Bhikkuni Sunanda looked at the mirror. The lens covering her false eye was black and nothing could be seen through it. With the other eye, she saw her face covered in many scars and discoloured patches. She removed her pair of glasses and looked straight at the mirror.
“What beautiful eyes I had!” she contemplated. However, she was not feeling sad. Her face was not an unbearable, disgusting picture to her any more. She slowly started massaging the cheeks and the muscles around her eyes and thought of the first time she saw her wounded eye. How frightening it was! She was not Bhikkuni Sunanda then. She was Sevvandi.
“My rose! My beauty! My life!” her husband used to call her then. With a deep sigh, she gave vent to the depressing feelings she still could not get away from.
“I am human and still new to the golden robes I wear. Little by little, I will get rid of these crazy feelings. Craving is the root of all sins, I know. What the Buddha has preached is true. I will follow ‘Dhamma’ and win at the end.”
It was raining. She saw the rainwater dropping from the sky on the golden sand beneath her window. When the raindrops fell on to the small puddles, watery crowns shot up. They seemed like carved from diamonds. How beautiful they were! But, how short lived! The very instant they appeared, they broke into thousand droplets and disappeared.
“Just like my life,” she thought. “How short lived was the beauty?”
Her life! Her beauty! Her pride! Everything had vanished now. The accident was the turning point of her life. It made her open her eyes and realize the truth. She could still remember what happened when she first saw her face after the operation. “Oh!” an agonizing cry leapt through her lips. It was disgusting.
Where was that beautiful face she was so proud of? She closed her eyes with her hands. She did not wail or shout. She felt that three pairs of eyes, the doctor’s and the two nurses’ watching her. However, the strangled sobs made her shoulders move up and down. She felt a nurse slowly caressing her head. They let her cry soundlessly as much as she wanted.
“I have to bear it. There is nothing else to do,” she knew. She had to accept her fate and face the world.
Sevvandi was a very beautiful girl. She knew she was beautiful and was proud of it. When she was in school, she was called “Monari” (pea-hen). Even after leaving school her pride never ended.
She silently laughed at those with dark skin and blunt features. Even her friends should be beautiful, she thought. Then she would still be the most beautiful among a bevy of beauties. How foolish she was!
She once vied for the title of a beauty queen. Although she did not win it, she was among the first ten. That was how she met her husband. She was very happy when she was chosen as the bride of one of the most handsome, rich, powerful men at that time. She was in seventh heaven the day she got married to him.
You never know when and to whom the cupid would shoot his arrow! she thought as she and her husband flew to France for their honeymoon.
She thought that her whole life would be like the day she got married! How wrong she was! Just like the cupid, we never know when fate or ‘karma’ would attack our life. That was what happened to Sevvandi.
She was so obsessed with the man she was to marry that she never listened to anyone who was open enough to criticize him or his actions. Although she heard that he had other affairs, she believed in what he told her.
“The day I saw you, all the ladies with whom I had been friendly became obscure,” he said. “You know Sevvandi, I was friendly with many women, but had never promised marriage to any. I felt that they are not for me. May be all this time, I was waiting for you, my rose.”
How happy Sevvandi was! “I am the luckiest woman in the world. Getting married to a person like him is far from what I expected. He has money, power, brains, everything.” She never knew or even imagined a disaster was looming on the way.
It was just two years after their marriage. They were still like a newly married couple enjoying life, going to parties and travelling abroad whenever her husband was on business trips.
“I am proud to show my beautiful wife to my colleagues abroad,” he said.
Unfortunately, fate destroyed all her hopes one day when their vehicle met with a fatal accident. The driver died on the spot. Sevvandi was critically injured, and profusely bleeding when the rescuers found them. Her husband too was unconscious but not so badly injured.
Fortunately, the doctors were able to save her life. Yet, her face was maimed with lots of scars and scratches, which even the most efficient doctors could not erase and restore the beauty that was once praised by many. The face was completely different from the pretty face Sevvandi was born with.
The first glance at the new face made Sevvandi cringe in sorrow and shame.
She did not want to see anybody. Like a tortoise curling into its shell, Sevvandi would curl on the bed and cover herself with a bed sheet when anyone visited her. The worst was her husband’s behaviour towards her. He was soon out of hospital, but visited her only once after her operation. He completely deserted her.
“He had gone abroad,” they said, but she soon found out that it was a lie.
“I could have borne it if he was beside me. I wish I were dead,” she told her mother.
“The whole world may snub you. Let them. Your parents would never disown you. We love you more,” was her mother’s reply.
The other visitor who never flinched at her new form was the prelate of their temple. The monk gave her a short sermon about beauty and fate.
“What is beauty? Haven’t you heard that beauty is only skin-deep? This body is a bundle of dirt and rubbish. It is the good moral values of your heart that is precious and not the outside appearance.”
Sevvandi realized that she would never be a beautiful woman again. Clinging to a beauty that could easily change is futile, she thought.
“How proud I was when I was selected for the final round at the beauty contest? In one minute, it all changed.”
She started repenting about the life she led. Maintaining her beauty was her prime concern. Yet, what happened at the end?
“I have no sincere friends because of my vanity. Even my husband has accepted the fact that I have nothing left when my beauty vanished.”
She decided to face the future with courage. Although it was not easy, she faced her visitors with a smile. Soon she found it was easy to become friendly with them. She often visited the temple and listened to the sermons. Craving is the root of all tragedies, she realized. The more she listened the more she wanted to involve herself in religious work.
By this time, she knew that her husband had no idea of accepting her as his wife any more. She gladly divorced him and diverted all her attention on learning more of the Buddha’s teachings. She found solace in learning as well as teaching others, of what she had learnt. It paved the way for her to become a Bhikkuni. She finds solace and a fulfillment in her new life.
Bhikkuni Sunanda adjusted the yellow robe she was wearing, knelt down at the small statue she kept in her room and closed her eyes.