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One afternoon, boredom brought back memories of watching B R Chopra’s Mahabharat on Doordarshan long ago. I remember hearing one story about the son of Hanuman. Yes! I know how it sounds. I told someone the same story some time ago and got, “Yeah sure! And I am Queen Elizabeth…” kind of responses. Whatever that might have been, here is the story - or what I remember of it.

It seems that after the mighty warrior ape had set every single attalika in Lanka to fire, he landed on the beach and extinguished the flames on his tail with the sea water. The tail was slightly scorched but that obviously didn’t mean a thing to the ‘mahabali’. He took off at wind speed toward Shri Ram’s camp across the sea, unaware of that shred of burnt skin that had travelled through the sea into paatal lok and then to Naag Lok (the land of the serpents). This is where my memory blurrs. What I remember is that there was a certain serpent maid who, having been brought up on a steady dose of Hanuman tales and in obvious awe of the mighty, flying warrior ape on the surface. So smitten was she that she impregnated herself with Hanuman’s ansh (DNA folks! The Naags had advanced genetics. They could morph into anything, from what I’ve heard).

Years later, Hanuman meets a young Naag who resembles him every respect. Just one thing odd though. He’s a Naag!

I did NOT cook this up. Couldn’t even look up more on this myth on the net. If someone knows more please expose the ape of steel!

Posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 10:19 pm and filed under random, mythology.

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