RAMAYANA FOR CHILDREN--AYODHYAKANDA--CHAPTER 20, SECOND PART

        RAMAYANA FOR CHILDREN—AYODHYAKANDA—CHAPTER 20, SECOND PART.

Kausalya bitterly complained of her fate. “Darling!  Why were you born to me? Otherwise, such calamities might not have happened to you! A barren woman has no other sorrow than that of childlessness. Manifold misfortunes have befallen me. I have a son. But I have not him. I spent over him years of love and care. But everything has come unstuck. I counted upon your service in my old age. I fondly hoped that your hands would close my eyes gently at the time of my death. But I live to see you violently torn from me. The curse of childlessness has befallen me. It will dog my dying days. Alas! A barren wife has only her heart to grapple with! But my heart, mind, senses, body, are consumed by grief.

“To the world, I am the queen consort of Dasaratha. But I am devoid of the wealth, power and pomp. My husband’s heart is turned away from me. Your birth gave me a new lease of life. Your birth instilled fresh hope in my heart. I thought I would get back my power through his affection to you. That has been the main expectation of mine. Alas! Grief seems to be the only portion of the rest of my life. I am denied of the joy and comfort in marital life. I am being insulted by your father’s other wives. I have to endure the wanton indignities at their hands. They are co-wives and rivals for my husband’s love. The king’s fancy or whim has raised them to such a height. They have poisoned my husband’s heart. I have been shut from the light of his affection. They have kept their plan back till now. But hereafter they will be emboldened. They would thrust their insolence upon my face. They will cry in scorn and fury. ‘Get away! Don’t darken the presence of my lord’. This is how they will behave now. Or they may adopt a tone of ridicule. They will say, ‘Surely, a barren woman should not be the centre of feasts!’ Or, when the monarch visits me, they will drag him away. They will say to him, ‘what are you doing here? Your place is in my rooms!’ Their birth, status and talents are not superior to me. Fortune has been very cruel to me. Women do not survive such shocks. Before me stretches a whole eternity of grief! They are unparalleled and unutterable. Just imagine if they could do this in your presence, how would they behave when you are gone? Death, natural or violent, would be a boon for me! Every day finds my husband colder to me. I suffer like the waiting women of Kaikeyi. No, those women have a share of Kaikeyi’s favour!”