Storytelling Week 2: Thataka's Tale

My name is Thataka and I am a royal princess, daughter of the great yaksha Suketha. I am also wife to Sunda, a powerful chieftain, and mother of the mighty Mareecha and Subahu, as well as mother of the beautiful Kaikesi, who is the mother of Ravana. As you can tell, I am quite an amazing demigoddess. I’m so powerful, in fact, that I’m quite sure you’ve heard of me and mine before this, but I’m here to tell you that if you heard your story from anyone who took Rama’s side in this whole affair, then you heard wrong. It’s okay though, I will set you straight just like Maleficent set everyone straight about why she cursed that charming princess, who woke said princess up, and how much love there truly was between them.

First of all, I was married at a very young age to the man of my dreams, who I loved very dearly - my husband Sunda, sometimes known as Sumali. I was his second wife and he had ten sons and four daughters by his first wife, Ketumati. As you can see, I had a lot to live up to. To please my husband, I started having children. Eventually, I gave birth to Mareecha, Subahu, and Kaikesi. When she was old enough, my husband and I arranged a meeting between Kaikesi and the Rishi Vishrava, who ended up leaving his wife to marry our daughter. They had Ravana shortly thereafter and you all know how powerful he became. I loved my grandson very much and was very pleased with how much he accomplished, if only he hadn’t thrown it away on that Sita girl he might have been happy forever, but I can see how he might have wanted to do something to provoke Rama and give him a reason to avenge my death.

Mareecha and Subahu were very strong and handsome, as well as very powerful and I do suppose I might have spoiled them from time to time because I loved them so much. They were lovely children, if a bit rowdy at times, and grew up quickly, as boys so often do. My husband and I noticed that they stayed rambunctious for a time when they were young men, rather than growing out of that, but we simply chalked it up to “boys will be boys” and moved on with our lives. My husband occasionally liked to spend time with the boys and they sometimes would get themselves into trouble with a particularly devious prank or two here and there, but they never did anything too terrible. One day, however, they pranked the wrong neighborhood and came to the attention of a very self-righteous and sanctimonious savant, Agasthya. Agasthya decided to teach them all a lesson and I don’t know if he planned it or if it was an accident, but my poor Sunda ended up dead. I, of course, was furious and distraught and I and my boys went after Agasthya for justice for his terrible crime. He was more powerful than we were, however, and he turned I and my precious lovelies into demons rather than the demigods we had been before!

I was devastated, to say the least. I had done absolutely nothing wrong and had been punished by it by losing everything I had ever held dear (my boys fled after being turned into demons and I never saw them again). I decided “to hell with it all” and began to be the demon Agasthya had accused me of being, after all, if I was to be punished for a crime I might as well commit the crime I had been punished for. This is where the famous Rama enters my story. I had been roaming around my desert home, doing just as I pleased whenever I pleased to do it, when up comes Rama and his entourage who encourage him to kill me simply because I was a demon. Nobody asked why I was a demon or if I had done anything wrong, they just assumed that because I was in this situation, I was completely evil and let me just say, who made him judge, jury, and executioner?! Who gave him the right to come into my home and slay me with no warning and no chance to redeem myself? Does it seem right or fair, the way I died? Some may say that I attacked first but I would say that that accursed Viswamithra is to blame as he is the one who discussed my impending doom with Rama right in front of me! So you see, you needed to know the whole story, not just the “hero’s” version of it.

Image Information: Image source: Rama battles Taraka

Author’s Note: I decided to tell this story from someone else’s point of view, because if you’ve ever seen the movie Maleficent then you know that sometimes the hero’s account of what happened may be a bit different from the “villain’s” point of view. Typically speaking, demigoddesses probably don’t often “turn to the dark side,” so I wanted to show the reader that perhaps Thataka was just a misunderstood woman who put too much stock into familial loyalty. Sure she was a powerful and maybe stuck up princess, but that shouldn’t necessarily mean that she was evil, just that circumstances made her appear that way. I didn’t make any major changes to the story, except mentioning that she was the grandmother of Ravana and pointed out that although in the story Thataka struck the first blow and Rama was only defending himself, she more than likely overheard his conversation with Viswamithra and knew that he was there to kill her, so she reacted to that by defending herself against him.

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.

Wikipedia about Thataka

Wikipedia about Sumali (Sunda)