Mira Prasai in Setopati, 9 August
Ram: Don’t keep criticising. If you want to live in this house, do what I say. What’s it to you where I go, or with whom?
Sita: You have to change your behaviour, it can’t go on like this. The children will be upset.
Ram: If you don’t want to stay with me, don’t. I can’t change myself to suit you. Get out of my house. If you come back here, I’ll break your legs. I am a man, I can do what I want.
Sita: This is also my house. Where can I go?
Shiva and Radha ran to their mother when she cried and wiped away her tears. She held their hands and left on a journey without a destination. She stopped at the crossroads to her parents’ home. It is where you were born, she heard an inner voice say.
Shiva and Radha were happy to see their grandparents. In the evening, Father asked: “You’ve come alone, is son-in-law OK?
Sita was quiet.
Mother: Why don’t you speak?
Sita: I am tired, I think I’ll sleep.
Sita thought her husband would come to get her. It had been two weeks.
Mother: Go home to your husband now, there is no one to cook for him.
Sita: Where is my home, mother? Where is a woman’s home? Your son-in-law drove me out of the house, and you want me to go back? My husband’s house is not my home, the house where I was born is not my home.
Shiva and Radha are listening from their grandmother’s lap. They tell their mother: “Father’s house is not your home, Grandfather’s house is not your home. Mother, we will build you a home. Your own home. A home as loving as you.”