Ahalya’s Waiting

“Ahalya,you will live here for many thousands of years,

eating wind, without any food, lying on ashes

and generating inner heat. Invisible to all creatures,

you will live in this hermitage. And when Ram,

who is unassailable, comes to this terrible forest,

then you will be purified. By receiving him as a guest

you will become free of greed and delusion,

you evil woman, and you will take on your own form

in my presence, full of joy.”

Echoed husband Rishi Goutama’s command

bestowed upon the beautiful wife Ahalya, who had just had

her first ever orgasm, the fulfilment of her

womanhood through Indra, in disguise of Goutama.

‘Ahalya’, the ‘one with no ugliness’–

the woman beautiful turned into a stone there and then.

Reek of patriarchy with

the social game of victim-blaming began.

I am Ahalya. Am I really waiting since centuries

for my salvation by just a touch, and for my redemption?

I have the Indriyas, the five senses, inside me

so solid that I cannot be transformed to oblivion,

I am as inert as a stone.

While my acquisitive mind retorts, my steady mind waits.

I am the Sthit-pragya Sadhak , I have my Indriyas

in my own accumulation.

Doing my sadhana, I am time and timeworn.

Oh Ram, finally you are generously plentiful

to meet me, after ages of waiting. But my penance

is not yet completed. I will not consent

oh Ram, to be redeemed by you for an offence

that I have not committed.

I am untainted, confident and clean.

What purity on me will you assign?

What is the merit of this debate on my pollution?

Oh the archetypal Ram,

if you really need to touch me, be the elemental man,

touch me as the elemental woman. Touch me

as the galaxies do collide, touch me with

all your unspent unbiased emotion.

Touch me as the blue firmament touches the stars.

Make me your lyre and lure me.

Give my harmony your personal touch.

I assure you, you’ll solve the mysteries

of the universe with my touch,

because I am the quintessential, ultimate woman.

Your touch should be your creative language,

your behaviour, your basic attitude.

With my touch, stars ought to dance across your skin.

Your touch must take away my fears of

all Goutamas and Indras.

Love, soothe my anxiety and

fill my senses with your compassion.

Touch my cognizance and you can redeem the stone.

Make me your Muse.

You know, touch is where miracles arise

And exchange of the light and dark begin.

The curse of Rishi Goutama may be immobilised

with your touch, with this assertion.

My redemption lies not just in your touch

but in zero tolerance of

any marginalisation.

I need a rejoinder from the society

and from you, oh the most knowledgeable one,

for my quintuple patriarchal relegation.

Father presented me, the puppet, to husband on his free will.

Husband couldn’t fulfil me as a woman.

Indra tricked me to satiate his desire, not mine.

Inept, impotent husband cursed me

with what right, oh, with what right,

to become a stone exactly at a moment

when I was satiated as a woman!

And now why do I need yet another man, you, oh Ram,

to touch me and cleanse me of my uncommitted sin?

Touch sensitive, touch deprived,

touch-craving, I would rather wait till eternity.

I prefer to reject your offer of touching me

on the condition of taking me

into the snares of purity-pollution.

I am my own possessor, proprietor, I am my woman.

Let me remain ethically upright on my own terms—

this is my ultimate liberation.

***

Reference to Goutama’s curse:

Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India – Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions Wendy Doniger, Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty – Google Books