66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

creature on the ground; others held their fingers over their
nostrils, both to perform breath control and to keep the
fingers from touching their nether portions while their minds
were fixed on God.
The noise of the rolling chariot wheels, trumpets, and
drums, and the general din, made it impossible for anyone to
hear what anyone else was saying. After a while people
moved along dumbly, communicating with each other only by
signs, their feet raising an enormous trail of dust. Bullocks
drawing wagons loaded with baggage, excited by the noise
of drums, suddenly snapped off their yokes and ran helterskelter,
adding to the melee, leaving the baggage scattered
on the road. Elephants, when they noticed a tank or a pond,
charged away for a plunge, and remained submerged in the
water up to their white tusks. Musicians sat on horseback
playing their instruments and singing.
Behind this army, the king’s favourites in the women’s
apartments followed. Surrounded by a thousand attendants,
Queen Kaikeyi came in her palanquin. Next came Sumithra,
accompanied by two thousand attendants. Surrounded by
her own musicians came Kausalya, mother of Rama. She
had also in her company several dwarfs and hunchbacks
and other freaks. But her main companions were sixty
thousand women of great beauty and accomplishment who
followed her in a variety of vehicles. In a white palanquin
studded with pearls, sage Vasishtha, chief mentor at the