Sometime a smirk can cost you dearly. It was a royal wedding. The charming princess was leaving the ornate awning with the tall, dark and handsome young man she had chosen for her husband.
An elderly man wearing a monkey-like scowl on his face looked very unhappy. At some distance from him stood two Brahmin youths, smirking at him. Noticing them thus, the old man burst out at them in anger.
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We are talking of the amusing episode of Rishi Narad’s illusion in the Ramcharitmanas (Balkand, 124-135). The eternally celibate sage got it into his head to marry the alluring daughter of Raja Shilnidhi. To ensure that she chose none other than him at the svayamvar, he begged Hari to give him His own looks for the ceremony.
The Lord smiled cryptically at him as if in assent. To fast-forward the story, the two youths at the wedding were Lord Shiv’s attendants in disguise. They smirked at Rishi Narad because Lord Vishnu had temporarily given him the face of ‘Hari’ (some word-play here: in Sanskrit, ‘Hari’ also means monkey!) The sage put a curse on them – they would be born as rakshasas.
Verily, the two celestial beings took birth as Ravan and his brother Kumbhakaran in the Tretayug. Sant Tulsidas says (ibid, 122-123) that Ravan and Kumbhkaran were rakshasas in their previous births as well, known by the names of Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksh. It was to eliminate them – and their likes – that Lord Vishnu had to appear in this mortal world in ‘Vrah’, ‘Narsingh’ a.
