Week 9 Story: Her

The Maharani, Rani, sat watching Uttara 

In the midst of her play.

He, Abhimanyn, is almost here 

Said a voice from the depths of 

Her mind.

She remembered marrying her will

to the Maharajah, or Jah.

She remembered dreaming of the forest,

Of running away.

She remembered her mother 

Standing too far away.

She remembered her mother's face

On her wedding day.

She remembered her saying,

"He is your true love."

She remembered trusting her mother enough

To believe it.

She remembered how she never saw what followed 

Coming 

Because they abandoned her,

Because they didn't bother to educate her.

But mostly she remembered her mother

And how she should have understood her

Before now,

Before she sat here looking at Uttara.

This crippling feeling of weakness

Is not mine;

It is theirs, 

Yet I am the one who has to hold it.

So, Rani let it go

"He's here!" said Jah

"Uttara's home awaits." 

"Uttara is already home," said Rani.

And, thus, Rani wandered off

The worn path of submission 

Beaten into the ground 

Over many years.  

Jah's confusion was his privilege 

Because nobody had asked him to understand 

How it feels under a woman's skin. 

So Rani sat through her husbands' violent energy,

The burden placed on men.

But, Mother and daughter kept playing together.

"Why do you keep me here?" asked Uttara.

"To let you be not just a woman but also a human," replied her mother. 

Rani lit herself up

So Uttara could see inside.  

They played together

So Uttara would learn her own worth

By digging through her mother's roots

And finding that they  

Stretched to the Earth's very core. 

Mother and Child by George Romney on Wikimedia Commons

Author's note: This story is based on Nine Ideal Indian Women: Savitri, Damayanti, Sati, and Uttara by Sunity Devee.  I chose these stories because I thought they would describe the women in the epics and give them some background. However, most of the women's stories almost completely centred around a man. For me, the most shocking story was about how Uttara, a child, married a man. She played with toys while he went to fight battles, which is, in my opinion, about as messed up as a home dynamic can get. So, I chose to rewrite this story from the perspective of Uttara's mother. I wanted this to be a story of them standing their ground and deciding to get to know one another in spite of what the rest of the world says they should do as women. The Maharajah and Maharani are Uttara's parents. Abhimanyn is the man Uttara is supposed to marry.