Kaikeyi as Warrior
The Warrior Kaikeyi
The
battle raged. I could hear the clash of arms and the
thunder of the gods as they fought during the smoky night and through
the blistering day. The trumpet of horns and the bellowing of
Indra's beloved elephant shattered the brief moment of calm before the
tumultous sound of
war began again. All of this mess created by a silly
drought. Of course, I have no need for it. Water, I
mean. For I am Shivrit, the necklace of Kaikeyi.
I have been worn by all the mistresses of Kaikeyi's line, handed down by each matronly hand and tied around the neck of the first daughter, who inherits all of the beauty and charm of the family's lineage. I have been close to the heart of these great women, for countless generations, ever loyal, ever willing and able to bring great joy and love to those who wear me. And so I was passed to Kaikeyi, a graceful beauty, with a fierce heart. I have never been worn, in all of my thousands upon thousands of years, by such a lady, who is at once a warrior, calm and true and fearless, and yet has such an innocence and trust in the men who fill her life - such a need to be loved and doted upon. This does not make her weak, not in the slightest, but it does, in my very humble opinion, make her quintessentially human.
We stood in the midst of battle. Kaikeyi, a child of only nine years, is a warrior princess, a charioteer of incomparable ability to King Dasaratha, a handsome man, as humans go. She has skill unmatched by any man and so she was given this high position, to fight alongside kings and gods. Her chariot and armor, given and protected by Lord Indra himself, is beyond description, but I will try my very best. Four fiery horses guide her vehicle through the sky. They are unfailingly loyal to the girl. I have spent too much time in the stalls with them and her as she fed them and whispered secrets to their alert ears. The chariot is a vision of white, gold, and silver - an arrow in the sky that flies true and strikes the heart of the enemy. Her armor, fit perfectly to her slender form, is made of green silk and steel, and her green cloak, her favorite, billowed behind her. She was a vision that day of grace and ferocity. Those who saw her, even when she was still just a child, could recognize a woman to regard with respect and fear.
That day was a terrible day, marked by blood and tears. Dasaratha, unable to dodge the onslaught of the enemy's attacks, despite Kaikeyi's brilliant skill, was wounded by a comet in his side. A sharp piece of Dasaratha's armor flew through the air and slashed my mistress's hand, deeply wounding her as they flew through the skies. He fell from the chariot, unconscious, plunging down to the earth far below. My mistress turned the horses as fast as lightning and saved him that day, tearing a piece of her beautiful cloak to bind his wounds and slow the bleeding. Their blood intermingled that day. They became one.
This king, this Dasaratha promised my mistress two promises - anything she desired - for his rescue. Kaikeyi accepted the boons, but did not use them. I wondered, then, what fate these promises held. As for the scar on her perfect hand - she left it, even though Indra offered to remove it. I believe she wished to be reminded always of that day - the war, the rescue, and the love that she discovered.
Author's Note: The story I have told through the eyes of Kaikeyi's necklace, I hope, will begin to describe the valor with which Kaikeyi lived her life, even as a small child. She was the product of war. Her earliest days were spent amidst hardened men and gods, amidst blood and death. This would inevitably have taken its tole upon her psyche, creating a hardening of the heart that would have served as a barrior between her true, innocent self - the self that her necklace can feel - and that of her facade to the outside world. I remained fairly steadfast to the original text because I wanted to maintain the rhythm of the story, as well as keeping the every detail in tact to recreate the "big picture" of Kaikeyi's life. Straying too far from the original version from which I was first inspired, I feel, would have taken away from the story. Instead, the reader experiences the tale from a completely different viewpoint, one that is both outside and deep within the action of the story as well as a confidant to Kaikeyi's emotions and mental processes. Through the necklace, the reader may understand the very human qualities Kaikeyi has and might, perhaps for the first time, sympathize with her later plight.
Bibliography: Buck, William (1976) Ramayana. The Uttara Kanda.
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I have been worn by all the mistresses of Kaikeyi's line, handed down by each matronly hand and tied around the neck of the first daughter, who inherits all of the beauty and charm of the family's lineage. I have been close to the heart of these great women, for countless generations, ever loyal, ever willing and able to bring great joy and love to those who wear me. And so I was passed to Kaikeyi, a graceful beauty, with a fierce heart. I have never been worn, in all of my thousands upon thousands of years, by such a lady, who is at once a warrior, calm and true and fearless, and yet has such an innocence and trust in the men who fill her life - such a need to be loved and doted upon. This does not make her weak, not in the slightest, but it does, in my very humble opinion, make her quintessentially human.
We stood in the midst of battle. Kaikeyi, a child of only nine years, is a warrior princess, a charioteer of incomparable ability to King Dasaratha, a handsome man, as humans go. She has skill unmatched by any man and so she was given this high position, to fight alongside kings and gods. Her chariot and armor, given and protected by Lord Indra himself, is beyond description, but I will try my very best. Four fiery horses guide her vehicle through the sky. They are unfailingly loyal to the girl. I have spent too much time in the stalls with them and her as she fed them and whispered secrets to their alert ears. The chariot is a vision of white, gold, and silver - an arrow in the sky that flies true and strikes the heart of the enemy. Her armor, fit perfectly to her slender form, is made of green silk and steel, and her green cloak, her favorite, billowed behind her. She was a vision that day of grace and ferocity. Those who saw her, even when she was still just a child, could recognize a woman to regard with respect and fear.
That day was a terrible day, marked by blood and tears. Dasaratha, unable to dodge the onslaught of the enemy's attacks, despite Kaikeyi's brilliant skill, was wounded by a comet in his side. A sharp piece of Dasaratha's armor flew through the air and slashed my mistress's hand, deeply wounding her as they flew through the skies. He fell from the chariot, unconscious, plunging down to the earth far below. My mistress turned the horses as fast as lightning and saved him that day, tearing a piece of her beautiful cloak to bind his wounds and slow the bleeding. Their blood intermingled that day. They became one.
This king, this Dasaratha promised my mistress two promises - anything she desired - for his rescue. Kaikeyi accepted the boons, but did not use them. I wondered, then, what fate these promises held. As for the scar on her perfect hand - she left it, even though Indra offered to remove it. I believe she wished to be reminded always of that day - the war, the rescue, and the love that she discovered.
Author's Note: The story I have told through the eyes of Kaikeyi's necklace, I hope, will begin to describe the valor with which Kaikeyi lived her life, even as a small child. She was the product of war. Her earliest days were spent amidst hardened men and gods, amidst blood and death. This would inevitably have taken its tole upon her psyche, creating a hardening of the heart that would have served as a barrior between her true, innocent self - the self that her necklace can feel - and that of her facade to the outside world. I remained fairly steadfast to the original text because I wanted to maintain the rhythm of the story, as well as keeping the every detail in tact to recreate the "big picture" of Kaikeyi's life. Straying too far from the original version from which I was first inspired, I feel, would have taken away from the story. Instead, the reader experiences the tale from a completely different viewpoint, one that is both outside and deep within the action of the story as well as a confidant to Kaikeyi's emotions and mental processes. Through the necklace, the reader may understand the very human qualities Kaikeyi has and might, perhaps for the first time, sympathize with her later plight.
Bibliography: Buck, William (1976) Ramayana. The Uttara Kanda.
Back to the Storybook Homepage...