Rama the Avatar: Meeting Shurpanakha

Rama and Sita were traveling through the Earth Kingdom on their quest to reach the Northern Water Tribe to find a water bending master to teach Rama.  When they came upon a town, the decided to visit its market to gather more food for their journey.  Somehow, rumors spread through the town that the avatar was there.  Once they figured out it was Rama, crowds began to swarm them, wishing for even a glimpse of the avatar.  Rama and Sita were attempting to travel unnoticed, since they still did not know who they could trust, so they decided they needed to travel through the woods and avoid the towns more.

Rama and Sita managed to lose the crowds and escape into the woods.  After hiking through the thick forest for several hours, they decided to make camp for the night in a small clearing.  They had made much distance between them and the town, so they figured they would be safe here.  While Sita unpacked their things and began setting up their tent, Rama ventured into the woods further to gather firewood and hunt something for dinner.

Campsite from flickr

  As Rama and Sita had been hiking in the forest, they were secretly being followed by Shurpanakha, a young Fire Nation woman living in the Earth Kingdom.  Shurpanakha was a selfish girl who cared for nothing other than herself.  The only things she desired were to be famous and loved by all.  When she heard that the avatar was in the town, she rushed over to find him in the market.  She caught a glimpse of him and noticed that he was quite handsome too.  She noticed that the avatar and the girl he was with were trying to sneak away to get away from all of the people.  She decided then to follow them and figure out a plan to make him hers.

While he was stalking a deer, Rama discovered a young woman.  She approached him and told him her name was Kamavalli, but it was really Shurpanakha.  Rama noticed that Kamavalli was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and she was very interested in him.  She claimed that even after just meeting him, she loved him and desired to marry him.  She told him that she had a dream that he would be here in these woods and that she was supposed to marry him.  Rama was flattered by her offer, but told her he must refuse because he was already promised to Sita.  Kamavalli was enraged by this and filled with jealousy towards Sita.  She ran off and found her brother, Kara, a powerful fire bender and leader of a vicious gang. 

Shurpanakha told Kara of her jealousy towards Sita and he led his gang to find Sita.  Kara loved his sister dearly and wanted nothing other than her happiness.  He offered to find her a suitor that was richer and even more handsome than Rama, but she refused.  Shurpanakha said she wanted nothing but Rama as her husband and Sita dead. 

Kara agreed to find them and ventured off with his men.  He found Rama and Sita after only two days and tracked them to their new campsite.  There, Kara's men attacked Sita, but Rama was there and protected her by fighting off the gang.  Being the avatar, Rama was a more powerful bender than all of Kara's men combined and defeated them easily.  Shurpanakha learned news of her brother’s failure and boiled with anger.  She immediately started plotting her revenge on both Sita and Rama.

Author’s Note:

Source Text: Narayan's Ramayana.  I really love the Ramayana and really enjoyed the portion where Shurpanakha comes along and tries to steal Rama from Sita.  I decided to tell a story based heavily on this and I had a lot of fun doing it.  All of Rama's adventures have reminded me of this wonderful show that I watched through much of my childhood, Avatar the Last Airbender.  I recently finished showing the entire series to my boyfriend, who had never watched it before.I made the decision to keep the names of the character’s but shake things up a bit, because I felt that having the original names helped readers make the connection of where the story originally came from.  I set the story in the universe of Avatar the Last Airbender and made Rama the avatar, which is very fitting, and Sita is going to be like Katara as I progress the story.   I decided to change Shurpanakah’s relationship with Kara to be siblings and make her really obsessed with the idea of power versus actually in love with Rama.  As I add stories to this site, I hope to tie in the Avatar theme and keep Shurpanakah as our main villain to make her like Azula’s character in Avatar the Last Airbender.



Link to story on my portfolio