66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

“What wretched season are you?”—whereupon the weather
changed to early summer, a rather unwilling summer
ushered in prematurely. One who found the wintry day too
warm naturally found even the spring unbearable. Ravana
cried out, “I do not want this weather. Let the monsoons
come immediately.”
The weather changed to suit his mood. On his order came
the monsoon season with its cloud and damp air, but even
that proved too warm for him. He shouted, “What kind of
weather is this? You have brought back only the late winter,
which was horrible.”
His aides answered meekly, “Would we dare to disobey
you? What we called down was really early rains, as your
Lordship commanded.”
Whereupon Ravana said, “Banish all seasons. Let them
all get out of this world.” As a consequence, there was a
complete standstill in time. Minute, hour, day, month, and
year lost their boundaries. And mankind was lost in a
seasonless confusion. In spite of all this, there was no peace
for Ravana. He was still scorched by a hopeless love for
Sita.
When all measures for cooling himself had failed—such
as covering his body with sandalwood paste and layers of
tender leaves of a rare plant treated with essence of saffron
—Ravana, who felt himself shrivelling in stature, said to
those around him, “The moon is supposed to have cool