Storytelling: Tempted by Darkness

I really wish I wasn’t married to this buffoon. Brihaspati is nice and all, but he’s a little old and incredibly boring.  All he ever does is come up with lessons to teach the gods.  I mean, it IS his job, but come on! Can’t we go on an adventure or vacation every once and a while?! All the other celestial beings do…

This was my running mental tirade almost every single day until a Dánava named Shoma waltzed into my life.  I honestly think it was the best day of my life, even though I’m sure my husband didn’t exactly have the same view on the matter.  You see, Shoma was a demon.  A handsome, charming, chivalrous, and exciting demon, but a demon nonetheless. The gods had been at war with the demons for as long as any of them can remember, although they don’t exactly know why or how the war started.  The reasons have been lost to memory. 

I’m sure my husband and the other gods and celestial beings believe that I was enticed away to the kingdom of darkness, but that wasn’t exactly what happened.  Shoma approached me one day while I was sitting in one of the many groves of trees that are found around the heavens.  It was a beautiful grove, with big, shady trees to block the heat of the sun, brightly colored flowers perfuming the cool air, and a broad, cushioned bench to recline on.  Usually, no one comes near the grove when I’m in there, or anywhere else for that reason.  I have a bit of a bitchy resting face, which is part of the problem. The rest comes from the fact that I’m not like everyone else up there, content to sit around every day and just enjoy the life that we have in the heavens.  It’s boring!

Shoma was different.  He came up to me and started to talk, asking why I was alone and why I seemed so sad.  Honestly, he was the first person to really show an interest in me.  I was a little starved for attention up here, since my husband was always teaching and everyone else avoided me.  It was nice to just have a conversation with someone.  Of course, I knew he was a demon, but I didn’t really care.  You see, no one knew it, but I had the ability to see people’s true nature.  Yes, Shoma was a demon on a mission to sway me, but he became truly interested in me as a person while we talked.  It was amazing!

To be completely honest, when he asked me to go with him to the darkness (which is really just the world outside of the heavens) I didn’t even hesitate to say yes.  I was just so excited to get away from the people who shunned me and to meet new people and have some adventures!

Since that day, I’ve been living with Shoma in the darkness, fighting the people I’d once lived among and generally just having fun! It was fun being with the demons. They didn’t really care what others thought and were always willing to try some new adventure.  From their viewpoint, the gods were selfish, keeping the heavens and immortality and all the good of the world for themselves.  They wouldn’t even give the demons the opportunity to work their way into the heavens.  The demons fought for every bit of clean water, hot food, and the smallest bits of happiness that they could find.

 

I helped them with a lot of that, showing them places to find clean water outside of the heavens.  I honestly think that I can help them make a life worth living outside of heaven, provided the gods let them.  Every time I make a little headway, the gods ruin everything that I’ve built up.  Clean water system, blown apart.  Warming ovens, brought to ruins. Hunting equipment, stolen.  Good hunting grounds, all the animals disappear.  I’m hoping that Shoma and I can work out some sort of peace treaty between the gods and demons.  It’s the only way that everyone will actually be able to live in peace, once and for all.

Author’s Note:

I decided to write a part of Dutt’s Tales of India that was only alluded to with a single sentence.  The sentence is: “The wicked Danava tempted her to the path of sin; she fell; and she was enticed away to the kingdom of darkness” (p.8).  ‘She’ is the wife of Brihaspati, the Perceptor or teacher to the gods.  It is really the only time that she is mentioned and I was very curious as to how and why she would be tempted to ‘the darkside.’  Persephone and Hades were the first thing that came to mind and I kind of derived my story from that idea.  While she doesn’t exactly become the Queen of the Underworld, she still has a significant effect on it.  I also thought that it would be interesting to see the life on the other side of the curtain.  We always get to read about how the demons are evil and the gods are in a constant war against them because they are so evil, but what do the demons think? Anyway, that’s where my idea came from. It’s not much to go on since I derived it from one sentence in the entire story!

Bibliography: Gleanings from Indian Classics, Volume 1: Tales of India by Manmatha Nath Dutt (1893), Internet Archive. 

Image Info: Brihaspati. Source: Wikimedia Commons; Tree Grove. Source: Wikipedia.