The Village Girl

Chapter Thirteen - [Seetha]

An entire month had passed, and I counted the days. Though a month and a few weeks ago my life was exactly the same... I suddenly felt lonely now.

To keep my mind off of Aaryans absence, I had taken up more tasks at home and I'm the village as well. Our villages bharatanatyam teacher had injured herself, so I took on her classes, teaching her students four days of the weeks. I always loved dancing, being one of our teachers oldest students. My father was always proud of my successes in bharatanatyam, but knowing my love came for the stories told in our dances rather than the dancing itself.

Bharatanatyam was the art of storytelling through dance... and that made it the best art form. So I happily took over my teachers classes until she got better.

Then there was Maadu.

My pregnant cow kept me busier than ever. I wanted so badly for her baby to be born without a problem, so I took extra care of her now. Thankfully, there were many farmers in the village who knew what to do and they gave me all the advice I needed to make sure that Maadu would have no problems at all.

So during that first month I was kept busy, but despite being busy, it was during the second month of his absence that I became restless.

And so were my parents... my nineteenth birthday nearly six months away now.

After a long, but productive day, I returned home exhausted. My father, it seemed, had just arrived home as well.

He was covered in dirt, as he often was after a long day of working, so when I walked into our home and saw him take a seat and sigh in exhaustion, I smiled. "Would you like me to prepare a bath for you, pa?"

My very tall, rather young looking father smiled at me. "I would like that, thank you."

My mother had already prepared some tea, so I grabbed the pot and walked over to him with a cup. "Thank you, child."

I smiled before crouching down on the floor in front of him. I looked very much like my father, sharing his thick, black hair and tanned skin. The only big difference was that his eyes were a lovely shade of brown and mine were black. "So how was your day?"

"Probably not as busy as yours," he joked before taking a sip.

I chuckled.

"What have you been up to? How are the dance classes coming along?"

My father was, in my opinion, the best father. This opinion of mine came simply from the fact that he trusted me. Many fathers in this village did not trust their daughters. They did not treat their daughters as they would treat their sons. Not all, of course... but enough of them to be concerning.

These men thought of their daughters as burdens... baggage that needs to be married off as soon as possible. Or maybe even objects that could be sold for more land and riches.

Like Lalitha's father had thought of her.

She was lucky that her husband was a good man. But she was unlucky that that same husband passed.

And then that horrible father did not want her back... worried she'd be too much trouble for him.

No.

My father would never do that.

He was a religious man, believing that men should treat women the way Shiva treats his Parvati. With love and respect.

The goddess of knowledge was Saraswathi, a woman... and so he taught me how to read the same way he taught my brothers.

The goddess of wealth was Lakshmi, a woman... and so he let me work the lands and earn a profit just as he let my brothers.