Queen

Today, I am alone. I have no one to call my own.

I was once a princess; the apple of everyone's eyes. Legend has it that my honourable father found me while tilling the land during a ritual for the harvest festival. I was subsequently given other names too during my christening. But the one I liked best was the one the priests most disapproved of - Sita. My childhood was a happy one; in the company of my sisters and playmates. .

I remember the time I first fell in love. It happened when I was seventeen; during a procession in Mithila, my father's capital city. I spotted a youth among the crowds, dressed simply in the clothes of a hermit. Although his complexion was dusky, he was beautiful; and hazel eyes so deep, I could have drowned in them there and then. I immediately felt shy under his unflinching and steady gaze; and silently prayed for him to be mine someday.

And my dream did come true, when consequently; he won me as his bride during my swayamvar.

He was Rama, Crown Prince of Ayodhya; who loved me like no one ever had.

Soon after our marriage, family feuds compelled us to spend fourteen tumultous years eking out a life in the forests. During this time, a demon king from a faraway island called Lanka, abducted and imprisoned me in his palace gardens for more than a year. It was Rama who waged war and brought me back home. I was finally coronated Queen of Ayodhya.

After a few years, Rama unceremoniously banished me from the kingdom because of some stray thing a commoner told him; even though I was pregnant at the time. Was this the same Rama, who made me feel so welcome in my new home? Who showered me with so much of love and affection that I was queen of his heart, before I was even coronated one? I think not.

I am now a symbol of utter revulsion. In the eyes of my subjects, I have sinned.

Today, I am alone; wandering like a vagabond in the forest, looking for some tree under which I can spend the night. My belly expands day by day; and I have difficulty walking. I fear for my unborn child.

I thought my worst time was during my imprisonment in Lanka. But I'm wrong. Death seems like a better end than this; which has become a veritable hell for me.

My heart knows that I am as chaste and pure as fire. I dare not allow any other man to even look at me, except my husband. All my life, I have lived exactly as our scriptures prescribe an ideal woman to. Then why do I have to suffer this injustice? Is it just because that I am a woman?

Why is a woman's purity always doubted? Why does society fie at her when she suffers, but glorifies a man who goes through the same? Why does my husband not understand my pain; my anguish at his unjust behaviour? Why did he send me away like this, in my delicate state of health? Did he ever love me with all his heart and soul, as I did for him?

Now, I think not.

Our scriptures say, "A wife is the other half of her husband". We were one. But not anymore. I cannot live with a man who raises questions about his wife's purity. His beloved wife, who venerates him like God. Such behaviour certainly does not befit a king, who is expected to be a leader to his subjects, an epitome of righteousness and duty.

I am a queen. My legs pain; and my skin, once nourished on a diet of the choicest creams and unguents, now resembles parchment paper. With my unruly locks and torn clothes, I can easily pass off for a madwoman. Repeated grazing has covered my feet with wounds. Once rumoured to be the color of molten gold, my skin is now mottled and ugly.

Although I seethe at the injustice meted out to me; I still love my husband, the same way I did as I first saw him years ago during that procession.

I am a queen. Queen of my kingdom.

Queen of my King's heart. Am; and will always be.