Sita's exile

Im the daughter of Maithili. This is the story of Rama, my husband. My father, the king Janaka had thought that his daughter has reached a marriageable age. A swamyavar, as was the practice to chose your husband to be from suitors was arranged. Our ancestors had been gifted the Shiva's arrow which had been passed on to my father. Once as a child, I had lifted the bow while playing not knowing of its significance. My father however had witnessed it and thus had decided that my groom to be must match my ability. It turned out prince Ram, son of king Dasharatha was the one to be.

After a grand marriage, I was welcomed to the kingdom of Ayodhya. This is where the saga begins. Ram was a duti-bound son and loyal to his word. A loyal husband too, I must add. However little did we know what situation lay ahead. King Dasharatha took ill after a few years. One unfine morning when Ram was with him, Dasharatha asked for a promise from his son. Ram, true to his character assured his father character of his word.

But what was asked was unthinkable. A father sending his own son to exile for 14 years. And that too for a reason which had no substantial logic to it. My second brother-n-law, prince Bharat,  would lose out the throne to my beloved husband Ram. In order to make it happen otherwise, such an arrangement was devised so that the subjects of Ayodhya can accept Bharat as the heir to the throne .

I, daughter of Janaka, bound by my duty towards my husband, accepted his exile as my own and thus began our life in exile. Laxman, the dutiful, loyal brother of Ram, also became a part of this story. He made sure that throughout these 14 years, he will stand guard and protect us to the point of putting his life at stake.Never had I known of such sacrifice and love before.
We had spend a few years of our exile in Panchavatika, on the banks of a mighty (Godavari) river. As a ardent worshiper of Shiva, I had found a cave where I sat for prayer.

On another regular morning, I spot a a deer in the forest. It was no ordinary deer- the creature has a golden complexion and is glowing amidst the trees and bushes. It is brighter than the sun in this dark environment. There was a strong urge to hold this deer and caress it.

I keep chasing it but it runs farther till I no longer can match its sprint. I call upon Ram to fetch me this deer. Ram, keeping me in the safe hands of Laxman, ventures ahead.
A long time has elapsed still no sight of return of him. Although I know no harm can happen to him, but I'm still worried of his safety. I call upon Laxman to search for his brother. He couldn't risk leaving me alone. So he takes his arrow and draws a boundary around our hut which no trespasser can cross.

I'm not sure whether it was a wise thought to have both of them leave. All I thought of at that earlier instance was the deer. Living in this forest, that creature had caught my eye as the most beautiful thing I had seen in a while. It was a small request on my part to fetch that deer; had not thought that Ram would take so long.
Immersed in such thoughts I am, when I hear a voice outside our hut. "Who could it be in this wild forest."
It appears to be a sage. He calls out again, "alms please."
(Black out)
As I gain consciousness, I'm being carried away, dragged and pulled by someone. This someone appears to be tall and mighty, his head towering above which I can't see. He has a demon like laugh. I'm being taken away by force, against my will. And all this while serving exile with my husband.
Ravana says he abducted me to teach a lesson to my husband. So it seems that I'm the bait in this personal vendetta. But there was no reason to be so. During this captivity, Ravana has often made visits to me. He says he worships Shiva but his ego and pride defeat his worship. Yet his devotion is unparalleled. His purpose to abduct me has nothing to do with me at all.
Then the epic battle between good and evil. Between the avatar of Vishnu and the ardent devout of lord Shiva. Ravana, a great ruler and who possessed the nectar of immortality. A Brahman of the highest order and a conqueror of three worlds, Ravana meets his match in the perfect man, lord of virtue. But then good and evil are relative thoughts, which have no absolute standing in the mortal world.

After a year of remaining in exile, I'm finally reunited with my beloved. He redeemed his failure in protecting me with this victory of Ravana. The perfect man, on our return journey talks of his pain and grief in losing me, of how he shouldn't have left me alone. Of how he suffered in agony. And I listened solemnly.

To prove my chastity and devotion, I went trial by fire at his behest. I knew no harm would be done unto me. Nothing however could have outraged me more than being questioned on my fidelity by my husband. At that moment, the whole battle, Ravana's death seemed futile. It made no sense in vanquishing Lanka.

When our exile was over and we were back in Ayodha, the society becomes central to the story. It starts questioning my purity and chastity. Of what might have happened in Ashok vatika. There were questions raised on my integrity as a woman, as a wife. After 14 years of exile, this was the least expected.

In order to appease the society and prove a point, my husband and now the king of Ayodhya, the perfect man thought of sending me to exile . He is raged by the doubts arising in his subjects and how they are chiding his authority as a king. His subjects question the loyalty of his queen which he took as a questioning his righteousness and virtue as a king.

I'm the daughter of mother earth, found by king Janak. I know what my fate will be. However, what is questionable is the character of my beloved husband, the righteous, Vishnu's avatar, Lord Ram. My exile, then and now, has given me this "freedom"  to question the reason for that battle, the fate of Lanka and the fate of Ravana. His death was avoidable. If spending a year of captivity in Ashok vatika could raise questions on my fidelity and chastity, then there was no fault of that learned man. He did make advances but was courteous to respect my dignity.
My Ram, however chose to question me. I'm unsure of what to make of his character. If he is pious in certain aspects how does he harbor negative thoughts. When the perfect man places the comments of society at a higher value position, then the less said about others, the better. His cold behavior after the battle, his heeding to words of his subjects makes me ponder; where and what did anything go wrong. He was the only one who could break Shiva's arrow. Perhaps, a worshiper of Shiva would have done otherwise. Maybe that devout would have placed it at its rightful place.

Flight of stairs

The stairs led to your dingy room,

where my evening would begin.
These stairs led to your arms,
where my anguishes would dissolve.
The climb took all my breath,
to rest on your cringey arm chair
The climb took all my day,
to sleep in your solemn nights.

The passage leading to you, is
filled with colloquies of pigeons,
filled with cacophony of prejudice,
filled with constructs of hypocrisy.
The walls feel weak and pale,
the windows are lost in dust,
while I stand below, hoping for an urge.

And I'll walk away,
from dismay of not finding your scent,
sprinkled on my scarf,
from despair of not finding my kohl,
stained on your sleeves.
I'll walk away from those stairs,
from fear of not ending in your room.

The Relevance of Irrelevant

-'Hi..'

-'Hello..'
-'How was your day?'
-'Yeah..it was fine. Nothing specific to say'
-'Well there must be something. No day goes without an event'
-'Could you ask anything else. Like a meaningful question perhaps'
-'Well then, tell me about your feelings'
-'Now you speak strangely!'
-'See this is what happens. You retreat and create barriers around when I try to seek you'
She felt silent and detached herself from the conversation. Every day, she fought her demons, which lurked inside, feeding on her thoughts. Every evening they would raze her mind, wrecking havoc and putting to rest any pure thought that came in their way. And yet she fought. Because that's how she survived. Battling through the night, she wakes up next morning in the embrace of the same demons.

-'Would you like to sit down and have a talk'. He persisted with the hope of finding the truth in her.
Sitting down for dinner, the conversation shifted to paychecks, pubs and petty politics, that make the most of our lives. She found comfort in heated food and lifeless banter. And she continued to explain how she didn't have time for the peripherals. How her glittering weekends are filled with cacophony. How she was having fun in her sexual encounters and did not want to look any further.
And he continued with mundane questions which had equally trivial answers. That is how it was each day till today.
-'But you haven't answered yet. What about your feelings?'
-'Why do insist on that. Do not try to know me.'
-'Give me one reason why shouldn't I', and he held her gaze. For a brief moment it seemed the evening will rework from its taciturn nature towards a rewarding night.
But yet again she was diffident and refused to give away her defense.
-'When was the last time you loved someone?, he puts across a courageous question.
-'I have been out of love for a while now. In fact now that I think of it, it is not worth thinking at all.'
-'So you saying there is no such feeling?'
-'It is a calculated game. And it depends on your ability as to how long you can play it out. And I prefer the shorter version.. It's pacy, thrilling and rewards immediately.'
-'It is strange the way you put it across. But can't deny that it has the excitement.' He looked down trying to search for some words which might have been lying on the floor.  But there was nothing else in that room except their inhibitions and insecurities.

- 'Could you answer me something honestly?', his last question.-'Not again. What is it that you want to know so desperately!'. She lost her temper in that moment.
He leaned forward and held her hand. 'How are you?'.

She didn't have an answer to that. Not the answer which she would like to believe was true. Not the answer on which she could rely on.

Sometimes the most irrelevant of our times create relevant circumstances which we find difficult to embrace and acknowledge. We are to afraid to hear our truth in those moments. And thus it goes on- the same questions every evening to which we have standard responses. Nothing beyond that; nothing out of ordinary. 

BARBARIAN in the Room

-'So you've come again..to torment me isn't it'
-'Would you not want me here then...I won't mind it'
-'Not at all. Sit down and wriggle the consciousness out of me. I would mind it though'
The dimness inside was apparent to both. But neither wanted the lights. 'Let darkness have its say today. It's much easier to strangle without having to look at the pain in your eyes. Makes the task effortless'.

-'So you admit to coming here for peeling me down, layer by layer, shred it all out and not because you've had the slightest sympathy on me all this while.'

A momentary silence, but only fleeting it could be. Because there was an uproar that deafened out all the worldly chaos outside the room. The noises of the machines in entirety put together fail in comparison to whopping of that lump called heart, when truth hammers you down.

-'Sympathy is for the weak, for the suppressed, for those who don't have power and you're not weak. You bargained moments for opportunities, pleasure for happiness. You created the situation in which we're in now from which you want to escape and then to have asked for sympathy-it can't be like this all along. One has to give back to life also when the time comes.'

-'I did try my best to amend. Make situations better, create the comfort, all the lavishness that could exist are here and still it all slipped through the fingers like sand. There was all the glitter, all the shimmer in life, as I tried to make things better, make them view better, make me feel better.'

-'And how all of it is helping you ease the pain that's destructing you bit by bit with every passing breath. Its exhausting even to find space amidst the debris that has been filled this place.'
He walked towards the window, to let some air in.
-'You've been suffocating for a long time. I'm here to help.'

There was sudden laughter, a sound that ringed with irony and bereft of felicity. It grew louder, filing the room with a melancholic silence. 'Help you say; you're helping me feel bad, pathetic and insignificant. You made me meaningless, that's what you did.'

The conflict with conscience impairs a soul, just as a battle burns the ground beneath. You try subduing it, inflicting damage by force first and then by making it weak with repeated attacks on morality, till you're sure that its gone, the pain is no more. However, it refuses to leave the battlefield, and suddenly one fine morning, when preparing for another onslaught, you're knees will give away in weakness and shiver, your arms will fail to rise and that body has been decaying ever since. 

-'You've been rotting since the time the man within died. Remember the time when you had ideals and ethics to live by the day and nothing else to survive on. Gradually there was a house, there was a wife, there was an offspring but there was no you. You begin passing days in vanity and evening on cards with believable friends and ending it with a glass of wine. An existence which was defined blissful by ignorance. The last act of man is self-deceit, which you played to thunderous applause from the gallery.'

Remembering the time spent on stage, he recalled-the characters and their roles. The wife who liked his position, his designation, his security, his resources and thus decided to love him. The child who grew into a fine adult, while the father remained looking. Those he befriended, over whom he influenced power, who laughed with him and laughed harder without him, who sympathized with his decline and were apathetic to his destruction.


-'I was happy in this make-believe world, numb to truth and ignorant to farce. I was doing just fine with that care and affection from my wife, with that veneration from my child, that respect from my friends, even it was a lie all along. I couldn't smell my foul breath and neither I could smell the rot. It was not me, it was you who has ruined my existence and is now watching me decay. Are you content?'

He knew he defending a false pretense in order to assert the years, the life in those years. Man does that- try to vindicate false position he acquires by unwarranted means, to protect pride, to preserve plaudit to the end. There remains none except the naked self, the bare, disgusting truth which I'll carry to death-bed. 

-'It is dark but I can see you clearly now. Hoping that when day breaks, you'll be able to see dawn.'

The servant arrived with his medicines and knocked on the door. There was no answer. As he stepped in, he saw a shape pacing across the room. 'My medication is it? Keep it on the table', he said looking away.

-'May I put on the lamp Sir. It's dark in here', the servant asked his master. He always stayed by his master's side at day end when master would prepare for sleep. He would listen and be a part of conversation with the master religiously to make master forget his deteriorating condition.


-'Let this darkness remain inside. I've struggled to keep it shining and lost. In the end, it's always dark and there is no escaping it. Let me be now', and he tried to sleep, for one last time.