The Last Day of the Fourteen Years

The war was over, Ravana was dead, and Sita was beside him. Rama had come back as far as the hermitage of the sage Bharadvaja, and from there Ayodhya was close. Before he went any closer he called Hanuman.

"Go ahead of us, quickly. Stop at Shringaverapura and tell my friend Guha that I am well. Then go on and find Bharata. Tell him everything that has happened to us, from the forest to Lanka."

Then he said something else.

"And while you tell him, watch his face. Watch his eyes, and listen to how he speaks. A kingdom rich in elephants and horses and chariots, handed down from a father: whose mind would not turn, holding it for so long? If Bharata wants it, let him rule all of it. Find out what is in his heart, and come back before we have gone far."

Hanuman took the shape of a man and flew. He crossed the meeting of the Ganga and the Yamuna, gave Guha the news, and went on until he came to a village called Nandigrama, two miles outside Ayodhya.

He found Bharata there, and Bharata did not look like a man who wanted a kingdom. He wore bark and the skin of a black antelope. His hair was matted, his body thin and grey with dust. He lived on roots and fruit. He was ruling the country, but he ruled it from a hermitage, with a pair of wooden sandals set before him on the seat, the sandals Rama had given him fourteen years before. His ministers sat around him in ochre, and the people of Ayodhya would not enjoy themselves while their prince lived like this.

Hanuman joined his palms.

"Rama, for whom you grieve, the one you think of in the forest in bark and matted hair, asks after you. Let go of this sorrow. In a little while you will see him. He has killed Ravana and won Sita back, and he is coming home."

Bharata fell to the ground in a faint. When he came round he took hold of Hanuman and held him, and wept on him, and this time it was joy.

"Are you a god or a man, that you have come to me out of kindness? For this news I will give you a hundred thousand cows and a hundred villages."

Then he made Hanuman sit and tell him all of it, every year he had missed. Hanuman told him, and ended with the time. "Tomorrow, when the moon is in Pushya, you will see Rama."

Bharata gave Shatrughna his orders. Let the family gods be worshipped with flowers and music in every temple. Let the bards and the singers come out, and the queens, and the ministers, and the heads of the guilds. Let the road from Nandigrama be levelled, and watered, and strewn with parched grain and flowers. Let every street fly flags, and every house be decorated.

They went out to meet him, Bharata in front, Rama's sandals on his head. Then they saw it in the distance, the flying car Pushpaka, bright as the moon. It came down, and Rama stepped out.

Bharata took the sandals and with his own hands set them beneath his brother's feet.

"This kingdom of yours was given to me to keep. Here it is, given back. Look at your treasury and your granaries and your army. By your power they are ten times what they were."

Rama told the Pushpaka to go back to its owner, Kubera, and it rose and flew away north.

In Tulsidas's telling the years have run all the way out. Only one day of the term is left.

The whole city knows it. Men and women alike have grown thin with waiting. And yet good omens keep appearing on every side, as if Ayodhya itself were saying that he is near. Kausalya and the other mothers feel a joy they cannot explain. Bharata's right eye and right arm keep throbbing.

Bharata cannot let himself believe it. One day left, and Rama has not come. Perhaps Rama thought him crooked and forgot him. Lakshmana was lucky; Lakshmana was allowed to go. If the term passes and he is still alive, Bharata thinks, then nobody in the world is lower than he is.

Into this, the poet says, Hanuman came like a boat to a drowning man. He had taken the form of a brahmin. He found Bharata sitting on a mat of kusha grass, his matted hair his only crown, saying Rama's name over and over with tears running down his face.

"The one you grieve for night and day has come, safe and well," Hanuman told him.

Bharata looked up. "Who are you, friend? Where have you come from? You have said the dearest words I have ever heard."

"I am Hanuman, son of the Wind."

Bharata held him and could not let go.

Then he ran to the guru and to the palace with the news, and the city woke. Women filled golden plates with curd and durva grass and flowers and went out singing. Golden pots were set at the doors, the streets were sprinkled with scent, the squares were filled with patterns of pearls. When Rama came, he came down outside the city so that he could walk among the people, and because each of them longed to meet him, he took as many forms as there were people, and met them all at once. The mothers circled lamps before him on trays of gold, again and again, and could not stop looking.