Tara’s Truce: FREE READ | Prologue
Prologue
THE TWO TARAS
Do I wear white for a widow or red for a bride? Tara heldthe soft red silk in her hand and let it slip through her stiff fingers. Was she a widow or a bride? The sorrow in her heart was crushing her. It was her wedding day today—just a week after her husband had been killed. And she was to wed the man who had been responsible for her husband’s death. She was to marry her husband’s brother. Sugriv. Vali’s brother. Vali’s killer.
As she sat on her bed in her palace chamber, she couldn’tbear looking at the jewellery that was laid out for her. The gems in the jewellery blinked at her, mocking her inability to chart the course of her own fate. Her face was pale. Her amber eyes were dry, already spent from mourning over the future that lay ahead and reminiscing about the life that had been.
How did it end up like this? Vali, she murmured, the man whom she had loved and lost but who was alive in her weeping mind. Clouded with memories, she breathed heavily and lifted her eyelids to look over at the window.
Her heart, which was left pierced with a tearing ache, found some solace in the patch of the Kishkindh horizon visible from her bed. Leaving the ornaments behind, Tara got up and came to the window. She could now see the river, gleaming like a mirror, as the moon shone radiantly behind the hills. She stood looking out at the night. There had never been so many stars in the sky, shimmering like a sequined shawl, each glinting mysteriously—glimmering glows in pervasive darkness.
One beckoned her. Tara knew who it was. ‘Tara, the Star Goddess!’ she murmured, calling out to her namesake. ‘We meet at last.’ The woman before her looked very different—she was tall and slender. With a fair face bathed in moonlight, she appeared ethereal, as if sheathed in silver gossamer. The woman smiled a slow, serene smile. ‘We meet at last. This meeting was due but one must wait for the right time for everything.’ Tara folded her palms and offered her salutations. ‘What brings you here, Goddess?’ she asked. ‘Your pain, your dilemma echoed. We are alike, Tara. And we share more than our name.’ ‘What else do we share? Who are you to me? I have dreamt about you and your story, over and over again. What is that we have in common besides our name?’ Tara stared at the woman with whom she had this
strange connection. She supposed there were some grounds of commonality. Both of them had a tragic love story. Tara, the Star Goddess, while married to Rishi Brihaspati, the guru of the Devas, fell in love with Chandra, the Moon God. They eloped, much to the chagrin of the husband, who, supported by the Devas, declared war against the couple backed by the Asuras. To end the interminable, internecine war, Tara finally decided to return to her husband, forcing herself to live a life without Chandra, without love.
This was the story of the woman standing in front of Tara; this was the Goddess’s truce. But what was her own story? What was her future? That she was to wed a man she despised? Was that to be her truce? The fair woman nodded her, her dark hair shimmering in a twinkling glow. ‘We are both Tara. We have suffered similar tragedies of love and loss, revenge and retribution,’
she paused momentarily, ‘making both of us women of chance and circumstance.’
‘And war!’ interceded Tara hotly. ‘You are the divine Star Goddess and I am a mere mortal from Kishkindh. We are not victors but victims of war,’ she blazed with anger. ‘We were both used as weapons in wars or, worse, as trophies for the victor!’
‘But in that war, we are peace,’ exclaimed the Goddess. ‘Because of us, there will be harmony after disquiet; hope after destruction. With the future resting on our shoulders, are we really mere trophies?’
The divine woman gave a small, knowing smile as she continued, ‘I was married to Rishi Brihaspati but loved Chandra. I married two men and gave up the one I loved. It was the only way to save the world from annihilation. It was not fair to me, but sometimes, for the sake of those you love, you have to make a tough choice.’ ‘Compromise, you mean. But why? I have loved only one man. I pledged my soul to him for the rest of my life when I married him,’ cried Tara in anguish. ‘He was everything to me and he was taken from me forever,’ she choked, her voice ending in a strangled cry. ‘What reason do I have to compromise?’…
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