These women are mad as hell, bloodthirsty. And they are coming for you.
A sixty-something woman finds unexpected love; another abducts her nephew; a writer strikes a deal with the devil - each story bares its fangs. Startling, sinister and seductive, these women go after those who wronged them with a ferocious cunning, sometimes underhanded, sometimes operatic. A sisterhood of betrayed wives, beheaded princesses, the belittled and gaslighted...
Hell Hath No Fury illuminates the electrifying space between love and hate.
DEMURE, SHY, MODEST, soft-spoken, self-sacrificing. Popular clichés limit women to the male imagination. For many an era, women have either tired of toeing the line or downright rejected the much-publicized ideal prototype. Every fight a long-drawn-out one: the right to be born, to an education, to cover breasts, to vote, to work, to want whom they want, to walk down a road at midnight, to use the armrest in a plane.
Poets have devoted verse to every part of her: face like the moon, lips of rose petals, hair bolts of silk. She is doe-eyed, ox-eyed, starry-eyed, lotus-eyed, almond-eyed... That’s on a good day. On bad days, women have an agenda, an axe to grind, a poisoned apple to hawk. Medusa, Jezebel, Shurpanakha, Lilith, Salome, Circe. Giving everyone something to talk about.
The stories in this book explore retaliations only provoked women are capable of. Vengeance, vendetta, the silent strike, swift and lethal. Mothers, brides, girlfriends, goddaughters, ghosts, faithful family retainers, scheming aunts. Here the heroines are freely emotional, at their dramatic best, or slyly mute, going after what’s owed them – respect. First, they play nice. Then. Eyes stop twinkling, the cheek stops dimpling. They curse freely, these uninvited witches at fairy-tale christenings.
The world has long grown indifferent to the sight of men losing their shit. Their aggression is legend. They go to war, slay dragons, get into drunken brawls in back alleys – they bore the world with their little-boy games. Women, on the other hand, keep calm until betrayed. Then all bets are off. A woman who plots revenge reinvents herself, reclaims the planet: ‘This place is mine too.’ She is not waiting for applause or a pat on the back, for the history books to record – just righting wrongs. Taking into her own hands what she is told she can’t. Third person suddenly first person. Emerging like a moon from behind dark clouds to claim an entire sky.
She will tell you, if you ask her, she is looking after herself at last. Whispering ‘I love you’ to the mirror, kissing glass. It is called survival. Don’t cross her. You don’t want her coming after you. Claws out, fangs bared, hackles raised, slit-eyed, baying for blood.
Run, little man, run.
Madhavi Mahadevan is the author of three novels based on the Mahabharata: The Kaunteyas, Bride of the Forest: The Untold Story of Yayati’s Daughter and The Forgotten Wife: The Story of Hidimbi and Bheem. She has written two collections of short stories, and contributed to the anthologies Boo, Why We Don’t Talk and An Unsuitable Woman. She is also an award-winning author of children’s books.
According to her, retribution is a timeless trope. In several ancient mythologies, the presiding deity of justice is a goddess. Maat in ancient Egypt; Nemesis, Themis or Dike in Greece; Justitia in ancient Rome; Mahadevi, Mahamaya, Parashakti, Durga in India – many names, always a woman.
1
The Woman Who Lost Her Head
MADHAVI MAHADEVAN
WHEN A WOMAN realizes that she’s about to be beheaded, what does she do? She runs.
I ran.
It had taken Rama Jamadagnya a moment or two to grasp what he had been commanded to do. It dawned upon him that if he did not obey his powerful father, he too would meet the same fate as his elder brothers: dust unto dust. They lay before him, indistinguishable from each other, in four small heaps. A single curse was all it had taken to reduce them to ashes.
And I knew – even as he was still making up his mind – that, unlike his siblings, Rama would obey Jamadagni. With that premonition, I ran.
Of their own choice, my feet took me along the narrow mud path that led deeper into the forest. Through light and shade, low scrub and wild banana groves, past a herd of deer, a family of partridges, I twisted and turned, with no guiding thought except to keep moving. I had to stay ahead – my life depended on it. This pursuit was a ghoulish reversal of how it had once been. Then he had taken playful baby steps away from me, and I, his mother, had followed, laughingly calling out, Rama, I’m going to catch you, just you wait! This time he was chasing me. He was hunting me down, as if I were a prey that he would hound to the margins of the universe if need be.
He was bigger than I. Younger, stronger and more focused. However, the thick vegetation was a camouflage. For several minutes he lost track of me. Yet my pace was flagging when the river appeared. The flash and sparkle of her mud-green waters through the trees was enough to give my flight a fresh impetus, a clear direction. Above the pebbles and the soft sand of the riverbank, on firmer ground, stood a single hut, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding bamboo thicket. A woman of low birth, a fisherwoman, lived in it. I had always avoided going there before, but now I made for the hut, praying that I could give him the slip.
To one side of the front door was an upturned boat, festooned with a fishing net. A pumpkin vine scaled the mud walls, on the beaten earth floor of the front yard, fish scales shone like splinters from a broken rainbow. The morning’s catch lay neatly arranged on sal leaves in two cane baskets slung on a bamboo pole, ready for sale in the village market. But where was she? Where had the fisherwoman gone? The last time I had seen her by the river, she had flashed a smile and waved but kept her distance, as she always did.
I banged on the front door. It wasn’t locked. I went in and quickly fastened the bolt. All was silent inside the single room. The air was still smoky from a doused kitchen fire. Murky light filtered in through a narrow window at the back, allowing me to make out the shape of things. Embers glowed in the hearth under a covered clay pot; a few utensils were arranged on a crude wooden rack; a rolled-up reed mat was propped against a wall; a piece of driftwood gathered from the shore and a string of cowrie shells lay on the floor. These were the odds and ends of a meagre existence so disconnected from mine that it was difficult for me to comprehend. Yet, for a blessed moment, I had a sense of respite. Safe! I am safe. He will not come here.
Before long, however, my ears caught the sound of his tread. His footfall was slower now, heavier and more measured. It came to a stop outside the front door. Slower his breathing too, it had dropped back to its normal rhythm. Next came the axe. A few quick blows and the flimsy door cracked open. He stepped in, filling the space with his massive body. It took him a minute or two to get accustomed to the dimness inside. His shoulders relaxed. He had spotted me backed into a corner. He let out a sigh and stepped forward.
‘Son, have mercy. Do not kill me!’
What did he make of my words? Nothing. He was emotionless, just doing his duty.
He swung the axe up, tightened his grip and adjusted his stance. The skin on his face stretched, his muscles grew taut as he leaned back, drawing his entire body into an arc. He looked down. I stared into his eyes. They were purposeful, dispassionate, yet radiating a strange comfort. One blow. A clean job of it. It will not hurt at all. The blade’s sharp edge caught my eye, and the illogicality of the situation struck me. The ordinary woodcutter’s axe with which he was about to slay me had hung on my wall at home for years. Rama, the strongest among his siblings, would take it to the forest to bring back firewood. It was his particular chore. That morning too he had gone into the forest when his father summoned his siblings and gave them an order.
Well. Here we were.
There’s nothing quite like having a sharp axe suspended above your neck to make you change your outlook. Fear drained out of me, replaced by an odd calm. Nothing I could say to Rama would make any difference to my fate, neither argument nor an appeal for mercy. After the deed was done, he would quietly go away, climb a high mountain and perform yet another tapasya... They, father and son, would go on with their lives, while I would fade away from memory, leaving not even a tiny scratch on the sheen of their reputation. I would die and nobody would know why. In those last, miserable moments of my life, the thought came to me: Why should Rama be allowed to forget that for the nine months I carried him, that it was my lifeblood that nourished him? When he left my womb, it was with that same blood streaked all over his body.
Even so, I knew that for Rama this was not at all about me. He had not judged me, his father had. The word of a father is the word of God. Impure, Jamadagni had called me, my body... Despite that, my other four sons had outright refused to obey him. A father’s command must be obeyed, but matricide? It was unthinkable, they said, no matter what her misdeed. Like a king who punishes rebels in his kingdom with death, the righteous Brahmin had incinerated his own sons for disobeying him. Filicide was no sin, apparently. Rama had understood then that though his journey had barely begun, it was all about the one bloodline through which he was travelling and the binding loyalty he owed it. It was that which had made him realize that he had no option but to obey the outrageous command: Behead her!
Crime and punishment – when it came to these matters, erudite men like my husband always have the last word.
Jamadagni came from a long line of great rishis, seers who had won special powers from the gods after eons of tapasya. In the genealogy of these men, a sense of purpose ran strong. Their special destiny was to uphold righteousness in the world. To fulfil it, these selfless, enlightened beings strode across time and space, impervious to the constraints of both. They drew up the laws by which everyone else had to live. Those who broke them were never left unpunished.
After our wedding, on the first occasion that we were completely alone, Jamadagni had unlocked a wooden chest that stood in the corner of the bedroom and taken out a sheaf of palm leaf manuscripts wrapped in soft linen.
‘May I read out something to you?’ he asked.
His voice was deep, eyes magnetic. I wanted to keep looking at him. I nodded silently.
He began reading, saying the words perfectly, as if they were pearls dropping from his lips. ‘If the wife is radiant with beauty, the whole house is bright. But if she is destitute of beauty, all will appear dismal.’ He stopped and looked at me steadily.
I blushed in confusion. ‘I didn’t know you wrote poetry,’ I said. ‘But then I know almost nothing about you. When did you write this? Was it after you saw me on the riverbank?’
A half-smile curved his lips. My naiveté had amused him.
At that time, the story doing the rounds was this: Jamadagni had seen me at dawn on the riverbank and was smitten. A few days later, he had sent an emissary to my father’s court asking for my hand.
‘King, consider yourself lucky,’ Rishi Agastya said to my father. ‘Jamadagni, on whose behalf I bring this proposal of marriage, is the scion of a line of great sages. Shukracharya, the guru of the Asuras, was his forefather. Jamadagni, too, is an expert in the science of archery. Kings fall at his feet seeking admission for their sons in his school. He is among the most influential Brahmins of all time... the right sort of connection for you to have. In my opinion, the princess can’t get a match from a pedigree more ancient or more illustrious than his. You don’t need to think twice.’
A look passed between my parents. Father cleared his throat, a sign of his nervousness. ‘I am aware of the honour, Rishivar,’ he said solemnly. ‘But a match between a Kshatriya princess and a Brahmin rishi, no matter how magnificent his bloodline...’ his voice tapered off. ‘Do you really recommend it, Mahamuni?’
‘I do,’ the sage said. ‘Haven’t I married a princess of Vidarbha? Besides, Jamadagni’s mother, Satyavati, too was from a Kshatriya family. Her father was the ruler of Kanyakubja. You are, indeed, fortunate that your daughter has caught the eye of an eminent rishi.’
‘Is that so?’ My father turned to look at me, surprised. ‘How did you, er, catch his eye?’ I replied with a blank look and a silent shake of my head. He raised his eyebrows and asked my mother, ‘Where has this daughter of yours been roving? I thought you were quite strict about these matters.’
‘I am!’ Mother said indignantly. ‘Renuka is escorted by reliable servants and the royal guards everywhere she goes.’
Agastya smiled. ‘I am not suggesting that she was doing anything inappropriate, but the princess does spend a lot of her time by the river. It was there Jamadagni spotted her.’
They were, all three, looking at me oddly. I felt my face redden. ‘I go to the river to collect mud,’ I said, thinking how boring it made me appear, as if I were a cow who had been let loose to graze. ‘For sculpture and pottery,’ I clarified.
‘You are very good at it, I’ve heard,’ Agastya said, with a faint tinge of condescension. ‘Jamadagni spoke of your artwork.’
Father scoffed. ‘What artwork? She makes dolls, toys, lamps, pots. So do hundreds of women in the villages along the riverbank.’
‘Nevertheless, Jamadagni was impressed by your daughter’s skills,’ Agastya said. As if settling the matter, he added in a tone of sage-like prescience, ‘I would say this union is ordained.’
‘Maybe he’s right,’ Mother said, after Agastya had left. ‘Nothing else explains the rishi’s sudden decision to marry Renuka. Maybe it is ordained.’
A rishi had seen me in passing and now he wanted to marry me. What had he, given his extraordinary vision, seen in me that captivated him so completely? Could it be love? I wondered silently.
‘Ordained?’ Father looked skeptical. ‘It has certainly been ordered. You know, as well as I do, that refusing a proposal from an eminent Brahmin that has come to us through another eminent Brahmin would mean offending...’
‘Two eminent Brahmins,’ Mother concluded with a shudder. ‘You are right. We can’t afford to displease these all-powerful Brahmins. They are quick to anger, and their curses can be quite inventive. We must hope for the best... I’ll start with the preparations for the wedding.’
Listening to them, I felt slightly aggrieved. Marriage, I knew, was inevitable for me. When a proposal arrived, one’s parents decided, based on their own consideration, whether it should be welcomed or politely rejected. But I was a princess; I had expected to be consulted too. I wanted time to consider, to talk about the proposal with my mother, to feel reassured that it would all turn out well. However, everyone, it appeared, had suddenly become very busy. As my mother said, ‘She may be marrying a forest-dwelling sage, but for us it’s still a royal wedding.’
Even so, in the days before the wedding, she found the time to chat with me. ‘You have been brought up in a palace and they may find your ways strange,’ she said.
‘They?’
‘The community at the hermitage.’
‘Rishi Jamadagni’s mother too was from a royal household. Surely that will make me less like an outsider...’
‘On the contrary, the pressure to conform may be greater.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me short. ‘No, don’t interrupt. I know what you are thinking. Royal families support hermitages. Your father, too, has been the patron of yagnas and we have stayed in the forest several times. How. . .
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