Seeta and Urmila

Seeta’s birth, it was believed, was ordained like that of Rama by divine will. Once, while Janaka was tilling the field (as was the custom that the king should himself till the field where the yajnya is to be performed) the plough was dangerously close to a trench dug in the soil: a little thrust by the hand of the tiller and the infant lying embedded in the dug up soil would have lost its life. Janaka stopped in the track and thanked the providence as he bent to pick up the infant. It was a girl, covered in a blanket and sleeping in the dug up earth as if in the lap of her mother. Janaka looked at her serene face as she opened her eyes. Her beady eyes shone from her face which was smeared by mud. She was hardly a month old. But there was a steady look in her eyes. She responded eagerly to the human touch and started crying. Janaka held her close to his heart and looked up at the sky. Clouds had massed up with portents of rain. Janaka quickly wrapped up the little one in the shawl which he wore around his shoulders.

That was how Seeta came to belong to Janaka and came to be called Janaki: the daughter of Janaka, though to Janaka, she was Seeta, that is one who belonged to the ploughed earth. The Queen who was childless till then, conceived after Seeta’s arrival. Urmila was born nine months after Seeta.

Seeta bore none of the characteristics of the royal family. She was neither fair nor dark; she was sturdy and strong, mercurial by temper, sometimes boisterous and headstrong, and sometimes like the dark, silent backwaters of a river. Janaka watched over his two daughters from afar, never interfering as they grew up from childhood to adolescence.

Seeta’s childhood must have been lonely. Everyone knew that she was not a princess by birth. Janaka guarded her with a stern eye and his protective love shielded her from all possible harm. Gradually the fact of her birth acquired a mystic aura. That Seeta was born to Mother earth was more than a belief; it became a sacred faith.

Urmila, a princess by birth, had no such aura of mystery. Inward and shy, she always retreated and let Seeta occupy her parents’ attention. Janaka did not have another child after Urmila. But he did not trouble himself over the absence of a male heir to the kingdom. However, in the interest of the state, he had to think ahead. A king who had no son could treat his daughter as the heir. The eldest daughter in such cases used to be called a Putrika, one who took the place of the son; a Putra.

The sacred of bow of Shiva which had become an heirloom in the royal family was more than an antique. It had a strategic importance since Janaka had challenged Seeta’s suitors to lift and string it with an arrow, if they aspired to marry Seeta. Many of them came and shrank back. Some tried and failed, and some merely watched from the periphery. They knew that Seeta was no ordinary woman and marrying her entailed a heavy political responsibility. Besides, Janaka was growing old. They had already formed alliances and secretly opened a front against him and were waiting for a chance to attack. Gradually the number of Janaka’s secret enemies increased and there was none who came forward to marry Seeta.

Seeta’s hopes withered and so did those of Urmila, because Janaka always thought of Seeta before Urmila.

And suddenly one day while the sacrifice was on under the preceptorship of Shatananda, Vishvamitra arrived with the two princes from Ayodhya and Seeta’s fortune changed overnight.

In those remote inaccessible days of the ancient chronicle Ramayana, there were many things we cannot understand today. Women in those days adorned their bodies, heads and feet. But the testimony of their charm had to be found in the eyes of the beholder. We don’t know whether there were mirrors in the days of Ramayana. Beauty truly resided in the eye of the beholder and the woman trusted the beholder’s eye. Women saw their bodies but not their faces. They knew their body and its language intimately because they were told to listen to it, understand it and trust it.

As Seeta grew up, she eagerly absorbed the intimate subtle language of the body. She eagerly waited,  to be claimed and worshiped because she treasured her youthful, virgin body. Urmila often wondered why Seeta spent hours, bathing her body ritualistically, then anointing it with fragrant oils and then draping herself neatly in silks. Urmila devoted longer hours to music and painting. Though she was a connoisseur of colors and hues, she was not very particular about the colors of her drapes. Seeta’s favorite were musk and golden yellow because she thought they gave her a majestic dignity. Her ruddy cheeks glowed with the color of youth and her zest for life. Urmila had heard about the sacred bow of Shiva , but had no curiosity about it. Seeta had often tried to experiment with it and ended up in bruising her knees and elbows. Somehow, this ancient object  fascinated her greatly. In the course of time, as she understood what role it was destined to play in her life it acquired an awesome sanctity for her.