“Do not ask any questions; have faith. Go home with the queens now and distribute this heavenly offering among them. Your wish will be fulfilled.”

On going home, Dasharatha divided the offering into two equal portions and gave one half to Kausalya; divided the remaining portion again into two and gave one each to Sumitra and Kaikeyi. Kaikeyi who was fretting and fuming all the time, ate only half of the portion given to her and returned the remaining half in a tantrum. Dasharatha was annoyed but said nothing. He quietly took it to Sumitra. Sumitra, who always bore the brunt of the quarrels between the eldest and the youngest queen, ate it in a spirit of reverence.

The act of faith brought fulfillment to all. In due course, the three queens were pregnant. Rama was born to Kausalya, Laxman and Shatrughna were born to Sumitra and Bharat to Kaikeyi.

Kaikeyi regretted her imprudence and envied Sumitra. She did not want Sumitra to grow in power with two sons in her custody. Early on, she tried to wean Shatrughna away from his mother and treated him as if he was her adopted son. As soon as they were fit for education she started showing displeasure at the way they were receiving education, and with great fan-fare, she sent the two boys to her father, the king of the state of Kaikeya.

Thus, she believed she had sown seeds of discord successfully by dividing the brothers early on. However, the four brothers never entertained thoughts of rivalry. Rama’s strength united all of them. Their love and devotion to Rama was extraordinary. They adored and worshiped him and Rama proved to be an ideal elder brother to all three of them: indulgent, trustworthy and sacrificing. In turn, as they grew up, they were ready to serve him with their life.

Rama and Laxman grew up together, inseparable like the body and its breath. Bharat and Shatrughna grew up in Bharat’s grandfather’s palace. Bharat was an extrovert. He was doted upon in the households of both his grandfathers. A lucky child in every respect, he never knew deprivation or miserliness. However, he could never forget how, in their childhood, Rama was once forced to part with a toy for his sake. The memory of that incident filled Bharat with regret. He had pushed the memory deep down, but it surfaced invariably, whenever he came back to his father’s palace, especially as he sensed the animosity that his mother harbored in her heart for Rama. Because he was generous at heart, Bharat dismissed his mother’s unashamed selfishness with ironic good humor. Every time she attempted to enlighten him with the gems of wisdom which she had acquired from Manthara, she would meet with a robust derision and laughter.  

The four boys were inseparable. However, all said and done, Laxman turned out to be the greatest follower of Rama. He often resented the closeness between his younger brother Shatrughna and Bharat; especially as he came to see it as the fruit of Kaikeyi’s farsighted political acumen. Were it not for Rama’s selfless endeavor to keep all of them united, Laxman would have succumbed to the constant provocations held forth by Kaikeyi and estranged himself from Bharat and Shatrughna.

Now, as Rama crossed sixteen, Kaikeyi was all set to write the script of the Ishwaku dynasty in her own way.