SITA’S SISTER (2 page)

Her father walked slowly up the steps, his eyes filled with a strange expression. It was more than amazement; Urmila could not figure out what, or possibly she did not know the right word to describe that emotion. She saw him folding his hands and bowing his head in…reverence. Her mother and uncle followed suit, folding their hands in veneration as well. But why, Urmila looked puzzled. Why did they have that look they reserved for the deity of Goddess Gouri in their beautiful temple in the garden?

Urmila did not have an answer. But she was more thankful that she had escaped the stern rebuke from her parents. She sighed happily and ran to her sisters.

‘We have unexpected guests,’ proclaimed Mandavi with elaborate enthusiasm.

But her dramatic declaration failed to evoke the response she desired. The three other girls allowed her words to drift meaninglessly in the sun-warmed room and continued with what they were doing. The oldest among the four, Sita, was distributing the morning prasad after having returned from her customary ritual of visiting the temple of Goddess Gauri early morning. Sita’s sister, Urmila, was getting ready to mix some fresh colours in the palette and settling down to her morning hours of marathon painting. The canvas was still blank; she hadn’t painted a stroke. This meant Urmila was troubled; and it must be about Sita, Mandavi deduced perceptively. That girl worries too much about her sister.

The quiet, efficient Shrutakirti, her younger sister, was competently assisting both her cousins—getting out the colours for Urmila while helping Sita with her pooja thali. They were a picture of contrasts. Sita—elegant and ethereal, whisper-slim and delicately framed, always meticulous and impeccably dressed, she was a girl of few words. Shrutakirti was smart and striking with her long, thick mane of curly hair framing a small, sharply cut face, illuminated by her large, dark intense eyes. She was the youngest of the four sisters but was the tallest of them all, though all the four girls were quite tall. But Kirti, right now, seemed to almost tower over the feisty, voluptuous Urmila. Urmila’s fetching roundness blunted her height. She was like the colours she was blending so dexterously—warm, vibrant and sparkling, her quicksilver temper included. She had an effortless easy-going manner that made her very agreeable. Mandavi, who looked every bit the proud princess, envied Urmila’s facile charm. The scene in the room was a familiar sight for her and Mandavi realized that there was an endearing, emblematic quality to their everyday mornings. There lingered a certain sense of contentment in the sameness and she felt a sudden urge to dispel it. Her opening words had evidently not made an impact as each of the girls continued doing what they were busy with.

‘I heard from the maids that two young and handsome princes of Ayodhya have arrived here,’ Mandavi persisted in her usual loud, authoritative voice, ‘…and that Uncle has invited them to stay at the west wing of the palace.’

‘How many times have I told you not to overhear maids gossip?’ Urmila said perfunctorily, without paying any serious attention to what Mandavi was saying, blending the reds furiously with the yellow. As she helped Urmila help get the right tone, Kirti suppressed a smile, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by Mandavi, throwing her immediately on the defensive. Whenever Kirti and Urmila got together, Mandavi felt absurdly left out, a sliver of jealousy snaking insidiously inside her. She idolized her cousin and believed she was closest to her as they were almost the same age. Kirti was her kid sister; she was not supposed to intrude into the elders’ domain. Mandavi’s possessive streak went on an erratic overdrive, propelling her into an unreasonable irritation.

‘But one gets to know so many things from them!’ She snapped, but without vitriol. ‘News you wouldn’t get to know otherwise. One needs to be sufficiently aware and armed of information, as they say, an ear to the ground, and eyes in the wall. You can’t isolate yourself in the palace,’ she sniffed delicately.

Mandavi was svelte and sylphlike and as tall as Urmila, but here the similarity ceased. Mandavi always stood tall and straight, sinewy and strong—courtesy her astonishing equestrian skills unlike Urmila’s curvy, sensual softness which made her appear more diminutive. Urmila had an open, vivacious countenance, her oval face accentuated by a pair of wide spaced, big, flashing eyes, a trim, pert nose, full rose-bud lips which curved often and generously in a potently appealing smile and which none could resist. Mandavi appeared somewhat stern, with her solemn, steady eyes and straight lips which rarely deigned to smile, giving the impression of deliberate aloofness and an air of cold aristocracy.

Right now, her lips were pursed, dagger-thin, in indignant argument, ‘That’s what affairs of state, and those of the palace, are all about. You have to have your sources—you nourish them and they nourish you. Otherwise how would we cloistered princesses know what’s occurring in the world beyond our tapestried, high-windowed chambers? Like charity, gossip starts at home—and so does politics! And anyway, these maids always have the most delicious things to tell you…it’s idle entertainment,’ she smirked wickedly.

‘They talk, you listen; it should be the other way round, dear princess!’ Urmila reminded her.

‘I seriously wonder how they come and tell you anything,’ said Kirti curiously. ‘Mandavi, you seem so frightening and formidable otherwise! Do you gift them generously?’

‘Oh, hush, girls!’ Sita laughed and pushed a morsel of the prasad in Urmila’s mouth. ‘Talk sweet, dear,’ she said affectionately.

The four young girls engaged in such banter all the time. There was no malice in it, not a shred of meanness. They were simply disarmingly frank with each other; brutally blunt sometimes. And why wouldn’t they? They were sisters, after all, and there was no need to be nice and good all the time.

Urmila gulped down the prasad hurriedly and turned to Mandavi, ‘And anyway, what’s so unusual about guests coming over? Don’t forget, the philosophy conference which father hosts each year at Mithila is on. Moreover, there will be a lot more coming in as Sita’s swayamvar is just a week away! The palace is already brimming with people.’

Sita smiled complacently—the mention of her imminent marriage did not seem to excite her. Nothing seems to excite her, Urmila thought apprehensively. Sita was one of the most exasperatingly calm and unexcitable people she knew—always composed, clear-headed and mild-mannered. But it was her wedding, and wasn’t the bride-to-be supposed to be a little more animated about one of the most momentous events in her young, unadventurous life? Mandavi had been right when she called them the cloistered princesses. They were largely that, although they were well versed in the Vedas and the Upanishads, politics, music, art and literature. They had journeyed fabulous worlds, traversing unknown frontiers—but all in the mind, sitting in the verandahs and chambers of the palace of Mithila which overlooked the distant horizon of an undiscovered world. However, they had accompanied their father to all the conferences and religious seminars across the country, experiencing a world no princess had been allowed to visit. But Urmila yearned for more; she wanted to see more places, places she had heard about through her growing years… But she knew that she, too, would be married off after Sita’s swayamvar. Marriage did not hold much interest for Urmila but it was a social discipline she would have to conform to. She would rather seek knowledge instead of a suitor.

The thought of the swayamvar brought Urmila back to the present—to their pretty, colourful bed chamber in Mithila. She stared at her elder sister intently. Sita was looking exquisite as always; slender and delicate, her long neck curved gracefully so that she appeared willowy and taller than she actually was. In azure blue silk—her favourite pastel colour—she looked pale but not an unhealthy pallid. She was very fair, her skin almost translucent and stretched across her high cheek bones, her thick brows highlighted her slightly slanting eyes; her heart-shaped face was suffused with a perpetual serenity and demureness. Despite the gentleness, Urmila knew that her elder sister had an indomitable will and strength of purpose, but she masked her emotions so smoothly that not a wrinkle furrowed her fair brows.

‘Sita, aren’t you happy about your wedding?’ Urmila asked abruptly. ‘You seem so…so aloof, so nonchalant about it—it’s not normal!’

‘What do you want me to do, cavort in joy?’ Sita questioned with a soft laugh, ‘I know it’s my wedding and, of course, I am elated about it…’

‘Then show it! You don’t look too thrilled…or even remotely excited as brides often are!’

‘I am happy, dear, for how things will be. It is all planned, so what is there to be so anxious about? The man who manages to break the famous Shiv dhanush shall be my husband. It’s very simple,’ she explained sedately.

‘Break the Shiv dhanush?’ Mandavi expostulated, with a shake of her head, ‘Just because you could wield it so easily as a child, Uncle wants some superhero to do the same? That bow is more than eight-and-a-half-feet long and so heavy that it needs around three hundred people to lift it! It needs an enormous trolley to cart it around and again another three hundred people to push the cart to move it an inch! And Uncle has announced that whosoever wants to marry Sita can do so only after stringing the bow. I can’t imagine anyone even shifting it, forget lifting it!’

‘That’s exactly the point, don’t you see?’ Urmila asked quietly. ‘It has to be an extraordinary man who can do that—and indeed, it is going to be an extraordinary man who will marry Sita!’

‘You have answered your own question, Urmila,’ said Sita amiably. ‘And that’s why I am so calm about my wedding! I trust father…’

Urmila gave Sita a sharp look. There was always an air of quick, quiet acceptance about her. She was rarely confrontational like Urmila; and though it was a swayamvar—to marry a man of her choice—Urmila knew Sita was bound by her father’s decision.

But who would be that man who would achieve this monumental feat? And would that man be good enough for her good sister? The thought had been niggling at her relentlessly ever since her parents had planned Sita’s swayamvar. Urmila sighed; she couldn’t stop worrying about her elder sister. Sita was the gentlest, kindest, sweetest person; so achingly, implausibly nice that she seemed like a beautiful angel come down to earth. She was really an angel, her father always reminded her. She had been named Sita—the furrow—after the channel of love and hope in which her childless parents had found her as a bawling baby. This had happened while they were ploughing the fields as a part of the yagna they were performing. The beautiful baby had touched their heart and soul and the childless King Seeradhwaj, Janak of Videha and his queen Sunaina had promptly adopted her as their first daughter. Janak, the philosopher-king that he was, believed that ‘sita’ was actually the most poetic description for his daughter—a metaphor for verdancy and fruitfulness—and an unending blessing coming from the soil—the bhumi. She was earth’s child—warm, rooted and life-giving.

Urmila had been born a year later, a foil to Sita right from the start. The two cradles had rocked in perfect harmony since childhood as smooth and strong as the bond that was to blossom between the two girls. Completing the circle of love and laughter were Mandavi and Kirti, their younger cousins, the two chirpy daughters of the widowed King Kushadhwaj, the king of Varanasi and the younger brother of Seeradhwaj Janak.

‘…And so about these princes…’ continued Mandavi, her authoritative tone breaking through Urmila’s anxious thoughts. ‘The older one is Ram and Lakshman is his younger brother, and they are here with Rishi Vishwamitra.’

‘Sage Vishwamitra?’ Sita echoed, the surprise apparent in her voice.

Urmila was intrigued. Vishwamitra was not a person whom anyone could meet easily. He was one of the most renowned and revered rishis of the country—a brahmarishi—a sage who has understood the meaning of brahman, the ultimate reality, and has attained the highest divine knowledge, brahmajnana. The story, from what Urmila could recall, was that the rishi was previously a king. He was earlier known as King Kaushik who clashed against none other than the mighty Rishi Vasishtha, a brahmarishi and the royal priest of the court of Ayodhya, and was routed. This defeat made him realize that the power obtained by penance was far superior to military strength. The humiliated king relinquished his kingdom and began his pursuit of the supreme and spiritual knowledge to become a bigger rishi than his rival, Sage Vasishtha, and took on the name of Vishwamitra. After many trials and tribulations and the severest of penance and austerities, the sage at last received the title of brahmarishi from Vasishtha himself.

Though Vishwamitra had changed his vocation, he could not change his essential nature; like the glorious king he formerly was, the brahmarishi maintained his regal hauteur and arrogance and was greatly feared for the same. The mightiest kings trembled before him. So why had that mighty sage come to her father’s kingdom, wondered Urmila? And who were the two princes with him?

‘But why are they with Rishi Vishwamitra?’ Urmila could not help asking. Sita nodded eagerly.