Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  Ferntree Gully Sri Ganapathi Vinayaka temple was not actually located in Ferntree Gully. The real estate agent had lied to the group of Indian businessmen he’d brought to view the site. ‘Prime real estate!’ he’d told them, carefully putting his thumb over the part of the contract where the address was written. The five-acre parcel of land was actually in Boronia, a somewhat seedy suburb to the north-west. The address wasn’t the real problem, though – the problem was the Rebels Motorcycle clubhouse on the property that backed onto the empty paddock.

  The local residents had been trying to get rid of the bikies for quite some time. Their first salvo had been a petition for that little bit of land to be zoned for industrial use. ‘Let’s see how long they’ll last with a chemical factory on their doorstep!’ Yet no chemical plant or industrial development eventuated. Local business leaders had a healthy fear of the Rebels. For a long time the paddock just attracted the local bogans, who used it as a comfortable spot to smoke ganja and dare each other to knock on the door of the clubhouse. ‘I dare ya, Simmo! I dare ya to knock on the door or you’re a faggot!’

  When it became known that the group of Indian businessmen were considering building a temple there, the residents were deeply conflicted. While they did not want foreigners and their strange gods moving into the neighbourhood, they did not want the paddock left empty, either. It was just begging for some tool to toss a cigarette butt in at the height of summer and all of the Dandenongs would go up in flames!

  ‘It’s the lesser of two evils really,’ the head of the residents’ group had said when he rang the real estate agent. ‘We’d much rather a Hindu temple than bushfires.’

  Madhav had been looking forward to the peace and quiet of the temple in Varanasi after the noise and congestion of Mumbai, but here on the outskirts of Melbourne he felt quite isolated. The temple received only about ten visitors a day, and sometimes not even that many. The chief pundit, Reverend Shastri, told him that it was much busier on weekends and festival days, and his heart sank. It was exactly like the temples he knew back in the UK – visited only on weekends, as a social activity.

  There was a half-hour walk from the temple down the hill to the shops and the train station, and the shops themselves were not particularly inspiring – a milk bar, a charcoal chicken shop and a lacklustre hardware store that existed mainly because it supplied hydroponic equipment to the Rebels. Madhav did not exert himself much to go to the shops – not because he didn’t want to, but because he got seriously sunburnt the first time he tried.

  ‘The Australian sun is not like the Indian sun,’ the chief pundit had told him, handing Madhav a hat and a tube of papaw cream. ‘I know you probably spent your entire time in Mumbai without needing protection, but the sun here is evil. It will kill you with cancer!’

  After that, Madhav was almost too terrified even to leave the shaded compound of the temple itself.

  To make matters worse, the chief pundit took a holiday almost as soon as he’d arrived, before the end of his first week. ‘Very good. Very good,’ Reverend Shastri said, packing his bags for Delhi. ‘You are a graduate from one of the best Hindu seminaries in India! You know what to do,’ he insisted.

  So day after day, Madhav found himself confined to the temple with no one for company. Staring at the walls. Lighting and rearranging offerings. Going over and over the liturgy in the cramped little office until he thought he’d go insane.

  But there was a reason that Madhav confined himself to the office. It was not strictly true that he was all alone at the temple. For every morning, like clockwork, a car rolled into the compound and dropped a woman off at the doorstep of the temple. She was very elegantly turned out, her saree immaculately draped and her long grey hair pinned carefully into a bun at the back of her head. She was quite delicate, though, as if many years of malnutrition had robbed her of her vitality.

  He had been friendly at first, talking to the woman, inviting her in, but she only nodded silently as she got the broom from the closet and started to sweep the compound. She attended every pooja though, standing at the back of the room and rocking in prayer, her lips moving in silent benediction. She even did most of the decorations in the temple, organising the trays of fruit for offerings but promptly stepping away before the sacred fires were lit. She was definitely useful, and Madhav would have been glad of her company, if only she weren’t so morbidly silent.

  It was during a pooja that Madhav became aware she was not quite right in the head. A young couple had requested a full fire pooja, with sacred fires lit in all the sanctums, asking Madhav to beseech the gods on their behalf for the husband’s success in a job interview. They had paid handsomely for it too, a whole two hundred dollars, which was a lot for a migrant family.

  The silent woman had not been in the rectory when Madhav started preparing for the ceremony, lighting the fires with great pomp and getting everything ready. He’d been discussing the significance of the fire pooja with the young couple when she came back in. She’d taken one look at all the fires and started to scream – unholy screams that had literally made Madhav tremble with fear – and then ran outside still screaming.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ Madhav yelled at her, trying to manhandle her back into the temple. But he could not get through to her. She kept screaming and sobbing for a good forty minutes before falling into a dead faint.

  When the car came to pick her up several hours later, Madhav crossly confronted its driver, a young man. ‘Your mother had a nervous breakdown today! She screamed and screamed until she fainted!’

  ‘She is not my mother,’ the young man replied, wearily getting out of the car. ‘Where is she?’

  Madhav grudgingly took him to the rectory, where the woman was still asleep on a very uncomfortable sofa.

  ‘She can’t come here if she is mentally unstable,’ Madhav said. ‘This is not a lunatic asylum!’

  ‘Did you have a fire pooja today?’ the young man asked.

  ‘Yes – we did. Why?’

  ‘Next time just tell her and she’ll stay out of the way. She can understand and speak when she wants to,’ the young man said, shaking her shoulder. ‘Aunty Nila, Aunty Nila, wake up . . . it’s me, Aravinda.’

  She looked at him, confused.

  ‘I’m Renuka’s nephew,’ he said. ‘You’ve been living with us in Australia for some time now. She forgets everything when she’s had one of these episodes,’ Aravinda explained for Madhav’s benefit.

  ‘The answer is no. You can’t extend Hindu religious studies every Sunday by an extra four hours.’

  ‘But . . .’ Madhav protested; despite having been at the temple for nearly six months now, he was nowhere closer to having the management committee on side.

  ‘But nothing,’ Ananda, the chair of the board of trustees spluttered. ‘For most of these kids, Sunday afternoon is the only free time they have! If we try and keep them in on Sundays as well, we’ll have a mutiny that would make Mangal Pandey proud!’

  ‘My girls have no time, nah,’ Mrs Vasundaram huffed. ‘Monday night is maths tuition, Tuesday night is remedial lessons in English, Wednesday night is music, Thursday night is science tuition and on Friday night I look over all their homework and set them extra lessons they have to fit in on Saturday before or after swimming.’

  ‘Do your girls go to Professor Srilal for maths tuition?’ Ananda asked.

  ‘Yes. He was the dean of mathematics at Lucknow University, but he drives taxis now.’

  ‘You should try Vivek Banerjee,’ another trustee interrupted. ‘My Preethi was only getting eighty and eighty-five for her maths tests and two weeks with Professor Patel and she is getting perfect scores.’

  ‘Was he teaching at Delhi University?’

  ‘No, at the University of Bangalore . . .’

  ‘Is he driving cabs?’

  ‘No, he is working in Delights of Delhi in Doncaster as a waiter.’

  Madhav rolled his eyes. The trustees spent more time gossiping than discussing a
ny temple business.

  ‘I also wanted to ask about Nila Mendis,’ he said, interrupting. ‘Is there anyway we can prevent her coming to the temple every day?’

  ‘No, puttar, no . . . we cannot ban Nila Mendis from coming to this temple,’ Reverend Shastri interjected kindly. ‘I grant you it is difficult with her loitering about, but she is truly harmless, son.’

  ‘Just ignore her,’ Ananda advised.

  Madhav was not pleased, but he had more important questions. ‘Fine – but what I really wanted to talk to you about was Varalakshmi Vratham.’

  Again Ananda looked sternly at Madhav. ‘As I’ve said before, if we were to celebrate every festival for the 330 million deities in Hinduism, neither you nor I would have a moment to spare!’

  ‘But Mahalakshmi Vratham is not a festival for a local deity. It is a pooja for the goddess Laksmi! It is celebrated all around India!’ Madhav insisted.

  ‘It is a pooja practised at home by housewives. They fast, they decorate the house, they chant some gathas and that is it. There is no need for the temple to get involved,’ Mrs Vasundaram chided.

  ‘So what is the point in women doing the pooja in the home if they spend the rest of the evening gossiping?’ Madhav said angrily. ‘Families must come to the temple after their offerings at home!’

  ‘It is none of our business what they do at home after the pooja,’ Reverend Shastri said, starting to sound a little impatient now.

  ‘But it is our business. The Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja is an essential pooja in the Hindu calendar! It celebrates the goddess Laksmi and her bountiful benevolence! Do you know the tale of Charumathi?’

  A set of blank faces greeted him.

  ‘Charumathi was a Brahmin woman who lived in Kundina in the kingdom of Magadha. She was a good woman. She was a devout woman. She fasted when she should and she prayed three times a day. So one day, Mahalaksmi came to her in a dream and asked her to worship her by saying special secret prayers on the Friday before the full moon in the month of Sravana – July. She did as the goddess asked, and she found that all her worldly desires were fulfilled.’

  He had their attention, at least for a moment.

  ‘Her children did well, becoming educated pundits, and her husband’s business – well, it flourished. So after that, year after year, more and more women would join Charumathi to chant the special secret prayers that Mahalaksmi had told her. Padmaasane Padmakare sarva lokaika poojithe Narayana priyadevi supreethaa bhava sarvada,’ Madhav recited.

  ‘Let me conduct this service. Let the families come here after they have their poojas at home and we’ll chant the special prayers. All we need is some money for kalanas and some decorations,’ he continued.

  As soon as he mentioned money, Ananda looked at the time on his watch and Mrs Vasundaram started to put away her notebook and pens. In desperation he blurted, ‘I’ll pay for it then! Take it out of my pay! Just let me do this pooja.’

  Ananda relented. ‘It is his money after all,’ he said, looking first at Reverend Shastri and then at the other board members.

  ‘What utter nonsense – we women are too tired after fasting and making sweets for our families to come to this silly pooja,’ Mrs Vasundaram grumbled.

  ‘You have to do the decorations all by yourself,’ Reverend Shastri warned. ‘None of the committee will help and it all has to be finished by ten pm. I do not want to have the police turn up!’ The chief pundit stood and stomped off, muttering to himself. ‘Those police come here thinking they can get a two for one – hassle us while raiding the ganja growers out the back!’

  On the afternoon of the Mahalakshmi Vrata Pooja, nothing was going to plan.

  ‘Here! Idiots! The kalanas don’t go there! And have you filled them with anything yet?’ Madhav asked. His helpers were the lad who had driven him to the temple that first night, Kumar, and his trusty sidekick Gohar.

  ‘Filled them with what?’ Gohar asked.

  ‘Rice, you idiots!’ Madhav yelled,

  ‘Look here . . .’ Gohar started, but Kumar stopped him with a murderous glare. Gohar knew the deal. Madhav would allow the two of them to stay in the rectory at the temple each Friday and Saturday night for a whole month. ‘A whole month, remember,’ Kumar muttered. ‘A whole month of being able to go out and drink as much as we want and walk home! Imagine that! Our mothers will never find out.’

  Yes indeed, the pundit was enabling two young Indian men to go out on a Friday night to the most dubious nightclub in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Stylus, to get legless, so that they would help him with the decorations for the pooja!

  ‘You need to fill the pots with rice and a mirror, and decorate them,’ Madhav explained, pointing to a picture in an illustrated Hindu theology book. ‘Then you’ll need to put the buntings up and put the betel leaves out!’

  On and on this went all afternoon. At just after five, Madhav caught Kumar and Gohar walking around with crowns of coconut husks on their heads, having mock battles with the fake bronze swords that were supposed to be the goddess Laksmi’s husband’s weapons. Half the decorations were not yet up.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘Get back to work. People will start to come a little after six.’

  ‘Nah . . . people won’t come anytime before seven,’ Kumar said. ‘People have to go home, have dinner and make their kids do their homework before they jump in the car and drive for three-quarters of an hour to come here.’

  Madhav collapsed to the ground and held his head in his hands. He should never have thought he could pull off a festival like this. Not so early in his career. Maybe he should tender his resignation and go back to India.

  It was then that he noticed something. From in between his fingers.

  ‘What have you drawn on those clay pots?’ he demanded.

  ‘You told us decorate them like the ones in the pictures,’ Gohar protested pointing to the Hindu theology book.

  ‘See, we have drawn them exactly like the symbols in the book,’ Kumar said. The book had a picture of a pot with only a part of the symbol showing. And Gohar and Kumar had copied it exactly.

  ‘You bloody fool! You have drawn half a bloody swastika!’

  ‘As in Heil Hitler?’ Gohar demanded, sticking his arm out in a Third Reich salute.

  ‘No, as in a real swastika!’ Madhav cried. ‘The swastika was and is the Hindu symbol for goodness! Wipe those symbols off right now and start over again.’

  In desperation, he closed his eyes and begged the goddess Laksmi for help. Any help. But as he opened them again, he felt that the gods had really deserted him, for Nila Mendis was just being dropped off in the courtyard.

  ‘If you can keep your aunt at home just for that day, I would be most grateful,’ Madhav had begged her nephew, but clearly his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

  Reverend Shastri emerged from his office and took the young pundit by the arm. ‘Good lord, lad! You are going to conduct your first major pooja and we haven’t even talked yet! Come! Come!’ he insisted. ‘We need to discuss the order of service, the prayers list and specific people to thank. We cannot forget the board of trustees – it is, after all, due to their benevolence that we are all here.’

  Madhav’s interview with the chief pundit lasted a good hour and a half. Reverend Shastri insisted on not only determining the prayers but also checking his pronunciation of the more arcane words. As Madhav finally rushed to his room to change for the ceremony, he was grateful that Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja was on a Friday night and hopefully not too many people would attend since it was the night for mathematics tuition!

  ‘I felt something. Did you feel anything?’ one lady whispered.

  ‘I never took the Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja seriously, but this was truly magical,’ another said to a friend as they stepped into the bitterly cold winter night, leaving the warmth and magic behind them. And it had been magical.

  Lamps had been lit all around the shrine room and lanterns hung high beneath the ceiling. The central
walkway to the inner sanctum had been strewn with rose petals and the perfume of sandalwood wafted over it all. And in each corner of the large room, there had been a lavishly decorated kalanas, smeared with vermilion and draped with hundreds of necklaces and jewels. The whole room had reflected the opulence and grandeur that was the benevolence of the goddess Laksmi.

  But nothing, nothing, could have prepared them for what happened next. When the new pundit had walked in, followed by Kumar and Gohar, carrying the statue of the deity on their shoulders, everyone gasped. Some prostrated themselves in religious fervour.

  The saree draped on the near life-size statue had been a work of art. Not that it was an uncommon saree by any stretch of the imagination – it was just a commonplace Benares silk – but you could have been forgiven for thinking she was real, such was the intricacy of the folding and draping, following her figure as faithfully and surely as if she were alive.

  More than one person thought they’d felt the goddess’s eyes on them. Some people even swore that they’d seen her move, such was the elegance of the drape of the saree. But everybody knew that the temple was graced with her divine presence when Madhav started to chant.

  During the whole two-hour service not one person walked out, fidgeted or even stirred, spellbound by the magic of the prayer service. But the real magic started several days later.

  ‘Guess what? My Srinivas got a job!’ one woman cried on the phone to another. ‘We went to the Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja and we made a vow. The very next day he got a call for the interview, and two days later – a job! He has been looking for three years now!’

  ‘My daughter is pregnant,’ another cried at a large afternoon tea party. ‘They have been trying for six years and finally she is pregnant. I made a vow at the Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja!’

  ‘We were struggling to make ends meet,’ a young mother confessed to a friend at her mothers’ group. ‘The rent is so high and babies cost so much money. But my husband just called me and told me he just got a promotion! I think it’s because I made a vow at Mahalakshmi Vrata Pooja the other week.’