Drupadi.............
I was desined be born i a family that in my estimation had a very difficult history. It was only after i turned twenty that i began to realize that in fact my own origins were rather complicated. according to the gossip that i overhead my mother had married five times. And each times.And each time she'd married she'd had a couple of kids. The complicated thing was that every time she'd marriedwith the next guy within a few months it would be clear she was pregnant again. That was why whenever anyone asked who my father was my face would suddenly flush red from the blood that rushed to my cheeks. How embarrassing it was to always be someone who couldn't even tell people who her father was.
As far back as i could remember i'd only known the man who lived with us now, a man with a thick mustache, He was the silent type and then some, so we rarely spoke at all. Only mother spoke to him much and that was because she was because she was always giving him orders to do something, including cooking. It's lucky that he was a good cook.Everything he cooked was delicious. at least according to the measure of mytongue, that was always wild for hot, spicy dishes.
I vaguely remember too a couple of guys that in the past often came to visit. But mother never let us kids them. And it wasn't unusual for her to recieve them only on the verandah of our house. When i sometimes warily peeked out at them from a crack in the window curtains i could see mother shaking her finger at them, and sometimes shrieking at them to go away.
After some time it began to seem normal to see something like that, but a feeling of pity for those guys slipped into my thoughts and began to haunt me. Sometimes i'd be daydreaming and i would return in my mind to see their faces as they bowed their heads when mother told them to get away from our house this instant. Somtimes if there was one who didn't want to leave i could see that mother didn't feel any reluctance at pushing them along until they were outside the gate of our house - yard.
One evening i saw mother sitting beneath the almond tree that grew so luxuriantly in our house - yard. The light of the sun that spilled from spaces between the leaves of the almond tree was reflected in her face.I could see that she was feeling more relaxed than usual . So i figured that this would be a good time to ask her about a couple of things.
"Mother, " i said while approaching her from behind, "Who are those guys really who keep coming by here?"
Mother didn't answer right away. She looked hard at me with an expression of distaste. Her expression tol me that she was angry .
"Sorry, mom, there's no need to think about it...." I said right away, hoping that would calm her anger.
"Your karma has indeed decreed that you be born as a stupid girl!" said mother suddenly.When i tried to slip away, afraid that her anger would only get worse if i stuck around, she called me back,"Ray, the only thing you ever do is work, work, work.Don't add to your burdens by worrying about those guys, do you understand ?"
Feeling guilty, all i could do was to nod my assent. But when i was about toleave suddently grandmother was there facing us, as if he'd appeared out of nowhere.
"Raytina was born again here to pay off the debt of her past karma," he said.
"That why she has to work so hard.Her past karma has sentenced her to this fate now.It's only fitting that she was born this time to be humiliated,"said motehr. Other than mother i was the only woman in the household. Of my four relatives there, along with the man that for all this time i'd regarded as my father, they were all men. And i figured that they were all younger than me. One of them was even still in junior High school. So inpractical terms, since i was the oldest and neither mother not father had a job, i was the one responsible for all of them.
Motehr always treated me like her servant.Before going off to the office at around 6:15 in the morning, so that i could avoid the heavy traffice later in the morning. I would have to cook and prepare all the schoolday needs of my younger brothers. And when i was in the office it wasn't unusual for mother to call me to tell me to arange all sorts of things, .......
continue.......
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