Calendar Gods

Chuppili aka Subbulakshmi woke up at the crack of dawn. She is 76 and since the last six decades her mornings have always been the same. She needed no alarm clock. Neither pointed coughs from her late husband nor rude shoves by family elders were required to awaken her. Chuppili always woke up by 4.00 a.m., thank you very much.

She woke up and brought her hands together like a temple and murmured ‘Muruga’ softly as she got off her bed. She went past the long and dark corridors of the empty house to the backyard to get ready for the day. Bathed and fresh, with a sari tucked around her, she walked with measured steps to the front of the house. She remained a creature of routine.

It was a house untouched by modern architecture. The tiled roof needed repair and the smudgy walls begged a lick of paint. The milkman had poured milk in a stainless steel canister and left it standing on the steps leading to her front door. She could see it through the bars of the grille of the lengthy veranda that resembled a long cage. She opened the front door’s lock to pick it up. A litre of milk was enough on Fridays because she used some for her prayer rituals in the mornings. On other days of the week Chuppili got by with half- a- litre for her coffee and a bit for setting curds that she would whisk into buttermilk for her meals through the day. Thrift was norm, especially for an old woman who awaited the odd munificence of sons settled faraway from the village of Ravanasamudram and eked her days with the pension fund of her dear departed husband. She splashed a little water from a mug on the spot in front of the house. She took a tin cup from an alcove in the veranda and dug her fingers into the sandy powder in it. Her spine was enviably supple still and bracing herself she gently bent down to draw a tiny kolam.

Task over, she carefully bolted the front door and made towards the puja room. The passage leading to the puja room began all the way from the living area where visitors were received and family gatherings were hosted in the past. The puja room had a gleaming latticed teak door. Tiny brass bells danced in the square gaps on hooks. The door swung open to the gentle chime of bells to reveal an elevated platform upon which stood a collection of Gods. The icons were many. Some were of silver, some of polished brass, a collection of egg-shaped saligramam that had been bequeathed by elders visiting shrines in cold temples in North India, statutes in panchalokam and other tiny figurines. Chuppili sat down daily, her knees hurting and back bucking to duly wash, clean and touch the Gods with specks of turmeric and vermillion, to string floral necklaces and pray showering flowers on the idols, until little hillocks of petals formed at the foot of each deity. The idols looked stately and glowing through wisps of fragrant joss sticks and from the light of the lamps that were lit before them.

The walls of the corridor leading to the puja room were covered by framed pictures of Gods and Goddesses. The beatific countenances were brightened with colours and laced with gold trimmings, studded with pearls and gemstones done in the Thanjavur style. The pride of the collection was a large one in which a cherubic Krishna sucked toe and another smaller painting where He held aloft a butter ball. Most were prints torn off calendars that were purchased through the years. Usually the fluttering calendar took pride of place in the living area wall as it carried a picture of a divine being and that was considered auspicious. When a new year dawned, unable to crumple and toss the God’s picture, as it was blasphemous to dispose divinity, the picture would be carefully cut out and framed to hang on the walls of the house.

As a young bride when Chuppili moved into her husband Ramana’s home her in-laws had been impressed by her piety. Her father was the head priest of Meenakshi Sundareswar temple in the hamlet and she was conversant and practiced with elaborate rituals demanded as part of daily pujas as well as on occasions. Chuppili was the eldest daughter-in-law who observed all calls of duty and traditions. The family was proud of her.

Ravanasamudram’s community was a close knit one. A trickle of a river called Rama Nadhi flowed quietly behind the row of houses and everyone was surely related to the other, dangers of genetic mutations ignored over community bonding and kinship. Chuppili was a southern belle, the true Ravanasamudram girl: genial, warm, prudent and independent. She quickly found life-long friends in her neighbours, Saroja and Vijaya. Saroja lived adjacent to her house and Vijaya’s home was right across Chuppili’s. They remained a thick trio that chin-wagged, held back no secrets, shared breast milk for each other’s infants, wept at the passing of their spouses, donated meager pocket money to help the other out, fed each other meals and hosted relatives in each other’s homes during marriages and occasions.

With the years adding on in her marital home, Chuppili’s collection of calendar Gods grew. Her husband indulgently framed and hung them on walls for her. There were oleographs of Goddess Lakshmi who showered gold coins from her open palms on a shimmering lake as she stood stiff in a pink lotus. Lithographs of Saraswathi playing the celestial veena seated, her legs crossed in a European manner, on a lily armchair; an indigo Vishnu holding aloft Vaishnavite insignias straddled the huge eagle Garuda; the smiling boy-God Murugan posed fanned by peacock plumes; the divine first family of a purple Nilakantan, his green-faced wife Parvati seated curiously comfortable on the celestial cow Kamadhenu, their boys Ganesha and Subramani sitting aloft on their father’s knee and mother’s lap respectively. In the wall space outside the puja room hung many more prints of mythological figures like Damayanti pining for her husband in the company of a swan; beauteous nymphs, benevolent Yashoda dressing the child God Krishna; the sage Vishwamitra holding out against the melting charms of the nymph Urvashi; portraits of bejewelled and stately Marathi aristocratic women, Mother India before the tri-colour flag and many more. Chuppili’s collection had varied sources. Some had been part of her wedding trousseau; some gifts from relatives on special occasions; a couple bequeathed by her father before his death; a few she had bought from shops near the temple during festive occasions like the week-long Pachai saathi festival, and the rest cut out from calendars across the years.

The benevolent visages on the calendars were those that gave silent company to Chuppili in her sunset years. The paper had yellowed on many and taken a sepia tone. Dust and years had settled on the chipped frames and turned the glass opaque in many spots. These days, people took the heavy and clunky pictures of Gods from their homes and surreptitiously left them at the base of peepul trees by roadsides, else in temple squares. Modern folk did not know how to dispense with Gods.

Chuppili had been eager to pass some of them to her two daughters-in-law when they readied to leave home for big cities. Her eldest taking a look at the Lakshmi and Saraswathi prints that Chuppili held out had excused herself saying, “I shall take them along another time when we don’t have large pieces of luggage to carry from Chennai to Delhi”. The youngest, given to brusqueness had warned her husband in English, “Kumar, I don’t need gaudy stuff,” and turning to Chuppili reasoned in Tamil, “In our rented flat in Mumbai we aren’t allowed to drive nails on walls, Amma”.

That had cut. Later Chuppili wiped a quiet tear and told Saroja and Vijaya, “She said she doesn’t need ‘God’ di”.
Saroja clucked in sympathy. “Di is slang for juvenile girls and to belittle women”.
Vijaya worried: “Just because she speaks in English she can’t be disrespectful and call Lakshmi, the deity of prosperity, ‘God di’, tsk”.
The three old women looked up in nervous awe at the gilt-edged portraits.
What ills could such a sacrilegious utterance portend?
The calendar Gods smiled at them enigmatically.

(to be continued)