Kama: Liberation (Vol-I)

Chapter 3: Towards Ishgar

My princess returns home after sixteen years.

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Ishvara peeked out of her palanquin, watching the rays of the little red dwarf peering inside through the maroon curtains. The chilly, gelid morning of winter made the delicate princess quiver.

She hugged herself and wrapped the shawl. "How much more, Shitalaa?"

They were going to the capital of Aryavarta, named Ishgar.

"We haven't yet reached." Shitalaa looked dreamily at the valley being bathed in sunshine.

Ishvara felt a pang in her chest."It feels like a never-ending journey."

The sky pierced through the drape of red and bloomed into a sunflower yellow. Ishvara's bronzed hands were dipped in sunshine. The golden bangles shimmered. "Beautiful." Making them jingle, she laughed like a little girl. "Maybe if the morning is so pretty, the days following it shall be too."

Shitalaa smiled. The wrinkles on her forehead and the restlessness of her timorous stare said otherwise. The sound of pebbles being crushed under the hooves of the horses, the humming of the men carrying the palanquin and her own breathing– everything merged with the silence of the valley.

A tear rolled down Ishvara's left eye.

"Don't. You are going somewhere better and not worse," Shitalaa assured.

Ishvara wiped her tears. With puckered lips and flushed cheeks, she asked, "How are people going to tell my story?"

"Maybe as– Once upon a long time, a certain unloved princess began her journey to a new world." Shitalaa drew circles on her palms, relaxing the bride. "Said to be born of a veshya, she had bloomed into a beautiful woman, and now was a bride."

"That is sweet."

Shitalaa tucked a lock of Ishvara's umber hair behind her ears. "Like you."

In her mind, Ishvara imagined a fairytale.

She was to reach her new home. She wasn't sure if she even had any at present, though she was glad to be sheltered by a royal family.  "Will Gandhar miss me?"

Shitalaa's lips parted, but she refused to speak. 

"Maybe not." Ishvara concluded with a smile.

Gandhar was too cold and dry. The only love she ever got was from her maid turned friend, Shitalaa, and the late Queen Ambalika.

She had to endure the subtle pain of a rootless origin– without the name of a Father, a lineage to be boastful of, yet now she was being married to a man of respectful position.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Everyone knew what happened in such cases. Her marriage was more like a deal between the two kingdoms. The relationship between the Gandhar royal family and the Rajan of Aryavarta had been strained since the plague. Her arrival as a bride in the family of the Rajan would be marked as an attempt in strengthening the ties.

The plague– it horrified her. It was the cursed event which separated her life into before and after– the after that she now lived in, and the before whose figments only remained.

"What does a nameless being deserve?" Ishvara asked.

"You are a daughter of the Divine. Your powers speak for you."

"I don't think I had them earlier. They came after everything happened."

"Only you can know what you were once. I won't lie- I never knew you before. If someday you come across a person who harbours the secrets of your past then it will be of use."