Sage Valmiki welcomes Narada, and plies him with questions about the only one on the earth who has all 16 desirable qualities. Narada, in reply, narrates the story of Lord Rama and says He alone has all the 16 qualities mentioned by Valmiki.
Valmiki is very happy to hear Narada's narration, and then Narada leaves. Valmiki then calls his disciple Bharadwaja and tells him it is time for the afternoon worship. The sage and disciple go to the banks of a river. Valmiki remarks on the purity of the water in the river, and compares it with the purity of the hearts of virtuous people. Valmiki then takes a stroll on the river bank. On a tree he sees two birds, a male and a female, totally absorbed in each other. Even as Valmiki is watching the birds, a speeding arrow fells the male bird. The female bird is in grief, and sobs for her lost partner. Valmiki in his anguish, curses the hunter. But how can one fault the hunter? Isn't hunting animals and birds a normal way of life for a hunter? What is wrong in his doing what he needs to do to feed himself and his family? It was not so much the act of killing the bird that saddened Valmiki as the timing.
It is a heinous crime to separate a loving couple. And the hunter had shot his arrow, when the birds were expressing their love for each other. Thus it was not so much the act itself, as the timing of the act, which merited condemnation.
Valmiki returns to his ashram, and is deep in thought, sorry that he should have cursed someone. Brahma arrives, and he says he knows the cause for Valmiki's sorrow. But Valmiki need have no worry on this count, says Brahma, for it was Brahma's intention that the hunter should be cursed.
Everything had been planned to happen the way it did, said Kidambi Narayanan in a discourse. Valmiki's words of curse for the hunter were not to be seen as such. They would become the opening words of the story of Lord Rama, that Valmiki was to write. And it was no ordinary epic which was to come from Valmiki.
It would be a lesson to the people of the world on how to fulfil their multifarious roles in life.
