This life has become a sink of infamy and sin; I wonder what prevents it from setting out on its last journey! Alas, my silly soul has missed its opportunity, and even now my heart breaks not!’

He wrung his hands and beat his head and sorrowed like a miser robber of his hoard of riches. He went his way like a warrior distinguished for his mighty valour, some famous champion, who flees in uniform from the battlefield.

The minister’s remorse was like that of a discreet Brahman of noble descent, well-read in the Vedas, a man of good repute and pious conduct, who has been entrapped into drinking alcoholic drinks.

The cruel torture that set the minister’s heart on fire was like that of a well-born lady, discreet and virtuous, who is devoted to her lord in thought and word and deed, when she is compelled by destiny to part from him.

His eyes were so full of tears that he could scarcely see; his ears could hardly hear; and his mind was all distraught with grief; his lips were parched and his mouth was dry, and yet his life-breath forsook him not; for the hope of reunion (at the end of the fourteen-year term of exile) restrained it like a closed door.

He had turned pale and repelled the sight as if he had slain his father and mother. His soul was so possessed with pain, the pain loss, savage as a sinner’s stings of conscience, that he looked like a criminal absorbed in self-reproach on his way to hell.

Words failed him, but to himself he moaned, ‘What shall I see on reaching Ayodhya? Whoever shall see the chariot, and no Rama, will shun my sight.