The Strongest One Who Forgot

Hanuman had all the power in the world. But he forgot. Until someone reminded him.

When little Hanuman tried to grab the sun, the sages got worried. They placed a quiet curse on him. The strongest being in the world would forget how strong he was, until somebody reminded him. Years later, on the southern shore of India, Hanuman sits with a group of monkeys and bears who are about to give up. The ocean is too wide to cross. Sita is somewhere on the other side. And then an old bear named Jambavan walks up, sits down next to Hanuman, and starts saying his name out loud.

A Curse to Keep Him Safe

In the last lesson, you saw what happened when little Hanuman thought the sun was a fruit. He jumped into the sky, grabbed it, and almost broke the world. Indra had to throw a thunderbolt to bring him down. His father Vayu, the wind god, almost stopped breathing for the whole earth.

The gods felt bad about all of this. They came back and gave Hanuman a hundred blessings to make up for the bolt. They said, You will be the strongest being who has ever lived. No weapon will hurt you. You will be able to fly. You will be able to grow as big as a mountain or as small as a thumb. You will live forever.

The child was now an unstoppable force.

Which, when you think about it, was a problem.

A toddler with all the power in the world is a very scary thing. The sages of the forest, who are wise about how children grow, came together and decided something. They placed a gentle curse on Hanuman. Not a punishing curse. A protecting one.

They said, "Until somebody else reminds you of how strong you are, you will forget. Your powers will sleep inside you. You will live as a regular monkey, fast and clever, but the sky-jumping and mountain-lifting will not come to you naturally. They will wait. Quietly. Until the right person, at the right moment, says your name."

The little Hanuman did not even notice the curse landing on him. He was busy chasing a butterfly. But from that day on, the biggest power in the universe was tucked away inside a small monkey, waiting to be remembered.

And Hanuman grew up.

A Beach in the South of Bharat

Many, many years later. Hanuman is no longer a toddler. He is a grown monkey, strong, careful, devoted, the chief minister of the monkey king Sugriva.

The story has moved a long way. Lord Rama and his brother Lakshmana have lost Sita to a demon king named Ravana who has carried her away in a flying chariot. Rama has made friends with Sugriva. Sugriva has sent his armies of monkeys and bears to every corner of the earth to find her.

One of the search parties has been led by Hanuman. With him are some of the bravest monkeys, including the prince Angada, and an ancient, white-haired bear named Jambavan, the wisest of all the searchers.

They have looked for months. North, east, west, south. They have crawled through caves. They have climbed mountains. They have asked every bird and every beast.

And today, after a long, long journey, they have arrived at the very southern tip of Bharat. The land just stops. There is nothing in front of them but water. The Indian Ocean stretches away, blue and endless. Somewhere out there, far across the waves, is a golden island called Lanka, where Sita is held prisoner.

The search party sits down on the sand. Tired. Hungry. Defeated.

"It is too far," says one young monkey, throwing a pebble into the foam. "The ocean is one hundred yojanas wide. That is hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. Nobody can jump that far. Nobody."

Angada the prince puts his face in his hands. "If we go home empty-handed, my uncle Sugriva will be very angry. He may put us all to death. But if we stay here, we will starve. We are stuck."

One by one, the monkeys start arguing about who can jump the farthest. One says, "I can do ten yojanas." Another, "I can do thirty." A third, "On a good day, with the wind, maybe sixty." But sixty is not a hundred. Even sixty is a fantasy. None of them can really do it.

They go around the whole circle. Every monkey gets a turn. Every monkey gives up before he begins.

And in one corner, sitting very quietly, is Hanuman. Knees drawn up. Tail curled around his feet. He is not bragging. He is not boasting. He has not said a word.

Jambavan Walks Over

The old bear Jambavan watches the whole thing. He is hundreds of years old. He was alive before any of these young monkeys were born. He has seen Hanuman as a child. He remembers the day Hanuman tried to grab the sun. He knows the curse. He knows what is sleeping inside this quiet monkey on the corner of the beach.

Jambavan stands up slowly. His old bones creak. He walks across the sand. He sits down right next to Hanuman.

Hanuman looks up at him, surprised.

"Why are you so quiet, my friend?" Jambavan asks gently. "All the others have spoken. Tell me something. Do you know who you are?"

Hanuman shrugs. "I am Hanuman. I am a soldier of King Sugriva. I am here to help find Mother Sita."

Jambavan smiles. The kind of smile a grandfather gives when he is about to tell you something you have forgotten.

"Listen, my child," he says. "You think you are just a monkey. You think you are just a soldier. But you have forgotten. Do you know whose son you are? You are the son of Vayu, the wind god himself. The wind that runs through every tree. The wind that lifts every cloud. That is your father."

Hanuman blinks. He has heard this before, but he has never really felt it.

Jambavan keeps going.

"When you were a baby, you saw the sun in the sky and thought it was a fruit. You leapt up, all the way to the sun, and almost ate it. The gods had to fight you to bring you back. That was you. You. When you came down, the same gods gave you a hundred blessings. They said you would never die. They said no weapon would harm you. They said you could grow as big as you wanted, fly anywhere, lift mountains, change shape, do everything."

The other monkeys had stopped talking now. They were all watching the old bear, and the quiet monkey, and the words that were starting to fall on the sand like little gold coins.

"You can jump this ocean," Jambavan said. "Not because we believe you can. Because you actually can. The only thing standing between you and Lanka is that you have forgotten. Remember, Hanuman. Remember."

The Body That Started Growing

Hanuman sat very still.

For a long moment, he did not move. He felt strange. Like a door inside his chest had cracked open. Like a wind had started blowing through a room that had been shut for years.

He looked at his own hand. His ordinary, brown, monkey hand.

He flexed his fingers.

And as he did, his hand grew. Just a little. Then a little more.

Hanuman stood up.

His tail, which had been curled neatly behind him, started to unfurl. His shoulders broadened. His back straightened. His head lifted up, up, up. His feet pressed deep into the sand, and the sand sank under them.

He was growing.

The other monkeys gasped and stepped back. Hanuman was now twice his old size. Then three times. Then ten times. He was as tall as a coconut tree. Then as tall as a hill. Then as tall as a small mountain. The sun rose behind his shoulder. Birds flew confused circles around his head. The whole beach felt small underneath him.

Hanuman raised one giant hand and looked at it, and laughed. A deep, booming laugh that rolled across the water all the way to the horizon.

"I remember," he said. "I remember now."

He turned to Jambavan. The old bear, now tiny at his feet, was looking up at him with wet, proud eyes.

"Father, mother, brothers," Hanuman said to the search party. "I am going to Lanka. I will find Sita. I will see her with my own eyes. And I will come back and tell you exactly where she is so we can come and bring her home. Wait for me."

He walked to the edge of the sea. He bent his knees. He took one deep breath. The wind, his father, came down and gathered around his shoulders. Then he leapt.

The ground he had been standing on cracked into a hundred pieces and sank a few feet into the earth. The water of the ocean rose in a giant wave and curled away from his takeoff. And Hanuman shot into the sky like an arrow.

A hundred yojanas of ocean lay between him and Lanka. He covered them in a single jump.

Why the Curse Was a Gift

Here is the strange thing about this story. Most curses in our books are bad. People get turned into stone. People are exiled to forests. People lose their voice. But this curse, the one the sages put on little Hanuman, was actually a gift.

Why?

Because if Hanuman had grown up knowing how strong he was, he might have become arrogant. He might have become a bully. He might have used his power for the wrong things. Most beings with that much power do.

The curse made him humble.

It made him grow up like a regular monkey, cracking jokes, helping his king, listening to his elders, never showing off. It made him wait, quietly, for someone else to point at him and say, You. You are the one. You can do this.

And because he waited, when the moment finally came, he did not use his power for himself. He used it for Rama. For Sita. For the search. He used it as service.

This is why Hanuman is not just the strongest being in our books. He is the most loved one. Children put his picture on their school bags. Wrestlers paint his face on their walls. Soldiers whisper his name before they go into battle. Because his strength is the right kind. The kind that arrives only when somebody else needs it.

In Your Life

You are stronger than you think.

This is not just a nice thing adults say. It is the lesson Hanuman is teaching you, very directly. There is something inside you that you have not yet seen. Something good at math, or at music, or at being a kind friend, or at running, or at telling stories, or at listening when people are sad. You do not know about it yet. You will not know about it until somebody who loves you walks over, sits down beside you, and says your name.

And maybe, just maybe, somebody else around you is sitting on their own beach right now, thinking I cannot do this. They have a Jambavan-shaped hole in their day. Why don't you be the Jambavan?

The next time a friend or a sibling says, I cannot, try doing what the old bear did. Sit down next to them. Say their name. Tell them one true thing about how strong they actually are. Tell them you remember when they did the brave thing last summer. Tell them their father is a wind god, even if his job is just driving a taxi. Tell them.

You might be surprised what they jump over after that.