Sister Anu rises and stokes the fire. What kind of god sacrifices his beloved son and then, once the son has saved the world, sacrifices more good people, beloved as Father Pashan? Why did god or Pashan need to reenact any part of Christ’s story? Does it not make Christ’s death and resurrection pointless? She resumes her seat.
“So you’re returning to Hinduism?”
Returning would only be necessary if she had left it. “It’s possible that praying to thirty-three crores of gods might bring me closer to infinity than praying to one, but I haven’t decided.”
“You need a role, Sister. You had a role here with us.”
Anu says, “I can either sidestep through life as a daughter, sister, wife, mother or nun or seek my true self. I can’t wait till I’m fifty or sixty before I really begin my life. I should choose its shape and form. It shouldn’t be something that just happens to me.”
Shadows leap and dance across Sister Imaculata’s face. Her expression hardens.
“Go back, then. Retrogress to your temples, your idol-worship, your low-or-high-caste ways. Whatever it is you Hindus do.”
“Sister, don’t say that …”
“Then what should I say?”
“Talk to me in your own words, with your own feelings. As if we were just two women.”
“Just be a woman, you say? All right, say then—what might you be needing from me?”
“Your blessing—or at least your good will. I can’t take my final vows, but I still cherish your friendship. Maybe I have to seek god in new ways, my own way. I must venture out, even if it is difficult. But I am not someone who returns the same way I came. I want to be open to transformation. The world may be all illusion, as the vedas and shastras say, but it’s the only one I have.” She feels no bravado as she says this, but no shrinking either. “Then maybe I’ll feel the deep connection that I seek.”
Sister Imaculata seems to master her anger with an effort. “Venture out, then. Venture forth. No one is stopping you.”
Sister Anu stretches her arms toward the fire and makes another try. “I want independence and self-direction, Sister. And I don’t doubt our Lord can provide them.”
“Independence is over-rated, Sister. Obtain it, and you’ll trade it away before the cock crows. We create interdependence in life—why not decide to value what you have?”
“If I do trade my independence again, it will be my decision, not that of the Church.”
“You’ll see, we all need redeeming in our own way, Sister. For our sins.”
“We should be responsible for our own sins, rather than foisting them on poor Jesus. Why is he our whipping boy?”
“Hush! You can only ascend to heaven through him—don’t you see that, my dear? On the day of judgement, won’t it be better to have served Christ, than not?”
“If god is as great as I believe, he will see through such pretences. He’ll give me credit for the courage not to depend on the Church’s explanations.” Anu takes the rosary Imaculata gave her at graduation from her pocket. She holds it out.
Recognition dawns on Imaculata’s face. She slowly draws it from Sister Anu’s hand. “To love god is to give oneself utterly, Anu. If you cannot do that, then I agree you should leave. Christ can exist without you. The question is can you exist without Christ?”
“I don’t intend to. I am a better person when I try to follow Christ’s example. I feel I have become more charitable, more accepting of people who are different from me. I can truly say I will still be a Catholic, just with a small ‘c.’ ”
Sister Imaculata stands and stokes the embers. “Huh, small c!” she says. “No such thing. Leave the Church, Sister. Why wait for permission? We’re not a cult that will threaten you or try to stop you. Walk out tomorrow, as I’ve seen a few nuns do. But don’t suppose,” she taps her forefinger to her temple, “that the Church will ever leave you.”
Gurkot
February 1997
DAMINI
DAMINI, LEELA, KAMNA, SUPARI, MATKI, TUBELIGHT, Goldina and at least twenty other married women ranging from fifteen to eighty years or more, are seated on dhurries spread before Anamika Devi’s pot form. The Toothless One is still grumbling about the walk uphill, then down the ghost-trail, (though her daughters-in-law nearly slipped down the mountain as they half-carried her). Chimta and her mother-in-law sneak in, having told their husbands they are collecting firewood.
Flickering diya lights throw shadows on the rocks, a couple of bats sway and stir above Goldina’s kerchiefed head. In order for Goldina and other outcastes to participate, this meeting couldn’t be held at Tubelight, Chimta, Matki or Supari’s home. And if Damini held it at Leela’s home, these women would have expected to sit on chairs and Goldina to crouch beside them. But in Anamika Devi’s cave everyone must sit on the ground before the goddess. Just entering the cave turns Damini hot and cold, and her mouth dry as Thar Desert sands, but she is determined to carry out the goddess’s wishes, bring her out of this cave and honour her shakti.
After they have sprinkled Ganges-water, sung a few bhajan-songs, and made offerings and performed aarti, Mohan looks around, “Where are the other boys?”
Damini explains, “Only men who promise not to kill or beat their daughters, sisters or wives can be in the Women’s Survival Society. And since you have not beaten anyone …” Mohan seems to have forgotten killing a man by mistake, and it seems kinder to keep it so.
“He’s not getting married,” says Kamna. “So he can’t beat a wife. Neither am I—”
“Why not?” says Tubelight.
“So I won’t beat a husband.” Everyone laughs and Kamna looks surprised. She was serious.
“Bhaino,” Damini interrupts, calling them sisters, “In our first meeting, we must decide how to show Anamika Devi’s unforeseeable nature. It’s a very small step, but we know it takes small steps to climb a mountain. We could decorate this cave to please Anamika Devi, but Lord Golunath and the goddess have asked us—no, told us—to bring her into the open. And because her form has somehow effaced itself from our hearts, she must be given a body. I have asked you here to say what you want, and decide these matters.”
“Yes,” says Tubelight. “She wants to be something other than her pot—she should have a face and a true name.”
Several women are nodding.
“How many arms should Anamika Devi have?” asks Damini.
“Oh, at least ten,” says Leela. “She works all the time, just as we do.”
“Das-angulum!” says Chimta. “Even Durga Devi usually has only eight.”
“Ten,” says Goldina firmly.
Damini asks what should Anamika Devi hold in each of her hands?
“In one, she should hold a conch shell to call all women to her side,” says Supari.
“No, a cowrie shell, to show what we have in common,” says Tubelight.
Matki raps Tubelight on the arm, and pulls her dupatta across her embarrassed giggles. “The conch, because her spring gives us water.”
“Should she wear a mangalsutra?” asks Damini, suddenly anxious. If Anamika Devi receives a wedding collar, how will she speak through a widow?
“No,” says Supari. “She’s always been untamed by marriage. If she marries, her husband should wear a collar to keep him faithful.” She grinds her betelnuts.
“And if she’s a widow, she doesn’t need one,” says the Toothless One, pointing to her own bare neck, then Leela’s and Damini’s.
“A big spoon,” says Tubelight.
“Because she cooks for the family?” says Damini.
“No, to spank her children if they need it.”
“Not the boys,” says Chimta.
“Yes, boys also,” says Damini.
“For that, she’ll need a very thick slipper,” sighs Chimta.
“Maybe a pair of boots,” says Damini. “Because she walks beside us—she doesn’t have a car. And she’s like an unknown soldier, since we don’t know her caste.”
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��Every woman can’t wear combat boots,” says Tubelight. “Don’t think she’s just like you. How long can you survive in the mountains if you make enemies of the snow leopards?”
“A broom,” says Goldina. “Definitely a long broom. And a small one as well.”
After a short silence, the women around the circle nod agreement.
“I can give my umbrella to protect her statue,” says Damini.
“No umbrella,” says Goldina. “Only you women carry umbrellas.”
“She still needs a pot,” says Matki. “So boys and men remember where they come from.”
“Give her a leaf of madhupatra,” says Damini. “She has natural sweetness.”
“She needs bangles on all her arms,” says Kamna, jingling her own. “And a book, because she wants us to read.”
“She needs a drum.” says Supari. “To drum us into existence.”
“Or at least to drum you awake,” says Matki.
“Can she have a cow? She has to look after them.”
“How can she carry a cow in her hand? They call you Tubelight because you’re so-o bright!” says Chimta. “And she has to take care of brothers, fathers, husbands, mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, sons, daughters, grandchildren, not only cows.”
“She needs a sword,” says Damini. “To show she can rise above the rank of major.” Major being the highest rank allowed to women warriors in the Indian Army.
“No sword,” says Goldina. “A sword means she’s for warrior caste women only. Her war is here. She needs a sickle to cut twigs in the forest.”
“Yes, a sickle,” says Damini. “That only makes nine.”
“One hand should be empty,” says Kamna. “It’s reaching for a husband’s hand.”
“Empty so that she can reach for whatever she wants, then,” says Tubelight.
“Oh-no-no-no!” says Chimta. “She’s reaching for her husband’s tail!”
“Achcha,” says Damini when the laughter has died down. “Now what shall we name her?”
“What is wrong with Anamika Devi?”
“Nothing, but it means we have not named her.”
“No, it means she is without name,” says Supari. “She names us, she named the gods—how can we name her?”
“All this time, nameless, has anyone paid her attention? We put her in a cave and left her there, gave her a rupee once in a while.”
“I’ve been given so many names,” says the Toothless One. “Never liked any of them. I say call her a beautiful name or none at all.”
“Yes, she should have a real name,” says Chimta.
“Do you have a real name?” says Kamna.
“Of course. But if someone called me by it, maybe I would answer, maybe not. I don’t even remember it. How does it matter what I’m called?”
“It matters,” says Kamna. “So everyone knows your story will be different from your sisters’, mother’s, and grandmother’s.”
And so the ideas and arguments for Anamika Devi’s name last till sundown, and begin again the next day when the women meet in the jungle to hack and gather firewood. Suggestions are shouted from terrace to terrace as they water beans, potatoes and onions in the gold light of mid-morning.
Damini hears Goldina shouting, “Calling Anamika Devi by some new name will do nothing. First, we should change our actions. If she wants a new name, let her name herself. But let the word for the goddess remain, and other goddesses—forgotten or to come—can call themselves Anamika.”
Damini feels an inner smile. Agreement is desirable but not required. If the Women’s Survival Society of Gurkot cannot find a new name for Anamika Devi, she who names the gods can remain anonymous.
March 1997
DAMINI
IT TAKES A MONTH, DAMINI TELLS HERSELF, ONLY because important work should be done slowly, and it is after the Holi festival by the time Samuel finishes carving the ten-armed goddess. On Anamika Mukti Divas, the day the goddess will be freed, Damini leads the men and women of Gurkot to the cave.
Anamika Devi is brought out—how beautiful yet fragile is her pot. Mohan and Kamna hold it up so everyone can admire its roundness, its fullness, the specks and tints in its gradations of brownness. Damini keeps her gaze on its wide mouth and curving wholeness as the procession sets forth uphill, the goddess’s pot riding in a sari-sling on the shoulders of Mohan, Kamna, Leela—and Goldina. Shocked expressions, and whispers—khuss-puss, khuss-puss—break out at Goldina’s temerity. A few sarcastic barbs are launched till Damini says, “The goddess doesn’t object, why do you?”
Up the ghost-trail they climb, the pot swinging between them, then downhill to Leela’s home, heading for the peach trees on the lower terrace, near the cow’s room. The pot goddess is set down gently, beside her new ten-armed form and before the pink poster. Leela sinks to her haunches beside the little mound at the edge of the terrace.
The pujari does a puja of Anamika in pot, poster and sculpted forms, to show equal respect. He paints beautiful half-open eyes on the stone goddess, and does another simple ceremony to waken her. The women break into song, Kamna enters the circle and twirls and sways, glass bangles chinking for joy—Anamika’s subterranean existence is ended.
But before the pujari can sweep everyone’s donations into his knapsack, Damini leans forward and hands him fifty rupees instead for his service. “From now on, I am her pujari,” she says.
The pujari and all the men and women gathered around seem amazed by her audacity—Damini is amazed by her audacity. She knows everyone is thinking, It’s bad luck for family members if a widow performs puja. They are thinking, She is doing someone else’s dharma, and that is never good. They are thinking, Who does Damini think she is?
But Anamika Devi came through Damini and no one else. No one can object or challenge her.
No one objects or challenges her.
So this will be her new role in the movie of her life.
But how should she worship Anamika? Damini enters trance, consults Anamika and receives the answer: What has a Name exists; I claim all who are named.
Name those Nameless who emerge from you. I will give you boys’ names, I will give you girls’ names. Sometimes I will say names you can use for boys or girls. I will give you new names you cannot say are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. If a father refuses his, I will send you new family names and my blessings to any mother who bestows her family’s name upon her child.
Worship the Name.
Because the Name can be said—and if not said, then written, sung and danced. What is said and written, sung and danced alters everything, so powerful is the nature of the Name.
A few days later, Leela directs Mohan to put a few planks over the unfinished feeding trough, to make a speaking platform for Damini. She expects her mother to see visions of the future, exorcise demons, foretell world events and heal by touch. Damini ascends the platform, and tries and tries. But the only vision that comes is for Goldina, because Goldina told Damini she and Samuel will be travelling south across the baking plains to Nagpur. There they’ll attend a commemoration rally for the conversion to Buddhism of Dr. Ambedkar, the same who wrote Goldina’s treasured book, The Buddha and His Dhamma. Damini predicts Goldina and Samuel will leave Jesus and the idols he carves to take the 22 vows and turn to the Middle Way. It may take Samuel years but he will overcome the belief that his conditions were ordained by the karma from his previous lives. He and Goldina will be called by Navayana Buddhist names—for a while. And she predicts they will move to a large city where sweepers get second chances and can rise above sweeping. There, Samuel will carve his name on his work and be called a sculptor, and be feted by those who can see past his bloodline.
Damini sees them standing before the flame of the unknown, unnamed soldier, and then at Vijay Chowk, the intersection where the Dancing Policeman dances. The pillared domes of the Presidential Palace and the two Houses of Parliament stand behind them. In her vision, the Dancing Policeman points forward—Go. And because “Chal
Chal Chal Mere Haathi, Oh Mere Saathi” plays in her head, she is sure Samuel will become famous in all of Delhi, then Mumbai, then Kolkata and beyond for sculpting triumphal statues of Dr. Ambedkar for dalits to worship. And that Samuel’s patron will lead the new party for dalits and other backward castes, the party with the elephant symbol. And his patron will use money and donations from the poorest to build Samuel’s statues of Dr. Ambedkar before addressing the hunger of her constituents. Damini cannot say how she knows this but she does, that Samuel will return to Gurkot to buy one of Amanjit Singh’s villas, and no one will call him lowborn then.
“When?” says Leela.
“A few years before his atman recombines with the souls of others.”
“If it recombines with yours or mine, how will it carry his bad karma to the next life?”
“If it can’t, it won’t. Anamika Devi says this is how Buddha brings justice, each person starting out clean as soon as he comes into the world.”
“Achcha, never mind Samuel and Goldina, can’t you foretell what will happen to your own granddaughter?” Leela sounds exasperated.
“No,” says Damini, “I’m no astrologer who tells people only what they want to hear. We don’t know the future, so that we’ll work to shape it. My trances should help women any time, not only when they have a baby. They should tell their stories to their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons-in-law and sons. Men—and even some of us—will be surprised that we have stories. Then maybe they’ll see we are not cows just because we make children and milk, or dolls they can dress up and hit, or children for whom everything must be done, but insaan.” She repeats it in English for emphasis. “Peepals!”
“What if no men come to listen?”
“Then I will be a pair of ears, listening to women’s questions. And I will ask the goddess to answer in her voice, in other women’s voices, and in my own. And we will tell our stories to each other. In the end, our stories, not our children, are the only creation we possess in this life.”
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