T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
Cerebrate and Celebrate
Beautiful!!
ReplyDeletelovely!
ReplyDeleteMy instinct would have made me say 'lovely' but since someone already wrote that I'll say 'very pretty' instead ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou will make an excellent teacher of botany!
ReplyDeleteRE
Awesome and serene!
ReplyDeleteVery charming.
ReplyDeleteWoW! What a greenery! Kerala is so blessed..
ReplyDeleteWe in Kerala are blessed
ReplyDeletecolorfully green !! :) awesome photograph !!
ReplyDeleteLove this!
ReplyDeletebeautiful!
ReplyDeleteSo serene and beautiful !
ReplyDeleteI could kill to live in such a place.
ReplyDeletenice place to go for picnic...
ReplyDeletevery nice..:-)
ReplyDeleteThe many shades of mother nature ! beautiful path of greenery !
ReplyDeletenicee!
ReplyDelete