Storytelling Week 5: The Valakhilyas' Plea

They come during the night in great hordes devouring any creature in their path.  They have destroyed us in so many ways.  We cannot go out anymore.  We are truly prisoners within our own forest, our own home.  The Rakshasas have taken everything away from us by destroying our safety. 

            They are horrible beasts who come in all forms.  Some stand taller than the trees of the forest with hands and feet that destroy any life.  Others crawl and slide on their stomachs, slurping up any creature on the ground with long tongues that have viscous spikes attached to them.  Some can even fly, picking up small animals by their necks and quickly crushing them.  But the most dangerous Rakshasas are the fast ones.  They can sprint on all fours or just two legs.  They have hands with a large claw used for gripping, tearing, and killing.  There are also Rakshasas with large red eyes, tiny black eyes, and some who have no eyes, only black pits that give no hint of a soul.  However, all of the monstrous Rakshasas that inhabit our forest have an unquenchable blood lust.  They stop at nothing.  They have no boundaries.  They only care about feeding on weaker creatures like us and they are never satisfied. 

            The things they do to creatures...terrible things that cannot be imagined by a sane mind.  We have witnessed our own being skinned alive without hesitation from the Rakshasas.  At first, they were fast deaths followed by fast consumption, only leaving piles of bones.  But they became hungry for suffering.  They tortured our people, played with them before feasting.  Now, they skin their victims alive slowly, tearing inches of skin off one piece at a time.  The screams are something that no one has ever heard before.  We are not sure if they are the screams of the poor creature who is dying or the Rakshasa.   They are agonizing and painful to hear.  None of us can forget those horrific sounds and some of us hear these screams in our sleep.  We cannot imagine how the Valakhilya who is dying must feel, and we never want to. 

            During the day, when we scavenge for food, we find bones, so many bones.  They are stripped of flesh.  Some are even hollow as if the Rakshasas have sipped the marrow from every bone.  You cannot imagine how many piles of bones we find.  We find small bones from our own kind and larger bones from humans, birds, deer, bears, and tigers.  Some piles have smaller Rakshasas within them.  How can such ruthless creatures who lust for death and blood even from one of their own exist.  If they can kill their own, they will surely destroy every trace of us, the small and innocent Valakhilya. 

            Rama, we are scared, terrified.  The life we live now is hopeless and meaningless because we know that a cruel and torturous existence is all that is left.  Please, Rama!  You cannot deny us our safety, our lives.  If you do not help us, we will die either from the Rakshasas or from our hopelessness.  

A Rakshasa depicted in the art of Yakshagana.  Source:Wikipedia.

Author’s Note

For this week, I wanted to retell the Valakhilyas’ plea to Rama.  Rama meets the Valakhilyas, who are tiny sages, in the Dandaka forest after his exile.  Within Buck’s version of the Ramayana, I found his use of detail and description of the Rakshasas from the perspective of Valakhilyas very intriguing.  However, I wished that there would have been more detail on what the Rakshasas did to the Valakhilyas and other beings within the forest.  For these reasons, I wanted to expand this detail in order to show how horrific these creatures really are.  I mainly did this by giving more detail and description of the type of destruction and fear the Valakhilyas have to deal with.  Overall, I wanted to expand this section of the Ramayana.  I didn’t include the dialogue from Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita because that was not what I wanted to focus on.  Instead, I just wanted to convey the type of distress that the Valakhilyas have to endure.  Essentially, I wanted to make it thematic, descriptive, and highly detailed.  At times, I did struggle because I didn’t want to sound too redundant.  I don’t believe that I was, but if you feel like some parts are redundant please tell me.  This retelling of the Valakhilyas’ plea is true to plot. 

Bibliography

Buck, William (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.