Parasurama

Sai Srikar Valmiki became a renowned author after his works in science fiction books. After writing many successful science fiction short stories, he took a break.

The publishing firm, which published all his works, was going down in business. After, what they called the, “Sai Srikar Valmiki success” they could not publish such good works and the public stopped buying their publishing because they couldn’t produce the books the public excepted. So, they approached Srikar for help.

Srikar couldn’t refuse their request and asked for a month’s time, which they gave. During this month, he went in search of a new story. This time instead of science fiction, he wanted to try something new. He thought of writing a historical book. 

For this, he had to know how many people told and retold famous historical stories and epics. 

He explored places which had historical importance, places where wars took place, places where many articles were excavated and many more. There he asked the locals about the places’ folklore or the history of that place. Now he understood how many stories were there. But to his disappointment none of these stories fascinated him. 

The next move he did was trying to understand how people wrote famous historical novels to go to libraries and check in the historical books section and the historical fiction books section. There he read many books, of which he liked Ponniyin Selvan’s story, which he read in English, the most.  But he couldn’t write its story, as there would be copyright issues.

He ventured to many more libraries. But almost all of them had historical stories of foreign lands, written by foreign authors and read by readers all around the world. But Sai wanted Indian mythology stories. He did not want to end up writing about Attila the Hun or Joseph Stalin or Vlad the Impaler or Nero. He wanted to write about some Indian ruler, chieftain, sage or even a mad person who changed the course of Indian history. But he found none of the rulers’ stories interesting.

The next thing he did was ask his grandmother to tell him the story of an epic ruler.

“I’ll tell you about not a ruler, but a killer of rulers, Parasurama…” She said, and to his surprise Sai found this story very interesting. It had many life lessons and many more interesting things. The story was a Drama, Action, Thriller story with no loopholes and an epic story.

Sai decided to write this, with his own touches like different names, different climax and a little different plotline. He gave this to the publishers and they liked it too. 

When the book got published, it started earning good money in only a few days and in a month over a million copies were sold.

The Story

There lived a wealthy king, long ago. He was known by the name, Karthikeya. He was very arrogant, rude and egocentric. He was smart and very logical, but just because of his behavior, he did not have a good reputation. 

He behaved this way because of his upbringing. His father, Ravi Simha, was naughty child in his boyhood and therefore was scolded by his parents. Therefore, he didn’t want to scold his successors. This caused Karthikeya to be carefree in his childhood, he was not corrected at any point, and whoever talked against him was punished severely by his father. 

And as many of you know, if a fire is not extinguished when it is minor, it can cause a forest-fire. This is the exact thing that happened with Karthikeya.

One day, Karthikeya went hunting with his subjects. They hunted many deer, wild sheep and goats. They rested in the forest for a while.

While they were resting, it started raining. For shelter from the rain, they searched many places and diverted from their path. This led them to a secluded part of the jungle, and the got lost.

They went from place to place in search of shelter or food but they got none of them for a long time. After traveling for almost 1 hour, they found a small hut. Karthikeya was not very convinced that this was the shelter he was looking for, but was forced to send his subjects to knock on the hut’s door in the rain. 

When the liege knocked the door, an old man opened it. “How can I help you, sir?” He asked politely. 

“Sir, we came to the jungle to hunt but unfortunately our troops got lost. Actually, we’re looking for shelter, can you help us, sir,” explained the subject.

“Oh, my name is Aranya Kumar, I am much obliged to help your troop. How many are you?”

The subject counted and told the old man that there were 7 people in total. The subject also told the man that he was traveling with the king of the country.

“Please come in then! You can all wash your hands and legs in the well there, till then, I will arrange food for you and your troop,” the old man said happily.

Delighted, the subject informed this to the king, and Karthikeya reluctantly went to wash his hands and legs. After doing so, he ordered one of his subjects to tie the horses to a tree trunk. The subject sadly did this, washed his hands and legs again and went into the hut.

As he stepped into the hut, he was amazed to see that a feast had been arranged for them. When I say a feast, it literally means a feast. 

The old man, accompanied by his wife, was placing banana leaves around the food items. In the middle was a big bowl of long white rice, surrounded with saffron. Around it was plates with 5 kinds of curries and dal, and in one corner of the room were sweets like silver-coated Kaju-Barfis, bright orange Imartis, hot and juicy Gulab-jamuns, luscious yellow Jalebis and a big container full of Kheer, garnished with chopped pistachio and almond. More than the taste of the food items, the way it was arranged and displayed was more beautiful.

After everything was ready, the old man called out, “Parasurama, come out and help me!”

His son came out and bowed to his guests and served a variety of curries and dal to everyone. Followed by him his mother, Renuka, served rice. Aranya Kumar poured water into glasses and gave each of them one. 

The royal persons ate to their content, all of the items were as delicious as they looked when they were arranged. The king understood that this family which lived in the forest was richer than they seemed to be. He thought that they were hiding something. 

After washing his hands once more, he went to the old man and asked him in his arrogant manner, “What are you hiding, you old man. How did you prepare this food in so little time!? Are you a being from eternal space or perhaps from the world beneath my feet?!”

The old man did not mind this comment, he smiled and ever so politely said, “Oh I am just an old Brahmin, living with his family in the woods, sire! I am not hiding anything.”

“Then how did you prepare the delicious food in such a short time. Do you know black magic!?” The king was getting angrier by the minute, and even more so when he said that the old Brahmin was not at all scared because of his anger.

“I see you wonder how I prepared the food. I say that I did not prepare it, follow me and I can make it clear for you,” the old man replied, maintaining every bit of respect and politeness.

He guided the king and his subordinates to the backyard of his house, where there was a cowshed with 3 cows and 4 calves. Aranya Kumar pointed to a cow sitting majestically in the corner of the shed. It showed not one bit of pride. It is just watching over a hedge. 

“Are you trying to make a fool out of me!” the king shouted in anger.

The cow, hearing the noise, stood up. 

“No, your highness! I’ll show you.” The old man replied and went near the cow. He did something and suddenly a beautiful wooden toy appeared in his hand. The old man bowed to the cow.

“This cow is the gift of the gods; she is the most generous being on earth. She grants me all the things I want. She is a very godly form,” Aranya Kumar explained.

The king was mesmerized, he wanted to own the cow. He shamelessly asked the old man to give him the cow. The old man refused. This angered the king further. He left the hut, mortally injuring the man.

This angered Parasurama, he went to the king's court and executed him in front of everyone and went back home. This act of his caused his father to scold him.

Parasurama, a little sad by his father’s scolding, went to refresh himself, near a lake and sat there for a while. After going home, he was horror-stricken. His mother and father’s body lay in one corner, between a puddle of blood. Their heads had been separated from their bodies. The scene was horrifying.

After an investigation, Parasurama got to know that this miserable deed was done by the children of Karthikeya. Furious, he killed all of them.

From that day on Parasurama decided that he would kill all the kings of the world. He thought them to be pests that threatened the existence of humans. And as per his word, he started killing them one by one. 

Many praised him and many scolded him but cared about nothing and continued.

Once he was about to kill a king, who was not so bad. When he raised his sword to chop his head, one of his children came in between. 

“Move aside kid.” Shouted Parasurama.

But the kid wouldn’t budge. 

This kid made Parasurama realize that what he was doing was very wrong. His anger led him on the wrong path. He also realized that not all kings are bad (this he realized after he heard about the king from his people).

He collected all his things and burned them. He then took a bath, and set out to start a new life.

THE END