Finding Sita in the Garden
She was alone, scared, surrounded by enemies. Hanuman found her and gave her hope.
Hanuman has just leapt across the ocean to Lanka. Now he has to find Sita in a city full of demons, without being caught. He shrinks himself to the size of a cat, searches for hours, and finally spots her under an Ashoka tree, surrounded by ogresses. From the branches above, he drops one tiny ring. The ring she would know anywhere. Rama's ring.
A Tiny Monkey in a Demon City
It was the middle of the night when Hanuman first saw Lanka properly.
The city was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Towers of gold caught the moonlight. Walls of carved stone stretched as far as he could see. Rakshasa guards walked the streets in armour, swords clinking. Some of them had tusks. Some had eyes the colour of fire. Some were as tall as houses.
And Hanuman, the hero who had just leapt across the entire ocean, was standing right outside the city gate.
He knew he could not walk in like this. A normal-sized monkey would be spotted in two minutes. So he did something only Hanuman could do. He shrank himself.
Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Until he was about the size of a cat. A small, ordinary, dusty cat that nobody would look at twice.
He slipped through a gap under the gate.
For hours, Hanuman padded silently through Lanka. He climbed onto window ledges. He peeked into palaces. He saw rooms full of treasure. Rooms full of sleeping rakshasis. Rooms with golden beds and silver lamps and chests of jewels stacked higher than men. He saw Ravana's own bedchamber, where the ten-headed king lay snoring with all ten faces, his crown still on his middle head.
But he did not see Sita.
Not in any of the queens' rooms. Not in the music halls. Not in the gardens of pleasure. Not anywhere a king would normally keep someone special.
Hanuman sat on a wall and wondered. Where would a stubborn, kind, frightened lady be hiding? Where would she refuse to go, even at sword-point?
And then he understood.
The Ashoka Grove
Not in any of Ravana's beautiful rooms. Sita would never agree to that. She would be somewhere outside. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere she could see the sky and feel close to Rama, even if she could not see him.