your bridge home
The Great Epics
Rama was gone. Bharata had the chance to take the throne anyway. Instead, he put his brother's sandals on it.
He came home to find his father dead, his brother exiled, and a throne waiting for him that his own mother had arranged. He spent fourteen years refusing to sit on it.
Bharata was not in Ayodhya when any of it happened.
He was at his maternal grandfather's house in Kekaya, with Shatrughna, and had been for some time. He knew nothing about the coronation, nothing about the boons, and nothing about the exile.
Messengers were sent to bring him back and were instructed not to tell him why.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.