The Cloud Of The Princess Part I - Chapter 4

Sembaruthi was not very happy with the way things had turned out in the morning. She knew that her husband was not the sort of man who would very easily grant permission to go and meet kumudhini. He was a stubborn man and the whole world knew it. But what the world did not know was the magic to melt the stubbornness and to make him fall on his feet. And she had just intended to use that magic weapon against him this morning. But it had not worked. Everything was shattered into pieces. The aim was achieved comfortably - the aim of getting permission to meet kumudhni. But she would have been the happiest woman in pavazhanaadu if only the permission had been granted without the additional message that maithreyan had slowly spoken into her ears. Every word of it brought a strange chill to her spine. She was almost shivering when he had finished telling it. And he was as solid as a rock even after having conveyed such a dreadful message. He had slowly taken his head off her and said in a voice that literally shook the ground below her foot ‘sembaruthi… if you can do this successfully, the whole of pavazhanaadu would be grateful to you… but if you don’t, my dear sembaruthi… at least save your precious life–for I don’t want me to be called as the creature who showed his own wife the way to the grave’ and a drop of tear lost balance and fell down from his eyes. Today was the first day she had seen tears on the mighty man’s eyes. But strangely, she had not broken down at that instant. ‘Politics makes men stranger…and my husband is the perfect example’ she told herself.

‘akka’ she heard a voice from opposite and suddenly realized that she had spoken the last sentence louder than she had intended to.

She lifted up her face to see one of her maids looking at her surprisingly. The maid bent her face towards her and with a smile that escaped out through her lips, said “akka… you are dreaming about dhalapadhiyaar I guess...aren't you?’ . She did not even complete the sentence as the three other maids who were sitting around started to laugh together. Sembaruthi could not understand what was happening at the first instant. only after a few seconds she realized that the maids must have heard only the words ‘my husband is the perfect example’ and not what she had told before that.... ‘May be I did not even tell the first sentence loud…strange enough’ she thought. And the thought of how the words the maids had heard would have sounded to them made her uncomfortable. She swiftly turned her face to the side where no one was sitting and spoke in a angry tone ‘look imayaazh…neither did I dream about your honorable dhalapadhiyaar nor was I sleeping in the first place…. I was just thinking about something…. please don’t imagine things’ .There was silence for a second.

And she turned to the three maids who were still laughing without making noise and said angrily ‘look here girls… if you are not going to stop laughing, we are not going to meet kumudini…we stop our pallakku right here and I shall ask the sevagars to immediately turn the pallakku towards the palace ..What do you want me to do?’

Imayaazh immediately replied ‘ why akka… are you not able to let dhalapadhiyar alone in the palace even for a single day?… don’t worry akka… no goat or dog will eat our honorable dhalapadhiyar off…. and we will be back next budhan….which is not a very long time from now’ . And at the moment she completed saying it, all four including sembaruthi burst into laughter. And on seeing sembaruthi laugh at the joke, imayaazh commented ‘I know what you were thinking about akka…. was it not the hill temple incident that happened three years ago?’

Well… sembaruthi was not thinking about the hill temple incident that happened three years ago, but now that incident came into her mind at tremendous pace like a powerful arrow that was just let go of the vibrating string of a bow.

Sembaruthi, iniyaazh, kumudhini devaki and thamarai were young girls then and they all gathered daily without fail at the bottom of the hill madiyamalai. They spoke about anything and everything that girls whom the fragrance of maturity had started to tie its first knot around would discuss. Though the practice of meeting below the hill had been around for more then five years, the girl’s topics these days had changed considerably from what it was five years back. These days, it was always regarding men. And most of these men would be fictious characters… men whom the girls would have heard in stories or men whom their imagination would have given a pair of sparkling eyes, a heavy broad chest , a pair of tight shoulders and a dynamic voice. Sometimes they even discussed about men whom they had seen in their houses or in the temple or near the lakeside or wherever. But irrespective of the geography, the content was the same. And that particular day was no different. Except that kumudini had an entirely new approach.

Kumudhini was the first to speak and she was excited.

“Listen, my dear girls… “, she said in a high voice with both hands held towards the sky and all four girls turned towards her. iniyaazh was quick to respond

“oh my dear kumudhini…. from the way you look and the way you command us, it seems you have found a daring soldier as your soul mate… how bad of you not to inform us before your marriage….we would not have grabbed your husband off you ….we are not arakkis…we are your thozhis”. And the group started to laugh.

kumudhini waited for a second for the buzz to settle down and continued

“Girls… I have not found my soul mate yet… but I have a medicine which if you eat, will show you your soulmate immediately…”

There was silence in the group for a second at the end of which everybody started to speak at the same instant. Kumudhini somehow understanding that everyone in the group was asking the same question ‘how’ but phrasing it differently, clapped her hands thrice as hard as possible and everybody’s attention turned towards her.

‘As you all know, my father is a vaithiyar… and yesterday I saw him give this medicine to a girl from lakshanur. She had come with her father and it seems she had not got married for a long time. My father gave her this medicine and told her father, ‘ayya… this medicine if taken with the sincere thought of getting a soulmate, will immediately show your daughter her husband in the moolavar sannidhi of the next temple that she visits… and make sure neither this medicine nor your visit to me is told to anybody else. ‘ kumudhini stopped to look at the group. The group was watching her without even battling their eyelids. thamarai spoke ‘ and do you think this really works kumudhini?’ . kumudhini’s response was sharp and quick . ‘The whole of this town and the twenty four villages that surround the town respects my father and the medicines he makes.. so it is purely your choice to believe it or not…if you people are so very interested, may be one of you should try it once…and here we have a temple ready for us to visit…' and she increased her voice a bit to say 'who is now ready among you to eat this and test it out immediately?’

The whole group fell silent. kumudhini’s eyes went from one girl to another in the group. Normally sembaruthi would have been the most silent in the group. But strangely enough, she spoke breaking the silence. ‘I shall try it kumudhini’

Everybody was shocked to see sembaruthi respond. But they recovered quickly and kumudhini without wasting much time took a small round ball of medicine and gave it to sembaruthi. Sembaruthi closed her eyes, prayed for a second and swallowed the medicine. And even before anyone expected, se was half way climbing up the hill to reach the temple.