Whispers Of The Divine ❤︎
Golden, milky, soft radiance. Eyes like the universe, they named her Rukmini; made of gold. The king found her in a majestic lotus. She’s come from the azure oceans to rob a handsome cowherd from his sleep. Never has misfortune touched where her shadows fall. The pristine letter of love, she wrote in faith for there is nothing that equals her courage, her will. She has seen the self proclaimed emperor create pawns in her loved ones. A damned four armed thing covets her, is silenced by a strike of a discus. The gliding movements as she slips through the fingers of one and all, she’s time and timeless.
The wayward princess of the greens. The beasts bow to her commands, they are her playmates. You hear the daughter of Jambavan laugh in the way the winds whisper and the leaves rustle in a jungle. Their cries are an invitation for her to join them still, but the personification of victory is long lost in the viridescent peacock feathers. Jambavati refuses to bid adieu to her beloved, like that stubborn tendril fondling her blue water lily visage. He charms all, she bewitches him. And so when Jambavan had proposed her hand in marriage along with the curst gem, the flautist chose one and let the other go.
The earth-goddess. The curst gem's heiress. The warrior princess turned queen. The preserver knows her from when he was the boar god and she, every particle in existence. When Satyabhama walks her abode, the earth is an embrace. Her bosom. She fancies cradling her babies, abundant patience manifested. The soil up your arms and in your nails, these are her kisses. These fragrant flowers and leaves and misty grasses, this petrichor is her. The planets and the stars hum, everything galactic and beyond spins on her fingertips. Everytime you strut barefoot on shores, she sings to you in ghostly brontides.
Father’s darling, father’s mirror. Death’s twin, justice is her kin. The ferocity of the sun descended in a maiden of liberation. Yamuna rushes always, never having known rest. Dark, beautiful, beguiling Yamuna. You cannot deny her allure. She has bestowed her complexion upon sobbing rain clouds. The turbulent waves are only an inch of the fury she’s capable of, but you only ever find her frolicking her own banks to the tunes of a flute. ‘Krishne,’ Krishna says, for she is the same as he is. They wed, not having seen each other from when he was a boy, gone to Mathura. ‘Krishne,’ Krishna whispers, this time in a fading breath as the arrow lodged in his foot renders her blue too, blood spilling and heart aching, and the immortal goddess is compelled to spend an eternity without him.
And there’s Mitravinda, who is quite like Rukmini but isn’t, either. Mitravinda: one with many friends, yet her foes are her own brothers who seize away her autonomy. Her parents annulled, she must become her own saviour. Jarasandha strikes again, and the Avanti princess is cornered until she isn’t. A swish of air among men who know naught of Prajapati’s will, and Mitraa is on a lofty chariot with a Garuda banner, kings and princes duelling for her hand but she’s gone to where she belonged. Mitraa does not prefer the fiascos of foreign politics ever since, choosing to devote herself to the internal matters of her husband’s capital. Home is not where she was born, but the one she raised for her children.
There’s Nagnajiti, the princess of Kosala— the very land that had bloomed in the gentle caress of Mother Sita and had then ultimately compelled Rama to banish her— and yet her heart was tender enough for her to forgive them. ‘Without you, even the heavens aren’t appealing to me, Sitey,’ Rama had said, taking no other beloved; and so he had returned for her. ‘No more heavy titles for us,’ Krishna says, and he has a relief that Rama never did. His lotus-like eyes are hooded, sated in peace. ‘No more titles that demand such sacrifices. Only a home that is away from corrupt eyes.’
And Bhadra comes from the mountains, like Shiva’s Gauri does too. She has never known the kingmaker from too near, hounded as he is from every sinister force trying to pluck away his kingdom. ‘For the sake of your safety and that of Kaikeya too,’ her brother gently caresses her winsome cheeks. She is quite short, but never is made to feel so. ‘He shall love you, Bhadre.’ And then gone is Bhadra away from the hills that raised her, gravitating to the island which is one of its kind. ‘A calm home,’ Bhadra murmurs to herself when she finds herself at the grandiose gates of Dvaravati, her husband’s fingers intertwined in her own. And as he gives her a gentle squeeze, eyes twinkling, the Kaikeya princess knows that she is indeed loved.
Sulakshanaa is somewhat different than all of them, born and raised in a state that neither the Aryas consider their own nor quite like the Mlecchas either. Madra is home to varying norms and hence when Sulakshanaa suggests her own veeryashulka, it’s no wonder. She is a virago. ‘The one who shoots the fish without looking at it, only its reflection in a boiling bowl of oil underneath.’ Clever as its former princess, Maadri, whose speech was blessed by Saraswati, the auspiciously marked one smiles. Like Draupadi found Arjuna and how Sita and Rama were married, the bow is sacred again. The said ceremony fails unceremoniously, until a charming man comes forward and gazes into her eyes instead, shooting the elusive fish with an envious precision. He grins notoriously and she is pleased. And if either way the conditions are twisted, Sulakshanaa does not care, she has never been denied what she wants.
And so conclude specks of visions from their lives, the wives of Krishna.
Perpetually seated on a thousand petalled lotus, the deity of prosperity rains compassion, her benign eyes casting the image of tranquil seas. Little do they know, the nectar that churned out of the cosmic ocean is not what Vishnu as Mohini meted out to the gods, but the lady who festooned him in the very same hour.
