SITA’S SISTER (31 page)

‘I can because I can’t bear it any longer!’ cried Urmila. ‘I suffered because I was trapped in my own situation, with my own words, my own decisions, my love for my husband. Though he had warned me frankly enough, I went ahead to face and finally accepted this reality. It happened with you as well, Sita, and it has happened again. It is Mandavi this time. Why, Sita? This will keep coming up in our lives and we still won’t have any answers. I ask again and again—does the man have no duties toward his wife and his mother? Why are the queens made to suffer the grief of parting from their sons? Can anyone bring sanity and sense into Mother Kausalya’s crazed anguish? Does anyone see or recognize the silent tears of Mother Sumitra? Or does one only see the wickedness of Mother Kaikeyi and not her repentance, her private tears? Like the other two mothers, she too shall be suffering the same, endless pain—is that what your penance means, Bharat? Not to forgive your mother? But why are you punishing your wife? What is her sin? That she is your wife and has to follow the dharma likewise of obeying her husband’s decision irrespecive of what it entails?’

‘This is outrageous!’ cried Kashyap. ‘How can all of you tolerate this violation, this profanity against the king and his family?’

‘Because I am family too,’ Urmila reminded him icily. ‘Because it is a family tradition here to be silent when someone screams for justice. This royal family is famous for its justness when it comes to its people and the state but it is cruellest to its own family members. Justice here is not just blind—it is deaf and mute. It is easy to spurn her now, but why didn’t anyone stand up against Queen Kaikeyi when she demanded her two boons? What were all the elders doing—the other two queens, the ministers, the royal priest and you gurus? No one dared question her till her own son returned to disobey her. Did anyone refute the king’s decision, however much he was forced to take it? Did anyone stop Ram from leaving home? Or did anyone try to stop Sita, knowing that the forest would be an unsafe place for her?’

Urmila saw Sita make a movement. ‘No, Sita, you will argue it was your voluntary decision. As will Lakshman. And so will Ram—but did any of you think of the people you were leaving behind to discharge of your duties? Your old mothers who won’t see you for another fourteen years, living on a slim sliver of hope every single day? Don’t you have any duty, any compassion toward them? If you could not keep the vows you made to your wives, why did you brothers marry? You may be the best of the princes, the perfect sons, the ideal brothers, probably the ideal king too, but never the good husband!’

She saw Lakshman flinch and heard Sita gasp in horror. Ram had gone pale.

‘You are right, Guru Kashyap, Ayodhya is not Mithila,’ rasped Urmila. ‘Mithila does not treat her women so shabbily. And unlike Sage Gargi in my father’s royal court, I did not receive any answer to my questions. Not that I expected any!’

Urmila looked at each of them in the eye and left the hut abruptly, her throat dry. Anger swamped her and a fresh wave of pain bubbled over. The tears refused to flow, dried by the fire within.

‘Mila, stop running away from me!’

She turned around fiercely, ready to confront him. She recalled he had not uttered a single word during her tirade—neither protesting nor protective. Lakshman stood tall, towering and…smiling! Urmila had been prepared for contempt, anger, loathing but not this tenderness—the searching, fleeting emotions spreading on his face, softened by his widening, lopsided smile.

‘If I had begged you to stop, you would have ignored my plea. This was the best way to stop you in your tracks, right? Though it’s a nice walk if you like grunting!’ he chuckled, glancing at the steep slope she had just climbed. ‘Don’t turn away from me, Mila. You won’t get far, remember?’ She could not understand his humour, his mood. But he had always been mercurial.

‘Why are you smiling? It is not amusing. I am not sorry for all that I said. I said it for Mandavi though I know it is all so wasted!’ she started.

He shook his head. ‘I am smiling in relief. Finally it’s out, you exploded! I knew you would say what you had wanted to for all this while. But frankly, I was more worried of my reaction than yours. I was scared I would hate you for even one unforgiveable word you uttered,’ he looked at her searchingly. ‘But I found myself simply listening to all you had to say. And could not help but relish every argument of yours, my warrior wife! And I fell in love with you all over again. I had to tell you this before you left—in such a huff!’

Her anguished anger seemed to melt. She looked confused. ‘You are not upset…?’

‘Both of us at the same time?’ he shuddered. ‘God forbid, that would be a conflagration! But what you said was true, and only you could have the nerve to say it. I had been expecting it since our tiff that day of the coronation…’

She looked at him long, savouring him, assimilating and memorizing every detail… She felt a sharp tug at her heart: she loved him so. He would be gone again. This would be another farewell.

‘Yes, guess I got rid of all my fury, resentment, worries and disillusionment for the next fourteen years. I am spent,’ she sighed, stifling a sob. ‘I hope I am cleansed. I just want to shut my eyes and be oblivious to any more of this pain, this heartbreak, and simply lapse into a long sleep…’

She sounded tired and defeated. She closed her eyes and could smell the fragrance of his body, the warm huskiness of his voice. ‘…And take your sleep along with it,’ she murmured, opening her eyes and looking at him for a long, last time. ‘So that you stay awake and alert all the while as you guard your brother and my sister. In exchange, I give you my rest, my ease, my sleep, my love.’

‘Done,’ he said softly, caressing her tenderly with his eyes. ‘I have always loathed the necessity of sleep—it puts the ablest men on their backs!’

Urmila felt a giggle gurgling within her and could not help breaking into a tiny, tremulous smile.

‘Yes, stay smiling always, my love, I want to remember this forever,’ he whispered. And turning his handsome, tormented face from her, he was gone.

His voice had been a caress. He had not touched her but she could feel him in every pore. Urmila shut her eyes, seeing her hopeless future descend into darkness. Her long sleep had begun…

She was painting again, her brush moving rapidly, dexterously, her mind spinning, not forgetting him even for an instant. But she missed his presence behind her back, his warm breath caressing the nape of her neck, the sardonic raise of his eyebrow as he peered more closely at the tinniest details; she missed his gravelly voice as he said, ‘Fabulous. Just like you. How do you do it?’

‘Just being myself,’ she heard herself say.

‘That is beautiful and intelligent. Beautiful women, especially those who are intelligent too, make me nervous. They stir a deep feeling within me…’

‘And would that be an inferiority complex?’ she asked saucily.

And he had demonstrated it was not so.

Urmila stared distastefully at the plate of food placed in front of her. She could not stomach even a morsel. It was well past the lunch time but she still wasn’t hungry. It had been the same since the past so many months. Like her, everyone else in the family had almost given up food. Meals together were a thing of the past. Each one of them was interned in their palace, shut away from the world, in an act of voluntary solitary confinement. It had been more than three months since Bharat had stationed himself at Nandigram and the palace still wore a deserted, unloved look. It had become the loneliest place housing unsmiling people—the grieving family and the milling entourage of courtiers, guardsmen and handmaids.

The pall of gloom was stifling. Mandavi had been completely disheartened by Bharat’s decision, slipping into a state of melancholia the moment Bharat left for Nandigram. Her flagrant absence on the occasion when Bharat had respectfully placed Ram’s wooden sandals on the throne had raised a murmur of disapproval at the royal court. It had been a small, solemn ceremony immediately after which Bharat had left for Nandigram. Looking almost sublime in his self-renunciation and his ascetic bark attire, he bid farewell to all but his mother. Mandavi saw him off with a look of glazed disbelief on her pale, strained face. Urmila did not know what exactly had happened between them. Since that day, Mandavi had simply kept disconcertingly silent, sealing her lips and herself from the world outside. Kirti and Urmila had tried vainly to wean her out from her pensive sadness but she had caged herself in her own private, corrugated hell, alternating between wistful wordlessness and long bouts of fitful sleep.

Shatrughna was the most occupied, mostly engaged with court matters working through the day and touring the city till late hours. But he made it a point to meet the three queens everyday. Kausalya was worse than what she was before she had gone to Chitrakoot to meet Ram; her pessimistic sense of inadequacy compounded by protracted despondence. Sumitra was mostly by her side, a mediator between the other two queens. Kaikeyi was still treated as a pariah and had turned into a recluse, seldom stepping out of her palace, living in her self-imposed exile.

Unhappiness makes us self-absorbed: it makes one think only of oneself—of the pain, and misery one is suffering. Urmila was exhausted of the stifling grief. It made her resigned; she had to shake out of it. That was why, left largely to herself, she tried to find a method in her unhappy loneliness. Her mornings were spent studying the Upanishads and the Vedas under the tutelage of royal gurus, particularly Guru Vasishtha, a teacher she felt privileged to be a student of. At other times, she painted furiously for hours together in long spells, living her thoughts through the smudged colours on the canvas. She was painting their wedding scene yet again—an enormous endeavour she knew would take months to complete. She found herself instinctively skilful, filling the empty white spaces with the right colour, lining the figures with her firm, steady hand, not necessarily in tandem with her unsteady, numb thoughts.

Urmila stared again at the large, silver plate, her meal covered deferentially by a thin muslin cloth. The food must have gone cold a long time ago. Just like their daily course of existence. Cold and tasteless, difficult to digest and taken with a painful swallow each time over. This could not go on. She would have to do something. She glanced again at the gleaming dish and a faint idea started to swirl around slowly.

A situation similar to her painting came fuzzily to her mind; Just a few days after their marriage…

‘Don’t you people have meals together ever?’ she asked Lakshman pertly as the maid, Kasturi, placed two loaded plates before them and left their chamber. Urmila, the self-confessed sensual food lover, as she called herself, promptly removed the muslin kerchief and uncovered the plate to check what was in the glittering small bowls.

‘We eat in our respective palaces…’ he answered nonchalantly, ‘or I drop by at my mother’s if the king is not having a meal with her. He usually has his with each one of them. He makes it a point to do so,’ he added dryly.

‘You mean to say you don’t eat together ever? Is this how it is going to be?’ she asked aghast, munching on a sliced cucumber. ‘I hate having meals alone. It is depressing, and definitely not healthy.’

‘I am there, so how would you be alone?’ demanded Lakshman. ‘I, for one, don’t mind this arrangement. I can have you all to myself!’ he chuckled lasviciously. ‘Or, don’t tell me you are one of those militant daughters-in-law who want to bring about immediate change with their battle-axes in their new homes?’ he gasped in mock horror.

‘Oh, be serious!’ she pouted. ‘I am ready to eat anything, anytime, anywhere. If you haven’t noticed, I love to eat,’ she grinned, and saw him looking at her with an altered expression, his eyes lewdly scanning her trim figure, rounded at the right places but she ignored it. ‘So while I shall merrily entertain you over breakfast and tea-time with all that hot and spicy stuff,’ she said demurely, pausing for dramatic effect, ‘how about having the other meals with the family?’