The earth was trembling. She couldn't tell if it was from the shivering bodies of a hundred women or the pounding hooves of the approaching fleet. It didn't matter which. They both looked at her: feverishly, with hollow eyes.

 

On one side, Padmini could see her life ahead. Swooping in with the Khilji armies, it approached as it was Before. He had promised it all as it was Before. Gold, silken cushions, precious minced meats, exotic birds, and adoring gazes. The life of a queen. The life of the Sultana of India. And she knew the promise would be fulfilled.

 

And as the heat from the pyre scorched her once-tender feet, her chiffon chaddar swept away in the wind, and her rose-gold complexion darkened with the soot in the air, Rani knew she wished for nothing more than what she had had Before. The only thing was, Before, it had love. Before, it had dignity. Before, it had the respect of a woman. And after? It had none of those.

 

She could see the ladies of the royal house with the spirit of sacrifice ablaze in their hearts. She could see how they shielded their forms and guarded their virginities.

 

For what did a woman ever own, but her body? What did she ever have to defend, but her autonomy? And when she couldn't, when she failed herself…was a woman, even a woman anymore? So wasn't the first and foremost duty of a woman, to herself?

 

And if a woman was to ever stand in the face of death…shouldn't she be able to choose her path out? Or should she stand still in the face of the predators that would approach?

 

So, as two hundred eyes fixated on her grief-stricken, widowed form, and one thousand broken Rajput spears sheltered her from afront, Rani Padmini made a choice. Her eyes gazed down at flames licking up her husband’s bloodied corpse…they were scalding, they were burning, they were suffocating.

 

And with a final cry for sovereignty, for the final choice for the women of Chittor, the could-be Sultana jumped. And a hundred others followed.

 

They say Allahuddin Khilji boarded up the Jauhar Kund that day. They say he won the Siege of Chittor. But others know that the real victory was that of the women. The real victory was that of Rani Padmini. Because only those who find themselves brave enough to escape the shackles of humiliation, destruction, and dishonour themselves, ever truly win.

 

This is why, the pit of Jauhar Kund still echoes with the dying wails of the women of Chittor to this day, reminding us of the one hundred and one chosen paths to honour.