Week 4 Story: High School Rama Drama - Saving Sita

Night had fallen. There in an abandoned warehouse in the Lanka district was Ravana surrounded by his most trusted friends. Earlier that week, a kid from the school's anime club was found trying to be heroic by sneaking around the lot and spying over Sita and them. In the process of trying to catch then chase him off, the kid managed to trash up their hideout.

Ravana sat in his high spot brooding while fiddling with a pocket knife. "I cannot believe one nerd managed to mess everything up like this. Maybe we all need to just go find them all and teach them a lesson."

One jock sitting with one leg pulled up to his chest and arm resting on that knee said, "No, Ravana! Don't sweat it, man! Let us go take care of it. There is no need for you to put yourself out there. I mean, I heard that Rama managed to 'unite' pretty much all of Panchavati High School's clubs plus some other people against us, but they are all just nerds. It should not be too much for the football team to handle." Similar statements echoed around the building.

"You are all probably right," conceded Ravana. "Call up a few more of our people, then go out and give it to them!" Cheers rang throughout the warehouse as people set out to prepare for a beat down.

Meanwhile, the club army led by Rama gathered in the shadows around the warehouse. It was an impressive yet fearsome sight: kids dressed up in black clothing, wearing face masks, and armed with wooden bats, mace, smoke bombs, and fireworks. The plan was to go in causing enough confusion with minimal injuries to find Sita and get her out. By this time, many cars and trucks were pulling into the lot carrying a lot of large jocks.

They waited for Rama's signal. He motioned for people to get into position where they would fire the noise makers and smoke bombs. Finally, he flashed the signal. Noise makers, smoke bombs, and sparklers were thrown into the warehouse and deployed around the lot. Jocks came running outside in a coughing panic. Chaos erupted.

As the club army engaged with the jocks outside, Rama and Lakshmana ran inside. They tried to search every nook and cranny as quickly as possible for Sita. Little did they realize, Ravana was still in the warehouse. Enraged, Ravana equipped a spiked bat and came after them. Rama directed Lakshmana to keep searching for Sita while he distracted Ravana.

"How dare you just come here and try to wreck everything?" Ravana screamed. "You think you can just waltz into town and do whatever you want? I am going to beat you bloody for this!"

He came at Rama swinging, yet Rama dodged every attack with great agility. He swooped around parked cars. He threw noise makers and sparklers everywhere. By now, Ravana was growing tired and annoyed. In an act of exhausted desperation, he pulled out a gun and started shooting around where he thought Rama was.

Thankfully, nothing managed to hit Rama, but smoke was beginning to rise. The sparks from the sparklers had caused fires to start all over the warehouse. Despite the rapidly growing flames, Ravana continued his attacks. While still dodging everything thrown at him, Rama desperately looked for Lakshmana and Sita to make sure they could get out.

Now the fires raged. Flaming debris fell everywhere. Ravana, blinded by his anger, did not notice until too late the debris that fell on top of him. At the same time, Lakshmana reappeared with Sita in tow. "Brother!" he yelled, "I have found her! Let's go!"

Rama glanced at Ravana. "You go ahead, brother! I must first get him out from under there!"

"What? Why? Look at what he did to Sita? He tried to kill you with a gun! Leave him! He deserves this fate."

"Lakshmana, even you know it would be wrong to just leave him here to die. It would be murder: an act far worse than anything he has done. Now go! Let me do this!"

With that, Lakshmana ran with Sita out of the building. It took some effort, but Rama managed to pull out Ravana from under the debris and out of the burning warehouse. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

"You chose to save me rather than leave me to burn with that building," Ravana coughed. "My life flashed before my eyes as I laid there expecting to die. I realized how horrible I have been, not just to you, but to everyone at the school. I let my position and popularity at school poison me, and this is where it led me."

Rama laid him far enough away from the building to where he would probably be safe. "You still have time to change, Ravana. You have been given a second chance. Use it wisely." Then, as the sirens arrived, Rama escaped with the club army into the night.

While the events of that night could not be pinned on our trio, Rama's father, Dasaratha, still felt it better that Rama and friends be transferred back to Adyodhya. The weeks that followed were filled with chaos as people tried to recover from what had happened. Ravana made efforts to apologize and atone for the terrible things he had done over the years to the people of Panchavati High School. Life began to resume as normal. Finally, peace was restored.

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Author's Note. The first part of this story was based on the part after Hanuman came to spy on Lanka and had razed parts of it to the ground while he escaped. Here Ravana was in council with his brother's and war chiefs. They tell him to not worry himself over trying to deal with Rama and his army of monkeys; they themselves can take care of them without problem. The rest of this story is based upon the actual battle between Rama and Ravana. Ravana tires of witnessing his army and commanders falling before him, so he prepares himself to face Rama and end it all. They battle by firing volleys of arrows while flying in chariots and by use of mystical or divine weapons. Finally, Rama deals the final blow with the Brahmasthra.

One should note that this is a sort of continuation of the story I wrote from last week. Despite having other ideas, I felt after including "to be continued" at the end of the previous one that it needed closure. This skips a lot of things that happened in between that and where this one begins, but including what was in between would go beyond the word count limit. Here the parts of Ravana's council, the siege of his fortress, and the battle with him were all condensed into one night and kept with the previous story's theme where everything is like part of a modern day high school (e.g. Ravana is the Panchavati's star quarterback and head of the school; Rama is the new bad boy in town). The battle between the armies was changed to more a chaotic distraction. Rama's battle here was not so much to bring an end to Ravana, as here they are just high school students, but just a means to get Sita back. Since all of Ravana's corruption was cut away by Rama in the original story, I felt it was better that he live and try to make amends since he would be able then to realize all of the wrong he committed.

Bibliography. Ranayana by R. K. Narayan. Web Source: Ramayana Reading Guide Section D.
Image of the inside of a warehouse. Web Source: MichaelGaida on Pixabay
Image of a burning building surrounded by fire engines. Web Source: Wikimedia Commons