Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Bāla · 8 of 50
8. The city at peace
Bāla (बाल)
What follows is a pause the poem owes the city. Rāma lives as a son and a husband. He is the prince people bring their disputes to, not because he has a throne but because he listens as if the dispute mattered. Lakṣmaṇa is with him. Bharata is with Śatrughna, and the affection among the four is the thing Kaikeyī's fear will be unable to imagine. Sītā's life in these chapters is a court life. The forest has not asked for her yet.
Daśaratha watches a son who is better than the years of waiting deserved, and he begins to think the thought that will destroy him. He is old. The consecration should happen while he can still see it. Love of a successor is also fear of one's own end. The poem does not sneer at the fear. It is about to punish the king for a different virtue, the keeping of a word.
The pause is the measure of the loss. A reader who skips it will not understand Ayodhyā. The next kāṇḍa is cruel in proportion to how habitable this one has become.
नेपालीमा
कविताले सहरलाई केही समय शान्ति दिन्छ। राम छोरा र पति भएर बस्नुहुन्छ। मान्छेहरू आफ्ना विवाद लिएर उहाँकहाँ आउँछन्, किनकि उहाँ विवादलाई महत्त्वपूर्ण ठानेर सुन्नुहुन्छ। चार भाइको माया कैकेयीको डरले कल्पना गर्न नसक्ने चीज हो। दशरथले आफूले पर्खेभन्दा राम्रो छोरा देखे, र आफू वृद्ध भएकाले आफ्नै आँखा अगाडि अभिषेक होस् भनेर सोच्न थाले। उत्तराधिकारीप्रतिको प्रेम आफ्नै अन्त्यको डर पनि हो। यो विश्राम हानिको नाप हो। अर्को काण्ड यति निर्दय छ जति यो बस्न योग्य भएको छ।