Taking the Road Less Travelled

I really liked the name of the last chapter in Power titled, "What I have Left." On page 231, Omishto is contemplating the life she has lived (with her parents and the white people that surround her) as she makes her way to the new life (with the old people above Kili Swamp). I continuously had the feeling that Omishto had been "reborn." The first time I felt this was after I read page 95 when Omishto says that the mud and march are the origins of life. She continues on saying that at school she learned "that storms create life, that lightning, with its nitrogen, is a beginning. If storms create life, and lightning is symbolic of a beginning, then I assumed that Omishto was asking to be born again, or reborn. In order to find herself, she needed a "rebirth." Each and every experience she has trudged through, as one would through the mud, marsh and swamp, have aided in this rebirth. Still on page 95, she remarks that "falling is the natural way of things; gravity needs no fuel, no wings. It needs only stillness and waiting and time." Although she did not know it then, this is exactly what Omishto needed in order to experience a "rebirth." She needed Patience in order to find herself. In addition, on page 212, we see Omishto breaking free of her old life in order to begin her new life with the older people and on pg.223, she sits on the step at Ama's, watching the "lightning in the distance," knowing she has wings and knowing she will use them to fly. Sticking strongly to her belief that "the world is dying" (231), Omishto knows that there is no better time than now for her "rebirth." The panther she sees on page 222 is her signal--a signal that is telling her it is okay to give up everything and nothing at the same time to live with the old people. She could never be herself in her old life and only by living with the old people above Kili Swamp could she be Omishto. Kili Swamp, "where the road grows narrow" (109) was the road she was destined to take all her life--the road less travelled. Omishto is aware that she is saving herself and just as she states on page 224, "in all these savings, the path of things is changed forever." She was once saved by the old people, Ama saved their world by sacrificing herself and the panther and now Omishto will be saved again from the broken and decayed world she used to be a part of. Rather than taking the wider road (the one built by the whites, the one that is the easiest to cross because the path is clear and worn down from those who continuously travel it, the one everyone but the old people, Ama and Omishto seem to follow) she takes the narrow road. Throughout the story, the path has been laid for her and although the road less travelled is usually the hardest, roughest and scariest to get through, it is the one that brings salvation in the end. It is not only what Omishto has "left behind," but what she has "left for" herself and her future--she has left her old past behind and has "left herself" enough time to live a long life with the old people.