Having collapsed at the sight of Rama, Lakshmana and Sita leaving, and haunted by the injustice he has done his son, King Dasaratha lies on his deathbed lamenting that fate is punishing him cruelly. “What wrong have I done in my life to deserve this?” he asks, holding the hands of his wife Kausalya.

Then it all comes back to him –

“What wrong have I done to you to deserve this?” the teenage boy asks, bleeding from the arrow Dasaratha has shot.

Though this event took place long ago, when Dasaratha was just a prince, even then he had no answer. He’d heard a deer drinking at the river’s edge and shot an arrow in the direction of the sound. It was not a deer but this teenager, filling his pot of water. Dasaratha had committed a terrible crime, prompted by pride in his own hunting skills. He had been trained as a great warrior and had learned the trick of aiming and shooting by ear. Even in pitch dark, he had the incredible skill of hitting his target, identifying it just by sound. Pride had resulted in this tragedy.

“Forgive me,” Dasaratha says in a trembling voice.

Sravana Kumara, the wounded boy, whispers, “I understand it was a mistake. I forgive you.”

Dasaratha is moved by the boy’s nobility. People do not forget even minor insults and carry the burden of bitterness in their minds for long periods. But here is a boy, barely into his teens, forgiving his killer with no sense of resentment.

“How can I make amends?” Dasaratha asks the dying boy.

“My blind parents are waiting for me,” he replies. “I came to fetch water to quench their thirst.” Sravana Kumara dies with these words on his lips, his head in Dasaratha’s lap.

Dasaratha sits immobile, too numb to think, too weak to act. The guilt of his mistake crushes him. As the boy’s body goes still, he remembers the boy’s blind parents are still waiting for water. With a heavy heart, Dasaratha picks up the fallen pot and drags himself to the river. He fills the pot, wishing some other hunter would make the same mistake he has. He does not know how to face the parents of the boy he has killed.

Then he climbs the hill carrying the pot of water and sees the blind couple sitting under a tree, waiting for their son to come. He thinks of running away. But he has given his word to the dying boy. Dasaratha must give the blind parents water and tell them what he has done.

As Dasaratha approaches, their faces light up. “Where had you been, my son? Your mother is thirsty,” says the old man from between parched lips.

“Let your father drink first,” insists the blind woman in a hoarse voice.

Dasaratha controls his tears and pours water into the mother’s cupped palms. A tear falls from his eye onto her wrinkled wrist.

“Son, why are you crying? What has happened?” The mother grabs Dasaratha’s arm before he can withdraw. Her gnarled fingers fumble on his gem-encrusted bracelets. She draws back, saying, “You are not my son. Who are you, kind stranger?”

“Oh, we have a guest,” the blind man cries. “He must be a friend of Sravana. Do you have anything to give him?” he whispers in his wife’s ear.

She is silent for a moment, then fumbles in the folds of her sari and brings forth two small mangoes. “We have only this, my son. Share it with Sravana,” she says, smiling.

Dasaratha, the scion of the Ikshvaku dynasty, the Crown Prince of Ayodhya, takes the mangoes with shivering hands.

The old man says with a rueful smile, “Taste them son, they are delightful.”

Perhaps the mangoes were their meal, thinks Dasaratha, yet they are sharing them with their son’s killer.

The old woman asks, “Where is Sravana?”

Dasaratha falls on his knees and hugs the mother’s feet, crying, “I ... I killed your son.”

The old woman chuckles as if he is joking. “Sravana...” she calls, looking around with her blind eyes. “Stop playing tricks on your old parents.”

Dasaratha chokes on his tears.

But the old man gives a gasp. He has understood the truth. He prises away Dasaratha’s hands from his wife’s feet, holds her close and whispers something into her ear. Dasaratha stands up, the momentary silence weighing him down. The anguished cry of the mother will haunt him forever. He stands with his head bowed before the blind couple.

“You have killed our only son!” the mother weeps. “We have no one left in the world.”

The father curses Dasaratha saying, “May your end be as miserable as ours. May you die when none of your sons are with you.”

The woman puts a hand over her husband’s mouth and says, “He too is someone’s son. Do not curse him.”

Suddenly, the old man falls backwards, like a tree whose roots have been hacked. A heart-wrenching cry comes from his wife and Dasaratha rushes to the fallen man crying, “Forgive my mistake!”

But the old woman holds him back with a trembling hand. “Go away, son, and leave me to my grief before I utter a curse,” she says. “Let me not die with a curse on my lips. Let me die in peace with the memories of my beloved son and husband.”

Dasaratha stands in silence as if turned to stone.

After some time, the woman wipes her tears and says, “I do not know who you are and why you killed my Sravana, but whoever you are, forgive my husband for the curse he uttered. May you have sons like Sravana, beautiful and loving, who will spread light in the world. That is all this poor woman can do for you. Take this as my blessing.”

Dasaratha, the richest prince in Bharata Varsha, the scion of Ikshvaku, the future king of Ayodhya, stands before the grieving mother, feeling as low as a worm. Her blessing is more scathing than her husband’s curse. And as he stands watching, the woman falls upon her husband’s bosom and breathes her last –

Now, as he lies dying, Dasaratha holds Kausalya’s hand and weeps. “I am eating the bitter fruits of my karma,” he cries. “I know why I am dying without my Rama beside me. I have four illustrious sons as the woman said, but I am alone when my end approaches. The old man’s curse has come true.”

Dasaratha’s words fade away as he slips into unconsciousness. Kausalya stands by his bedside, watching her husband. Then another woman walks into the chamber and stands beside her. Kausalya looks up and with a shudder, looks down again.

Excerpted with permission from Many Ramayanas, Many Lessons, Anand Neelakantan, HarperCollins India.