Song of the Cuckoo Bird

by Amulya Malladi

  Besides Karuna, Charvi felt none of the residents of Tella Meda saw her the way her devotees who had flocked around her every Sunday did, the way Subhadra used to. They were not like the guests who arrived and left all the time, full of devotion, convinced that Charvi was a guru, an incarnation of a goddess. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that Tella Meda would have to be closed down. They would find a new place to stay and this time Charvi knew she would be careful about who was allowed to stay, only those who truly believed in her. Of course, people like Chetana and Kokila couldn’t be kicked out, but maybe they wouldn’t want to stay. Maybe she could find women and devotees like Karuna, prepared to do anything for her.

  She was fifty years old, Charvi thought with some indignation. It was time everyone started giving her the respect she was due.

  They had to believe in her and those who didn’t could leave. Yes, she told herself as she closed her eyes while singing the morning devotional songs. And as soon as she closed her eyes she could see it again, a huge tidal wave smashing against Tella Meda, destroying everything in Bheemunipatnam in its wake. All that was left was the temple on top of the hill, gleaming white against the darkness of the sea water that claimed Tella Meda and the rest of the town.

  “Pralayam,” Charvi said suddenly, and everyone, holding their hands together in prayer with their eyes closed, opened their eyes and frowned. “Pralayam,” Charvi repeated again. She had seen the future and it was her duty to let everyone know what was coming.

  “Pralayam?” Sushila asked.

  Charvi nodded. “The end of the world is here,” she said carefully. “A wave will rise from the sea and claim everything in its wake.”

  “What?” Chetana said.

  “When?” Shanthi asked.

  Charvi closed her eyes again. “It will happen on the night of the full moon. Tell everyone you know to come up to the temple that night because with the moonrise, the water will rise and will swallow everything.”

  “What?” Chetana said again.

  Renuka clapped a hand against her forehead. “I knew this was coming. It’s the sinners who have made this happen.”

  Chetana stared at Renuka in bewilderment and then shifted her glance to Charvi.

  “Are you sure?” Sushila asked. She wasn’t superstitious but she was also not brave enough to discard predictions of imminent danger from a guru. Her belief in Charvi might not have been as strong as Subhadra’s had been, but she still trusted Charvi and felt that a goddess’s soul could have taken residence in Charvi’s body.

  Charvi nodded. “We will have to go to the temple before the moonrise. And we will have to pray to God the entire night. Kokila, could you talk to the temple priest and arrange this?”

  Kokila wasn’t sure what to say. On the one hand, she didn’t really believe what Charvi said; on the other, she knew others did and she didn’t want to cause panic among the people of Bheemunipatnam. If she told the priest what Charvi told her, the news would spread like wildfire, and most of the town would turn up at the temple with their belongings.

  In the thirty-five years Charvi had lived in Bheemunipatnam, she had developed almost celebrity status in the town. Even though the number of devotees visiting Tella Meda had decreased, locally Charvi was still a well-known person and Tella Meda a sometimes famous and sometime infamous house. The people of Bheemunipatnam might look down upon the residents of Tella Meda for being without home and family, but they looked up to the guru of Tella Meda. They came to her with their problems and trusted her words. Those who didn’t believe in her didn’t voice their opinions too loudly and in general she was regarded as an important member of the Bheemunipatnam community. Besides the fact that people would panic, Kokila was worried that when the tidal wave didn’t engulf Bheemunipatnam, as she was certain it wouldn’t, it would leave Charvi’s reputation scarred and she would be treated as a joke.

  “Why don’t we talk about this first?” Kokila suggested.

  Charvi’s eyes flashed fire. “Do you doubt this vision I have had? Do you?”

  Kokila looked out of the doorway at the bay uncomfortably.

  “I can see into the future and I can see this. Pralayam is coming. Doomsday will arrive at our doorstep,” Charvi said in a clear voice. “After all that we have put Mother Earth through, didn’t you expect this?”

  “I don’t think pralayam is a real concept,” Meena said suddenly. “It’s a myth—”

  “Hush.” Chetana nudged her daughter and glared at Padma before she could speak. Both girls had become increasingly precocious, asking questions and imparting their opinions. They couldn’t understand why people thought a goddess lived inside Charvi. Science didn’t prove the existence of gods and goddesses, hence how could it be true?

  “Talk to Pujari Garu,” Charvi said. “I need some time alone to think.”

  “But several people are coming to visit you today,” Shanthi said, licking her lips. They had dried up when Charvi made her prophecy. After Subhadra, Shanthi had taken over the job of lining up the devotees and arranging for their visits on Sundays and holy days, which included Charvi’s birthday. She hadn’t believed in Charvi when she first arrived at Tella Meda, but in the past decade and a half of her stay, the close contact with Charvi and her devotees had engendered a deep sense of respect for Charvi in Shanthi.

  She was an indomitable woman and Shanthi believed that Charvi never lied. If she thought she could see the future, it was because she could. Shanthi wasn’t like Subhadra, who insisted everyone believe in Charvi. She trusted the guru of the ashram and didn’t hold a grudge against those who didn’t.

  “What am I supposed to tell Pujari Garu?” Kokila asked Chetana as they rode in a bicycle rickshaw to the temple. Shanthi was caring for Karthik, though in reality, everyone at Tella Meda cared for all the children who lived there. It was a blessing and a bane. Because everyone took care of all the children, everyone thought it was perfectly acceptable to give Kokila parenting advice and raise Karthik in the way they thought fit.

  “Tell him that Charvi is going through menopause and is losing her mind,” Chetana suggested.

  Kokila sighed. “Do you think that is it?”

  “It’s her time for change. She complains about the heat and her moods are swinging . . . and now this,” Chetana said. “I have no doubt. Her eggs are drying up.”

  “And how long does it take to adjust?” Kokila asked.

  Chetana shrugged and Kokila sighed again. “I didn’t even know she had menses. Have you ever seen her sit out? Her menses has always been a big mystery to me. She never sits in the menses room, she always comes for puja . . . which means she never has menses, right?”

  “Maybe there are different rules for gurus,” Chetana said, and then grinned. “And maybe she just never told anyone about her menses to avoid having people think she’s less than a goddess.”

  “You think real goddesses don’t have menses?” Kokila asked, and Chetana shrugged again. “Pujari Garu is going to laugh at me,” Kokila said wearily.

  “Well, I’ll be there too, so he will laugh at both of us. And he doesn’t like me anyway; he always told me that it was my job to set Ravi straight,” Chetana said. “I can’t believe that old man is still alive. When he got us married he was an old man and now Ravi is dead, I’m a grandmother, and this man is still the pujari of the temple. That young assistant of his is not even young anymore. He must be waiting for the old coot to die so that he can take over.”

  “Maybe we can talk to the assistant pujari,” Kokila said thoughtfully. “Maybe we can explain to him that Charvi is going through this change—”

  “And malign her reputation?” Chetana interrupted.

  Kokila nodded. “This is horrible. I’m supposed to tell Pujari Garu to have an all-night puja on a full-moon night. Do they even do stupid things like this in films?”

  Pujari Garu surprised Kokila and Chetana by readily agreeing to the all-night puja. He said he would tell those who came to the temple for the next eigh
t days about it, so that everyone could find safety in the temple.

  “Amma Charvi is a great woman who has had a great vision,” he said, and both Kokila and Chetana wondered if he was going through some change as well that left his brain soft. “Scriptures say that on a full-moon night when sin has spread rampantly around the world, the water will rise and submerge all who don’t cleanse themselves. Those who come to the temple and pray will cleanse themselves and survive,” Pujari Garu continued. “And those who don’t will die a pitiful and painful death. I will make sure everyone knows about Amma Charvi’s prophecy. We are indeed lucky to have her. The rest of the world will collapse but we will survive.”

  Kokila cleared her throat to stop him from going on anymore. “She didn’t say anything about the whole world, just about Bheemunipatnam.”

  “The whole world to us is our world,” Pujari Garu said with a smile, and called the assistant pujari and explained the matter to him.

  Kokila felt sympathy for the assistant pujari because, unlike his mentor, he couldn’t quite see how (or why) anyone would believe this baseless story about a huge tidal wave.

  The news spread rapidly across Bheemunipatnam after that. A small coastal town could be influenced easily without much effort, and especially if religion was involved.

  Devotees came to Tella Meda every day now wanting reassurance from Charvi that in the next eight days before the full moon, if they prayed hard enough and touched her feet long enough, they and theirs would be saved from the pralayam.

  Karuna went about her business in fear, trying to remember what her sins were. She knew her biggest sin was losing her husband to suicide the previous year and hoped that she had done enough since Balaji died to atone for his sins as well as her own. Shanthi, who was usually quite sensible, was also caught up in the fear and wondered if leaving her husband would be considered a sin by God. Even Sushila was concerned and stayed up nights trying to remember every sin she thought she had committed.

  Besides Kokila and Chetana, only Padma and Meena watched the entire drama with scorn and a little bewilderment.

  “There isn’t going to be a tidal wave,” Meena said to Chetana while sandbags were placed around Tella Meda to protect it.

  “I expected better from Doctor Garu,” Chetana said, and sighed as Dr. Vishnu Mohan organized the packing of the sandbags. “Saraswati has already taken half the things in their house in that new car of theirs to her sister’s house in Visakhapatnam. What is going to happen to us when there is no disaster? The people of Bheemunipatnam will kick us out of the town.”

  Padma sighed. “Amma is also packing up all the jewelry and books in a metal trunk so that it will be safe from the water. She wants to take that with us to the temple. I don’t know whether I should believe Charvi or not. Amma does, but I don’t know . . .”

  “I’m not going to the temple,” Meena said. “Do I have to have go, Amma? I think it’s stupid.”

  Chetana shrugged. “Do what you want to do. What will you do, Kokila? She’s going to expect us to be at the temple.”

  Kokila buried her face in her hands. “Karthik was asking me as well. What should I tell him? He’s so scared and he’s just a little boy. I’m so angry with her for scaring everyone like this.”

  “What if there is a tidal wave?” Padma questioned primly, and then quickly added, “As a coincidence.”

  “There hasn’t been a tsunami in the Bay of Bengal, ever,” Meena countered. “It’s something that takes place in areas like Japan where they have many earthquakes in the ocean.”

  “Sometimes things can just happen without any scientific reason, you know,” Padma said, obviously influenced by her mother.

  “Well then, this is your way of saying you will be going to the temple,” Meena said, and flipped her braid from one shoulder to another. “How very narrow-minded of you!”

  While the two teenagers argued, Chetana and Kokila wondered what they would do after the full-moon night and what its repercussions would be.

  “You have to talk to her,” Chetana said. “She can’t go about announcing pralayam. She thinks she’s a goddess and so does everyone else but when they find out she isn’t, they will rip her apart.”

  “Maybe she’s doing this so that they will,” Kokila said, and then shook her head. No, Charvi prized her status as guru too much to jeopardize it.

  That night after bhajan, Kokila decided to speak with Charvi in her room. Charvi was in the bathroom when Kokila came into the living area of her quarters and stood by Charvi’s desk, waiting for her to step out of her bathroom, constructed especially for her in the late seventies.

  She looked at the pile of letters on Charvi’s desk and sighed. So many devotees, all telling her she was wonderful, a goddess—no wonder she believed it.

  One letter was set aside and Kokila could read some of the words even though they were turned away from her. The words “sell Tella Meda” caught her attention and without thinking she picked up the letter and read it. Charvi stepped out of the bathroom just as Kokila was finishing.

  “What is this?” Kokila demanded, and Charvi’s face transformed into a guilty pout.

  “What business do you have reading my private letters?” Charvi demanded.

  “This is not private,” Kokila said, furious because the postmark said the letter had arrived a week ago. “If we’re to lose our home, we need to know.”

  “You have a home because of me,” Charvi said indignantly. “How dare you read my letters? Who do you think you are?”

  Kokila had always respected Charvi for her calm bearing, even in the middle of chaos. Charvi never raised her voice, was never rude, and was never this aggressive and confrontational.

  “We have six months to find a new place . . . you have six months to find us a new place,” Kokila said, putting the letter back on the table. “Maybe we could write to this man and ask him to allow us to stay in the house longer. Have you written to him?”

  Charvi shook her head. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to beg.”

  She was scared, Kokila realized, of losing her home, her followers, her family.

  “Do you want me to write to him?” Kokila asked.

  Charvi nodded sheepishly and then looked away from Kokila.

  “Okay,” Kokila said. “I don’t think you should worry about this too much. He will come around. This is an ashram and no one wants to kick out a guru and her flock from her home.”

  Charvi nodded again, still not looking at Kokila, but just before Kokila left the room, she cried out loudly.

  Kokila stopped in her tracks and turned around. Charvi’s calm face was red, as if ready to burst with anger.

  “I hate you,” Charvi said, and the words were choked out of her. “I hate you.”

  Kokila was taken aback. “Why?” she asked, more out of surprise than hurt.

  “I hate you,” Charvi repeated instead of explaining. “Get out,” she said next, and then went back inside the bathroom and locked the door.

  Kokila wondered if she should stay. Charvi never spoke like this. It was as if . . . as if she were someone else, a child. Yes, Kokila realized, her behavior was childish.

  Kokila worried about Charvi, wondering if she should speak with Doctor Garu and see if he had some suggestions about how to make Charvi less volatile. But it seemed like the wrong time to discuss Charvi’s mental health. Doctor Garu was getting ready for the pralayam Charvi had predicted.

  Kokila didn’t tell anyone about Srikant Somayajula’s son’s letter. Most people at Tella Meda, especially those who had recently arrived, didn’t even know who Srikant Somayajula was. They didn’t question who Tella Meda belonged to. The basic structure, the building, was considered irrelevant, considering the deity who lived there. And those who lived in Tella Meda had become so much a part of it, just like the fading whitewash on the walls, the rotting windows in some of the rooms, and the creaking fans, that they didn’t question their right to live in the formerly opulent hous
e.

  And Kokila didn’t want to worry everyone unnecessarily. She hoped that Srikant Somayajula’s son would have his father’s benevolence and generous heart, along with the wealth, because only a wealthy man could ignore the three lakhs of rupees that could come from selling Tella Meda.

  Kokila worried about how to write the letter and what to say in it. While everyone went about getting ready for the arrival of the pralayam, she wondered how to avert this more real catastrophe waiting to be unleashed upon those who lived in Tella Meda.

  Kokila wondered if it was the letter that had pushed Charvi over-the edge. Charvi had never predicted nonsense like this before. She pretended to cure people and somehow some of them did get cured but this was a new facet to Charvi, an exhibition of a new self-proclaimed power. And Kokila worried that it was a ruinous one. People would never forgive Charvi for not being correct about the tidal wave that was supposed to engulf the town of Bheemunipatnam.

  The activity in the temple room soared in the next few days. It was just a few days to doomsday and no one was taking chances. And since Charvi had said the only way to be saved was through prayer, people from all over the town came to Tella Meda to pay their respects to Charvi and join in the singing of devotional songs with her.

  “I’m so tired of cooking and making tea all day long,” Sushila complained, flushed from standing in front of the stove for hours. “I don’t think I have seen so many people in Tella Meda before.”

  “And all of these people are going to throw stones at us when nothing happens,” Chetana warned. “Array, Meena, what does the weather report say?”

  “Sunny and bright . . . a little cold, only seventeen degrees on Saturday and Sunday,” Meena said.

  “We can’t rely on weather predictions all the time,” Padma said. The girls usually agreed with each other, but this time Padma was taking her mother’s side, while Meena was taking Chetana’s.

  “Babu is going crazy talking about the pralayam,” Bhanu complained as she moved her suckling ten-month-old son from one breast to the other. “Says we should leave, go stay with his mother in Visakhapatnam. That woman lives with her useless brother and mother in a small flat. We should also go and live with them? I say that’s when we’ll have pralayam, when I lose my mind living with that old lady.”