sita's sister

237 Pages·2016·1.27 MB·English

Sita’s Sister

Kavita Kané is the best-selling author of Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen.
She started her career as a journalist and is now a full-time novelist. She is a
post-graduate in English literature and mass communications and a self-
confessed aficionado of theatre and cinema. Married to a mariner, she is a
mother of two teenaged daughters and currently lives in Pune along with Dude,
the friendly Rottweiler, and Babe, the unfriendly cat.

First published by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2014

7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj New Delhi 110002

Sales centres:

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Copyright © Kavita Kané 2014

This is a work of fiction. All situations, incidents, dialogue and characters, with the exception of some well-

known mythological and public figures mentioned in this novel, are products of the author’s imagination
and are not to be construed as real. They are not intended to depict actual events or people or to change the

entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of

the publisher.

First impression 2014

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Typeset by SÜRYA, New Delhi Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, Faridabad.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired

out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other

than that in which it is published.

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... I Love you Rachu ...

Dear Frnds pls spread this msg until its reach to my rachu
I thinks see knows my name
Book Downloaded from: EBOOK4IN.BLOGSPOT.COM

To Kimaya and Amiya, who taught me that the daughter

is the mother of invention

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE: THE FOUR SISTERS
THE TWO PRINCES
THE SWAYAMVAR
THE LOVERS
THE REJECTION
THE FOUR WEDDINGS
THE CITY OF AYODHYA
THE SISTERS
THE CROWN PRINCE
THE EXILE
THE FAREWELL
THE DESPAIR
THE INTRIGUE
THE MOURNING
THE MEETING
THE SEPARATION
THE RIVALRY
THE WAITING
THE ABDUCTION
THE WAR
THE RETURN
EPILOGUE: THE LOSS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE: THE FOUR SISTERS

‘That girl seems to have vanished into thin air! Where is she?’ Urmila could not
contain the exasperation in her voice. Where was Sita? They were playing hide-
and-seek and like always, the fun had dissipated from the game and it had
become a mission to locate her elder sister. Her hideouts were as self-effacing as
she was; Sita could come up with the most unexpected hideaways which took
hours to track down.

Urmila found herself getting irritated; she was tired, her feet were hurting

from running down the marbled corridors, climbing the pillared staircases and,
the most trying of it all, searching for the hidden girl in the vast woodland that
her father proudly called the ‘family’s garden’. It was a private forest. King
Seeradhwaj Janak, her father—the pronunciation of which name was easy for
Urmila as she was used to reciting Vedic verses every day—might be one of the
most prosperous kings and a respected scholar, but the environs he loved most
were the expansive tree-studded greens that housed a million flowers, the little
girl thought part sourly, part affectionately. It was her favourite haven too—one
in which she could duck easily and remain untraced for hours together. Like Sita
was doing right now…

Urmila’s aching feet reminded her that she was digressing and she had still

not found her hiding sister. She was not going to accept defeat—Urmila’s tiny,
stubborn chin rose belligerently. If she could mine out her cousins Mandavi and
Shrutakirti (condensed to Kirti by her as she found the name a tongue-twister)

from their respective hideouts—a tall-trunked, high-branched tree and a chest—
she snorted derisively, she should be able to track down Sita too. But Kirti was
just seven, two full years younger to Urmila’s wise nine, and Mandavi was the
same age as she and they had been easy to uncover from their hiding posts. Sita,
however, was a year older, and that’s why she managed to select the most
fetching places to hide, Urmila seethed. Behind the rising annoyance, however,
was a tremor of worry that was shaking Urmila from her feigned anger. Where
was her sister? Sita might be a little timid, but she was very strong in the face of
mishaps and crises. Had she fallen? Had she hurt herself but was stifling the cry
of pain lest her hiding hole was discovered? Had she fallen unconscious? Was
she bleeding? Where was Sita?

‘You worry too much about her, Urmi, nothing has happened to her!’

Mandavi’s sharp voice cut short her perturbing thoughts. As always, Mandavi
had astutely voiced her inmost fears. ‘Come, quick, let’s go to that hall upstairs
—that’s the only place we haven’t checked.’

‘But we are not allowed to go there…,’ lisped Kirti, her big eyes widening.
‘Yes, and Sita being such an obedient girl would not break the rule. Why

would she hide there when we have been forbidden to go to that wing of the
palace?’ Urmila said uneasily knowing she would not hesitate to break any such
rule. For Sita, she was ready to earn her father’s wrath.

‘I want to go to father! Let’s tell him we have lost Sita…’ Kirti was going to

burst into tears any moment now.

‘Cry baby!’ Mandavi laughed scornfully.
‘No, dear, there’s nothing to be scared of,’ Urmila bent down and gathered

her little sister close, giving Mandavi a quelling look. She could hear her
youngest cousin’s heart thudding noisily, her slight body trembling against hers.
‘Why don’t you go to Ma and tell her we are here? And bring along uncle too…’

‘Urmi, we’ll get into trouble…’ Mandavi said warningly.
‘We are already in deep trouble,’ Urmila retorted, her voice hardening, the

fear spiralling fast to engulf her.

She saw Kirti scrambling away as fast as her short, plump legs permitted her.
‘Let’s go find Sita,’ said Urmila, taking Mandavi’s hand.
The two small girls ran up the high steps of the wide, curving stairway in a

hurried rush to locate their missing sister. They had to find her soon, Urmila
thought furiously, as she peeped into each room and found it dismayingly empty.

‘She’s not here in this room too…!’ Mandavi looked shaken, her face white.

Urmila could hear the tears in her voice.

They came to a huge, carved door. It was the door to the room the girls had

been warned never to enter: the sacred hall. It was shut, but not locked. The girls

stood looking at each other, undecided and wavering. Would Sita be inside? That
thought propelled Urmila to push at the door. It did not budge. She pushed it
harder, with all her hope, might and urgency. Mandavi pressed on with her slight
shoulders. They felt the door move and slowly swing open. The girls rushed in,
their eager, scared eyes scanning the long, pillared hall.

‘She can’t be here! How could she have got inside if both of us together

couldn’t open that door?’ Mandavi whispered urgently. ‘Let’s leave fast…before
we are caught!’

‘No!’ Urmila’s hand snaked out swiftly to catch hold of Mandavi’s wrist.

‘We have tried every room, every nook, every corner…she must be here. Sita
has to be here!’ Urmila said chokingly, the tears welling up in her eyes and
throat. ‘Sita! Sitaa!’ She screamed, her voice hoarse with despair. ‘Come out…
please! Where are you?’

Her voice echoed distantly bouncing off the high domed ceiling. Her eyes

barely noticed that the hall was extraordinarily long, lined with a row of carved
chairs on either side, along the column of pillars. Urmila was staring far ahead.
At the far end of the room was a throne, perched high over a long flight of steps.
At the end of the steps and just in front of the throne was a lowlying long table
on which was a huge iron box and peering into it was…Sita!

‘Sita!’ Joy and sheer relief gurgled out as a squeal from Urmila’s throat. She

ran towards her sister, wanting to hug her fiercely. But she stopped. The sight
before her was too much to behold. Were it not for the solemnity of the
occasion, Urmila would have laughed aloud; it seemed that ludicrous. Sita was
holding an enormous bow in her hand—it was gigantic, considering Sita’s elfin
frame, towering high above her. But she was holding it effortlessly in one hand;
peeking inside the massive casket in which the bow must have been previously
placed. She was obviously searching for something.

‘I can’t find my play ball,’ cried Sita, looking distressed. ‘It must have fallen

in here when I climbed into this box to hide. Oh there! I found it!’ She almost
swooped on the ball, which lay in the inner niche of the armoury box, the huge
bow in her small hand swaying dangerously.

‘Be careful,’ Urmila shouted instinctively.
As an answer, Sita carefully placed the tall bow back into the confines of the

strong box with one hand and, skilfully scooped out the ball with the other.
Noticing that the table—which was actually an elongated cart—was slightly
askew, the meticulous girl that she was, Sita promptly straightened it with a
nudge of her knees.

‘How did you do that?’ blurted Mandavi, her eyes shining in wonderment. ‘It

looks sooooo heavy…it must weigh a tonne!’ She was gazing at Sita with

newfound awe.

Sita shrugged lightly and said, ‘Let’s go…we are getting late. Ma will get

worried!’

Suddenly realizing the reason of their presence in the hall, the series of

events came rushing back to Urmila and flooded her with trepidation. She was
about to retort tartly when her angry words were silenced by the sight of her
parents and her uncle at the bottom of the steps. Her heart sank—now for the
collective reprimands, she thought in dismay. But the harsh words were not
uttered. Instead, all three adults seemed thunderstruck, carrying the same frozen
expression on their faces which Mandavi had had a few moments ago. That of
sheer awe.

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.

THE TWO PRINCES

‘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