66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

one who had sneaked up to Rama on some forest path and
attached herself to him. She could not be this man’s wife, as
no wife would care to face the hardship of a forest existence.
He must surely have left his wife, if he had one, back at
home, and now lived with this woman in the forest.
Kamavalli said to Rama very seriously, “Great one! Don’t
let this creature come near you. Don’t be misled by her
appearance, it’s not her own, she has assumed it through
black art. Actually she is a rakshasa woman; drive her off
before she does you any harm. This forest is full of such
deceivers.”
She might well have been confessing this of herself—her
own normal appearance being that of a demon with wild,
matted hair, flame-coloured fang-like teeth, enormous
stature, and a belly swollen with the meat and blood of
animals she had gorged on in her never-ending gluttony. Her
name was Soorpanaka. Her brother Ravana had assigned
this Dandaka forest as her own domain, leaving her free to
live here as she pleased, assisted by a number of ruthless
demons led by Kara—the fiercest devil ever conceived.
Here she held her court and ravaged the forests. In the
course of her wanderings, she saw Rama and fell in love and
decided to seduce him by every art in her power. As a first
step, through certain incantations, she transformed herself
into a comely maiden. Now, when she warned Rama of
Sita’s true nature as she imagined it, he began to laugh and