Ramayana
Chapter 32
Kaikeyi : Beyond
Numbness and Pain
Time was passing by relentlessly.
Kaikeyi wanted to sleep through it all. She was trained by her warrior father
to rise up to every challenge without meditating too long. Political realities
did not brook philosophical languor. But in spite of it all Kaikeyi felt her
energy ebbing out. It was as if her life was poised for a final reckoning. The
burden was killing her. She saw her life unfolding before her in many colours,
not all of which was palatable even to the most stoic part of her own self. What
did she want out of life? She was never able to define it to herself. She had
arrived in Ayodhya among people who were not ready to accept her and there was
least chance that they would ever accept her; not after what her fate called
upon her to do now. She had lived with her loneliness all along, never being
able to share it with any one. Her sultry pride had kept her apart from others.
As a young wife and mother she was prepossessed by ambition and the anxiety and the insecurity which come in the wake of ambition. She was jealously busy guarding
the interests of Bharat against the conspicuous inclination of everyone in the
palace in favour of Rama in every respect. Yet the bonding among all the brothers was
beyond her understanding. She regarded it with awe, if not with reverence. But
as time went by she realized that Rama had grown up to be a young man capable
of reaching the heart of every living being. Very often she craved to be close
to him when her despondency overpowered her. But the overriding memories of
guilt in the ways she had dealt with him in his childhood, the many instances
when she had caused inordinate pain to that innocent, vulnerable child, came
back in a rush and built a wall of resistance between her and Rama. There was a
stunning irony in the fate of both. A time was near at hand when Rama was going
to fulfill the long-cherished hopes of all. This could also be the time for
redemption for Kaikeyi, and how eagerly she had looked forward to that time and
live thereafter with her mind and heart cleansed of all guilt. Whatever action
she was required to take was going to alienate her from all. All along she had lived
like an alien and henceforth she saw a doomed life of an accursed, malignant
outcast.
Kaikeyi did not want to think.
The knowledge of the secret responsibility weighed her down. She did not want
to be inducted into the march of the events as a force that was seemingly instrumental
but yet inscrutable because she did not have the space inside which she could
open her heart to anyone. The suffocation was unbearable. She could scarcely
breathe.
If she failed in her duty to
stand by the promise she had made to Indra, the consequences were going to
affect the very survival of a culture and a civilization. If Rama lived to rule
Ayodhya, he would never have an insight into the requirement of the evolving
conditions of what was happening in the world outside Ayodhya. But all these
thoughts were forming amorphously in her mind at the time. Indra did not want
her to think for herself. She was supposed to act, not think, and her actions
were supposed to follow only the unsceptical promise she had made to Indra whose
vision was far-reaching, beyond the human understanding.
