SITA’S SISTER by Kavita Kane Read Free Book Online

high-ceilinged raj sabha broke into a happy pandemonium, a visibly ecstatic Sunaina brought out the pooja thali.
    Urmila knew her mother had been very worried for the past several weeks about Sita. She had forever had severe misgivings about the clause her husband had decided upon but she scarcely showed her growing scepticism to the girls. Was there such an exceptional man who would be able to string the intimidating Rudra bow and marry her exceptional daughter? She had got her answer at last. He was standing there in person, tall, fair and handsome. Ram, the prince of Ayodhya. Her worries had vanished and she meant to celebrate. She took the pooja thali from Urmila’s hand and smeared vermilion on Ram’s forehead.
    ‘God bless you,’ was all she could murmur through her glistening tears. Sunaina was not an emotional woman and the tears rushing out dispelled a disquietude that had wracked her all these long years. She had lived in the constant anxiety that Sita would be rejected because she was a foundling; that she would be spurned on social grounds. And that is why she had doubled her efforts to assimilate Sita into the royal fabric and had declared her as Janaki, the daughter of Janak, and Vaidehi, the princess of Videha. Urmila, like any jealous child, had initially been resentful of this favoured show of affection but her mother had taken her aside and explained the new reality to her. Sita was the adopted child, her elder sister and she was never to be allowed to feel socially or emotionally bereft. But she loved her as much and even more and she was never to forget that too. Urmila had been all of seven years of age when she had been so informed and from that day, she had bid goodbye to childhood and grown up suddenly to a wiser maturity. Sita was her sister, not her competitor.
    As Sita placed the garland over Ram’s handsome head, there was a thunderous disruption. Swivelling her head toward the sound of the sudden interruption, Urmila saw the figure of a tall, towering man, a rishi, silhouetted against the framed doorway. Even from a distance, Urmila could guess that he was angry…rather, incensed. As he walked purposefully towards her father, each stride echoed with a violent belligerence. He was very old but his straight back and powerful arms seemed to wipe out the years. He was fearsome in appearance, with long, matted locks, a bow on one shoulder and a gleaming axe in his other hand. And when he spoke, the high-domed room seemed to tremble.
    ‘Welcome back, Rishi Parshuram!’said Janak, folding his hands in deep veneration. This figure of livid wrath was Parshuram, Urmila’s heart sank in dismay, the immortal chiranjeevi rishi whom no one on this earth could defeat. He was that
Brahmakshatriya
—the first warrior Brahmin—who had received a parshu, an axe, as his weapon from Shiv as a boon, and from where he had got his famous, dreaded name. The man who had triggered a genocide on twenty-one generations of kshatriyas twenty-one times over to avenge his father, Jamadagni’s senseless murder by kshatriya Kartavirya Arjun.
    ‘Who dared break the Shiv dhanush?’ He growled, turning his glittering eyes toward Janak. The very sight of the mystic bow pitifully broken into two pieces seemed to fuel his fury further. ‘This bow was given to me by Lord Shiv and I had handed it to your forefather, Devrata, to be kept in safe custody,’ his said in his rasping voice. ‘But today I see it splintered and smashed into pieces…Who is the culprit, Janak? He will not escape my wrath!’
    ‘I am the culprit, sir,’ said Janak self-effacingly, trying to propitiate the angry rishi. ‘I decided to keep this sacred bow as a test of worthiness for the suitors of my daughter Sita who were asked to lift and string the bow. None were successful, not even the mighty Ravan. But this young prince of Ayodhya, Ram, did it!’
    ‘But why was the bow the object of contest? Did you not know it was hallowed?’ the rishi