Ilaa of Kaithal

It started with a facebook comment.

One of my friends had put a status about Amish Tripathi's "Scion of Iksvaku".
I commented that I would like to write something like that someday.
The friend remarked on the lines of "Why wait for someday,..get started now !"
This got me to thinking. I had grown up with Stories of Hindu Mythology.
My Aunts were Sanskrit scholars and I had found them debating some or the aspect of scriptures every now and then. Egyption, Hebrew and Greek Mythology also interested me. I have often found myself drawing parallels between Indian and Greek Mythology.
Anyways, Just the other day of the facebook comment, I stumbled across the "Write India" Contest at timesofindia.com, with Amish Tripathi inviting entries for a short story.

There were a few rules:

1. The protagonist was to be a female named Ilaa, from 17th-18th century Maharashtra.
2. The story should draw inferences from Religious Scriptures and Vedic period
3. It had to be about feminism, with a girl demanding equal rights as a man.

I wrote the story keeping the above points in mind and although I am not much of a feminist, I wrote about the woman demanding equal rights as man.

Ofcourse, with a single entry to be selected from over 3000 entries , My story did not stand a chance.
Nevertheless, it was published by yourstoryclub.

The below is the link to the story, Drop a comment and let me know what you think about it.

The Mysterious Playwright

http://yourstoryclub.com/short-stories-social-moral/story-of-girl-writer-dream-mysterious-playwright/

The moot topic: Marriage

Excerpts from the speech I composed for Toastmaster's Advanced communication track (The Entertaining Speaker)

------

A man goes to a marriage broker and says, "Sir! I'm looking for a wife. Can you please help me?"
"Sure! I can help," replies the broker, "May I know your requirements?"

"Well! She must be very knowledgeable, intelligent and polite.  She should have a good sense of humor. She should be able to treat my parents and relatives well. I want her to tell me interesting stories when I’m bored and should be quiet when I need to take some rest. Oh! Last but not the least… She needs to be sleek and very attractive"

The broker smiles and says, "I understand exactly what you need. You need a good LCD TV."

Good evening toastmasters and guests,

Today I am going to talk about the moot topic of Marriage.
Many of you amongst the audience must already be married or must be waiting to get married.

Every man in this world wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding, economical and a good cook.
Every woman wants to marry a man who is good looking , loyal, considerate , loving and rich.
Is it not?
The difficulty is finding all of these qualities in just one woman or man. After all, the law allows you to marry only one.

Let me share an anecdote from Indian Mythology:

Drapadi the Panchal princess, in her previous birth was great devotee of Lord Shiva. Shiva was happy with her dedication and asked her to seek a boon.
Draupadi asked for an ideal husband in her next birth. A husband who would be the the best archer, the strongest man in the world, the most handsome, the most intelligent and the most righteous.
Shiva said:  "Dear girl, Unfortunately its not possible to have all these five qualities in a single man so you shall five husbands in the next birth ! ".

The story signifies two things:
First, be careful for what you ask for, and Second: if God cannot help get you the ideal mate, don't expect providence to find you one :)

Let me relate to you from my experience. I had many crushes during college. But the tragedy was that the guys I liked did not like me and I did not like the guys who happened to like me.
There is mismatch in expectations. I may find exactly the same person I am looking for but I may not be the one he is looking for. A lot of effort wasted in looking out.

Love Marriage happened to me when I had given up all hopes of a love match. The guy was my best friend who I thought knew me just too well (with all my flaws) to love me.
I am not a very organized person but I was bent on making my marriage work. To prepare myself for whats coming, I read the book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” cover to cover. However, an year after marriage I realized that although Women are from Venus, Men are not from Mars... I don't know what planet they come from.

If I wake up early, he tells me “You are getting older and not getting sleep”. When I sleep longer he calls me lazy.
If I ask him to help me in house work he creates a mess and if I don't I end up doing everything myself. When I watch television "I am wasting time", When he watches it "He is just relaxing."
However, things have really changed with time.
Now, I don’t feel bad when he calls me lazy, pampered or spoiled.

I may not have been able to crack the conundrum called Marriage, but four years into marriage, I realize that one of the tricks is to lower your expectations and understand that your spouse is not a super human being. He or She is as human, as fallible and as error prone as you are,.... and they are trying their best as just as you are.

So, folks think twice before you make the decision to get married… and think a hundred times before you say “Yes!” …. Because…

“Marriages made in heaven, and so are thunder and lightning”.