When I first saw her by the
river, I knew she was the woman whom I wanted to marry and mother my
children. She was absolutely beautiful with long, soft waves, like the
water on a calm morning by the ocean, of rich dark hair that fell to her lower
back. Her olive skin looked softer than any piece of fine silk, and her
eyes were a mesmerizing sepia color that would cause any noble man to become
speechless. She noticed me watching her from some trees not too far from
the river bank. She smiled and waved for me to walk over. We didn’t
speak much. In fact, I never even asked for her name; however, I was so
captivated by her beauty and charm that I asked her to become my wife.
Without any hesitation she assuredly said yes.
Before I could fully take in
my happiness and fortune at finding such a great beauty to be my wife, she made
a demand that forced to uphold or else she would not agree to be my
wife. Furthermore, if I ever broke this
promise during our marriage, our marriage would be over. No matter what
she did, at any time, I would never question her or her actions. At the
time, I thought nothing of this request. I only thought of wedding this
beautiful being before me and starting a family with her. To me, this powerful request was
an act of a woman ensuring her safety, happiness, and freedom within a marriage
to a king. For this reason, I quickly agreed to her demands.
A few days later, we were
married in an elaborate wedding full of food, lights, and entertainment, and
only a few months later, my wife was pregnant.
I was so elated to be a father and have an heir to my kingdom. It was the most joyous time of my life.
Never throughout the first few months of our marriage did she do anything that would have caused
concern. In fact, she was a perfect wife who was humble and
supportive. She was a virtuous queen, and everyone within
the kingdom adored her.
Once our first child was
born, we were overwhelmed with happiness. I couldn’t wait to watch this
child grow; however, my wish never came true. After only a few months, my
wife took our child to the Ganga River and drowned him. I couldn’t
believe that such an act was possible. How could my beautiful wife who
had never shown a harmful trait kill our innocent child? I was
heartbroken but I kept my silence in order to keep my marriage. I thought
that perhaps this was a one-time occurrence, or a test to see if I would truly
hold to my promise. However, my wife went on to kill six more of our
children. Once she became pregnant with our eighth child, I could no
longer remain passive. I knew that I had to destroy my marriage to save
my child’s life.
Giving her up was a
difficult decision, but I had to save my child. Every time I would hold him in my arms, I looked into his eyes and I saw
myself. I couldn’t handle seeing him die
like the others. I just couldn’t.
Shantanu meeting a beautiful women by the Ganga River. Source: Wikipedia.
Author’s Note
For
this week, I chose to tell the beginning of the Mahabharata where Shantanu meets Ganga, marries her, and discovers
that she is drowning their children. Within
the original, Shantanu never questions or forbids Ganga to do this because of a
promise that he made to her before they were married. Essentially, I found it just so interesting
for an individual to remain quiet while his children are murdered. For this reason, I wanted to focus on
Shantanu’s perspective and inner dialogue throughout these events. I wanted to capture his fascination with
Ganga and her beauty, which had an effect on him giving her whatever she asked for
in order to become his wife. I chose to have no dialogue within my story because I felt that it would
distract from Shantanu’s thoughts, and the original gives some dialogue from
the characters. For these reasons, I
felt that it was not needed. I also
chose to end this story before Ganga reveals her true actions because I wanted
the sole focus to be on Shantanu’s thoughts while he sees his wife go from a
good woman to the killer of his children.
While the story is very true to the original, I did expand on some details. For example, within the original, their first
child is given no specific gender, and Ganga is merely described as beautiful
without any detail.
Bibliography
Narayan,
R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata.
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