Translated with no permission and considerable leeway. Mathrubhumi, 2024 May 19-25.
Perhaps because he was a man, God was despairing and depressed by the end of the process of Creation. He was dissatisfied more by that which he had created with utmost care and earnesty. That which frenzied him till then had stopped, suddenly. You can see that in *vellila* plants (Mussaenda). When beauty was withdrawn, the petals became leaves. The same had happened in the case of woman.
God was overjoyed when he took, in his hand, the substance for creating woman. A vast emptiness had been bothering God for a while. It was time to be liberated from that. He got enamored in her as he formed her. You could see that in his use of the substance he used to make her, his hand had faltered at many places. He created in her the softest he had ever created. Do you know how many times he re-wrote her neck and the valley of her forehead and the nape of her neck and the lobes of her ears and her bosom and her pelvis and her navel and her thighs to get them this way? He could not control himself after a while. But the woman was punished for his weakness. Isn’t that how it is? Guilt turned into hatred. God cursed her and sent her to Earth.
What was the curse, you ask? You will never be sure about whom to love. You will behave with enmity towards the one who loves you. You will scorn him. You will feel that you should break his fingers which caress you. But you will kiss those legs which trample you. You will follow, like a dog wagging its tail, those who do not bend to your will. You will never be at peace because of your obsession for what you cannot get. Nothing will taste good to you until you taste the inaccessible fruit. The one you love will not love you back. And you will not love back the one who loves you.
In every life she had since then, she had prayed her heart out to God to lift the curse. And to tell you the truth, she did receive some clemency.
All that said, she has not been completely redeemed. Neither did she get an answer to the question ‘How have I wronged?’ Will there be a God if everything had an answer? All she could see was the shadow of God walking away.
But at times she is overcome with joy at having destroyed God’s peace.
Out of the two women who heard this story, one exploded with anger: “A man made up this story. He does not know that there is no woman, only women.” The other one supported her, “True, there is no one story for all of us.” She continued with her voice down, “But, at times, rarely at times, I have felt that there are no women, only woman; like how we feel there are no men, only man.”