Stories of Yesteryear: My Grandma’s Love

I’m from the mountains and during the summer evenings we sit outside every day while the breeze cools us off. I remember going outside on some evenings when my Daadi Aama would usually sit on a chattai (carpet), and asking her to tell me a story. Every time she started, I just couldn’t stop asking her “Aage kya hua” (What happened next)?

When Ravana captured the nine planets (Navagraha):

Me and my Grandma were both lying down on our backs against the carpet looking at the star lit sky when she asked, “Do you see that star?” pointing to the brightest one. I replied, “Yes, I do see it”. She continued,“this is a star or maybe a planet”. I had recently learned about planets in school and so I asked her, “Dadi Aama, which planet is this out of the nine ones?”. We did consider Pluto at the time. She replied, “I don’t know which one this is beta but I do know a story about Ravana and the nine planets…would you like to hear it?” To which I jumped with excitement, “Yay! Finally a story.”

And thus began the story — “You know Ravana - The ten headed rakshasa (demon) who abducted Sita in the Ramayana? Well, he was more than just a rakshasa. He was one of the most powerful beings to ever roam the Universe. What a lot of people don’t know about him is that besides being the great king of Sri Lanka, he was also an immaculate astrologer, because Jupiter, Moon and Saturn were in alignment in his birth chart.

He was strong and knowledgeable and had defeated a lot of devas (gods) with the combination of his power and knowledge of astrology. When Ravana was about to welcome his son into the world, the news spread like wildfire. All the devas were worried and scared because they couldn’t handle Ravana alone and even the thought of somebody just like him being born made it twice as worse. They were all petrified, and after thinking a lot, all of them came up with a plan, which was to make the nine planets (Navgrahas) shift in such unfavorable positions that it would somehow make Ravana’s son to be born not as powerful.”

“But how did they do that?” the confused little girl in me asked, to which my Daadi Aama said, “they are devas beta, they also possessed powers, but guess what happened next?” “What?” I asked curiously. “Somehow Ravana got to know about what the devas had been up to and he got furious and captured all the navagrahas. He kept them under his feet with their heads facing downwards and because of this, the planets could no longer move into the unfavorable positions that had been requested by the devas. Now, all the devas were disappointed and could only think of one person who could help them in this situation. That person was Narada Muni.”

“Narayana Narayana!” I exclaimed with joy to which my Grandma laughed a little.

“Yes Beta it was him.”

“Anyways, so now Narayana used his mind and thought about the Shani Drishti which was an evil eye that could be cast by one of the grahas called the Shani Graha (Saturn). If Shani Drishti ever fell on someone, then they were bound to face troubles and hardships in life. So, Narada Muni came up with a plan. He went to Ravana and praised him a lot for capturing the nine grahas and manipulated him into flipping the grahas, including the Shani Graha, by saying that Ravana should humiliate the grahas even more by stomping on their chest.

As soon as he flipped the grahas, including the Shani Graha, the Shani Drishti fell on him and that was the start of his hardships in life.”

“Wow Ravana got what he deserved, what happened next?” I excitedly asked.

“What do you think would’ve happened? Ravana, being how he is, got extremely furious and caught hold of Shani and locked him inside a tiny cage that had no openings which prevented anybody from ever seeing Shani’s face again and thus prevented anybody else form being affected by the Shani Drishti.” said my Daadi Aama.

“So did Shani never escape?” I asked genuinely.

“He didn’t escape but after some years when Hanuman flew to Lanka carrying Rama’s message for Sita, he heard a weeping sound from Shani’s cage. Hanuman didn’t think much and broke the cage and rescued Shani but Shani Drishti fell upon Hanuman.”

“Oh no! So would the Shani Drishti affect Hanuman also?” I asked, worried.

She replied, “Now you may think that The Shani Drishti would not work on Hanuman since he had rescued Shani but no, Shani was bound by his virtue and had to inflict hardships on anyone on whom the Shani Drishti had fallen.

So, he explained to Hanuman that now that Shani Drishti had fallen on him, he would have to face the consequences. Hanuman however understood Shani’s helplessness and probed more about the consequences. Shani told Hanuman that he would get into Hanuman’s head and cause family problems, which would compel him to leave his home, wife and children. But, since Hanuman was devoid of family, he had nothing to lose and agreed to Shani residing in his head.”

“But later on, since Hanuman was still fighting for Lord Rama, he had to crush a lot of things and even rakshasas with his head, Shani got hurt and decided to leave Hanuman’s head. Shani, after coming out told Hanuman that he is the only person who is not affected by the Shani Drishti and asked him to make a wish as a reward for saving Shani from Ravana’s cage. Hanuman requested Shani to not cast the Shani Drishti on his devotees anymore. And this is how people started to worship Hanuman to prevent the Shani Drishti and this concludes today’s story of what happened when Ravana captured the navagrahas.

Samjhi?” (Understood?)

Soon after, my parents called us for dinner. I was spellbound by the story and thought about it for days until she told me the next one.

This is a series called “Stories of Yesteryear: My Grandma’s Love” where the writer revisits and reminisces about the stories and folk tales that she remembers her Daadi Aama (Grandmother) narrating to her when she was a little girl.

Freya Thakur is a student pursuing English Hons. from Jamia Millia Islamia.

Edited by: Ayesha Alim