The curse and sacrifice

The moment of my greatest tests are here again. Looking down at my newborn baby, his tiny body, so fragile yet perfect in my arms. He is mine, he is me, my flesh and blood, my eyes and ears. His smiles and my tears, both seem to flow down these waters without anyone noticing it. I don't have to kill him myself, the guards will do it anyway in another few hours when the sun raises. But I have never let them do that in these last seven years, I will not let it happen this time as well. This is the curse that I have to go through and the sufferings should be mine alone.

There was a time when I was really in deep love with Shantanu. What was there not to get attracted towards him. He was every girl's dream. He was my dream as well even though I knew I didn't deserve him. He should have married a princess, but he fell for me and my beauty. I wasn't me anymore as I lost myself completely in him.

The writings were already on the wall before we even got married. But I refused to believe in me, my old dreams. The simple dream of having a small family, a loving hard working husband and two handsome boys as my eyes. On our way to palace, the sage told our nineth son would be the most powerful and will rule the world, making his father proud. But that would only come with the price of sacrificing his brothers. Shantanu was moved by the curse, but looked determined to keep the boon. He never disobeyed the sage but I was sure our love would melt him when the day comes.

I held the tiny body close, as if I could protect him from the harsh world outside. I tried to memorise every feature of his face, to imprint it in my memory forever. I wanted to remember the way he smelled, the sound of his soft breathing, the feel of his warmth against my skin. This wasn't hard for me, I already remember every inch of his body. I have been doing this from last 8 years. It is the same innocent life, shiny eyes, tiny nose and long ears. Shantanu tried to console me the first time. We are not killing him, but we are lifting a curse as he will be reborn again in an year. I try to believe that as truth sometimes, but then those moments of struggle for life haunt me again , as I drop him in the water in few minutes. No matter what the world thinks, I know I am killing my own kids for the hunger of greater power.

The palace was filled with beautiful servant girls. But no one would match my beauty even without my queens attire. The first few months were truly the pinnacle of my life. I was living my wild dream with no boundaries. The troubles only started when I was into nine months of my first pregnancy. How wrong I was to think I would be able to convince Shantanu to keep my child through my love. He was consumed with power and blinded by his ambition. My love didn't have any chance against my powerful king and my husband refused to listen to my pleas.

The day when my first born saw the light of the world, I couldn't close my eyes for even a second. All the pain of bearing him for nine months and then then the final intense and overwhelming agony of bringing him out is going in vain. But I still had the bleak hope of my king changing his mind after seeing the beautiful face of our first born son, the true ruler of Hastinapur in the days to come. I didn't take out my eyes out of him, even though the terrible pain of child birth was making me sick. The news of newborn reached my husband as soon as the sun raised, and I started praying for my son to rise as well. Instead I saw the king in my room moments later, along with his guards. There was no love, no hope of bonding, no emotions in his face. He was as determined as before to wait for his powerful ninth son. He didn't even bother to look at the innocent face of our first born. The guards were ordered to take the child away for sacrifice.

It was the very same face that I am looking today. Even though it was eight years ago, I remember every bit of him. He was my long lived son, one with whom I spent the most amount of time, almost eight hours to be precise. He would have been eight years old today, studying in a gurukul. He would have been so happy to see his younger brothers in such tiny body, showing him how he was when he was born. They were similar, but not same, every one of them. Those images were imprinted in my memory forever. I wanted to remember the way they smelled, the sound of their soft breathing, the feel of their warmth against my skin, even though it was only for few hours.

When the guards came forward to take my child away, I refused to give him away, like any mother would do. But I knew my limits, I knew my place. I held my son firmly in my arms and stood up, even though the pain was still unbearable. I am not standing in-front of the same Shantanu that fell in deep love with me an year ago. Perhaps it was me who couldn't see the King in him that day as I also fell in deep love with him instantly. But I still wanted to plead for what I wanted within my limits.

That day looked the same, though I was near the river during the noon with sun above my head. The king was kind enough to let me sacrifice my offsprings than let the guards do it. And so I kissed his forehead, whispered a prayer for his soul, and forced myself to do what I had to do. It was a sacrifice that I would carry with me for the rest of my life, a burden that would never truly be lifted. I wanted to be drowned with that sorrow, burden and sins of crime. But in that moment, all I could do was love my child as fiercely as I could, even if it meant it would be only for few more seconds. I carried him tucked into my chest as we would never be separated from each other. I went on for some distance in the river, till the water came to my chest touching his feet. Then I let mother Ganga take him to her arms and walked backwards. With my tears flowing like a stream, mother Ganga raised above to take my beautiful firstborn and left me with nothing but dried up eyes. 

Shantanu was proud of what I have done, it appeared he loved me even more. But I could no longer tell what love really is. Every time we made love, the scenes of my son disappearing deep into mother Ganga's arms would muddy the pleasure with pain. It wasn't just my hands that was stained, but my mind was corrupted too. I pretended to love my king but I could never forgive him for separating my precious jewels from me. He loves me for my subjugation to his ambition of power, not because he genuinely loved the girl he fell for on the banks of mother Ganga for her sheer beauty.

I am here again on the banks of mother Ganga. The sun will raise in another hour. The pain of giving birth to my eighth son an hour ago is no longer paining. It is the separation that is hurting me deep again. I have done this on my own like a machine for last seven years. The tears dried up long long ago, I was nothing but a moving rock. As I look at his vivid eyes, I feel nothing but a sense of overwhelming sadness. He looks more perfect than all his brothers. His tiny fingers, little nose, the way his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, seem to be melting this rock.

I am the queen of most powerful king in the world. How can I be so powerless? Was it really a choice that had been forced upon me, a decision that I never wanted to make? Or I was also complicit in the plan for powerful kingdom through my ninth son and I wanted the glory without the burden of sacrifice. Were my circumstances really beyond my control, or I knew that I had choices but I wasn't brave enough to grab them. I never questioned myself but only blamed my king for all the pain for so long. But this innocent face is questioning my consciousness. I keep looking at him again and again. Deep down, I know that these memories are only for my comfort, only for my solace, in the dark days to come. 

As the sun raises clearing the sky, the clouds in my mind also started disappearing. My path and my choices were more clear to me. I can no longer carry this burden on my shoulders and blame others. This is bringing the comfort that I have been longing for all these years. As I see my son again, I remember more my first son who would have been 8 years today. So I gave one final kiss to his forehead, whispered a prayer for his soul, and forced myself back to do what I had to do. I could see Dasi watching what I am doing from some distance away. As I placed my newborn on the banks of Ganga, I started taking my steps backwards, back to the womb of mother Ganga. Every step I take backwards, I feel I am becoming lighter from my burdens. To cover seven sins of my past I took seven big steps backwards, and I am already in her comforting arms. I am no longer sinking with my burden of crimes, but floating with the relief of finally doing the right thing.

2023 recap

Another year passed by, as always, we celebrated yet again, as a ritual that should never be missed. It is indeed a ritual, as I never bothered to think of how the year was spent and how I want the new year to be. All that matters is how the last day of the year is being spent, making the most of the present. Now that I have seen 43 such occasions, I do see the value of these rituals. I don't intent to search for meanings in these rituals by trying to review how the year went by, though some times I wonder it isn't that boring either. The more you watch the netflix, the more you end up getting poor quality content.

By this time I have become so consistent in setting up my goals that I don't even have to think twice. The goals haven't changed for me for quite some time. It is so much easier when you are the only one to review how well you have done with your last year goals. And it becomes even more interesting when you have a philosophical mindset. If the year didn't go as well as you thought, you always have the perfect excuse like 'happiness is not measured by material success'. But there are few things in life where philosophy doesn't really help, like getting up at 6am in the morning, even though that always featured in my top 5 new year goals consistently so far.

You both successfully navigated the treacherous 11plus exams with flying colours. I wish I had taken the complete responsibility of it from the beginning. Your success was pretty evident for me, after all it is my own genetic material. But Ashwini always finds her ways to breed enough insecurities in mind mind, giving the very same reasons. When your job is finding fault in what others develop, you become so good at it. So I lose again and share the responsibilities and credits equally. It is still a big win as in reality I am pretty convinced our efforts had no influence on the outcome. Anirudh made it through comfortably and satisfactorily, but he was very consistent from the beginning in not showing any additional improvements. The additional military drills were mainly to quench our thirst only. On the other hand, soft skinned Arjun showed unbelievable improvement towards the end, but it was way over what we needed. So the overall impact on the end result was really nill. But as parents we did wonderfully well to get our medals. While it was an immensely proud moment, our medals did come with a hefty price tag of moving the home, which is normally considered as a daunting task.

I was told humans naturally tend to worry about things more often than not due to evolutionary reasons. But for some reason I have less evolved skin(it is certainly only skin) that is pretty thick and insensitive to most kind of pains. I consider the reasons to be more philosophical. It is futile to worry about things that you can't control, so being slightly lazier is a feature of highly talented people and not necessarily a defect. But when you have to wake up  at 6:00am to drive your kids 50 miles to their school everyday, I reluctantly agree it was a bit of poor planning. And it becomes a clear mistake when M25 comes on the way where you end up spending two hours atleast while going back.

But on the positive side, these are different experiences that keeps you alive. What is a Life which is monotonous with the same routine every day. These whinings add some color to it. When we initially thought of selling the house, we didn't had huge expectations. But then came the greed, sold nicely by a cunning estate agent, paid with our rational thinking. It is fine to do mistakes, but it is not wise to repeat the same mistakes again. So we ended up accepting an offer that is way below the initial estimate, yet it didn't feel like a bad decision, because we made that decision. The value of house differs from buyer to buyer and it is purely determined by their circumstances. We bought this house mainly for the convenience of school access. Our buyers changed their mind in the last minute because they badly needed another bedroom in the ground floor. I don't think we would have done any better overall if we started with more realistic offer from the beginning. Often we think too much trying to be perfectionists while in reality they hardly matter, like your 11 plus preparations. Yet, we can't and we shouldn't escape those rituals as they provide the comfort of doing our best in whatever we do.

It was also a great experience waking up at 6am every morning. I almost felt I would continue throughout my life as if I was actually missing something in life all these years. It is really hard till you wake up, but once you are up, you feel the real warmth of early morning, even in cold winter. Those are divine experiences for people like me who never getup before 8am. But my experience has taught me that anything that is overly used will become a routine, losing its preciousness. That is the only reason why I went back to my old routine reunctantly, to preserve those divine moments. In fact I even stopped putting that as a new year goal from this year. 

It also provided a great opportunity for our friends to help me by providing food and a place to work during your school hours. In this busy life, people are uncomfortable taking help from others, thinking it will be an inconvenience to others. I know that is outrightly wrong and I have almost convinced Ashwini on this. I love helping others, atleast majority of the people, that I get along very well. I genuinely think it builds stronger 💪 bond between people. It is certainly not about testing true friendships. Trust must always come implicitly. It just multiplies when you provide these opportunities for people to help.

You also achieved another great feat last year. Arjun ended up playing for the U-11 nationals in the table tennis. Being 9th rank with such poor technique is no small achievement. It shows hardwork always wins over skills. Despite being priced heavily for the great techniques, Anirudh couldn't make it. It was no different from 11 plus exams really. Though the training sessions were bit more fun than repeated mock exams, it is the same rituals. If you want to achieve something big, you do need to sacrifice your happiness. Or find a way to enjoy those rigorous drills with a firm focus on the end result. Is that really worth it? You will only know when you have achieved something you have always longed for. 

Not everything was great last year, but that is the life. I lost my chikkappa, the last one to demise from father's siblings. He was the pillar of our big family and much of the credits of our well-being really goes to him. He was also one of the few I loved and admired greatly. We visited him a month before his death and there was completeness, satisfaction in his eyes. His death was painless, something he was really wishing for. But none of them really matters, death is indeed death. Two years back when we lost Manu, I never thought life can be normal again. It is really not normal in many ways. But we need to be like water 🌊, flowing fluently, observing closely, feeling everything, yet not getting stopped by anything.

I finally finished the year by completing one book, Siddhartha. A beautiful philosophical story about an intellect who tries to find meaning in life. I am really happy for him to discover what I had discovered already 😁 It's a real shame that I don't have a very good memory, so I will have to read that again and again.