236. Hanuman decides his next plan of action

   While going away from Seetha, Hanuman, the vanara started thinking like any wise human "By His grace I located Seetha. Though I am very eager to go and inform Rama, I feel somebody seems to be telling me to stay back and do something important. What is that? Hmm.... Gotcha! It is now certain that Rama will land here at Lanka along with the army of Sugreeva. It is therefore, my duty to do something in this regard that will help Rama. I have to do it NOW before leaving Lanka. As a single  vanara army I cannot adopt the first three strategies for success viz. sowing dissension, negotiation and bribery for the following reasons.  In the case of Ravana, the strategy of negotiation is not practicable. For a person having abundant wealth, the strategy of bribery will be ridiculous. For persons who are proud of their strength, the strategy of sowing dissension is not amenable. I think that I can implement here the fourth strategy viz. open assault. Prowess is agreeable for me here. Barring display of valour, no other strategy in accomplishing this task seems to be appropriate in these circumstances. The rakshasas here are very likely to underestimate me, a vanara in the combat that will ensue with me. I can surprise them by killing some of their foremost heroes.

       "How can I incite them? And as I have not fought before, I wonder how I will fare in the combat that will ensue? Any how if I am captured, I can  then meet Ravana with his troop of ministers. And I am likely to get some info about his army as well as his designs and strength. I will then go back from here doubly happy.

         "Now how can I make Ravana's soldiers come to capture or kill me? Hmm... By doing something very unpleasant, of course! I see this excellent grove of the cruel Ravana, with its various kinds of trees and creepers, which is pleasing to the eyes and the mind, is looking like Nandana, Indra's paradise. I will destroy this grove like fire scorching a dried up forest. While this grove gets demolished, Ravana will then definitely become angry.
       "The angry Ravana will then order for an army consisting of horses, great chariots and elephants and armed with weapons like great tridents and spears made of iron. Seeing me, a vanara they will smile with an amusement. They will think that a couple of them can easily get and bound me. But they will be in for a mighty surprise. I will kill or at least maim as many as I could before I return happily to the place of Sugreeva."

       Hanuman then  started to throw away  the trees in the royal pleasure-garden attached to the gynaecium by violent jerk of his thighs. Hanuman, apart from damaging the trees in that grove, also destroyed the ponds and crushed the tops of pleasure hills to powder. Thus, that beautiful looking grove became nasty to look at. Hanuman made that grove look like one destroyed by a wild fire. Those creepers with their bars of support displaced, fell down like distressed women. With its arbours and picture-galleries destroyed, its great serpents and wild animals emitting cries of distress, its grottos and other structures demolished, that grove became defaced.

      That woody land of that pleasure-garden which afforded shelter to the women-folk of Ravana and which had clusters of Ashoka creepers became a jumble of creepers of sorrow for the distressed women by the violence of Hanuman.

         Having accomplished what he planned, Hanuman was waiting for the reaction of Ravana.

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