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My name is Aimee. I realized today that my name is the only
thing I still have of my own, and the only part of myself that I know. I had a husband,
Barin. He was a soldier, strong and brave. I loved him desperately and
completely. Every piece of myself was wrapped up in him, in his happiness, and
in our shared love. I existed only to be his wife. It is what I was taught, and
it is what I thought was right. Women were created to obey their husband’s
authority in all things; their loyalty and service to their husbands is how
they show their loyalty and service to God. A woman’s husband is her
everything. That is the lie that I bought, that is the lie that I believed.
I
married young, in accordance with the teachings of my faith. I loved, I smiled,
and I submitted to my husband’s will. I thought I was happy. Then, I lost my
husband. Barin died fighting, as a warrior should, strong and brave to the end.
That is what they told me, as though it matters how he died. The only thing
that matters is that he left me. He left me to be alone, to be no one. Who am I
without a husband to define me? I have sat in this same chair since I was told
of Barin’s death. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing to do. I have no
purpose. I have no identity. Did my parents, my family, my community know that
this is what their faith and their lessons were dooming me to? Would it matter
to them if they did?
There are pills in the bedside table, pills that will put
me to sleep, a sleep that will never end. The first choice that I make for my life
will be how my life will end. Perhaps that choice is a mistake, but it is my
mistake to make. I just hope that other women will read this and make a
different choice. I hope that they will choose to be a person, to know
themselves, to refuse to define themselves by a man. I hope they will show that
it is not only men who can be strong and brave.
As I have sat here writing
these words, the only words of mine that the world will ever see, I have
learned something. There are two parts of myself that I know. I know that my
name is Aimee. I know that all I feel is rage.
Author's Note: Promila was Indrajit's wife in the Ramayana. Sunity Devee's story tells of the events surrounding Indrajits death from Promila's point of view. Indrajit was Ravana's son, the crown prince of Lanka. He and Promila were deeply in love with one another. When Rama, Lakshmana, and their army come to Lanka seeking to rescue Rama's wife, Sita, from Ravana, Indrajit is asked to come fight. He was an incredibly strong warrior, and he got his name from having defeated the god Indra in battle. He agrees to fight, which he sees as his duty. After he dies, Promila chooses to kill herself by burning on Indrajit's funeral pyre. She loves him so much that she refuses to be separated from him, believing that life is not worth living without him. Profile's identity revolved solely around being Indrajit's wife. Promila's suicide was treated as a normal, if sad, response to the death of her spouse. While such a thing might have been normal for that place and that time, I wanted to address it in my story from a more modern perspective. It is not completely unheard of for women now to define themselves through a man, and to see being merely a wife as a woman's place. It is especially common in certain religious groups, so I gave Promila/Aimee that background. I updated Promila's name to Aimee and Indrajit's name to Barin to make them more contemporary, but kept some of the context the same. I wanted to show Aimee felt the way Promila did after her husband's death, as though she had no identity without him, but I also wanted her to be angry about it. I wanted her to feel that she shouldn't be empty/nothing without a man, but that she now feels powerless to change it. So, I wrote the story as a sort of suicide note.
Bibliography: "Promila," Nine Ideal Indian Women by Sunity Devee. Web Source.
