The Living Legend: Vayu Naidu Retells Ramayana From An Environmental Lens

The Living Legend by Vayu Naidu is a spellbinding novel that reimagines the timeless saga of Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana. Set in the mysterious Dandaka Forest, the book highlights the far-reaching influence of the Sita-Rama story across South and East Asia. Through this eco-literature dive into the book’s portrayal of nature as a central character and how it resonates with contemporary environmental concerns.

Here's an excerpt from Vayu Naidu's The Living Legend

Rama’s envoy had delivered the message in Ravana’s court with all the respect due to a head of state, as per the diplomatic code. Ravana decided to send the two envoys back with a message. It wasn’t with words. He had them strapped to a catapult that stretched from the watchtower of Lanka and then flung across the sea to the bridge. ‘That’ll teach that stripling to send me monkeys as messengers,’ Ravana muttered as he saw their bodies flying out of the catapult.

The monkey envoys had suffered severe injuries by being hurtled onto the bridge. But they were in good spirits as they reported to Rama the chaos that reigned in the council, while everyone was pandering to Ravana’s ego. ‘He looked absent-minded,’ they said. When the monkey and bear armies heard the report of the injustice and humiliation that these envoys suffered, their morale spiralled upward. They were ready to put down these haughty rakshasas.

Ravana, in his underground palace, was awake at all hours hatching plans to obliterate Rama and his army once and for all. He didn’t eat, he took to drugs that kept him awake all hours and would swing from being extremely polite to his attendants one minute, to pronouncing death sentences an hour later. He constantly conjured up complicated mechanisms to bring about death to all his enemies.

The next day, Ravana grew desperate. He thought if he could change Sita’s mind, that fixture of Rama in her heart, that would be the final solution. He would get the rakshasa attending on her to slip vile potions into her food. But the one rakshasa who was in charge of offering Sita food had grown to like her and would throw the potions away. Each day, just sitting by and listening to Sita’s breathing, her sighs, her constant repetition of ‘Ra-ma’ seemed to fill the rakshasa’s mind with peace. She became very loyal to Sita.

The morning of the first day of battle arrived. Ravana listened to his reporters from his underground palace. Conch shells were blown announcing the first declaration of battle from the armies on the bridge. The envoys’ experience of the catapult proved useful. With some refinement, the monkey and bear armies had created multiple catapults so that the monkey soldiers could be safely launched onto the inner courtyard of the fort. This avoided the ghastly scaling of the Lanka fort wall; a technique that entailed the defensive rakshasa pouring hot oil on the advancing army and then setting the monkey fur alight.

Ravana took this opportunity to rush to Sita’s cell and tell her to come and view the battle scene. She was summoned into the aerial chariot, and from the air, she saw what Ravana told her. ‘See! How weak all his attempts are. Down there he lies dead with his brother and all those comical monkeys!’ Sita did not see this, as she had fainted from the stench of the poisonous fumes. Ravana was confused. Had the fumes killed her as well, or had her heart stopped beating when Rama’s did?

Extracted with permission from Vayu Naidu's The Living Legend; published by Penguin Random House.