Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  Rumours and whispers started to sweep through the community. What started as a quiet conversation here, a telephone call there or a friendly exchange somewhere else soon turned into a raging fire. An Australian bushfire almost. Vows and dearest dreams were coming true all over the place. Businesses were succeeding, jobs won and women falling pregnant.

  People had been to the Ferntree Gully Sri Ganapathi Vinayaka temple before and made umpteen vows, but nothing had come of it. Something had changed. And it had to be that new young pundit. What else could it be? It had to be that young man who prayed so earnestly. And everyone had heard the voice of the Mahalaksmi Devi when he led the prayers that night. No one could doubt that.

  Ever since the Mahalakshmi Vratham Pooja, Madhav had been swamped. There had been a series of near miraculous changes in some lives and people were now flocking to the Ferntree Gully Sri Ganapathi Vinayaka Temple to get their cut of divine intervention.

  ‘Punditji, I have problems with my mother-in-law. Aii! Day in, day out she is criticising me. The food I cook is not good enough. My children are not respectful enough. Now my husband is ganging up with his mother against me,’ the young woman wept.

  ‘My wife . . . I think she is having an affair,’ a man cried.

  ‘My son is thinking of marrying an Australian girl. I have no problem with her. But her mother, well, she has pink hair. I am so scared my grandchildren will have pink hair too!’ another lady confided.

  People came from all over the state. Indian doctors from Echuca, Hindu devotees from Warrnambool and even hippies from an ashram in Daylesford. They all came to him seeking advice, spiritual solace, and in every instance – help!

  Madhav tended to them all. He doled out wisdom based on ancient Hindu scripture, soothed their troubled minds and did poojas for them.

  ‘Listen to your mother-in-law. Does she have a point? Is your cooking good enough? Are your children respectful? Hinduism teaches that it is the responsibility of the woman to be a good wife. A good daughter-in-law. Are you being that? Now I will do a pooja. We will beseech the goddess Sita for you. We must ask her to help you to be a good wife,’ Madhav advised.

  ‘If your wife is having an affair, you have every right to take her back to India and divorce there. Come back to Australia with your children. Adultery is against the dharma!’ he advised sternly. ‘I will now do a pooja for Lord Ganapathi and ask him to find you a good wife. A homely wife,’ he said.

  ‘I am not worried about your son’s mother-in-law’s hair as long as your daughter-in-law is a good Hindu. Ask her to come to the Hinduism course I am teaching every Sunday night now. She needs to understand the ancient tradition she is marrying into,’ he replied.

  But what had changed the most was the relationship between Madhav and the board of trustees. Even the chief pundit had a new respect for the young man, who now seemed indispensable to the running of the temple.

  At the next board meeting, Madhav brought up the subject of a break.

  ‘What do you mean you need a break?’ Ananda spluttered.

  ‘I work from six in the morning until ten at night. I need more than an hour’s lunchbreak,’ Madhav clarified.

  ‘Of course,’ the man sighed.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Mrs Vasundaram gasped. ‘It was just that we thought you might be wanting to take a break to go back to India.’

  ‘No, no . . . I have work to do here,’ Madhav said. Yes, God’s plan was very clear to him now. He realised why he had been sent to this land. It was to bring Hinduism to these people. He finally understood his journey. From London to Mumbai, and now to Melbourne.

  ‘But I need some help. I need someone to help me with the poojas and to help me set everything up,’ he continued.

  ‘Would you like us to send for someone from India?’ Ananda asked.

  ‘No. Why not ask Kumar and Gohar? They have holidays coming up from university next week. Could they help me?’

  ‘We do not have any money to pay them,’ Mrs Vasundaram protested.

  Madhav stared straight into her eyes. ‘We do not have money, madam? Really? Everyone of my poojas costs twenty-five dollars. I also know that you buy cheap fruit from the markets for the actual offerings. Since my pay hasn’t increased and the number of people who come has increased many fold, what is becoming of all that extra money?’

  Ananda and the other trustees bristled.

  The trick to haggling is to know when to up the ante. ‘And I hear that they are looking for a new pundit for the temple they are building in Seaford. I hear that it is by the beach and there would even be scope for having water poojas!’

  ‘But of course we can get Kumar and Gohar to help. We’ll even pay them the minimum wage!’ Mrs Vasundaram said quickly. ‘Did you know they don’t even pay minimum wage at Delights of Delhi in Doncaster? I heard they got raided by Immigration!’

  ‘I heard they got raided by the health authorities,’ Reverend Shastri interrupted.

  ‘No, no, it was Immigration! All those international students working overtime!’ Ananda said.

  ‘So, you agree then? That I can have Kumar and Gohar to help?’ Madhav said.

  ‘Yes – just for the school holidays to start with.’

  Kumar and Gohar weren’t bad lads – they just weren’t smart lads. Kumar had earned sufficient marks to get into engineering, having been tutored during his primary school and high school years, but he was floundering at university

  Gohar was cut from a different cloth altogether. The youngest of four children and the favourite of his grandmother, he’d been indulged beyond belief. When he’d struggled at school, mainly due to laziness rather than lack of intelligence, his grandmother had blamed it on a poor horoscope which would right itself with age.

  ‘Let the boy be,’ she would croon, pushing another laddoo into his mouth. ‘He’ll grow up when he needs to. I’m leaving him my property in India. Go back home, my son, and enjoy the good life in the Punjab. Marry a rich girl and have plenty of servants! Why should he do chores around the house?’

  They were not quick learners, and Madhav was often impatient with them, but Nila Mendis was there to show them what to do and guide them. Kumar and Gohar were not as grateful as they should have been, and often tormented Nila. They took indescribable pleasure in repeatedly asking her questions, knowing she was reticent to speak.

  ‘So what is your name, Aunty?’

  ‘Where do you live, Aunty?’

  ‘Can we have a look at your underskirt, Aunty? Is it red or blue?’

  ‘If you show me your underskirt, I will marry you. Please let me marry you?’

  Madhav did nothing to stop their nonsense, hoping she would grow tired of their teasing and not come back one day. She was the sole nuisance in what was fast becoming a perfect life for Madhav. She was there. Always there. Looking at him with those beady eyes.

  Madhav never saw it, but in the privacy of the shrine room, Kumar and Gohar’s relationship with Nila Mendis was something altogether very different. The boys were immensely thankful to Aunty Nila. She’d saved them more than once. When tasked with a serious job or in a moment of crisis, Nila was as lucid and sensible as anyone else – in fact she could speak plainly and well, as she’d demonstrated on the night of the Mahalakshmi Vrata Pooja. When Madhav had disappeared into the chief pundit’s office, she had taken charge.

  ‘Boys, come here,’ she’d commanded in a voice that brooked no dispute. ‘Now I want you to put away those silly swords and help me fill these pots. And put those buntings up again. Do it properly this time!’

  Before they knew it, the room had been entirely redecorated. But where Aunty Nila had really shone was when she’d draped the saree on the statue of the deity, whispering prayers under her breath. The boys had seen her magic there . . .

  While Madhav had actually conducted the poojas and offered counselling, it was Nila who’d made sure everything went smoothly, praying alongside the pundit in the inner sanctum. So while the miracles wer
e attributed to Madhav, it could be argued that they would not have occurred without Nila.

  Madhav remembered the first time he ever heard a prayer; it was to the Lord Ganesh and it was while he was in his mother’s womb. Yes, truly. Why would a Hindu priest lie? He was about six when he was finally able to ask his mother about it over breakfast.

  ‘Mama . . . what were you doing in Aunty Preethi’s house the night Uncle Jude had his heart attack?’

  ‘I can’t remember, beta,’ Pinky Patel had fudged as she strapped her youngest daughter into a high chair and poured cereal into the bowl of her older daughter, who was watching TV. ‘It was a long time before you were born.’

  ‘But Mama, you remember everything.’ Madhav had rolled his eyes. ‘You even remember who sewed your mother’s lengha for her wedding.’

  ‘I was there because Preethi called all upset. Her mother had called her from India saying that she’d heard from Aunty Pimmi that Uncle Hithesh had heard from his cousin that . . . beta, how did you know that I was at Aunty Preethi’s house? You weren’t even born!’

  ‘I remember,’ he’d confessed. ‘You caught the tube from Holland Park to Monument, but you got worried when you changed over. Then you went up Angel and walked to her house through the markets . . .’

  ‘Yes . . . it was the end of spring and I bought . . .’

  ‘Some apples. Green apples. Yuk!’ Madhav had gagged. ‘I fell asleep once you got there, though . . .’

  ‘I was chatting to Aunty Preethi . . .’

  ‘I always slept when you gossiped.’

  ‘I wasn’t gossiping!’ Pinky protested.

  ‘I had just woken up and Aunty Preethi begged you to help her with the pooja . . .’

  ‘Yes, she’d just found out that Uncle Jude was still in contact with his girlfriend in India! And she wanted to pray to Lord Ganapathi to get her out of the way!’

  ‘But you prayed wrong and Lord Ganapathi got everything out of the way,’ Madhav whispered. ‘He almost got Uncle Jude out of the way.’

  Pinky Patel collapsed quite nerveless onto a high stool near the breakfast bar.

  ‘Mama . . . I hear God, Mama. I hear him speak to me some times.’

  ‘What does he say to you?’ Pinky demanded.

  ‘He is not a he, Mama . . . oh, sometimes he is a he . . . and sometimes she is a she . . .’

  ‘So what does he or she say to you?’

  ‘Nothing much . . . she is there sometimes when I am scared of the dark. He helped me with some bullies in the park the other day. But they are very happy when I pray. I can feel them smile.’

  Pinky had started to panic. ‘You don’t listen to them, nah! Never listen to them! They are bad voices.’

  ‘No, they are good voices. They are gods!’

  ‘No, beta, no. You must not listen to them!’ she’d pleaded.

  ‘But can I speak with them?’ he begged. ‘I love talking to them.’

  ‘How do you talk to them?’

  ‘I pray . . . Shri Mahaganapatim Bhajeham Shivatmajam Sanmukhagrajam.’

  ‘And they hear you?’

  ‘Of course . . . They hear everyone who prays to them.’

  ‘But they don’t always answer prayers.’

  ‘That has to do with karma. If you have really bad karma they cannot help you. But they do listen. They try to help all the time. They say they like it when I pray. They like to do things when I ask them to do things. Remember that time when we were at the park and I lost my toy car? I prayed and we found it days later?’

  Pinky nodded. It had been nothing short of miraculous that the toy car had been left on the top of the swings. And she had to admit there was something very compelling about Madhav’s voice. He was not an ordinary little boy. From his earliest days, people were drawn to him just to listen to him speak.

  ‘Don’t listen to them, though . . . you only listen to Mama and Papa,’ she’d insisted. ‘And don’t tell anyone what you’ve told me today!’

  ‘But I can still pray?’ Madhav had demanded.

  ‘Yes, beta,’ Pinky had conceded shakily. She would simply have to ensure that he got involved in sports and so many other activities that he forgot his religious leanings. And parties. She’d make sure he went to plenty of parties.

  But try as she might, she could not stop Madhav from praying. In the early hours of the day or in the dead of the night, she’d find him in prayer, his lips moving silently, his eyes half closed. She was sure he was the only teenager in England who did not have to be told to get up off the couch and away from the TV!

  ‘So what do you see or feel when you pray?’ one of his sisters had asked in frustration the day he’d left England for India. It had been six months of constant fighting for the entire household. His mother and father had vehemently opposed his decision to become a pundit and had fought him all the way.

  ‘Everything . . .’ he’d whispered. ‘I see everything. Adithi . . . you don’t understand. I feel God. I feel what they are feeling. And it is magic. My body feels light. I go to another place.’

  ‘So you are saying it is like drugs?’ she’d whispered, looking sideways at her parents. They were too busy fighting to have overheard her.

  ‘If you’d only spent more time with the boy, nah!’ Pinky screamed.

  ‘No! It’s all your fault,’ Suresh raged back.

  When Adithi looked at Madhav, she wished she could dissolve herself into magic too.

  Madhav had one afternoon per week off. The forty-hour week and trade union movement had not quite made it into the Hindu establishment. The trustees insisted he work like Indians back in India. All the time.

  But he’d been living in Melbourne for almost eight months now and he desperately needed to get some new underwear. So he was on his way to Boronia. While the temple was technically in Boronia, the high street which served as the suburb’s mercantile hub was a good five kilometres away and accessible only by train. The nearest station to the temple was Ferntree Gully.

  The ticket counter was closed when he arrived. So was the milk bar which sold the scratchy version of the tickets. ‘So what am I to do now?’ Madhav growled to himself.

  He was still standing there debating what to do when a mother with three children came along. He’d seen them often enough. They lived about ten minutes away in a house that looked as if it should be condemned. The eldest, whom Madhav supposed to be about six, was nose deep in a book. The middle child was a little girl of about four and the youngest was a snotty-nosed tot trapped in a very rusty pram.

  The mother took a deep drag of her cigarette before she walked through the open turnstile onto the platform. The guilty way she kept looking at the ticket counter made it clear that she didn’t have a ticket and had no intention of buying one either.

  When the train rumbled along the tracks, he decided to take his chances with the ticket inspector, promising himself that he would buy a ticket at the other end.

  Only the ticket counter at the other end was closed as well. He could not blame the Met – Boronia was a singularly dreary suburb. He made his way along the narrow strip of shops, passing a string of drunks and drugged-out people squatting on the pavement and carefully picking his way around them. He held his sarong close to his legs as he strode through the car park to the Big W behind it. He did not approve – how could he?

  These people were given money to live on by the state and then wasted it on alcohol and cigarettes. They needed to go to a country like India to see poverty. Real poverty. Where children were forced to live on mountains of garbage to eke out a living. Ten families living in a single room. Hunger. Desperation. That was real poverty.

  What he saw at the large department store only went to prove his theory.

  The mother and her three kids had followed him to Big W.

  ‘Mum . . . can I have this book?’ the young boy asked.

  ‘How much is it?’ his mum grunted, her young voice already coarsened by years of smoking.

  ‘Ten doll
ars.’

  ‘You’re kiddin’ me, right? I ain’t got enough money to feed youse!’

  ‘But Mum, it’s a really good book!’ the boy said. ‘Please?’

  ‘Go on, piss off . . . and you, Angel, stop smacking your little brother!’ she snapped as she went up to the counter and spent fifty dollars on a carton of Benson & Hedges. ‘Full-strength, please,’ she said.

  Madhav quickly bought six pairs of underwear and was hurrying to the till to pay when the young boy noticed him.

  ‘Why is that man wearing a skirt?’

  ‘It’s not a skirt, it’s a sarong,’ Madhav corrected him.

  ‘Yeah, like your uncle Phil wore on his beach trip to Thailand,’ his mother interjected.

  ‘But we’re not at the beach,’ the little boy pointed out.

  ‘That’s because they’re different,’ his mother said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘They just are. They eat curry, so that keeps them warm . . .’

  ‘But he’s wearing a jacket.’

  His mother took a look at Madhav and quickly looked away. ‘Stop asking questions,’ she said, dragging the little boy away.

  The mother and her three children followed him back onto the train back to Ferntree Gully. The little fellow was enthralled by Madhav, now peeking over his seat to stare at him.

  His mother did not stop him. She was too busy keeping the other two from hurting each other. ‘Angel, I will wallop you if you don’t stop buggin’ Dylan!’ she kept shouting. So it was while all this commotion was going on that the ticket inspectors came through.

  The inspectors worked their way through the semi-packed carriage full of children returning home from school.

  ‘Tickets, please,’ they called, stopping when they came to the young mother.

  ‘Don’t have any,’ she snapped belligerently.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the stupid counter was closed.’