by Vani Viswanathan
Two women wait at a temple for different reasons. What happens when they see each other? Vani writes a short story.
She immediately caught my eye among the hordes at the temple. Eyes focused towards the sanctum sanctorum, hands clasped to her chest, a gleaming nose pin on her nostril, tempered-with-grey curly hair, and lips moving furiously and silently in prayer. Devotion writ large on her face. Every few seconds, she closed her eyes, as if she would go into a divine trance any moment.
Looking at her gave me some distraction from the boredom and anger that was consuming me. I’d been brought to the temple by family members despite my obvious reluctance and now the crowds were crushing in, someone brushing by my waist, another my chest – it seemed every unacceptable touch was okay at the temple. This wasn’t even some big temple. It was a neighbourhood tiny one, the kind that a rich family living in the vicinity institutes as a show of power. Put a few stones together and install an idol and bam! people start crowding there.
I wondered how much longer we’d have to stare at the curtains drawn in front of the idol in the sanctum sanctorum. The idol was being decked up for the special occasion. Some new moon or eleventh day after the full moon or something – as if our people needed an excuse. I stared again at the woman – she was still there, unfazed by the pushing around her, eyes fixed on the curtain in wait of a glimpse of her beloved goddess.
At twenty-nine, I couldn’t believe I still had to go to a temple to please people. A distinct memory from when I was nine popped up. We’d gone to a temple in another town, to fulfil my mother’s prayers (I learnt as an adult that her prayer was to give birth to a son). It was also a small temple, like this one, filled with people. My parents, my little brother and I, and a smattering of uncles and aunts from the town, all sat in the narrow space outside the sanctum sanctorum, bound by the metal rods that attempted to keep the crowd in place. We were the special people who had booked the special abhishekam for the morning.
The wait had been excruciating. We’d sat through a dozen buckets of offerings poured over the goddess, with the crowds going into raptures of ecstasy each time. I remembered wondering why; it was just a different, slimy thing each time: turmeric, vibhuti, sandalwood paste, milk, panchamirtham. Most people stayed on after the abhishekam, waiting patiently while the curtains were drawn around the goddess.
I was sitting on my father’s lap, looking around. Playing with the coattails of my frock. My little brother ran the length of the narrow space we were sitting in. I was irritated with how everyone indulged him. I wouldn’t be allowed to so much as touch the hundi box, while my brother was trying to climb it. ‘Appa, bore adikkudhu pa,’ I informed my father. I was bored. He nodded. I could confide in him; he wasn’t much of a religious person either. But as I grew older I learnt the value in sitting quietly through things you didn’t like because they mattered to someone you liked. ‘Good things come to those who wait,’ he replied. I pushed my head in deeper into his chest and continued, frown on my face, while pulling apart the threads at the end of my coattails. A few seconds later, a bell began to ring loudly, and a drumbeat started. The curtains were opened. Appa hurriedly pushed me off his lap and stood up to pray. Someone grabbed my brother into their arms. My mother was anyway all the way up front, having forgotten her family for the last hour. There I stood, alone among a group of tall adults, none of whom bothered to find out where I was. They hid my view of the decked-up goddess, so I stood there quietly at the back, missing out on all the action that I’d been waiting for.
And the curtains opened here and now, too. The crowd stirred to life – and how! People threw their hands up into the air, there were shouts of prayer, a mechanical drum began to beat, the bells tolled and the priest was chanting loudly as he performed an aarati. I tried to look for the woman in the flurry of hands that were up in the air, or folded against chests, or furiously slapping the face in atonement for sins committed or may be committed in future.
There! Her gaze was fixed on the goddess, and she smiled as if she had been granted entry into a special place beside the goddess that was reserved only for her ardent devotees. The crowds didn’t seem to matter, the noise didn’t seem to register – she was transfixed at the sight of the goddess after the long wait. I tore my gaze away from her to the goddess. The idol was in a stunning peacock blue saree, thick sandalwood pasted all over her face, her studded jewellery glinting in the light, her divinity, it seemed, growing stronger with the drum beats and the pious chants of her devotees. Despite my misgivings, I found the sight strangely captivating. Soon, the priest began to make his way to the crowds. I pushed myself out and sat on a platform in the corner to wait for my companions. The crowd dissolved in a few minutes, and I busied myself with my phone. When I suddenly looked up, the woman was near me, praying to another god. She then caught me looking at her. And beamed a beatific smile that I knew came from her heart. I hastily smiled back, startled and wondering why she was smiling at me. Before I knew it, she had disappeared, and I found that the warmth from her smile had lifted my spirits. I blinked, dazed and happy, as if someone had given me a mild sedative. Suddenly, the temple didn’t seem to be an annoying place. How did this happen? Did her sight of the goddess after a long wait inspire the happiness that now flowed within me?
“Praying Hands” by Neil Tackaberry is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Vani Viswanathan writes fiction and non-fiction, and works on gender, sexuality and development communications in New Delhi. Her first dedicated foray into writing for the world was when she started a blog in 2005. Her writing typically focuses on the marvellous intricacies and laughable ironies in lives around her. She draws inspiration from cities she’s lived in or visited. Her writing can be accessed on www.vaniviswanathan.com.
