Stree shakti

Every time he sank low, she revived him with the strength of her eternal love.

She was pretty, petite and delicate. She was the granddaughter of a large and well to do family. Her’s was the time when horse drawn carriages lined up in front of the mammoth house to ferry her grand dad, a judge to the high court.

It was also the time that the now vintage brands of the jewelers of Bangalore would come up to the door step, wooing her grandmother to buy their jewellery, which she did of course, and when the diamonds found their place on the women of the house hold, they glittered and danced with radiating colours that further enhanced their beauty.

The garden in front of, and behind the large house was adorned with trees of guava, mango and jackfruit. The large posse of cousins played with blissful abandon, climbing and swinging on the branches of the trees, as they munched on the luscious fruits.

Our heroine had just turned 16 when a marriage proposal came by. She was fair, and he was dark, and when the coy and shy young girl was asked if she would marry him, she did not hesitate a moment to say ‘Yes.’

His was a middle class family with high values for rituals and religion, which at first left the young maiden who had up till now grown up in gay abandon, a little bewildered. Her knight in armor, her young better half was her pillar of strength, a shoulder to lean on during the times of highs and lows.

He would look after her with such gentleness, that she would often quote, ‘He looks after me with so much love and care, like one would see a string of jasmines, wanting it to last forever!’ Rightly so, for the fair and frail maiden had some physical ailment or the other tormenting her, and he would tell his children as they came by, that their mother needs to be looked after with love and care.

It was perhaps because of this that she passed through her ills and pains and she gracefully added on years. Her values for order, cleanliness and her personal charm did not fail to impress whoever she came by.

Her love for the six yard saree grew with her, and as she reached the ripe old age of 80, people often stopped by to say how good a saree looked on her! It flattered her of course, and her face lighted up with joy at such a compliment at such an age!

Her husband who was 10 years older than her had aged too and now become frailer than her. He was no more ready and handy to stand by and protect her as he had always done. ‘How would she cope?’ was the question on everybody’s lips.

What was seen in her was a transformation beyond belief. She seemed to get a tremendous amount of strength to not only care for him, she also insisted that she would cook the special food that her ailing husband now needed all on her own. She did it with so much care and love, that every time he sank low, she revived him with the sheer strength of her dedicated service and eternal love.

Her children sit back and think, ‘Where is all her strength coming from? Is this the same ‘stree shakti’ that she would often tell us about in her mythological stories; and to which we had listened to as children with wondrous eyes and rapt attention?