Week 2 Storytelling: The Tale of Thataka

In the beautiful land that prince Rama lived, there was an evil witch named Thataka.  Thataka was no ordinary witch, she was the most gruesome, disturbing looking creature that ever lived.  Thataka liked to keep to herself unless bothered, so hardly anybody had ever seen her face in person, they had just heard the terrible tales of eerie encounters with her.

What most people didn't know, is that Thataka had a reason to be so angry.  When Thataka was young, she was always frightening looking, but she didn't mind.  It wasn't until she accidentally let her dark side come out and scare away a young princess, that she was banished from the land.  Thataka did not mean to scare anyway, she could not help that her appearance was frightening, but because she was so scary, she was told to never show her face again.  Ever since that fateful day Thataka had been the scariest, meanest, creature in the jungle.

The two brothers were on their journey, when they came across a wild jungle.  There were beasts of all shapes and sizes roaming through this area, and the brothers were not sure how to handle this situation. Just as they were about to start making their way through, they spotted her.  Thataka in all of her glory, perched on a tree glaring at the brothers.

Rama knew he had to handle this, he grabbed his bow and struck her right in the left leg.  As an honorable prince, Rama did not want to kill Thataka, as she was still a lady, but he wanted to injure her enough to prevent her from causing any problems through there journey.  Once her leg was struck, she began roaring, causing the whole jungle to shake.  The brothers knew they were going to have to fight.

Wikipedia (Thataka)

Thataka began squealing and pelting the boys with rocks and whatever she could find.  She was ready to attack.  Rama did what he knew best and hunted the creature. With his bow in hand he took off towards her, striking her twice in each arm.  Rama thought he had taken care of her and the boys walked off, until she came back for more.

Lakshmana then ripped off her entire nose and face, destroying her entire being.  "There! Away, beast!"  He shouted victoriously.  Then Thataka beat all odds and took on a different form, being invisible to the naked eye, but her shadow creeped uncomfortably near the boys.  Rama had had enough, put his good boy sense aside, and shot her right in the chest, finally killing the wicked creature.

As if Rama was not already loved enough, he quickly became the land's favorite, most loved man and prince.  Only the toughest, most courageous could ever fight Thataka, and Rama and Lakshmana successfully tamed the jungle, bringing down its worst resident on their way.  The boys were officially heroes.  The sage gave kisses all around and brought the boys back to brag of how he watched the entire thing go down.

Author's Note:  This story is about the beginning of Rama and Lakshmana' journey with the sage and encountering this creature that is not totally explained, Thataka, and eventually killing her.  I loved this story, but I thought there was a lot of detail missing that could have spruced the story up a lot more, which was my goal in telling my version of this story. I decided to give her a little bit of a back story, a reason for why she was scary and evil.  I thought this made the already interesting story a little more interesting.  I chose this particular excerpt because I liked the story behind it. It showed valiance and success on Rama's part.  I thought the moral of this story would work well in my portfolio because I wanted to achieve a theme of overall hard work and success, and this story definitely shows that.  I chose the photo above because I thought it was a good representation of Thataka for the original story, I had wished there was a photo more representative of the story I told, but I did make some changes.

Bibliography: Thataka Donald A. Mackenzie (1913).