Obamayana

The other night while putting the boys to bed, they requested for a Rama story. Having told them some Rama stories recently, and having listened to more at the Sunday Heritage classes in the temple, they got hooked on to the Ramayana characters.

Chandra is Rama and Sugriva while Datta is Bharata and Hanuman. Sometimes they take on a third character as well. And anything slender and long becomes a bow and an arrow. Anything with a protrusion at the end, naturally, becomes a mace (gada). We have innumerable battles at home these days, and luckily for us and for themselves, both are on the same side and fight with fictitious evil, up in the air.

So, last night I thought I would tell them about the genesis of Ramayana, i.e. the story about Shravan Kumar, his old parents, Dasaratha's archery skills and the curse he incurs because of that. Yeah, I know - too much high level stuff for the little kids. Righfully so, I was jolted from my own slumber when the words Obama, change, schedule etc. started getting mixed up with the story.

I don't remember when I started dozing off and what all I was telling them - but when I looked at them, they were wide awake and with confused looks for what I was blabbering. They know Obma is the new President, but couldn't understand what Obama has to do with Rama, Dasaratha and Hanuman. At that point, I decided to start another simpler story and retold the 'Bharata pleading Rama to return but leaving with his sandals' story. And I made sure Obama wasn't part of this story.

After that the kids slept easy - but I was interested and intrigued myself with what Obama was doing in Ramayana and it was a long night for me. I could never figure out :)

Swasti !!