SITA’S SISTER Read Online Free PDF Page B

even if it had to be moved within the hall. Today it had been displayed in public and King Janak had declared that whoever could string this bow of Rudra would marry his elder daughter, Sita. The sight of the great dhanush still made Urmila wonder how Sita had managed to lift it using her tiny, ten-year-old wrist. The sight had been blinding and Urmila shivered at the memory.
    The image of her father bowing and looking up reverently at the little Sita flashed through her mind and Urmila felt a strange knot within her. Was Sita special? Or more specifically, did she have special powers? Urmila had not been able to clear this doubt which had bothered her all through her growing years and today, she was again faced with the same question. Her parents had resolutely considered Sita unique and extraordinary but Urmila had always assumed it was because Sita had been an adopted child and hence the shower of ceaseless attention and affection. But their love had always been deferential—it was almost close to worship. That is why Urmila was never jealous or angry; she simply felt awe at her parents’ veneration for her elder sister. Urmila found this distinctly odd coming from her parents who were in other ways the most intelligent, sensible beings, devoid of any superior airs or fatuous truculence, often associated with royal hauteur.
    Her father Seeradhwaj Janak was, besides being powerful, a hugely popular king and was affectionately called simply King Janak—the family name of the dynasty which had been ruling Videha for so many centuries from Mithila, the beautiful capital city. Urmila still found his popularity quite overwhelming and as a child she used to beam with a certain smugness when the crowds cheered and bowed their heads in collective homage wherever he went. But her parents had reigned in her pride by teaching her lessons in humility. Privileged did not mean special; just fortunate. And fortunes could change in a flash, they warned.
    Janak was a striking personality—tall, thin, aristocratic with a long, hooked nose and a neatly trimmed silver beard which showed his age truthfully. His face was creased, not with worry, but with light age lines marking years of wisdom. Janak was no ordinary king; he was a renowned rishi as well, the favourite pupil of the famous sage Yajñavalkya, the author of
Shukla Yajurveda
, as also Sage Ashtavakra, from whom he learnt about the soul and the true nature of the self. Janak was the royal sage, rajrishi, who was well-versed in the Vedas and shastras and as spiritually advanced as other rishis. He was a king who believed in the discipline of action and selfless philanthropic service to mankind. He never turned away from his responsibility of administrating the kingdom of Videha with kindness and humility. And today, while the yagna was still going on, Janak was hosting a different ceremony—the swayamvar of Sita, graced with the presence of the bravest and most famous kings of the country.
    Urmila looked at her sister more closely, trying to recognize the special powers within her. She was sitting with her arms folded, her head tilted to one side, as she often did. Not in her favoured light pastel shades today, she was instead attired in rich, deep yellow silks, adding a golden glaze to her etherealness. Unlike most princesses who looked lost and weighed down by the heavy, elaborate, glittering gem-studded jewels at their wedding, Sita, with her delicate gold-filigreed ornaments, was the very embodiment of earthy elegance. This was the swayamvar of the princess for whose hand kings, emperors and princes from within the country and even outside were competing against each other.
    Thinking of faraway lands, Urmila’s eyes sought out a tall, strapping, lumbering figure amongst the host of kings present in the hall. It was that of Ravan, the emperor of Lanka, whose presence had created a furore in the raj sabha. She spotted him soon enough, sitting close to her father. She wondered