She was beautiful. He was handsome. They met in college and it was love at first sight. They decided to get married. But she was poor; daughter of a nobody. He was a prince with a crown and a palace and with a heritage of royal Rajasthan behind him. There was bound to be trouble. The queen did not approve of his son’s choice. But the prince was adamant he would go to any length to get married to his love. The queen finally consented. And they got married. It was 25 years ago.
Are you laughing? Yes I know there were no Kingdoms in India 25 years ago. But he lived like a prince. And who would have told the haughty lady that she was not a queen anymore? She ruled her house with more stateliness than her ancestors had ruled Rajasthan. And the village where they lived still considered her the Queen. But we are digressing.
Lets call them Roopamati and Kunwar Singh for sake of anonymity. Roopamati and Kunwar Singh got married. Soon Roopamati was expecting, everybody talked about heir to the throne would be born. When she went into labour the whole village held their breath. The instruments of celebrations were cleaned, ready to explode. The whole village stopped as generally seen during the last overs of world cup finals.
It was late in the night when the door opened, the nurse was smiling holding a baby ‘It’s a girl!’. There was a collective sigh of disappointment. The queen turned around and locked herself in the bedroom. The prince prepared for himself a peg of whiskey and went swimming for an hour in the backyard, the usual activity before sleeping. And so that night, nobody held me, nobody hugged me, except Roopamati, my mother. Nobody congratulated my mother, nobody even smiled at her. Unfortunately I was too young for that.
It was obvious, the prince needed an heir and that a girl could not be an heir, so Roopamati had to try again for producing an heir. And Roopamati tried, like an obedient daughter-in-law. I must be 4-5 years old then. 3 months later Roopamati fell violently ill. She was taken to a hospital in town; the pregnancy had to be terminated. And she was told she could not become pregnant again. She was discharged 15 days later, doctors had brought her back from brink of death.
When Roopamati returned, the whole environment had changed, it had become hostile. Everybody knew that she could not give the Prince an heir. She was ignored by everyone, from the prince, the queen to the lowest of the servant in the household. The queen was furious when she was told that her daughter-in-law could not have any more children, she needed a grand-son for continuing the lineage. The queen came to a conclusion and the royal writ was dispatched. Roopamati should do every pooja, every vrat, every upwaas have a son. And everybody should co-operate with daughter-in-law with the fast as long as it was sanctioned by the Royal Pandit, anybody violating it would be held responsible under pain of death. Although this was an empty threat, everybody followed.
Roopamati regained her strength, temporarily. And before she could recover completely, she was forced to follow a strict regiment to please the gods. She had no choice but to follow the orders. The only person who could help her, her husband, had withdrawn himself in a cocoon and refused to even talk to her. And the intention was clear, the fruit was distinctly unambiguous. They wanted an heir, she had to bear a son. But for all her hard effort to please the Gods, miracle evaded Roopamati and she weakened by every passing day. The dream of having a normal life faded.
It had become a fight between her spirit and her body. The body was getting weaker every day due to her effort to please the gods by sacrificing food. The spirit was strong and wanted life. Some days the spirit won, and she was almost cheerful. Other days the body won, and she was bed ridden. Finally the body won and gave up.
I was a silent spectator of all this, a helpless child. I watched her as she collapsed while doing rounds of Tulsi in the morning. I watched as she was carried into the bedroom and when nobody cared to call for a doctor. I watched her being confined to her bed due to weakness. I watched as her hunger died along with willingness to live. I watched and I cried. I was 10 when my mother was announced dead. Her spirit had died long ago.
After my mother’s death, the queen took on herself to mould me into something I was not. She frowned when I ate fast, it was not in accordance to another important feminine trait of Grace. She frowned when I refused to learn cooking, to learn stitching or singing. I had to learn all these things, if I had to become a good wife. She expected unquestioned obedience, I was free willed. And life became endless lessons, endless unpleasant lessons.
The library room in the palace was huge,and as it turned out, rarely used. I started hiding there from grandmother and her lessons. I also started reading. That’s when I learnt about Christopher Columbus and his journey to America, about Raja Harishchandra and his divine test, about Newton and his Theory of Gravity. But what fascinated me most was the land of animals and plants, of which I liked the snakes, the spiders, the scorpions the most. I would have considered it odd that a young girl like me was fascinated by poisonous creatures but I had nothing to compare with. I was a loner.
Soon after my mother’s death, father got married again. The second wife was a poor little soul who took on the task of producing the heir immediately and left me alone. One year later she produced an heir, and all the energy of the palace was spent around the Heir. I was left alone to the books.
That’s how I spent my next few years. I had no friends, I did go to school but talked to no one. I spent most of time in the library hiding. I was not unhappy. I was not ill treated. And I would have continued the life had it not for a servant who blabbered the plans of my father. According to him, I was old enough and he had plans for my marriage, negotiations were on through a middle man. I panicked. I did not want to end up like my mother. I wanted to control my own life. I hid in the library, I cried for a long time.
On that cool night, a young girl ran away from home. She had nothing but few hundred rupees stolen from her father’s wallet and an old diary which contained an address of an uncle whom she remembered having a kindly face. The address was that of Mumbai and the train which left the station at midnight also went to Mumbai.
It was a stupid thing to do, but I was lucky. I reached safely and the uncle with kindly face also had a kind heart and he supported me. My father searched the neighborhood and when nothing turned up, announced that I had could not handle the loss of my mother and had jumped to death. I am pretty sure he was relieved. After all he would had to give lots of dowry in my marriage to keep his status.
But that was 10 years ago. Lot of water has flown under the bridge and I have grown. I completed the schooling, went to college and now I am a researcher. The passion for venomous creatures which caught me in childhood has not receded, and I continue to work on the most poisonous species of the world. Our task is to extract the poison and find out about how it can be used other than to kill people. Some of them have fascinating applications, like anesthesia or anti-coagulant. The challenge lies not only in extracting the venom, but keeping it stable so that it can be injected at will. The work is fun, because I love what I do. But it can be dangerous too.
Few months ago, while I was working in the lab I fell down paralysed. A lab full of students with experience in handling poisonous insects soon realized that the symptom was that of being bitten by a rare Amazonian spider. I was working on exactly that species, so it was not a mystery how I got bitten. But they were perplexed none the less because I was nowhere near the glass box which kept the spiders. It takes only a few seconds for the paralysis to set in, once the spider has bitten. They panicked and although they knew that the effects reduce after 15 minutes, I was admitted me to hospital. I was fine by the time admission was done, but doctor kept me overnight under observation. I suspect the effects of spider bite were novelty for them too. I was a sort of a star that night.
But that stardom attracted an unwanted visitor. A person, who from the appearance appeared like a religious guru, stared at me endlessly. He was a middle aged person and from the number and quantity of visitors a fairly successful one. After lot of thought, he spoke to me:
‘You are daughter of Kunwar!’
I was cursing my luck. Of all the people in the world, the guy who knew my old identity should be in the hospital. He started narrating old stories and I realized that many royal families of Rajasthan were his followers. And as required by his profession, he kept all the information about each and every family. He knew that I had run away and that my father had declared me dead. He talked to me about my mother and the poor soul how much she had suffered. That was first time in 10 years that I was close to crying for my mother. He sensed my anger at my father, that I held him responsible for killing my mother and he talked about forgiveness. He talked me into meeting my father again. He convinced me that atleast I should try to understand his side of the story.
By the time I was discharged, this person had my phone number and my promise that I will forget the anger and meet my father. Not sure whether it was under the influential talk of Sadhuji Maharaj, but I wanted to meet my father. The spider bite appeared to have some divine intentions.
Sadhuji Maharaj went straight to my father’s house, and used his silver tongue and convinced him of meeting me. He knew for some time that I was alive and living in Mumbai, but had not taken any pains to meet me. But this time I was invited to stay in the palace. Sadhuji Maharaj had given a guarantee that I would not be harmed there. And so I went planning so that I need not stay for more than 36 hours.
I was welcomed warmly, more warmly by couple of old servants and less so by the family members. Lots of things had changed in the palace since the time I left. The queen was gone and my father was presiding over the palace. His wife was still a poor little soul who talked shyly even to the people who served her. Her only son had rebelled against his father and had moved out of the palace along with his wife and kid to a near by town trying to etch a living for himself. The father was trying his best by using his influence to make his son’s life miserable. He was hell bent on teaching his son a lesson for rebelling against him. A further digging revealed bits and pieces of the cause of son’s action. It was turn of my father to want a grandson and he had tried to pressurize his son and daughter in law. Thankfully the son, unlike his father, preferred to move out than let his wife suffer. I was sure this incident was just a last nail and my brother had more reasons to move out. But this went on to prove that my father had not changed a bit. My enthusiasm to meet my father waned.
When we met, me and father did nothing but stare at each other and then at the ground. Maharaj was a bit disappointed that we did not connect, but was somewhat relieved when I was invited for dinner at the hall the next day which was held as a farewell to Sadhuji who was going on foreign tour for 6 months.
The dinner was a grand affair befitting the royal lineage. There were number of guests with Sadhuji Maharaj being the chief guest. But he had made up his mind and was trying his best to get me and my father together. We spoke guardingly.
Later in the night, most people had left. Sadhuji Maharaj was talking to some of his disciples when he signaled all of them to leave which they did immediately, leaving only 3 of us. Maharaj made a small speech about how important Father-daughter relationship is and why he is happy that things are looking good between me and father. He concluded the speech when Maharaj hinted that he may have some good groom for me from suitable Khandan. He even had one in mind and spent the next 5 minutes praising the groom and his family. I was speechless but from my father’s expression I suspected he was privy to this information. I had always known that the Maharaj had ulterior motive but this was beyond my imagination. Our silence was awkward before it was interrupted when his disciple came to announce that the car for departure were ready. I made up an excuse that I need more time think and we could discuss further after Maharaj’s foreign tour.
Maharaj took it spiritedly. He thanked my father for the party, called his disciples and left in the car which was provided by my father. I had another hour before the train left. I bid good bye to my father and rest of the family and went to the room assigned to me in the palace. I collected my baggage, asked the servant to keep it in the car. I was following him when I took a wrong turn and reached the backyard instead of front door. There, my father was taking his pre-sleep swim alone.
When he saw me, he came to the edge of the swimming pool to talk to me. As I bent down to say good bye, he felt something prick his left arm. He instinctively retracted into deeper water, but the paralysis hit him at the very same moment.
Do you know what happens when a human being is paralyzed and in water? ‘Plop’ his body goes like a stone towards the water. No sound escapes the water, no thrashing. Silently the air gasps out of the lungs and all is over but not before a terrible pain when the spirit wants to struggle and live while body cannot. The same terrible pain as experienced by my mother.
I reached the front door, thanked the servant who had kept the luggage in the car and left. In the train I disposed off the syringe piece by piece on various bridges as the train chugged along.
My half-brother is the prince now. But there are lots of conspiracy theories on how the older prince died, some of them suspecting the wounded spirit of Roopamati. As for me, I don’t feel any interest in those poisonous creatures any longer. I am thinking of a career change.
