If she still does not grant his desire he should beat her with a stick of his hand and overcome her (saying) with (manly) power and glory, “I take away your glory.” Thus she becomes devoid of glory.
— Bṛhad-Ãraṇyaka-Upaniṣad VI.4.7
“This feels so wrong,” she said, as they kissed for the first time.
“Yet oddly compelling” said the rakshasha. “I can tell you like it. You’re bothered that I’ve also slept with your husband. Why not cut to the chase, especially since he refuses to acknowledge what we did. He was all for chopping my body parts like a symbolic clitorectomy when his brother put it up to him.”
“I also feel guilty because you are a better kisser. He may be deity with multiple avatars but only seems to get off with milkmaids, like he had a fear of smallpox. He distrusts me.”
“You are too good for him, Sita.”
“Oh Surpanakha!”
Sita and Surpanakha spent seven magic days together. On the second day, they hauled their possessions on a chariot and built a small hut of love. Sita experienced more pleasure in a single night than with her vegetarian husband. When Sita pledged her devotion to the ugly rakshasha, Surpanakhs shifted to her true and beautiful form. No more did Sita only sing the blues. She also sang also the reds, the oranges, the yellows, the greens, the indigos and the violets (or purples).
“You have it better than Draupadi,” said Surpanakha during a break. “Putting out for five brothers. What if she calls out the wrong name? Won’t it hurt if they all do her the same day? Arjuna is the only one who is hot and he spends time as a quasi-woman. And that Bhima drinks blood.”
Sita wrung her hands.”I do. But I’ve had enough of deities. Why tear off the head of an innocent elephant? That’s the real problem, not whether the trunk is phallic.”
“Agreed. I’ll cook you a Goan fish curry with poori, mango chutney and rice pudding from the milk of sacred cows. Only a few Israelites are here and the Portugese and the Parsees have not been under pressure to come here yet, but our cuisine is still rich. Surpanakha dug a cooking pit.
CRACK.
Two strange white girls stood before them. One brown haired and pretty with a tiara. The other as fresh and beautiful as a May morning. Her eyes sparkled as two diamonds and her lips were tinted like tourmaline. All adown her back floated tresses of ruddy gold with a slender jeweled circlet confining them at the brow. Her robe of silken gauze floated around her like a cloud, and dainty satin slippers shod her feet. She carried a white wand in her hand.
Sita and Surpanakha trembled. “Are you evil demons sent by Rama?”
“No,” said the golden girl with a smile. “My consort and I learned from the book of records that Sita is to be burned. We have come to rescue you.”
‘You are lovers too?”
“The Royal Historian writes about us as if we were ten but we are really seventeen. But any careful reader can tell that we are so together,” said the brunette with an American twang, perhaps from Kansas. “When my wife was kidnapped I was so jealous that Ojo’s boyfriend got to eat the peach she was in. That was almost as bad as when she was turned into a boy as a baby.”
The golden ruler blushed. “When I was stuck in a boy’s body as Tip, I knew it was wrong. Was too scared to tell Glinda. But Glinda said my girl-ness shone through. I am flattered that a trans man and a great science fiction writer both had “Tip” in their names.”
The ruler’s consort flicked her hair. “Poor Glinda had a torrid affair with the Wicked Witch of the West. Even gave her those silver shoes as a present. I’m so glad she’s with the Good Witch of the North now, aren’t you, Ozma dear?”
Ozma’s face turned grave. “It was even more strange that the Royal Historian’s mother-in-law was a famous feminist, yet he portrayed the women’s revolt inaccurately so there could be more dancing girls on the stage. But Lyman was always about the theater, dearest Dorothy.”
Dorothy turned to the Indian women. “Come with us to Oz, full of talking animals and adventures. You can take out our royal chariot as the saw-horse requires no special management. You’ll live forever. We’ll even teach you secret love techniques that Lurline himself, the fairy Queen, taught my wife.”
“In a heartbeat,” said Sita. “This subcontinent has much that is wonderful and holy. But it is tough being a woman, even without living with a mother-in-law. I take solace in the story of a neglected, pregnant wife who helps a pregnant Naga and the entire Naga troop helps her. Yay for good snakes.”
Ozma waved her wand and brought them to the Emerald City, where they married and got on well with all except Professor Wogglebug. Sita learned how to whirl fiery batons and Surpanakha changed shape to amuse the public. Both were amazed at Billina’s immaculate conception of an entire chicken colony without involving heavenly bodies.
When the evil ones in 1930s used the occult to threaten Oz, Sita and Surpanakha lured them with an altered Indian symbol to the waters of Oblivion where they forgot their hate and were sent to Papua New Guinea.
If you have a chance to visit Oz, don’t miss out on the ballet of their story performed by elephants. I had the luck to be at the wedding. But all that remained at the feast was a half of samosa I couldn’t eat being grain free and mead which I couldn’t drink being a teetotaler.