A Crooked Mind Twists Ram's Straight Words
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 42
Doha 42 · Movement 2 of 2
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Ram's words flow naturally simple and straight. Nothing hidden bends their course: he loves Bharata, honours his parents, welcomes the forest, and grieves only for Dasharatha.
Kaikeyi's altered understanding twists that clear speech into crooked meanings. Tulsidas compares her to a leech moving crookedly through water that lies evenly everywhere.
The distortion does not belong to the water. Reality may offer itself plainly, yet the mind's movement determines the path it imagines within it. The distortion remains entirely its own. Ram's transparency remains unchanged while suspicion carries Kaikeyi through it along a tortuous line.
Ram's truth flows level and clear, but Kaikeyi's suspicion travels through it like a crooked leech.
Read the passage from the Manas
सहज सरल रघुबर बचन कुमति कुटिल करि जान। चलइ जोंक जल बक्रगति जद्यपि सलिलु समान।।42।।
Shri Rama's words are simple and straight by nature, but Kumati (wicked-minded) Kaikeyi twists them into crooked meanings. The water flows evenly everywhere, yet the jonk (leech) moves through it crookedly. Such is the way of the perverse mind.