Meeting Shurpanakha
Aang and Katara were traveling through the Earth Kingdom on their quest to reach the Northern Water Tribe to find a water-bending master to teach Aang. When they came upon a town, they decided to visit its market to gather more food for their journey. Somehow, rumors spread through the town that the avatar was there. Once they figured out it was Aang, crowds began to swarm Aang and Katara, wishing for even a glimpse of the avatar. Aang and Katara were attempting to travel unnoticed, since they still did not know who they could trust, so they decided they needed to travel through the woods and avoid the towns more.
Aang and Katara managed to lose the crowds and escape into the woods. After hiking through the thick forest for several hours, they decided to make camp for the night in a small clearing. They had made much distance between them and the town, so they figured they would be safe here. While Katara unpacked their things and began setting up their tent, Aang ventured into the woods further to gather firewood and hunt something for dinner.
As Aang and Katara had been hiking in the forest, they were secretly followed by Shurpanakha, a young Fire Nation woman living in the Earth Kingdom. Shurpanakha was a terrible girl who cared for nothing other than herself. The only things she desired were to be famous and loved by all. When she heard that the avatar was in the town, she rushed over to find him in the market. She caught a glimpse of him and noticed that he was quite handsome too. She detected that the avatar and the girl he was with were trying to sneak off to get away from all of the people. She decided then to follow them and figure out a plan to make him hers.
While he was stalking a deer, Aang discovered a young woman. She approached him and told him her name was Kamavalli, but it was really Shurpanakha. Aang could see that Kamavalli was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and she was very interested in him. She claimed that even after just meeting him, she loved him and desired to marry him. She told him that she had a dream that he would be here in these woods and that she was supposed to marry him. Aang was flattered by her offer, but told her he must refuse because he was already promised to Katara. Kamavalli was enraged by this and filled with jealousy towards Katara. She ran off and found her brother, Kara, a powerful fire-bender and leader of a vicious gang.
Shurpanakha told Kara of her jealousy towards Katara and he led his gang to find Katara. Kara loved his sister dearly and wanted nothing other than her happiness. He offered to find her a suitor that was richer and even more handsome than Aang, but she refused. Shurpanakha said she wanted nothing but Aang as her husband and Katara dead.
Kara agreed to find them and ventured off with his men. He found Aang and Katara after only two days and tracked them to their new campsite. There, the men attacked Aang, but Katara was there and protected her by fighting off the gang. Being the avatar, Aang was a more powerful bender than all of Kara's men combined and defeated them easily. Shurpanakha learned news of her brother’s failure and boiled with anger. She immediately started plotting her revenge on both Katara and Aang.
Author’s Note:
Source Text: Narayan's Ramayana. I really love the Ramayana and really enjoyed the portion where Shurpanakha comes along and tries to steal Rama from Sita. I decided to tell a story based heavily on this and I had a lot of fun doing it. All of Rama's adventures have reminded me of this wonderful show that I watched through much of my childhood, Avatar the Last Airbender. This show follows a young boy named Aang who is the avatar and his two companions, Sokka and Katara. In this world, there are benders, people who can control one of the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air. These benders can move their element by doing martial arts styled forms and movements. The avatar is the one person who has the power to bend all four elements and they have a connection with the spirit world. After an avatar dies, their spirit is reborn into another. It is the avatar's duty to keep balance in the world and harmony between our world and the spirit world. After the last avatar died, the Fire Nation took over the world and are controlling and oppressing the rest of the world. Aang, Sokka, and Katara set out in the world to help Aang master all the elements to defeat the Fire Nation and bring balance back into the world.
I recently finished showing the entire series to my boyfriend, who had never watched it before. I made the decision to keep the names of the characters but shake things up a bit, because I felt that having the original names helped readers make the connection of where the story originally came from. I set the story in the universe of Avatar the Last Airbender and made Rama the avatar, which is very fitting, and Sita is going to be like Katara as I progress the story. I thought it would make things more interesting to make Rama and Sita promised to each other, or engaged, but not yet married. Lakshmana has been left out of the story, because I really wanted to keep the focus on Rama and Sita. I decided to change Shurpanakah’s relationship with Kara to be siblings and make her really obsessed with the idea of power versus actually in love with Rama. As I add stories to this site, I hope to tie in the Avatar theme and keep Shurpanakha as our main villain to make her like Azula’s character in Avatar the Last Airbender.
See the story on my blog.
Picture information:
Header - Campsite from flickr
Fire - Wood from flickr