66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

How can anyone help thinking that I have manoeuvered it all
through? … You have earned me the blackest reputation for
anyone since the beginning of our solar race.”
He concluded with regret, “You deserve to die for your
perfidy… . If I do not snuff your wretched life out with my own
hand, do not pride yourself that it is because you are my
mother, but you are spared because Rama would despise
me for my deed.”
He left her without another word and went off sobbing to
the palace of Kausalya, Rama’s mother. She received him
with all courtesy and affection, although she could not be
quite clear in her mind about Bharatha’s innocence.
Bharatha threw himself before her and lamented, “In which
world shall I seek my father? Where can I see my brother
again? Have the fates kept me away in my grandfather’s
house so that I may suffer this pang?”
After he had gone on thus for some time expressing his
sorrow and his determination to destroy himself rather than
bear the burden of both separation and ill-repute, Kausalya
realized that Bharatha was innocent. She asked at the end
of his speech, “So you were unaware of the evil designs of
your mother?”
At this Bharatha was so incensed that he burst into selfdamnation:
“If I had the slightest knowledge of what my
mother was planning, may I be condemned to dwell in the
darkest hell reserved for …” And he listed a series of the