Short sketch – Revenge

The Goddess laughed. Her eyes were amused and grim with satisfaction. She gazed upon her nemesis. A strange aura emanated from her, an impenetrable white shield of an inner secret of power.

“Your quest for revenge upon me has destroyed you more completely than any revenge I could have chosen. I do not need to defeat you, demon. I am beyond your power. My bondage was my own choice, as is my freedom. You deluded yourself into thinking that you chained me, for you have chained nothing but yourself. I have always been free.

Your murky claws can reach me, but they cannot touch me. Your black soul cannot sully my aura. The sacred touch of Life has healed the scars of your attack, and lighted in me the all consuming fire of passion. I revel in Life; I revel in my Beauty, I revel in the power of my Being. I revel in the knowledge that my revenge is complete because you are now my slave. And you do not know.

You sought to bind a Goddess to you with mortal bonds. You succeeded only in chaining yourself to a Power you can never conquer. This is true Justice – that you must suffer what you sought to inflict upon me”

She laughed again and turned away. The demon watched her with red rimmed eyes, still believing that he held the chain. As she walked, the chain dragged him with her, but he could not hold her back. He who had thought to master was the one enslaved.

The mountains and the heavens echoed her laughter.

Poem — KALI*

You have misjudged me.

You have glimpsed only the depth of a woman’s love.
You have not fathomed the vehemence of her contempt
when that love is thwarted by a betrayal that shames infidelity.

You have felt only the intensity of a woman’s faith.
You have not comprehended the potency of her scorn
when that faith is shattered by the reality of a treachery more appalling than mere falsehood.

You have sensed only the warmth of a woman’s tenderness.
You have not known the eternal ice of her indifference
when that tenderness is subjected to mockery and requited by a sham, a pale reflection of her love.

You have known only the sweet passion of a woman’s innocence.
You have not been scorched by her soul set ablaze by a holocaust of pain,
when she has cremated all the dreams of her innocence.

You have interpreted a woman’s gentleness as her weakness,
her unwillingness to cause pain as her inability to defend herself.
You have not gauged the power of her endurance, or the strength of her conviction.

Be not so deceived.

A Goddess is born from the depths of a woman’s heart,
hallowed by the ardor of her love,
or baptized by the depth of her anguish:

A Fury with power to which man has no equal.

Challenge not that Goddess; test not her Wrath.
It shall consume you.
She has no mercy.

I shall not forgive.

*Kali–The Goddess of destruction in Indian Mythology.

Short Sketch–Homecoming

As soon as they heard my footsteps, my sisters rushed to where I stood. They stopped, a few feet away, as if unable to believe it. Then they rushed back to tell Mother that I had come…

And I closed my eyes.

Why had I stayed away so long?

This is where I have always found Peace. This is where I could close my eyes and breathe deeply… fully; free of the frantic pace of the rat race. This is where I could bask in the freedom of my soul, in an understanding that transcends explanation.

Why is it that I come here so rarely? Why do I stay away for months together, until some inexplicable force drags me here?

Because I cannot stand it. I cannot stand the realization that life is slipping away from my control. I cannot stand the Truth that this terrible sprint for survival and frenzied grabbing of material goals is not where I find contentment. I cannot stand the comprehension that in the quest to win, I was losing more than I could afford to.

I cannot stand the insight that pierces my blindness and shows me, so simply, what I really love.

I cannot stand the Happiness I find here.

I felt the caress of my Mother’s fingers through my hair, her soft kiss upon my forehead. I felt the salt of her tears upon my lips. I sensed her love and her reproach, her tenderness and her pain.

My tears mingled with hers as my defenses crumbled. I sat down for a minute, letting myself be, letting go of the heavy chains that I had tied myself to. I wondered why I never realized what a burden I always carried, until I set it down.

I wondered why I had to go back.

Why couldn’t I just give myself over to her gentle embrace? Why couldn’t I be as my sisters and cousins were, always bound together, yet always free?

But, even as I heard her song of welcome and my soul sang along with her, I knew it was not yet time. My chains still claimed me as their slave; I had yet to earn my freedom.

For a long while, I sat there, enveloped in a sense of tranquility. For a long while, I watched my sisters frolic and dance, beckoning me to their midst.

A long while I sat at the seashore, a Mermaid born with legs, a soul-child of the Sea, a sister of the waves and sea creatures, listening to their calls, swathed in a sense of belonging so deep, that to step away was soul-wrenching.

And then I walked back, the sea’s music still echoing in my soul, back to a world that claimed me as one of their own, and yet did not know me at all.