Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  So Madhav had trooped the entire board of trustees off to a private home in the south-eastern suburb of Bentleigh one overcast Sunday afternoon, leaving Kumar and Gohar in charge of the temple.

  ‘I looked in every shop on Clow Street in Dandenong but I could not find a saree that was appropriate,’ Madhav said, knocking on the door. ‘Then quite by chance someone mentioned that Feroz Khan had recently returned from India, where he had packed up his father’s saree store in Lucknow.’

  ‘We are going to buy a saree from a Muslim?’ Govinda squealed in the background.

  ‘We are all children of India,’ Reverend Shastri rebuked.

  When Mr Khan answered the door, he greeted them quietly, ushering them in and apologising for the mess. ‘We’ve just moved here,’ he explained.

  Mrs Vasundaram sniffed. The house was in fact in something of a state, with boxes and piles of clothing covering every surface.

  ‘You moved here from India?’ Mr Ananda asked eagerly.

  ‘Oh no . . . we’ve lived in Australia for about fifteen years now. We’ve just moved down from New South Wales.’

  ‘From Sydney?’ Mrs Vasundaram asked. ‘I know many Indian Muslims in Sydney. Do you know Zia Ali Abdul from Andhra Pradesh? A doctor from Hyderabad. Surely you must know him?’

  ‘No. We lived mainly in country New South Wales . . .’ Feroz Khan said.

  ‘And what did you do there?’ Mr Ananda asked.

  ‘I worked for the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme,’ he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable as his effusive wife came bustling up.

  ‘Why are you standing in the doorway in the cold, nah? Come in! Come in!’ she welcomed. ‘I am boiling water for chai, and I have some laddoo and muruku here as well. Come in! Sit! Sit! Sit!’ she cried. ‘I suppose you have come to see the saree?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mrs Vasundaram replied. ‘It’s just that fifty thousand dollars . . .’

  ‘. . . is far too much for a saree!’ Mrs Khan agreed heartily. ‘See, I told you, Feroz. No one will pay you fifty thousand for it! No one will pay that much money for a saree. Not here. Not anywhere!’

  ‘But the valuer told us that the saree was worth at least seventy-five thousand!’

  ‘How on earth does a saree cost that much money?’ Mrs Vasundaram demanded. ‘Is it made entirely out of gold?’

  ‘Can we see the saree?’ Madhav asked softly.

  ‘Come with me,’ Feroz Khan said, and they followed him along a little corridor to a room in the back of the house. ‘You’ll understand why we keep it under lock and key,’ he said as he knelt by a heavy iron trunk bolted to the ground and locked with two heavy padlocks. Mrs Khan handed him the keys, which she kept on a heavy gold chain around her neck, and he opened the lid of the trunk.

  In the bright afternoon sunshine streaming through the impossibly grubby windows, they saw the saree, a beautiful shimmering golden white, lying on top of a bed of other sarees.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ Feroz growed at his wife. ‘You’ve just been in the kitchen and you may have oil on your hands!’

  He took it out, carefully unfolding the layers of tissue paper protecting the fabric, then laid it out on the large Persian rug on the ground, rolling out the ornate pallu to awed gasps all around.

  ‘The valuer counted over three hundred sapphires alone in the peacock,’ Feroz announced proudly. ‘And the rubies used for the eyes are worth five thousand dollars.’

  ‘The thread used to embroider the bottom edge is dipped in gold,’ Fatima Khan added. ‘We think there’s about a kilogram of twenty-four-carat gold in this saree.’

  Mrs Vasundaram gently lifted the pallu. Yes, it was heavy, but the weight was evenly distributed so that it flowed like a silk ribbon in the air.

  ‘We had an Asian art expert look at it too. He says this saree is priceless. He could not identify the silk used, it is so rare. He thinks it may have come from a boutique sericulture farm in China or even Burma.’

  ‘Who or what could have inspired such a beautiful saree?’ Mr Ananda mused.

  ‘It could only be Saraswati Devi,’ Reverend Shastri proclaimed. ‘They are her colours. Golden white with blue. The peacock is her totem animal. And the fluid design represents the river, her gift to the world, the wisdom that quenches the fires of ignorance. She is that which knows and knows that which needs to be known.’

  After that, there had been no debate about the temple acquiring the saree for the Navaratri pageant. ‘It is an investment,’ Narayan insisted. ‘In ten years, we’ll be able to sell it to a museum for twice the money we paid for it!’

  So every time Madhav did a pooja now, he would look meaningfully at the donation box. The message was clear. Twenty-five dollars paid for the offering plate, but the quality of the service was dependent on the amount deposited in the box. Coins bought only a lacklustre performance. Green ten-dollar notes and orange twenties guaranteed a little more energy, a little more effort. But multiples of the mustard-coloured fifty-dollar note would result in chanting of such passionate frenzy that even the laziest gods in the heavens above would be obliged to take notice, even if it were just to find out who was disturbing their rest.

  To gain favour with the gods, first one must gain favour with their emissary. And their emissary was Madhav. So the people grudgingly parted with their money. Most of the pilgrims were new immigrants, still in the habit of converting dollars into rupees. Yet they were desperate. Desperate for jobs. Desperate for secure accommodation. Desperate for new lives in this new country. Which was why they parted with their money.

  ‘Why did you become a priest?’ the little Australian boy asked seriously. He pushed back the pair of glasses perched on his nose and stared intently up at Madhav.

  ‘Because,’ Madhav retorted. It was lunchtime, the only spare half-hour he had in the day, and he’d much rather spend it reading the newspaper in the rectory or calmly composing himself, preparing for the busy afternoon. But no, he could not have any peace because he had a little white ant. Kumar and Gohar were there too, sprawled on the couch watching the tiny television, the noise making it even harder for him to concentrate.

  ‘Because of what?’ the little fellow asked. ‘Because you get your food for free and it’s all cooked for you?’

  Madhav looked at him, confused, putting down his week-old copy of The Times of India.

  ‘That’s what my mum says. That youse live off the hard work of other people. That youse should work hard like everyone else.’

  ‘Firstly, Brendan, it is you, not youse . . .’

  ‘But—’

  ‘If you want to converse with me, you will use the Queen’s English. Secondly, we do not live off the hard work of our parishioners. You see what I do here. You have watched me work – though I have noticed you aren’t spending as much time in the shrine room as you used to.’

  ‘Aunty Nila told me it would be better if I did some work while I was waiting for you. She’s got me cleaning the grounds while you pray. But that’s only in the afternoons. She makes me read and do maths in the morning. She says I should be at school.’

  ‘Then for once I agree with Ms Mendis. Why aren’t you at school?’

  ‘Because me mum had a fight with me class teacher. Miss Carlie says I can’t come to class without lunch and wearing the same clothes all week. She says by end of the week I’m putrid. Then me mum waited for Miss Carlie in the car park and put dog shit all over her car, and now she doesn’t let me go to school.’

  ‘Shouldn’t the welfare authorities be involved?’

  ‘Yeah, a lady from the department comes every week. But she says me mum is on the line but never over.’

  ‘Over what?’ Madhav asked cautiously.

  ‘Over the line where they’d have to take me, Angel and Dylan and put us in foster care.’

  Madhav didn’t know how to respond, but Brendan didn’t wait for an answer. He had lots more questions.

  ‘Anyway, what I wanted to ask was why do youse never ea
t meat? I love meat. I love spag bog. I have it most nights. Me mum says that she can feed us kids for twenty dollars a week by just giving us spag bog.’

  ‘Don’t you have any salad or vegetables?’

  ‘Nah . . . that’s why Miss Carlie me teacher said my farts stank. No vegetables. I told Aunty Nila and that’s why she sends me in here to have lunch with youse . . . you . . . so I get me vegetables. Aunty Nila says she’s praying for my mum to find a husband. She says if she was married she’d have someone to look after her, and then maybe she could do a better job of looking after us.’

  ‘Nila Mendis should mind her own business,’ Madhav muttered.

  ‘How would she know?’ Kumar laughed. ‘She’s never been married!’

  ‘Who’d marry a complete nutter?’ Gohar said.

  ‘No, she’s been married before and she even had a daughter,’ Brendan insisted. ‘She only went nuts after they took her daughter away.’

  Kumar was interested now. ‘Do you know why they took her daughter away?’

  ‘Her husband wasn’t like her . . . she said he was a Tameze, or something like that,’ Brendan replied.

  ‘Tamil, you mean? Nila was married to a Tamil man?’ Gohar asked. ‘But isn’t she Sinhala?’

  ‘Yes, she is Sinhala,’ Madhav replied. ‘Her nephew has told me a little about her. But how are we to know if anything she says has any truth to it? She barely talks, and when she does, it’s utter gibberish!’

  ‘That’s because you don’t talk to her properly,’ Brendan said. ‘You have to speak to her when it’s quiet or when she’s preparing a pooja. She speaks all right then.’

  ‘What would you know?’ Madhav said abruptly, standing up to rinse his cup and plate. Looking out over the courtyard, he saw Nila out in the grounds, weeding and tidying up. It was nothing specific but any normal person could tell that she was not quite right in the head. There was something quite manic about her. Even from this distance it was plain that there was something strange about her. It was nothing he could put his finger on, though.

  As Madhav stepped out into the afternoon sun, he recited a little prayer in his head, not for the first time, beseeching the gods to remove both the pestilential Brendan and the lunatic Nila whose behaviour he found completely and utterly embarrassing. All he wanted was peace and quiet to do his work.

  It took a while for Madhav to notice him. He looked as if he was about thirty, handsome and very out of place. He loitered around the back of the shrine room, looking at this and looking at that. He’d arrived first thing in the morning but it was lunchtime now and he had not yet got around to doing a pooja, though he did have a little bill in his hands indicating that he’d paid for his plate of fruit to be offered.

  If he was still there at afternoon tea time, Madhav decided, he would speak to him himself.

  The man was still there at teatime – only to Madhav’s eternal consternation, Nila got to him first! How dare she converse with a pilgrim? It was the job of a priest to welcome a new parishioner and make them feel welcome – not the local nutter!

  ‘Good afternoon!’ Madhav rushed eagerly forward, throwing back his scalding tea in one swallow. ‘Welcome to the Ferntree Gully Sri Ganapathi Vinayaka temple. How may I help you?’ He rudely turned his back to Nila, dismissing her.

  The man bowed deeply to Nila as she scurried away.

  ‘Look, I was going to come up and make my offering,’ the man replied quietly. ‘It’s just that . . . em . . .’

  ‘Yes? God makes no judgements, puttar,’ Madhav said.

  ‘Well, I haven’t been to a Hindu temple for a long time and I don’t speak Hindi.’

  Madhav looked him over closely. He could well be a Hindu from the south of India, although with his fine features and medium-brown skin he could be from anywhere.

  ‘Yes, most of the pilgrims who come here are from north India, but the gods have no idea of north, south, east or west. We welcome one and all.’

  ‘I am not Indian,’ the man replied shyly.

  ‘Sri Lankan Tamil then?’ Madhav volunteered brightly, putting an arm behind the man and guiding him towards the shrine room. ‘My name is Madhav, by the way.’

  ‘My name is Mahinda. And no, I am Sinhalese.’

  ‘Ah, yes, we have a lot of Sinhalese Buddhists come here. They go to the temple to do their meditations and then they come here for help from the Hindu gods!’

  ‘Nothing changes,’ Mahinda whispered softly, offering Madhav the slip of paper with his donation written on it.

  Madhav took the little slip of paper and almost whistled softly under his breath. This man had brought five hundred dollars’ worth of offerings. ‘What am I praying for?’ Madhav asked, even more attentive now.

  Mahinda looked sad for a moment, gazing out a distant window to the gum trees swaying in the wind.

  ‘I don’t have any family, you see . . . I am praying for peace of mind. That is what I would like the gods to give me. Some peace of mind.’

  There was something about the man that moved Madhav, and it had nothing to do with the cheque he had just signed. He beseeched the gods passionately, asking that this man be granted whatever he desired.

  After a good quarter of an hour of chanting, Madhav ceremonially circled the holy flame around Mahinda’s head seven times before smearing his brow with vibuthi and dotting a bright dash of vermilion on the centre of his forehead with his thumb.

  ‘So tell me,’ Madhav asked when he saw Mahinda drop several green notes into the collection box. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I am a mechanical engineer by training,’ Mahinda said, ‘but when I immigrated here about ten years ago, I purchased a textile processing mill here in Melbourne with the help of an old friend. Mustafa Mohamadeen from Andhra Pradesh . . .’

  ‘So you are a textile wallah then, like Mr Mohamadeen? All of India knows him!’

  ‘Err . . . no. I produce fine wool-blend fabrics for suiting. My mill is one of the last woollen textile mills in Australia.’

  ‘Curious. Our people are rarely so passionate about wool,’ Madhav remarked as the two men left the shrine. ‘We are usually more passionate about cottons and silks.’

  ‘There was once a time when all I could think of was creating the finest silk,’ Mahinda replied in a soft voice that spoke of a pain beyond human understanding. ‘To create a silk so fine and pure because it was made without killing a single silk moth.’

  ‘Thirty, forty, forty-five!’ Mr Ananda counted the stacks of hundred-dollar bills rolled into bundles of five thousand dollars and tied them together with heavy-duty rubber bands. ‘We’ve got a month to go but I think you’ll be able to raise the final five thousand dollars required in the next week or so.’

  ‘And how are you going with the Navaratri celebration planning? Are the floats to your liking? We’ve conferred with the council and everything will be fine with them,’ Narayan added.

  ‘We’ve also organised a television crew from Channel 6 to come for your pageant. They will also televise the pooja,’ Mrs Vasundaram added.

  At the mention of Channel 6, Reverend Shastri frowned, but he said nothing.

  ‘The vermilion and camphor have been ordered and I went down to Dandenong Market to discuss the fruit order. They will be bringing a ton of fruit before the first day of festival and half a ton after that for your poojas,’ Gohar chimed in.

  ‘Have we looked into the vibuthi? We need pure vibuthi for all of Madhav’s poojas,’ Mr Ananda declared.

  ‘We ordered as much as we could from Varanasi,’ the chief pundit declared. ‘But they could only spare 250 kilograms.’

  ‘That is not enough. Madhav will need at least twice as much for the number of people attending. They won’t be happy with a small dot – they’ll want him to dust their entire heads!’ Mr Ananda said. ‘No, Madhav will need more than 250 kilos!’

  ‘And where do you suppose we get all this vibuthi?’ Reverend Shastri asked. ‘I have tried all our regular contacts, but there isn’t
much they can spare.’

  ‘I will go to India myself then!’ Mr Govinda declared. ‘I will burn the cow dung myself if I have to! Anything for pundit Madhav!’

  ‘But aren’t you still saving for a house, Mr Govinda?’ Kumar asked. ‘Or have you found one already?’

  ‘No, beta, no. We get outbid at every auction we go to. House prices are going up and up, but our savings are not. I am not worried, though. Madhav has promised to do a pooja for us. I am sure we’ll find the right place soon,’ Mr Govinda replied. ‘And you, Kumar? You’ll be off to India next year yourself to start your training at the seminary – and I hear your mother is arranging a marriage too!’

  ‘Actually, Madhav is doing a pooja for me, so that this arranged marriage won’t come off so quickly!’ Kumar laughed. ‘This is why I am helping him so much with his Navaratri celebrations! So he’ll ask the gods to help me!’

  ‘I am very grateful for the pooja the pundit did for me,’ said Mr Ananda.

  ‘Yes, congratulations on your restaurant being featured in The Age, Mr Ananda!’ Mrs Vasundaram said politely. ‘It’s quite a feat to be declared the best Indian restaurant in Melbourne only six months after you open.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Mr Ananda replied, not quite able to look Mrs Vasundaram in the eye because of her sad news. ‘And how is your daughter? Is she much better now?’

  ‘Oh, you know how these things are – she’ll get better in due course,’ Mrs Vasundaram replied. The rumour was that her daughter had suffered a breakdown while studying for her exams. The young woman had spent an entire day crying in bed and hadn’t been to school for a whole week now. ‘Madhav said that he’ll do a pooja and everything will be set right.’

  The man at the centre of all this discussion was quiet. Unusually quiet. Something peculiar had happened that morning. Actually he’d been feeling it for some time, but this morning he had finally realised what it was. He’d started his morning prayers and he’d not felt that familiar presence. That presence that had been with him all through life. It was as if his best friend had suddenly left him and he didn’t know why. He’d used his precious lunchbreak to go into the inner sanctum and pray again – but yet again, he hadn’t felt that familiar presence. What had gone wrong?