Epics of India Storybook

Malyavan is an effective character for me as a counter-balance to over-exaggeration. I personally have a tendency to over-exaggerate the importance of certain issues or events in my own life. Life seems full of decisions or moments that feel like a significant dividing line in life: moving away from my parents, getting married, graduating from college, starting a new job, etc. When I am on one side of these lines I feel as if I am approaching the end of an era, like nothing will ever be the same again, like I will have to give up everything to cross the line. But after I cross the line, life usually keeps going pretty much the same as before. Of course there are significant differences, but they are nowhere near as dramatic as I make them out to be.

I think this tendency towards over-exaggeration shows itself in my taste for mythology and fantasy. Often in such stories, the events are truly this important and dramatic—nothing will be the same after Ravana is killed, after Ragnarok takes place (Norse Mythology), after the Ring is destroyed (Lord of the Rings), or after Lyra returns to her own world (His Dark Materials trilogy). I frequently use the adjective epic to describe such events, meaning “to surpass the usual or ordinary in scope or size” (source); I love the epic sense of these stories.

Malyavan provides a good counter-balance to this tendency towards the epic. The war between Ravana and Rama is epic, yes — but it is not the only war of its kind. During his first war with Vishnu for Lanka as a younger rakshasa, Malyavan no doubt felt that he was at an epic point in his life. But as an older rakshasa, I think he realized that the first war and come and gone—as had many other epic points like it. Even as the city he loved was about to be destroyed, he was calm and mellow. He realized that he had lived his life, enjoyed his city, and that he could then move on to the next world (or to non-existence, or to whatever awaited him)—an event that is more epic than anything he had previously experienced. I have little doubt that as I grow older and gain more life experience, I too will mellow out and not feel that every decision point in my life is so epic.