COSMO SHORT STORIES ABOUT Fierce Women

Three fairytales, penned exclusively for our Anniversary Special, that talk about courage, unconditional self-love, and how inner strength can change your life in the best ways.

- Meghna Sharma

DOYAMONTI'S ARMS BY IFFAT NAWAZ Author of (soon-to-be-published) Shurjo's Clan

Around the time the world had forgotten about borders, or maybe it was before such boundaries were born, there lived a Goddess named Doyamonti. She had not two, not four, but six arms. With her six arms, she guided the six continents. Two of her arms carried parijat and plumeria; with those two arms Doyamonti tended to all children, waking them upright when dawn's melodramatic hues wiped away the last breaths of the night sky. The flowers she carried in those hands touched every growing body, she rubbed the fragrance onto their skin, and the children felt protected and guided by the Goddess Doyamonti who watched over them, their parents, and all the rivers of this Earth.

With the other four arms, Doyamonti fixed bridges and straightened farmlands. She ploughed through the Earth and purged everything that was unnecessary and outdated. And then, she planted seeds for the future. When imploring arms called out to her, she cupped her hands and placed them on their restless foreheads. In an instant, the troubled ones felt her affection, her support.

Doyamonti was so close to the humans that no-one thought of her as a far-away-God, unlike her brother Debomoy, who spent most of his time in the seventh continent, where no humans lived, but their footprints still remained frozen in transparent ice-covered paths.

Debomoy had a pair of wings, and he often levitated to higher parts of the sky, where other Gods met him and watched the extended arms down below calling for their mercy. But by the time the Gods could reach the needy, Doyamonti would be done with bestowing her grace upon them.