SITA’S SISTER Read Online Free PDF

while she prepared for her sister’s grand wedding. But the presence of the intruding prince was mercifully distracting.

    For five successive days, it happened the way Kirti had shrewdly envisioned—they kept meeting the two princes at the garden each morning. But conversation expanded into nothingness, filled instead with the customary silent greeting and cursory smiles; and evocative looks. Each time Ram smiled, Sita bowed her head to hide the rising colour. Was it bashfulness, discomfiture or plain guilt of the secret love she harboured for this man?
    Urmila was feeling similarly wretched. She tried to hide the awkwardness by bowing her head lower in courtesy but each time, she hated herself for trying to steal a furtive glance at the younger brother. And each time, she found his hard eyes on her, his open, unblinking gaze, washing her in a flood of mixed emotions. Urmila was proud of the fact that she was not shy but she found her nerves suddenly failing her and the intended words freezing in her mouth. She felt her throat and mouth go dry and her tongue instinctively moving sensuously on the parched lips. What was she doing, she thought desperately, watching his expressions change. Her face flaming, she moved away, turning her face from him and from a new, overpowering reality she was finding difficult to assimilate.
    She felt a reassuring grip on her upper arm. She turned to meet Mandavi’s steady gaze. She knew.
    ‘Isn’t Prince Ram wonderful? He is so kind and courteous!’ gushed one of the maids.
    ‘Yes, but why does the younger prince frown constantly? He seems to be always angry and scowling,’ giggled another.
    Mandavi’s stern look silenced their chatter immediately and forbade further talk. Urmila could feel his eyes boring into her retreating figure and she felt a frenzied urge to turn around and look at him. But she did not. She found herself waiting for the next morning to see him again.

THE SWAYAMVAR

    Urmila’s words seemed to have worked their magic on Sita; she looked neither impassive nor morose, the twin emotions that had been afflicting the bride-to-be the previous week. She was her expected composed, collected self, wearing a bright smile.
    She was sitting down, her slim hands resting on her lap, her eyebrows slightly raised in expectation, her self-assured smile in place. She tugged at Urmila’s hand and whispered, ‘Urmi, as you always do, you promised me a new hope.’ And her eyes, discreetly through her long lashes, travelled to where Ram was sitting in the huge raj sabha where the swayamvar was being organized.
    The hall was exactly the same as Urmila remembered it. Long and stretched as she had found it when she had dared to enter the forbidden place so many years ago. Urmila hadn’t had the courage to step inside it ever again. Even now, through adult eyes, the hall appeared vast and overwhelming. The long rows of high columns, the high domed ceiling from which dropped down a most exquisite, huge chandelier flickering the side walls with strange shadows, even as the late morning light entered the room through a series of long windows in the aisles. And in the middle of the long hall, was the Shiv dhanush—worshipped by her father—the divine bow of Lord Shiv given by Sage Parshuram to one of her father’s ancestors to look after while the famous rishi performed his penance. Rishi Parshuram was known to be very fond of the Rudra bow as it was presented by Lord Shiv himself to the rishi for his penance and devotion. Keeping this in mind, Urmila’s ancestor and many after him had vigilantly kept the bow in safe-keeping for many decades. That bow remained locked in a strong iron casket in a latched armoury room where no one was allowed to enter—a rule that Sita and she had dared to break once and had never been able to forget their reckless temerity ever since. It was eight and a half feet long and had to be carried on an eight-wheeled carriage and dragged like a temple chariot