<p>There's a reason why all sorts of awesome shit ends with the suffix "-Rama".&nbsp; The Indian Lord Rama, believed by the faithful to be one of the incarnations of the Lord Vishnu Himself, was an ideal man, a totally badass warrior and archer, and a hero who went on an epic quest to save his wife from the clutches of demons, monsters and all sorts of crazy evil shit.&nbsp; His tale, the&nbsp;<em>Ramayana</em>&nbsp;is one of the two major epic tales in Hindu literature.</p>
<p>Rama was the first born son of the good Emperor Dasharatha of Ayodhya.&nbsp; He was trained in archery at an early age by the all-knowing sage Vasishta, who was sort of like Merlin the Magician except instead of pulling rabbits out of hats he taught the God of Life how to pop motherfuckers in the eye with an arrow from two thousand paces.&nbsp; In addition to becoming a peerless killing machine, Rama also learned the meaning of dharma, duty, and honor, and how to apply these noble teaching to his daily life.</p>
<p>One day, Rama was walking along when he heard about some shit that was going down in a nearby kingdom.&nbsp; It turned out that the super mega babe Princess Sita was holding a contest, where she agreed to marry any man who was able to string up the Legendary Bow of Shiva.&nbsp; Now for you chumps who aren't hip to Hindu Mythology, Shiva is the &uuml;ber-badass God of Destruction.&nbsp; He's like all&nbsp;<a href="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/horsemen.html" target="blank">four horsemen</a>&nbsp;rolled up into one multi-armed ass smasher, and his bow was the sort of mammoth monstrosity that would only be practical for such an all-powerful badass.&nbsp; Getting a bowline on this fucker was like trying to string up a goddamn siege engine.&nbsp; Well, since Sita was so insanely hot, like five thousands dudes lined up to try and string this damn bow.&nbsp; None of them got even close.&nbsp; So just when Sita was starting to get disappointed that nobody in the land was man enough to be her husband, Rama saunters up to the bow's resting place.&nbsp; He takes one look at it, cracks his knuckles, and not only strings it up, but pulls the bowstring back so far that he&nbsp;<em>cracks the fucking thing in half</em>.&nbsp; Then I imagine he probably threw the pieces down on the floor, shrugged and said something like, "I don't get what the big deal is about this thing".</p>
<p>Well obviously Sita swooned, like any good babe would, and Rama had a totally awesome chick for a wife.&nbsp; They had a lavish wedding ceremony, and you KNOW that Indian people do not fuck around when it comes to throwing a kickass wedding bash.&nbsp; That shit lasts for like a week, and everybody like wakes up in a daze and completely covered in henna tattoos.&nbsp; Indian weddings totally rock the house big time.</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rama-aishwarya.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /><br />I imagine Sita as being almost as hot at Aishwarya Rai.</p>
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<p>A couple years later, Emperor Dasharatha decided he was going to retire and spend his final days seeking spiritual enlightenment, so since Rama was his first-born son he appointed him to be the co-Emperor of his kingdom.&nbsp; Well this didn't sit to well with Dasharatha's second wife, who felt that her son Bharata should be the king.&nbsp; She called in a favor Dasharatha owed her, and insisted that Bharata be made king and that Rama be exiled for fourteen years.&nbsp; Dasharatha begrudgingly agreed, but the anguish of this decision led to his death shortly thereafter.</p>
<p>When Rama was told that he needed to get the fuck out of Dodge, he didn't flip out and get pissed about it.&nbsp; He knew that it was his duty to be obedient to his father's wishes, so he left the kingdom immediately with his wife and his little brother Lakshmana.&nbsp; They found a totally kickass garden called Chitrakuta and set up their new home living in a virtual paradise on Earth.</p>
<p>Unfortunately some shit started to go down in their new home before too long.&nbsp; Rama heard that some nearby priests were being harassed by a group of cannibalistic demons known as Rakshasas.&nbsp; Of course, being the good Princes that they were, Rama and his bro went out and laid the ever-loving smackdown on the demons, killing most of them and chasing the rest out of the forest.&nbsp; They also made friends with the Vulture King Jatayu, which is pretty sweet.</p>
<p>Well one Rakshasa named Surpanakha decided she thought Rama was hot, so she morphed into a mega hot babe and tried to seduce him.&nbsp; Of course, Rama was a stand-up guy so this attempt failed miserably.&nbsp; Surpanakha got pissed and revealed herself as the demoness she was and lunged at Rama, but Rama's brother chopped off her nose and ears like a bitch.&nbsp; She ran home to her brother Ravana, who swore vengeance.&nbsp; Ravana tricked Rama and Lakshmana out of their home, and then snuck in and kidnapped Sita, throwing her in the back of his flying chariot and taking off like a gangsta.&nbsp; When Rama and Lakshmana returned to find their hut empty, they knew it was time for a totally righteous quest.</p>
<p>Rama and Lakshmana traveled around, fighting duels, helping the needy and looking for any information on Sita or Ravana.&nbsp; One day, they came across a dude named Sugriva who had his throne and his wife stolen by his asshole brother.&nbsp; Rama duelled the brother and drilled him in the throat with an arrow, winning the kingdom back for Sugriva.&nbsp; Sugriva, as luck would have it, was the ruler of a GODDAMN ARMY OF MONKEYS led by the Monkey King Hanuman:</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rama-hanuman.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /></p>
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<p>Well I probably don't even need to tell you that the fucking Monkey Army came through big time.&nbsp; Hanuman was able to track down Ravana's fortress on the island of Lanka.&nbsp; He snuck into the base and found Sita was imprisoned in a valley of Ashoka trees, guarded by dozens of hideous Rakshasa Pig Demons.&nbsp; Hanuman learned that she had been told if she didn't get busy with Ravana in three months he was going to chop her limbs off and throw her in a hole somewhere.</p>
<p>When Rama heard about this, he was understandably pretty upset.&nbsp; He pulled together a huge fucking army, and marched them to the shores of the ocean.&nbsp; He could see the island of Lanka off in the distance, but he had no way to transport his army across the sea.&nbsp; He sat on the beach for three days meditating on what to do.&nbsp; It was hopeless.&nbsp; Eventually, he was so frustrated that he got SUPER FUCKING PISSED and yelled something like, "SCREW YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH OCEAN!!!" and then smashed his sword down full-force into the waves.&nbsp; He was so pissed that he actually fucking&nbsp;<em>scared the shit out of the Goddess of the Sea</em>, who was all like, "Holy shit!&nbsp; Look, just stop hitting me and I'll let you get across!"</p>
<p>So with that, Rama marched his army across the ocean to do battle with the army of Ravana.&nbsp; Fighting raged throughout the island as men, demons and monkeys were flying all over the place hacking shit up in a gigantic clusterfuck of a mele&eacute;.&nbsp; Rama, psyched about the chance to rescue his wife and complete his heroic quest, pushed forward to face the demon Ravana.&nbsp; He fought his way through dozens of Rakshasa warriors, and finally came face-to-face with his mortal enemy, and the vile creature responsible for imprisoning and attempting to have sex with his wife:</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rama-ravana.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /><br />Uh... holy shit.</p>
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<p>Yeah.&nbsp; It turned out that Ravana had ten heads and twenty arms, each one rapidly swinging a different instrument of pointy death and bodily mutilation.&nbsp; Rama rubbed his eyes, took a second to figure out WTF was going on, and then just starting blasting arrows at this fucker's crazy-ass heads.&nbsp; Ravana kept charging him, hacking away at the air and trying to tear Rama limb from limb, but Rama dodged around and kept up a steady stream of arrows, with each shot knocking one of the demon's heads off.&nbsp; Unfortunately, he quickly realized that although his arrows could decapitate Ravana's heads, as soon as one head would fall off another one would sprout up to replace it.&nbsp; This was a&nbsp;<em>little bit</em>&nbsp;discouraging.&nbsp; So Rama switched it up, firing an arrow straight into Ravana's heart.&nbsp; This did the trick.&nbsp; Ravana bit the dust big time, keeling over like a top-heavy SUV.&nbsp; The war was over.&nbsp; Sita proved to Rama that she hadn't been "dishonored" by Ravana, and together they returned to Ayodhya.&nbsp; Bharata willingly allowed Rama take his rightful place at the throne, and the kingdom received Rama, Sita and Lakshmana home as heroes.&nbsp; Rama and Sita ruled through a period of unprecedented happiness and prosperity.</p>
<p>Rama knew his duty as a son, a husband, and a king, and is considered by Hindis to be the prime example of everything a virtuous and good man should be.&nbsp; He rescued the girl, defeated his enemies, and solved his problems either by clever thinking or by getting pissed.&nbsp; He was everything you could ever ask for from an epic hero.&nbsp; So the next time you're at something awesome like "Bowl-A-Rama" or "Chicken Wing Eating Fest-O-Rama" just remember where the -Rama came from, and realize why adding it as a suffix makes anything infinitely more badass.</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rama-ravanabattle.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /><br />Rama pwns Ravana.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;">Links:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ramayana.com/who_is_rama.htm" target="blank">Ramayana.net</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.crock11.freeserve.co.uk/ramay.htm" target="blank">Ramayana Synopsis</a><br /><br /><a href="http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-ramayana1.htm" target="blank">Full English Text of the Ramayana</a></p>