In the dream, too, I lay in the forest, but now I was surrounded by women. They walked around me with soundless measured steps. They looked at me with wise and compassionate eyes, eyes that had known suffering. Some I recognized: Sunaina, Ahalya, Mandodari, Sarama, Kaikeyi. Some I guessed at: a monkey with a diadem on her head who must be Tara; a tribal woman holding a half-eaten fruit who must be Shabari. Why, even Surpanakha was among them, a rare calm veiling her mutilated face. Endure, they seemed to say. Endure as we do. Endure your challenges. The words resonated through me.
