08:23 PM
I did my research again. I found out ten things to correct.
Bari was a princess from the beginning. I had thought she came from a modest, middle-class family, but she was born into a royal family, whose father was an impatient, greedy man. In fact, that’s why he got the no-son curse: a shaman had told him to wait for one year to get a child if he wanted three sons. But instead, he made his wife pregnant without a delay. As a result, he got seven daughters he did not ask for.
But Bari was a child he wanted: in his dreams, he saw turtles and dragons, and thought they should mean a boy. But no, he was wrong again.
He abandoned the baby right after her birth. But strangely it was not easy: he tried to abandon her amongst wild animals, but they kept following him, crying, as if rejecting his request. So, in the end, like Moses in the Bible, he decided to put the baby in a small basket and float it down the river. And like Moses, she was found by a kind person, who brought her to an old couple. And yes, she was way too clever not to know her birth story. And perhaps foolish enough to launch on a mission to save her parents.
Yes, she wanted to save her parents. By the time she turned an adult, her father fell ill — a punishment for abandoning the child. The only way to save him, according to a shaman, was to go down to the dark underground world and ask the god of death for a miracle potion. But none of his children wanted to do that. Why would they? All they got from their father must have been harshness and hatred. So they tracked down, found Bari, and asked her if she was willing to do it. And yes, yes, our foolish Bari said yes.
The journey was arduous. She went through all sorts of trouble and at last found the man — a god of death. He falls in love with her. A love at first sight. But another problem: he doesn’t know love. So he gives her what he’s more familiar with: abuse. He makes her labor under him for nine freaking years. Three after three after three. Then asks for a marriage. Then seven sons. Bari says yes to all of them, and she makes everything happen.
Then one day, she realizes this is not right. So she gathers her stuff and tells her husband that she should leave. She needs to save her parents. He says no. But she sneaks out in the dead of night. And her sons all follow with her. Why not? He must have been a very unloving father.
This is where the story takes many turns: in the textbook I read when I was a student, the husband stays behind. He’s a god of death — he cannot leave hell, his home. But according to my research, there are some happier versions too: in one version, the husband accompanies his wife and his children and makes his way to her home, the place where she was born, the people who abandoned her.
The king gets salvation. He’s happy, so happy that he offers half of this kingdom. She is now his golden trophy. Better than a son he had ever wanted.
As far as my memory tells, she denies his prizes. She leaves everything — her homeland, her parents, her past — and walks back to the world of the underground. She will now live there as a god of healing. She wants to fix the hell. Fix the broken world and the wounded people.
Thus she becomes the everlasting, heroic, mythical leading character. Princess Bari.
I wonder if she went back to her husband. I wonder if her life felt better than before. I wonder if she was able to fix the real problem, which to me looks like constantly trying to fix things. Constantly believing everything is her responsibility. I wonder, I wonder if she was able to rest, after long, long years of unwanted sacrifice. I wonder if she learned to find peace in this wild, unorganized world. It was not her fault that she got abandoned. I wonder if she ever figured that out.
Lastly, I wish her peace. And I wish her happiness. Not of others, but solely of hers.
