She dropped on this land just as insignificant as a raindrop during the monsoons. Seventh child in a fleet of daughters to parents who prayed for a son, Varsha melted into her landscape as soon as she was born. A patch of shapeless birthmark on her forehead became further eyesore for her parents and a brand of frequent ridicule from other children. She grew up frail, surviving several asthmatic attacks and cheerfully followed her older sisters, meandering through the neighborhood streets without a vision of where they were going.
Several other attempts for a son had failed with stillborn male children until their mother had nothing left in her to give. One by one, as the sisters were married off, Varsha remained the youngest and unmarriageable. She looked after her unloving elderly parents without complaint and her smile made the air around her shine as if a cloud of misty aura.
Daily chores became harder as her father fell one day into a seizure and lay paralyzed for several years. Her mother’s depression grew deeper and Varsha snaked through her moods. On her mother’s peak days, Varsha surged with joy welling up the gushing delight to the brim of her heart which all cascaded down into a deep gorge when her mother’s turbulent, valley days arrived.
Her father suffered his situation in annoyance, embarrassed for not finishing his duty to marry off his last daughter and angry for not had the fortune of a son to light the fire on his pyre. He unleashed his wrath on Varsha with sharp words, blaming her for his condition and accusing her for giving him wrong medicines to increase his suffering.
Through all adversity, Varsha treaded on with a smile. She felt sad at the loss of her parents as they left her land one after the other, but she adapted to her floating life alone. Cautiously, she began to venture, taking turns into paths she had never endeavored before. One day, picking up a paintbrush, she dabbed a few strokes on her courtyard wall as the setting sun paints the horizon. Completely absorbed into this new discovery she flowed deeper and further towards the splash of colors and soon all the walls in her three room house was covered with her artwork. She discovered a thirst inside her, one that had always existed but never acknowledged. It rose as a desire to be known, a craving to be approved, and a yearning to be part of a whole.
Continuing to flow but with more determination now more than ever, she ventured to newer abodes. Word spread and many flocked to see her work or urged her talent to wash over their homes. Varsha quenched all thirsts with her serene smile and splash of her colors.
One day, a young man from far away flew in to admire her and her work. He offered her a new home and a novel life. She took his hand and flowed towards a new land. What she found there was not the whole she was seeking but the one she had always wanted.
She was insignificant no more but part of a larger family. She was not the forgotten raindrop drifting aimlessly in a river. She had found her ocean with boundless love and renewed desires as a wife and a mother. She continued to brighten everyone’s days with her colors and her smiles and the river in her continued to flow, taking life’s meandering journey in stride and quenching all thirsts.
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