In The Island Kingdom | Poem

It was a journey Sitha had long dreamt of.

To the edge of nowhere.

She stood alone, upright, body facing the ocean,

Arms stretched out and head turned towards the sky.

All she felt was the brush of his fingers against hers,

And then she was in the flying chariot

Crossing the deep ocean and the blue skies.

Sitha surveyed her new habitat.

She savoured the new found freedom within the confines

of the Ashoka Vana

And as she awaited his arrival, he came.

Ravana peeped over the towering wall

And Sitha called out a cheerful hello.

There was no reply.

Sitha heard the clanging noise of his many crowns

As they hit against each other as Ravana fled.

She smiled to herself.

The next time, Ravana peeped over the wall,

Sitha shouted out, ‘I spot your seventh head’

Ravana slunk away

Sitha whiled away her time in the garden as she waited for

him to appear again.

This time Sitha said, ‘Hey, I see your tenth head’

In response came Ravana’s haughty bellow, ‘I have just

one head’.

Sitha flew into a rage.

She tore down branches of the Ashoka tree

And called Ravana a nasty liar.

Ravana chuckled to himself.

It amused him, seeing Sitha get worked up

He watched her with all his twenty eyes.

But then Sitha started to sulk.

She refused to eat or drink.

A pout replaced the smile on her face.

Ravana to his surprise found his days becoming

unbearably long.

Being the master performer that he was,

He altered his mighty voice to a stage whisper

And said, ‘Sitha, yes it was my tenth head that you spotted

the other day’.

Sitha’s eyes lit up and she jumped up and down with joy.

Meanwhile Rama sent his monkey to Sitha.

She took one look at the ring and burst out laughing.

She dispatched her ‘chudamani’ along with a note.

This is how it read, ‘I avenge my friend, Shakunthala’.

Rama, just back from his deer hunting,

Crumpled the piece of paper and threw it into the

dustbin.

Waves of bewilderment, anger and exasperation flooded

him.

He had never managed to figure out this crazy woman

that he had married.

In the island kingdom, the ocean was a psychedelic blue,

The breeze was heady and the sand a lustrous white

As both Ravana and Sitha found bliss

In the games that they played

(Excerpted from Poetry Vending Machine, 2017)

Meera Nair is a poet, dancer, actor and media person based in Kerala