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was, do as Rama did, to become …
    Ram .
    Yet, was he deserving of this victory, this pride, this praise? This kingship, even? The tales that would be woven around his exploits, the poems composed and sung of his adventures in exile, his feats as a warrior, his triumphs against the evil rakshasas, his incomparable accomplishments and wondrous feats of chivalry? Like so many other warriors before him, reluctant and unwilling to embrace celebrityhood, his story would grow larger than his life itself, in time would come to seem more real than the sordid, gritty reality and eventually would march firmly into the annals of legend, then myth, and finally, into race-memory.
    “Raghupati Raghava Raja Rama…patita pavana Sita Ram!”
    The sound rose to a roar, counterpointing the numbing silence in his veins. He came out of his reverie like a traveller emerging from mist and saw the entire host of his army’s survivors assembled before him, before the walls of Lanka, still a formidable mass, their ragged voices joined in this new chant, something he had never heard before, yet seemed so oddly familiar. Vanars and bears, and rakshasas even…not all of the rakshasas, for he could see several kneeling sullenly or glumly by, driven to their knees by their vanar or bear captors, unrepentant and hostile in their failure…but those brothers of Vibhisena in spirit who were jubilant in their relief at being rid of Ravana’s yoke at long last. A great multitude of voices raised in ragged, heartrendingly cheerful harmony, filling the smoky skies above Lanka with this hypnotic chant, this near fanatical hymn of praise…
    “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, patita pavana Sita Ram,
    Sita Ram, Sita Ram, bhaj pyare tu Sitaram.”
    The same two lines over and over again, as if the poet had been so overwhelmed by adoration that he had no motive left to seek lyrics to follow, or inclination to compose those lyrics.
    Hail to thee, Rama, Lord of the House of Raghu, Saviour of the fallen, Hail to the divine union of Sita and Rama, Beloved are you both, Sita and Rama.
    The lilt of the lyrics and the monotony of the melody gave it the quality of a bhajan, a couplet chanted in praise of a god. Was that how they perceived him? As a god? He scanned the sea of upturned faces, bloody snouts and furry heads, and saw wet adoration in those animal eyes, mirrored and repeated in every single visage, vanar and bear alike. To the periphery of his host, huddled before the crumbled walls of Lanka, the survivors of Ravana’s army stood herded together. He saw even their bestial aspects raised towards him. The expression on most rakshasa snouts was grim, morose, even hostile. Yet there was a certain grudging admiration visible in that mottled and beaten crowd, an awe that went beyond a mere fear of captivity. And sweeping the vast assemblage again with battle-weary eyes, he saw that what he euphemistically referred to as adoration or admiration was no less than an acknowledgement of godliness. It was the same look one saw on the faces of devotees at a great teerth-sthan, one of the sacred pilgrimage spots. Yes, many of those assembled saw him as something akin to a god. It would be ingenuous of him not to see that; not to recognize the glistening admiration in those grape-dark eyes for what it truly was: the awe of a crowd of believers given sight of their deity. Even as this realization seeped into his tired senses, the vast host, their numbers so great as to make the vast field resemble nothing so much as a field of kusalavya grass, swaying gently in an autumn breeze, reached a peak in their chanting.
    He scanned the landscape from left to right, attempting to take in the sheer vastness of the multitudes assembled, despite their terrible losses in battle, carpeting the hills and valleys and fields of Lanka for miles in every direction, a veritable ocean of waves dipping their crests to show respect for the approaching shore, and as they sensed him responding at last