BENGALURU: As Navratri comes to an end, curtains are drawn on nine days of fun, family, and food. But unlike most people, I use these days to spare a thought for the rakshasas. Why rakshasas? Over the years, I have grown to love these characters – the hustlers of heaven. Those who wanted to bring some swagger in swargaloka!
In case you’re unfamiliar with Indian mythology – there are said to be three worlds. Swargalok (heavenly plane), Dharti Lok (earthly plane), and Patal Lok (netherworld). Apart from humans, there are devas (Gods) and Asuras (demons) who are constantly at loggerheads with each other. Devas have the support of Gods like Vishnu and Shiva, whereas the asuras have only the mentorship of Sage Shukracharya. If the India-Pakistan record in World Cups is 8:0, the scorecard of Devas - Asuras is probably 2,75,456:0 – since the asuras have never won any battle with the devas!
But the life of a rakshasa is not an easy one. You have to participate in prayer and penance, usually to Lord Shiva – who is known to answer prayers easily. He’s called ‘Bhola’ Shankar – the innocent God. The rakshasas usually ask for immortality, which is usually met with a ‘Sorry! We don’t do that here’ response. So the rakshasas go for the next best option – some sort of loophole that will guarantee them eternal life. But as we all know, the Gods usually get the better of them by outwitting them at their own plans.
Once the rakshasas get their boon, the first thing they do is rush to Swargaloka to challenge Indra for his seat. Indra then escalates the issue to the higher powers, and the rest as they say - is mythology! These rakshasas wreak havoc with their newfound powers, until they are finally killed by the gods. While that is usually the story of every rakshasa, there are some rakshasas who put in more effort than the others. Some rakshasas are straight up stupid – like Sishupala in the Mahabharata who was allowed 100 sins in his life. But he used them up quickly by insulting Krishna himself and had to get his head cut off by the Sudarshan Chakra.
At the bottom of the rung are rakshasas like Bakasura – who wasn’t your average goat-eating, big-eyes-making, HOOHOO-HAAHAA laughing rakshasa. Bakasura ate one person in the village every day – the earliest case of a high-protein Keto diet! He met his match in Bheema, who killed him. Then there is Bhasmasura who prayed to Shiva for a very specific boon. ‘Anybody I place my right hand on, should burn to ashes’. Shiva offered the boon, and Bhasmasura immediately went after Shiva himself. When things reached a head, Vishnu took on the form of a beautiful woman, and Bhasmasura was smitten. He pursued the lady, only to be told that she’d only marry the person who could dance like her. Taking on the earliest TikTok Dance Challenge in history, Bhasmasura danced along – till the beautiful woman placed her hand on her own head. Blinded by lust, Bhasmasura follows suit, and gets burnt to ashes!
Remnants of rakshasas can still be found in Bollywood villains. Without rakshasas, gods have no real work to do! They bring out the godliness of the gods. If stories of gods teach us values, tales of rakshasas teach us important lessons about greed, lust, and anger. But there’s a silver lining – once killed, most rakshasas are revealed to be liberated from an ancient curse. It’s probably a way of letting us know that you might be an absolute degenerate – but there’s hope for redemption – even for the worst of us.
(The writers’ views are their own)
Hriday Ranjan
(Writer, comedian)