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She had seen worse -- human beings who could bite without even the warning of a bark. She touched where her nose once was, and smiled.
‘Girl,’ the mother said without lifting her head. ‘The bitch won’t allow me to kill it,’ growled the drunken Chandala. Meenakshi waited for the woman to respond, but she continued to fan the fire. It was as if she had heard her husband’s curse a hundred times before.
‘That is why my mother named me Meenakshi, though I am better known as Soorpanakha,’ she said and waited for the Chandali’s response.
she was dark and ugly which meant the same thing for them. The wandering minstrels sang – how her large breasts sagged like ripe water melons. If not for the valiant who had cut off her ears, nose and breasts, she would have eaten up their Queen and evil would have spread across the world. The things men have to do to become gods, amused her no end.
‘Yet to be named,’ responded the Chandali. Her husband mumbled something in his drunken stupor. Meenakshi looked at him with pity. ‘How do you manage?’ ‘Like the majority of people in this perfect land,’ the Chandali said. ‘Starving?’ Both the women looked at each other and started laughing.
‘Poets are seldom wrong. They sing to the tune of money and to the rhythms of power.
‘I have nothing now, Meenakshi. My husband has forsaken me.’ ‘He never owned you in the first place for him to forsake you, Sita.’
‘The war was fought without a reason, Meenakshi. If he had to forsake me, why did he redeem me from Lanka? Why did he kill Ravana?’ She paused and then said, ‘Lakshmana shouldn’t have punished you thus. My husband shouldn’t have condoned it. Thinking back, sometimes I feel your brother was justified in kidnapping me.’
All wars are without reason, Sita. Men fight to satisfy their egos, to secure their property, or to simply grab what belongs to others.’
‘Can. . . .May I ask you for forgiveness? For whatever we did to you?’ ‘We? You are still taking responsibility for what your brother-in-law did to me? I have nothing against you, Sita. There is nothing to forgive. I loved and lost. My brother loved and lost. Losers do not inherit the earth. They are condemned to be evil.’
‘He shouldn’t have cut off. . . .’ ‘Men have done worse to women. What is one Meenakshi and her sagging breasts in the great order of things?’ Meenakshi laughed aloud. Lakshmana looked at her in disgust.
It’s not a sin to feel bitter. It’s a sin to feel like a victim. I am not a victim, Sita, neither are you. We all made our choices. We chose our men, we chose our destinies and we chose our lives. Some choices went wrong, but life always gives a second chance, in fact many chances.’
