Public and private rituals
I rub my eyes and the strange room comes into focus. Squatting down, I lay my backpack on the floor and rip it open, pulling by the zipper. On the floor are two thin canes that Sara brought from the party. The dancers banged them against each other or against their partner’s in rhythm. “They symbolize Durga’s swords” explained Sadhna. Rahul gave us another kind of context: “See the girls in their best saris and jewelry? Many weddings start with these dances.”
It was all very respectable, however. Whole families watched the dance, the children jumping, the elders seated in chairs around the spacious open-air square where the young people danced. Chunky arms, wobbling necks, the dark shadow of a belly peeking under the red, blue, yellow of the sari. Other girls wore trousers and kurta like Sadhna and her sister, or an Indian tunic combined with jeans, the blazing colors always covering more than they revealed, leaving the rest to the imagination of the marriageable boys who moved in unison without touching them. They traded glances and smiles, possibly a flirting remark, but if any contact came to be physical, it was very discreet.
Around the yard, stalls sold water bottles, soft drinks, food. Our group joined the swirling circles, a friend of Sadhna was in charge, showing the steps we should emulate. Sara soon started dancing and I made an effort to participate too. We were told to be spontaneous, but every move seemed choreographed, hips swaying, hands twirling, steps like the ones we’d seen at the movies a few hours earlier. The ring turned without stopping. Rahul was as unfit to dance as me, we laughed a lot. When he left the circle I took the opportunity to do the same. The girls continued to dance, moving to the center of the circle and back again, banging their swords.
Beyond the bedroom door, I hear footsteps and voices, Sadhna and her family must have been awake for a long time. Tired of waiting in bed, I wake up Sara. We walk hesitantly down the hall, embarrassed to appear in front of the family with a sleepy face. From the altar room comes a singing murmur. Out of the corner of my eye I see Sadhna’s mother, her face clouded by incense smoke and an open coconut in her hands. Sadhna is in the living room with the laptop on her knees.
“Good Morning! How are you? Did you sleep well?” She closes the laptop. Her plump, unhurried body makes a movement to get up.
“No, no, just tell me where things are, we’ll do everything” says Sara. Sadhna told us that today she’ll have to work on her thesis and Sara doesn’t want to interrupt her. The best she achieves is to accompany Sadhna to the kitchen.
They return with coffee and breakfast, local pancakes again, with sambar and coconut chutney. From the noise of the dishes, Sadhna’s mother is already in the kitchen, tidying or preparing lunch. The rich aroma of coffee and milk fills my nostrils. Sadhna’s father owns a coffee shop and we thought we should kindly ask for coffee instead of the usual chai.
“The coffee was already made” explains Sara when she sees my face twisting to the taste of sugar. “It’s a diabetes bomb.”
With her thumb and forefinger gripping and the other fingers pushing, she struggles to cut a piece of pancake. Her hand hangs in the air, hesitating between the chutney or the sambar, and ends up diving in both.
“And the spicy food right after waking up, isn’t it wonderful?” I say, ironically.
“Ow…” Sara moans, chewing. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”
I scan the room again, looking for signs of occupancy. Besides the living room and the bedroom that we stay in, the only other rooms are the kitchen, the bathroom and the altar room. There are no more beds besides ours, although they could definitely buy them if they wanted to. The parents must roll out mats and sleep on the living room floor, I conclude. And during our visit they all sleep here together. It’s a way to optimize the space, space is expensive in Mumbai. The living room is only used during the day, the bedroom only at night, one can transmute into the other.
“Are you finished?” asks Sadhna as she enters the room. The mother follows behind and looks at Sara expectantly. “I have to do the puja, do you want to watch?”
Sara looks at Sadhna, at her mother. “Can we?”
“Yes, come!”
We follow them to the small room with the altar. In a recess of the wall are several plaster figures and colored images representing the gods, with fresh offerings of flowers and fruits. Sadhna points us a narrow cot. “Sit down. This is where my dad takes his naps. My mother comes every morning to pray and renew the offerings. Navratri is dedicated to the goddess Durga, as I told you, and today is also dedicated to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and the arts, and patron of students, so I also have to participate in the rituals.”
Kneeling on the floor in front of the altar, Sadhna performs the ritual gestures. She waves a lighted lamp in circles, makes more offerings, draws characters on a carpeted rice tray with her finger and translates for us the wishes she asks of the gods. Her mother stands at the side, silent and inert, with a wary smile.
We go out with Sadhna to fulfill the public part of the devotion. The temple is across the street and serves as a reference when we have to come back alone. We stop in front of the elephant-headed god, Sadhna proceeds with the explanations. “We always start with Ganesh.”
She performs a pantomime and keeps her head down, devoutly, for a few seconds. We take a walk around the altar before moving on to the next one. She is expected to pay homage to the various gods distributed throughout the courtyard and the two floors of the temple, according to a precise order. The black idols, housed in stone chambers, almost disappear under the wreaths of flowers placed on their shoulders. We always walk clockwise, all gestures are ritualized. There’s an exact number of circumambulations to perform for each figure, but according to Sadhna, if we are in a hurry we can do just one, she’s not going to waste time walking around.
The other visitors are more obsessive, when they enter they touch the threshold of the door with their fingertips, the walls, the floor, the icons, their own bodies, in precise and repeated gestures, chanting prayers and walking compulsively around the altars. As a brahmin (she never told us her caste, it was Rahul who did), Sadhna is well acquainted with Hindu mythology, she gives us details about the gods, their family trees, recounts legends as we walk from one altar to another, or while we wait for a particularly busy one to be less congested. Although she does everything respectfully, it’s clear that the repetition of the rites tires her, and at least explaining them to us gives them meaning. We hurry away from the temple, she still has more obligations to fulfill.
As the patron goddess of students, the day of Saraswati is an auspicious date to learn new things, and Sadhna will resume her carnatic singing lessons, interrupted while she was in Amsterdam. Again we are invited to watch, the teacher’s house is in the neighborhood. Sadhna and her sister sit on the floor, with their backs to us, and facing us is the dignified gray-haired lady who leads them. An electronic device sounds a low, constant hum, setting the tone that serves as a guide for singing the religious hymns. The three voices vibrate and tremble in sinuous ups and downs. The teacher sparsely interrupts to correct them. Sitting on the bed in the cramped room, Sara and I look at each other in silence, feeling we don’t belong in such an intimate moment.
It was a brief lesson, the actual classes will start in two weeks, this was just to take advantage of the auspicious date, a ploy to please the gods. Now Sadhna has no more time to waste. She escorts us to the road and signals a tuk-tuk to stop. After giving the driver the address, she makes him turn on the taximeter.
“Don’t let him fool you” she recommends before saying goodbye.
Perpetual Motion is a serial novel. Go to Table of Contents to read previous posts.
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