I gave birth to my daughter in a sacred grove and placed her near the Sakuntala birds that I knew make good foster mothers. Only once could I let her suckle before I was vaporized back to Indralok, sucked up to my crystal palace in the Seventh Heaven.
Mine was the first girl-child to be abandoned; I, Menaka, am remembered throughout history as the first mother to have abandoned her daughter. The truth is my Sakuntala wouldn’t have survived the passage back to Heaven for she was half mortal. I flung myself on the brilliants encrusted floor of my aerial chamber. And wept. Raged and wept.
I didn’t attend the celebrations Lord Indra commanded in my honour. I didn’t hear the conch and drums; I only heard my daughter’s weak cries. “Menaka is weeping for her daughter, “ Lord Indra was informed. “ Menaka will be rewarded when she is ready “ He graciously announced. Once a month low-ranking nymphs would ferry my sparkling teardrops in their palms as proof of my grief.
Lord Indra didn’t know I’d never be ready. He didn’t know I’d never forget Sakuntala’s small hands on me, her wee mouth at my nipple, her little red face, her wet crinkled ears, her tiny feet that had kicked me in the womb. There’s insufficient time in the universe to forget such moments.