Many such lamentable speeches did the queen utter, and the humpback, on hearing them, practised all a woman’s wiles. ‘Why speak in this strain,’ she said, ‘and feel so wretched? Your wedded joy shall yet grow daily greater.

Whoever has contemplated such gross mischief to you shall in the end reap the fruit of it himself. Ever since I heard these bad tidings, my lady, I could neither eat by day nor sleep at night.

I consulted the astrologers and they declared in positive terms: “Bharat shall be king; this much is certain.” If only you act upon it, O good lady, I will show you a way, for the king is under an obligation to you.’

‘At your bidding I would throw myself down a well,’ said the queen, ‘or even forsake my son and my husband. When the sight of my utter misery leads you to speak, why should I not do what will be for my good?’

Winning over Kaikeyi and treating her as a victim for the slaughter, the humpback whetted the knife of deceipt on the whetstone of her heart, and the queen, like a sacrificial beast that nibbles the green grass, saw not the approaching doom.

Manthara’s words were sweet to the ear but disastrous in their results, as though she were administering honey mingled with deadly poison. Said the handmaid, ‘Do you or do you not, my lady, remember the tale you once told me?

There are two boons that the king once promised you. Ask for them today and relieve your soul – sovereignty for your son and for Rama exile to the forest; thus shall you rob your rivals of all their joy.