The Distressed Damsel

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. The entire jungle of the Eastern ghats reverberated with the sounds of cymbals, drums and bamboo pipes announcing the birth of the first royal child of the tribal kingdom of the Parja tribe . The kingdom which was hidden by the tall sal trees, and teak trees and bamboo groves, rejoiced as their king at last could father the heir of the parja dynasty. The long wait of two decades had come to an end.

Meanwhile the kingdom saw a dozen weddings and queens coming from different royal kingdoms as new brides, Young , beautiful women like the Mahua flowers, attractively intoxicating and the only purpose of all these weddings was to beget an heir.

The king, Lachman Parja was first married at the age of twenty. He had an athletic body, a good hunter, tall, dark and a fearless young man. He was the dream boy of every young woman to be her life partner. The young prince was so good with his bow and arrow that all he needed was the sound or smell of the prey and arrow would never miss the target.

During one of these hunting sojourns, he met his first queen Champa, the only daughter of a vassal king. She along with her friends was roaming in the forest to collect wild flowers for the oncoming festival to appease Lord Shiva to get a life partner after her heart.

“Zoom, swish” suddenly an arrow flew in the direction where the young women were collecting the wild ‘kundu’ flowers. Champa missed the arrow by inches. She was furious and shouted “ who’s there? Come out if you love your life!” She drew the kaatar( a small sharp knife) from the leather sheath dangling from her shapely waist.

Prince Lacham Parja was confident that he had hit the target but was not sure what it could be. His horse moved lazily towards the victim. For a moment the prince was taken aback to see so many beautiful damsels in the midst of the forest as if they descended from the heaven. Especially the woman in a dark red skirt, a transparent veil half concealing her face and half exposing her breast , with a dagger in her hand, she looked fearsomely attractive. The prince got down from the horse slowly as if not in a hurry.

“ Are you blind or mad? You hit your arrow anywhere you feel like and in the process kill any innocent person like king Dashrath of the Ramayana fame who killed Shravan kumar, the only son of a blind parents. Don’t be so arrogant”, shouted angry Champa  at the handsome prince. She leapt towards him like a wounded tigress with the knife clutched in her hand.

The prince dodged like a lightening. Meanwhile, one of the girls shrieked hard and everyone turned their attention and just a few inches away from the group, was a dead cheetah pierced by the royal arrow.

Champa was speechless but at the same time her eyes expressed gratitude to the handsome prince Lachman.

This was the beginning of the jungle love story. Champa and the

Prince spent all the time together. He taught her skills of archery and she taught him herbal medicine. The love affair culminated in an unforgettable Royal wedding.

The first few years of  the royal couple‘s married life passed in a wink. The coronation ceremony transformed Prince Lachman to a responsible king. But Champa, once a free jungle bird felt caged in the palace.

There was great expectation from the royal family to get the first heir. Ten years passed. Meanwhile the king was under pressure to get married again. Champa was helpless and so was the king. Societal pressure forced Champa to permit the king to get married again.

Man and man eater tiger have similar psychology. As long as tiger doesn’t taste human blood , he’s happy with whatever the jungle offers and shares the meat with his kin. But once he tastes human blood he takes all the risk to venture in man’s village just to taste the blood again. On the other hand ,Man as long as he has not tasted another forbidden fruit, he is all sincere and trust worthy. But once he gets to feel another soft body, either with permission or clandestinely , it doesn’t take him long to drift away. So was the case with king Lachman.

Initially half heartedly, he consented to marry the second time but soon under the garb of getting an heir, started adding a new wife to his harem.

Champa was just a mute spectator watching the many women who came into the life of her husband. She felt that each woman was snatching away the intimate moments she had with him all those years.

She often heard the stories from her grand mother in her folk lore style about the great king Dashrath of Ramayana fame and his four queens . He became father of four bright boys at the age of sixty five. But the eldest queen had to go through the pain of sharing her husband with all those strange women whom she was forced to accept with a put on false smile while escorting them to the royal bedroom.

Champa could imagine the pain of that queen since she was going through the dilemma. Slowly she sensed  the indifference of king Lachman, how their intimate relationship had become more formal, and the smiles more hollow. A dozen queens crept into the palace, gnawing king Lachman’s heart like white ants, eating away the emotional bond which he had with his first queen Champa.

Champa wondered why two married people in love, need a child created from their own flesh and blood ? Why can’t they adopt a child? Why should a woman always bear the stigma of being childless? If the man has the right to go for another woman then why does a woman not have the same right? But poor Champa never understood the world of men and the discrimination against women, who sacrifice physically, emotionally their entire lives to these ungrateful men.

King Lachman , along with his retinue left for his hunting adventure and this time he never even bothered to inform Champa. When the last of the horses left and the dust was settling down,then Champa knew that the king had left. Her ego didn’t let her ask the maids or other queens about the whereabouts of the king.

She dressed in a simple sari and wore a plain pearl necklace around her beautiful swan like neck. She walked out of the palace. The guards tried to follow her, but her stern looks froze them half way. Anyway who would like to lose his head displeasing the first queen.

She walked along the sal forest and reached her favourite ‘Dumari’(wild fig) tree. The red fruits grew on the trunk instead of the branches. In the tribal folk lore , it was considered as a potency tree. The roots when dried, powdered and drunk on a full moon night was sure to make a man more romantic. It was also believed that if a woman prayed around the tree trunk , that would make her married life more happy and secure.

Not that Champa hadn’t earlier tried this miracle tree but nothing happened. But she never gave up her hope. Today, she once again sat under the tree. When the heart is too full, either with love or rejection, it expresses with copious tears and now Champa allowed her tears to flow shamelessly with no witnesses around except the ‘Dumari’ tree.

She knew the inner secret of her married life but never disclosed to anyone. With her head bent low and sniffing and wiping her nose with her sari, she didn’t know what life expected from her. 

She stood up and tightly embraced the tree, with tears still flowing through her doe like eyes. Suddenly she felt the trunk parted and a masculine hand pulled her inside. There was this pitch darkness of a womb and all that she could feel was a masculine but intoxicating smell , a sensation of someone probing every sensual part of her body. She wanted to speak but no words came out and after a while she was totally lost in the heaven bliss. She lost sense of time. She closed her eyes tight and didn’t want this beautiful dream to end.

Meanwhile, the palace guards and maids started looking for the queen. It was more than a week since the queen went missing. The king hadn’t returned from his hunting adventure and the palace employees wanted to bring the queen back so as not to lose their lives.

One of the maids noticed a triangle piece of the queen’s sari jutting out of the trunk of the ‘Dumari tree’ . She called others. The guards saw the trunk which was split into two and the queen was standing but unconscious. She was taken to the palace late in the evening without anyone noticing her.

Her personal maid put her in the bed and changed her crumpled sari. The string of beads were gone. It was only after three days, queen Champa regained her consciousness but didn’t remember a single event of the past ten days. No one dared to ask her for fear of losing their job.

Five months passed, no information about the king. Meanwhile the palace was buzz with the news that queen Champa was pregnant. Other queens were jealous and some even raised their eyebrows. Overall everyone waited with bated breath for the first heir of Parja tribe to arrive.

The king arrived the following month along with his booty of one more young princess. The moment he got the news of Champa , he was so elated that he dumped the new queen and rushed to meet Champa. The next few months passed like a dream. The lost love came back to Champa . She floated in cloud nine. King Lachman realised how foolish he was to ignore his first love and run after all those dumb women. 

The much awaited day arrived. The plaintive song of the Koel, the orange flowers of the Palash, the new red and green leaves on every tree appeared as if welcoming the new guest, the baby boy , the heir of ‘Parja’ kingdom.

The entire forest seemed to rejoice with music. The new mother, restfully slept with a happy smile on her lips. A week passed in celebrations. The palace was getting ready for the baptism ceremony in the tribal tradition.

All the houses were plastered with red mud and decorated with tribal art made from rice paste. The palace was green with mango leaves and wild flowers. Queen Champa took special care to dress herself. The baby was taken care by the maids. The ceremony would begun in about an hour. All moved towards the main courtyard. Only Champa was in her room waiting for the priest‘s summons.

“Did I hear a knock”, suddenly she thought. She looked around, the door was ajar and the window was closed. Again she heard the knock. This time she was sure it was from the window. She opened the window and found a tall ascetic standing. She questioningly looked at him and before she could ask him, he sprang up the window and stood before her. 

She tried to open her mouth to raise an alarm, but he caught hold her shapely waist and pulled her towards him. 

He whispered “Hey Queen. Listen you know that your husband is impotent and the child doesn’t belong to him.Even he doesn’t know the fact since it was forbidden to be disclosed to him. The doctor who once tried to let the secret out, was mercilessly cut into pieces and the body was buried under the Dumari tree. You discovered about the king‘s weakness but pretended that he was a great lover. You were in love with him and didn’t want to lose him at any cost. The stupid King spoiled the life of woman after woman and none dared to speak the truth. The spirit in Dumari gave  you the pleasure which hundreds of kings could have never given you”, spoke the stranger in a strong voice.

Champa was both shocked and surprised. But she never showed. She simply asked the man in saffron robes “ what do you want from me now? Be quick all are waiting for me!”

The man gave a dry laugh. He looked at her cruelly and said “ Dear queen, the Dumari spirit wants you to cut your husband into pieces and throw him near the Dumari tree or leave everything , go back to Dumai to the one who is waiting for you. If not , I would be forced to tell the gathering the secret of the new heir.”

“ Don't be so over confident dear queen! I know what is going in your mind. You want proof? Right! . Here it is”.

Champa saw her favourite pearl string tied in a piece of her sari.

  “ I am waiting for your reply. Take your decision”, saying so the man in saffron robes disappeared.

Champa slowly moved towards the forest with the sounds of cymbals, drums and bamboo flutes slowly fading into the thick forest air. By then it was too late...