, sucking in the sound and light for a split second before erupting outwards in a massive, silent concussion of force. A shockwave of shimmering, rainbow-coloured smoke rolled over the clearing, smelling faintly of mangoes.
The sages were thrown back by the sheer, brain-breaking shock of it. Their trance was shattered. The connection to the heavens was severed. The mantra died on their lips.
Weeks of fasting, prayer, and unwavering focus - all of it, gone. Voided in a puff of fruit-scented smoke.
They sat there in the sudden silence, covered in a fine layer of multi-coloured dust, with a faint ringing in their ears.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back.
In a surprising act of cooperation, the sages stood up in unison and pointed at the monkey rolling on the ground in laughter.
Maruti saw the synchronised pointing and laughed even harder, assuming it was the start of some new, ridiculously stuffy game.
One of the sages, the eldest and most tired of them all, stepped forward. He spoke in a calm and steady tone that was chilling to hear. Especially for Maruti, who was used to hearing him shout.
"We are done," the sage said, his voice cut through Maruti's laughter and stopped it cold.
"From this moment on, your power will be a memory you cannot truly access. With the light of every new day, your awareness of these gifts will be wiped clean and be forgotten."
Maruti felt a strange, cold sensation wash through him, as if a trigger had been flipped deep inside his mind. The boundless, crackling energy he had lived with his entire life suddenly felt distant.
The sage continued, "You will live as a simple Vanara - strong and fast, but not limitless. The door to your true potential will be locked."
Maruti blinked, and a genuine sense of confusion dawned on him. He instinctively tried to float an inch off the ground, a trick he could do in his sleep, but his feet remained stubbornly planted in the dirt.
"But," the sage added, "a key will remain. Only when another speaks your praises, only when they remind you of your true nature for a purpose far greater than your own amusement, will that door be temporarily unlocked. Then, and only then, will you remember what you are."
With that, it was over. The sages lowered their hands, turned their backs, and began the long, arduous process of cleaning up their desecrated ritual site. They didn't spare him another glance.
Maruti was left alone, sitting in a pile of multi-coloured dust. He looked at his hands, then up at the sky, feeling for the first time in his remarkable life, completely and utterly… normal.
But this was how it was always supposed to be, right?