Goddess of stone
in the secret heart
of the forest,
Forgotten altar
that has tasted
blood of a thousand men.
She is
Idol, temptress, vision
Nightmare.
Possessed of a great
and terrible beauty
Love and death
entwined.
Red dazed eyes
and lolling tongue
Unrestrained tresses
Black as night
She is eternal, perfect
The beginning and the end.
Beware, careless traveller!
Stumbling upon
the sacred cove
Quietly, quietly
Lest your footsteps
should wake Her.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Meenakshi
Her name was Meenakshi, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I was fourteen when I saw her first, getting off at the bus stop near the tea stall. There was a stooped old man with her that I thought must be her father. She was radiant, the colour of her skin like cream, and she wore a red sari. I could see the loafers leaning out of the tea shack as she started up the little mud road into the village. Even Ramu Mama, the ancient owner of Aishwarya Chaya Kada, poked his head outside to watch.
Even now I can see the red bindi on her smooth forehead, and as she came closer, the small smear of chandan. She walked with a quiet dignity, one hand leading the old man, the other holding a small green suitcase.
I was painfully aware of my own looks then, oily plaits framing a thin dark face. I wanted to run and hide, someplace where I would not have to compare myself to her and find myself pitifully wanting.
She looked at me as she passed, and it was with something like shock that I absorbed the full force of her beauty. I remembered a prayer my mother used to sing to me,
Meenakshi, the fish-eyed one
Bird in her hand.
With eye lashes like the Kodanda bow,
Lips which resemble the red bimba fruit,
Teeth similar to the jasmine bud,
And nose like the champa flower.
With a forehead like the half moon,
And cheeks resembling the mirror.
I was not ashamed anymore, for who could compare to divinity? She was a goddess, and we mere mortals.
Later I learnt that she was to become the new English teacher at the village school. They had taken the small house next to ours, and I would see her setting off to school, wearing a neat cotton sari and holding her books. My little brother was in her class, and he would come home in raptures of how wonderful Meenakshi teacher was.
I fantasized about talking to her, becoming her friend. How fervently I begged to be allowed to go to school again! But my father said no, always no. "You are a woman now, stay at home and learn how to cook, how to make your husband happy. God only knows how much I will have to pay to get you married off! Why can't you be more like your sister?", and he would walk off, grumbling.
My sister Shanti was the pretty one, the quiet one, and I would have hated her if I didn't love her so much. When I complained about father, she would smile and say, "It is a good thing you are not like me, you are much better." She would mend my clothes, and comb my hair and plait it. On the days I came home hot and dusty from tending the goats, she would cluck her tongue and push me outside, telling me to bathe before father came back from the fields. He was a farmer, and a fairly good one, so we had the luxuries of colored ribbons and bead necklaces now and then. Even a new dress once in a while.
When the weekend came, I would see Meenakshi in the mornings, washing clothes behind the house. Our courtyards were separated by only a stick fence and if I stood behind the kitchen door, ajar, I could watch her without being seen. I admired everything about her. The way she tucked the end of her sari into the waist, and brushed off a strand of her hair from her face with the back of a soapy hand. I was confused by what I felt, hero worship, adulation and something more. There was something profoundly erotic about seeing her slim white stomach when she bent over to scrub the cloth on the washing stone, her naked feet with the slender anklets. After her work was over, she would go have her bath and then come to the courtyard again to dry her hair. I think that was when she looked the most beautiful - her long black hair spread, skin almost transclucent, luminous, with the red bindi standing out starkly, eyes lined with kohl. She was a goddess.
Once she came out when I was standing at the back of the house. It was too late to escape. She smiled and asked me my name. "You are Shyam's sister, no?" I blushed and stammered out a reply, then fled to the safety of the house. But from that day, the spell was broken. I found I could talk to her, hesitantly at first, and then, as the days passed, more freely. It became easier to smile.
She invited me home, and I mustered up enough courage to go. Her father was old - almost bedridden. In the evenings, sometimes, when my father was out, I would slip outside and into her house through the back. She would make a cup of hot tea for me with elaichi, and then we would sit and talk until I heard my gate open. Those were some of the happiest times I ever had.
Meenakshi would tell me stories, so many stories. Witches, powerful kings, magic lamps and even one about a poor little girl who used to sit in the ashes but was later married by a prince. One day she called me inside her small room, and showed me her books. A lot of them were in English. I was awed, I could not imagine anyone reading so many, and told her so. She laughed and said that the books were her only treasure.
The small river running through the village had grand aspirations, but my little brother could have crossed it without fear in the middle of the flood season. It fed into a deep, quiet lake. Sometimes Meenakshi would come to the banks when I was out tending the goats. She would become silent and dreamy as she sat beside me and looked at the lake.
That summer we had a new addition to the village - Mohan, a policeman from the station 10 miles away. He frightened me. I heard the men in the tea shack whispering about him, Mallan Mohan. Two men had died in his custody. Every evening he would return stinking of drink and pass out. All these things I heard, and kept to myself. An uneasy feeling swept through the village like the hot summer wind.
It was the harvest season again. Every year there was a festival in the village temple, and our father would buy all 3 of us new clothes if the harvest was good. That year was an exeptionally good year for the rice. I had a jewel green silk skirt and jacket, Shanti had red. She looked like the red chilli that we put out to dry in the sun. Shyam wore a neat new shirt. Meenakshi came with us that year to the temple, and she was wearing a red sari. Once before, she had told me that it was her favourite colour.
There was a sparkle in the air that evening, an excitement that everyone felt. People laughed too loudly, talked too much and children ran up and down, shouting noisily, hardly able to stand still. We were giddy, drunk with exhilaration, and laughed like we would never stop.
It was when the fireworks were going off and the crowd was at the thickest that we bumped into Mohan. That Meenakshi ran into him. Mohan stood like a rock, his mean face and pig-like little eyes open, slack-jawed at the flushed, glowing revelation that was her face. She hurriedly stepped past and we resumed our way through the throng. I looked at her face, and it was worried.
The next day I saw him lumber out into her path as she came back from the school. I was terrified when I saw her talking to the man. Meenakshi was my friend. After that, my visits to her house stopped. She looked troubled whenever I saw her. It was Shanti who told me Mohan had asked to marry Meenakshi, and her father had accepted. I spent days in an agony of despair, unable to decide if I was feeling that way because of my intuitive fear of Mohan or because I was going to lose Meenakshi.
I didn't look at her when she came to give the invitation, and I did not go for the wedding. Shanti told me Meenakshi had looked beautiful. They moved into Mohan's small house on the other side of the village, and I stopped seeing her after that. Months passed, and I thought of her with a pain so bitter I could hardly breathe for the strength of it. She had been my only friend in that village, and Mohan had taken her away from me. The rains had started, and everyday the skies poured out their misery as if they knew. The little river swelled and the lake threatened to break its shores.
One night, I made up my mind to visit her, and slipped out when my father was away. The dogs were howling as I crossed the village and approached her house. One wall was thatched with coconut leaves, and light showed through the chinks. Raised voices came through. I quietly stood by the wall and put my eye to a small opening. Inside, Meenakshi was serving Mohan dinner. He was sprawled over the chair and I knew he was drunk, slurring his words. Suddenly he knocked over the bowl she had just put on the table. The aluminium clattered on the floor. Meenakshi clenched her fists. He scraped the chair back and lunged towards her. My mouth opened in a soundless scream as Mohan caught her by the hair and pushed her over the table. He moved in front of her and all I could see was his back as I stood frozen against the wall. Tears blurred my vision and I only barely saw him thrusting at her, obscene words and insults sounding like they were coming from far, far away. I turned and ran, down to the lake, and collapsed on the ground, retching and heaving.
I came to when the rain started again, stinging me with cold little needles. Somehow, stumbling home that blind night, I had become a different person. Life would never be the same again, never, never. Shanti met me at the back door, bade me keep silent. I shivered and wept dry tears as she rubbed my head with a threadbare towel. I couldn't sleep that night. In the early hours of the morning, the rain stopped.
Someone called from outside, and when I saw Shanti come back in, I knew something dreadful had happened. I went out, only to see my father running down the road that led to the lake. I started after him with a nameless fear in my heart, uncaring of my wild hair or Shanti's calls behind me. When I got there, a crowd had already formed. Whispering, shaking their heads. "...drowned herself...body washed up on shore.." There was a buzzing noise in my ears. I pushed through to the front heedlessly. The first person I saw was Mohan in his uniform, standing and staring down with a strange expression on his face. I followed his gaze, and saw the red sari first. Her favourite sari. Meenakshi, beautiful even in death, cold and wet, even with the purple bruises on her face and arms.
I wasn't aware of crying out, of flying upon Mohan and trying to choke him, screaming over and over again. "You killed her! You killed her!" I wasn't aware of fainting, or of lying for days in a delirious fever. When I awoke, it was to hear from Shanti that Mohan had been arrested. I didn't care to hear anymore. It would not bring her back.
I left the village for good after I got married, and never looked back. But I never forgot her. I can see her, still, even now after so many years have passed. Her name was Meenakshi, and she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
I was fourteen when I saw her first, getting off at the bus stop near the tea stall. There was a stooped old man with her that I thought must be her father. She was radiant, the colour of her skin like cream, and she wore a red sari. I could see the loafers leaning out of the tea shack as she started up the little mud road into the village. Even Ramu Mama, the ancient owner of Aishwarya Chaya Kada, poked his head outside to watch.
Even now I can see the red bindi on her smooth forehead, and as she came closer, the small smear of chandan. She walked with a quiet dignity, one hand leading the old man, the other holding a small green suitcase.
I was painfully aware of my own looks then, oily plaits framing a thin dark face. I wanted to run and hide, someplace where I would not have to compare myself to her and find myself pitifully wanting.
She looked at me as she passed, and it was with something like shock that I absorbed the full force of her beauty. I remembered a prayer my mother used to sing to me,
Meenakshi, the fish-eyed one
Bird in her hand.
With eye lashes like the Kodanda bow,
Lips which resemble the red bimba fruit,
Teeth similar to the jasmine bud,
And nose like the champa flower.
With a forehead like the half moon,
And cheeks resembling the mirror.
I was not ashamed anymore, for who could compare to divinity? She was a goddess, and we mere mortals.
Later I learnt that she was to become the new English teacher at the village school. They had taken the small house next to ours, and I would see her setting off to school, wearing a neat cotton sari and holding her books. My little brother was in her class, and he would come home in raptures of how wonderful Meenakshi teacher was.
I fantasized about talking to her, becoming her friend. How fervently I begged to be allowed to go to school again! But my father said no, always no. "You are a woman now, stay at home and learn how to cook, how to make your husband happy. God only knows how much I will have to pay to get you married off! Why can't you be more like your sister?", and he would walk off, grumbling.
My sister Shanti was the pretty one, the quiet one, and I would have hated her if I didn't love her so much. When I complained about father, she would smile and say, "It is a good thing you are not like me, you are much better." She would mend my clothes, and comb my hair and plait it. On the days I came home hot and dusty from tending the goats, she would cluck her tongue and push me outside, telling me to bathe before father came back from the fields. He was a farmer, and a fairly good one, so we had the luxuries of colored ribbons and bead necklaces now and then. Even a new dress once in a while.
When the weekend came, I would see Meenakshi in the mornings, washing clothes behind the house. Our courtyards were separated by only a stick fence and if I stood behind the kitchen door, ajar, I could watch her without being seen. I admired everything about her. The way she tucked the end of her sari into the waist, and brushed off a strand of her hair from her face with the back of a soapy hand. I was confused by what I felt, hero worship, adulation and something more. There was something profoundly erotic about seeing her slim white stomach when she bent over to scrub the cloth on the washing stone, her naked feet with the slender anklets. After her work was over, she would go have her bath and then come to the courtyard again to dry her hair. I think that was when she looked the most beautiful - her long black hair spread, skin almost transclucent, luminous, with the red bindi standing out starkly, eyes lined with kohl. She was a goddess.
Once she came out when I was standing at the back of the house. It was too late to escape. She smiled and asked me my name. "You are Shyam's sister, no?" I blushed and stammered out a reply, then fled to the safety of the house. But from that day, the spell was broken. I found I could talk to her, hesitantly at first, and then, as the days passed, more freely. It became easier to smile.
She invited me home, and I mustered up enough courage to go. Her father was old - almost bedridden. In the evenings, sometimes, when my father was out, I would slip outside and into her house through the back. She would make a cup of hot tea for me with elaichi, and then we would sit and talk until I heard my gate open. Those were some of the happiest times I ever had.
Meenakshi would tell me stories, so many stories. Witches, powerful kings, magic lamps and even one about a poor little girl who used to sit in the ashes but was later married by a prince. One day she called me inside her small room, and showed me her books. A lot of them were in English. I was awed, I could not imagine anyone reading so many, and told her so. She laughed and said that the books were her only treasure.
The small river running through the village had grand aspirations, but my little brother could have crossed it without fear in the middle of the flood season. It fed into a deep, quiet lake. Sometimes Meenakshi would come to the banks when I was out tending the goats. She would become silent and dreamy as she sat beside me and looked at the lake.
That summer we had a new addition to the village - Mohan, a policeman from the station 10 miles away. He frightened me. I heard the men in the tea shack whispering about him, Mallan Mohan. Two men had died in his custody. Every evening he would return stinking of drink and pass out. All these things I heard, and kept to myself. An uneasy feeling swept through the village like the hot summer wind.
It was the harvest season again. Every year there was a festival in the village temple, and our father would buy all 3 of us new clothes if the harvest was good. That year was an exeptionally good year for the rice. I had a jewel green silk skirt and jacket, Shanti had red. She looked like the red chilli that we put out to dry in the sun. Shyam wore a neat new shirt. Meenakshi came with us that year to the temple, and she was wearing a red sari. Once before, she had told me that it was her favourite colour.
There was a sparkle in the air that evening, an excitement that everyone felt. People laughed too loudly, talked too much and children ran up and down, shouting noisily, hardly able to stand still. We were giddy, drunk with exhilaration, and laughed like we would never stop.
It was when the fireworks were going off and the crowd was at the thickest that we bumped into Mohan. That Meenakshi ran into him. Mohan stood like a rock, his mean face and pig-like little eyes open, slack-jawed at the flushed, glowing revelation that was her face. She hurriedly stepped past and we resumed our way through the throng. I looked at her face, and it was worried.
The next day I saw him lumber out into her path as she came back from the school. I was terrified when I saw her talking to the man. Meenakshi was my friend. After that, my visits to her house stopped. She looked troubled whenever I saw her. It was Shanti who told me Mohan had asked to marry Meenakshi, and her father had accepted. I spent days in an agony of despair, unable to decide if I was feeling that way because of my intuitive fear of Mohan or because I was going to lose Meenakshi.
I didn't look at her when she came to give the invitation, and I did not go for the wedding. Shanti told me Meenakshi had looked beautiful. They moved into Mohan's small house on the other side of the village, and I stopped seeing her after that. Months passed, and I thought of her with a pain so bitter I could hardly breathe for the strength of it. She had been my only friend in that village, and Mohan had taken her away from me. The rains had started, and everyday the skies poured out their misery as if they knew. The little river swelled and the lake threatened to break its shores.
One night, I made up my mind to visit her, and slipped out when my father was away. The dogs were howling as I crossed the village and approached her house. One wall was thatched with coconut leaves, and light showed through the chinks. Raised voices came through. I quietly stood by the wall and put my eye to a small opening. Inside, Meenakshi was serving Mohan dinner. He was sprawled over the chair and I knew he was drunk, slurring his words. Suddenly he knocked over the bowl she had just put on the table. The aluminium clattered on the floor. Meenakshi clenched her fists. He scraped the chair back and lunged towards her. My mouth opened in a soundless scream as Mohan caught her by the hair and pushed her over the table. He moved in front of her and all I could see was his back as I stood frozen against the wall. Tears blurred my vision and I only barely saw him thrusting at her, obscene words and insults sounding like they were coming from far, far away. I turned and ran, down to the lake, and collapsed on the ground, retching and heaving.
I came to when the rain started again, stinging me with cold little needles. Somehow, stumbling home that blind night, I had become a different person. Life would never be the same again, never, never. Shanti met me at the back door, bade me keep silent. I shivered and wept dry tears as she rubbed my head with a threadbare towel. I couldn't sleep that night. In the early hours of the morning, the rain stopped.
Someone called from outside, and when I saw Shanti come back in, I knew something dreadful had happened. I went out, only to see my father running down the road that led to the lake. I started after him with a nameless fear in my heart, uncaring of my wild hair or Shanti's calls behind me. When I got there, a crowd had already formed. Whispering, shaking their heads. "...drowned herself...body washed up on shore.." There was a buzzing noise in my ears. I pushed through to the front heedlessly. The first person I saw was Mohan in his uniform, standing and staring down with a strange expression on his face. I followed his gaze, and saw the red sari first. Her favourite sari. Meenakshi, beautiful even in death, cold and wet, even with the purple bruises on her face and arms.
I wasn't aware of crying out, of flying upon Mohan and trying to choke him, screaming over and over again. "You killed her! You killed her!" I wasn't aware of fainting, or of lying for days in a delirious fever. When I awoke, it was to hear from Shanti that Mohan had been arrested. I didn't care to hear anymore. It would not bring her back.
I left the village for good after I got married, and never looked back. But I never forgot her. I can see her, still, even now after so many years have passed. Her name was Meenakshi, and she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Some Enchanted Evening
He stood waiting
outside the temple,
One rainy evening
Hair dripping water that ran
down the sides of his face.
Tremulous smile, and
One opened umbrella.
It was magic.
We walked in the dusk
Shoulders touching,
not touching
Intricate dance of footsteps
Water ballet in the rain.
Breathless, defiant - what if
someone should see?
The rain is falling too hard,
came the reply.
It was dark,
and the rain fell in torrents.
It was magic.
The scent of his nearness
clouded my judgement,
Musk and cinnamon.
Sanctuary! when he put
his arm around me.
Shelter from the storm beneath
a benevolent black wing.
Heat beside me, around me
Cold wet feet, and wet,
The pallu of my sari,
Uncaring.
The temple flowers fell
from my hair, and I knew not.
It was magic.
Under the dim glow
of the streetlamp, he turned
With one trembling finger,
touched my cheek
Enchantment
has many faces.
I closed my eyes
and waited
for the kiss that never came.
It was time to go
I left
My place of belonging
I left him,
standing at the gate
in the rain,
And turned to go home.
outside the temple,
One rainy evening
Hair dripping water that ran
down the sides of his face.
Tremulous smile, and
One opened umbrella.
It was magic.
We walked in the dusk
Shoulders touching,
not touching
Intricate dance of footsteps
Water ballet in the rain.
Breathless, defiant - what if
someone should see?
The rain is falling too hard,
came the reply.
It was dark,
and the rain fell in torrents.
It was magic.
The scent of his nearness
clouded my judgement,
Musk and cinnamon.
Sanctuary! when he put
his arm around me.
Shelter from the storm beneath
a benevolent black wing.
Heat beside me, around me
Cold wet feet, and wet,
The pallu of my sari,
Uncaring.
The temple flowers fell
from my hair, and I knew not.
It was magic.
Under the dim glow
of the streetlamp, he turned
With one trembling finger,
touched my cheek
Enchantment
has many faces.
I closed my eyes
and waited
for the kiss that never came.
It was time to go
I left
My place of belonging
I left him,
standing at the gate
in the rain,
And turned to go home.
Paradise Lost
Come with me
to the not quite forgotten land
of my childhood,
Through a sepia looking glass
Grainy with age, and yet
clear,
like the bed of a sleeping river
before you stepped in.
The only sound
was the sunlight
dappling the earth,
when the wind in the trees
decided to remain quiet.
I wish I could show you
the swing under the tamarind tree
Or the acres of woods, and the deep green pond.
They said an alligator lived in it, and I
believed them then.
I remember
baths in the canal
and catching fish
with a white muslin towel.
The sweet tart taste
of half-ripe mangoes
Hide and seek among the trees in the orchard.
The dark store room with
its huge stone jars and pungent smells
Pickles and salted tamarind
Bitter gourd kondattam.
Long ago I counted as
priceless treasures
A battered tin trunk,
full of old dolls and
Meals of clay on banana leaves
to appease them.
Sharing Cadbury's Gems
Smooth round stones
and particularly ripe
red cherries.
Mosquito bites
and scrapes that faded
to scars beneath BandAids.
Power cuts, and scary stories
during the monsoon thunderstorms,
Watching the flame flicker
in the kerosene lamp -
Another story to make me laugh
or my eyes shine with wonder
Until
I forgot to be scared.
Paper boats to float
and cry over when they sunk.
Evening came
At my mother's feet,
and my head on her lap
Pretending to understand
and eventually falling asleep
while the grown-ups talked.
I never knew the arms that lifted me
or tucked me in
But if I woke in the night, afraid
She would be there, indistinct
in the dark.
Warm, breathing, soft
And burrowing against her side,
I would find
Safe haven in the crook of her arm.
To sleep, again.
to the not quite forgotten land
of my childhood,
Through a sepia looking glass
Grainy with age, and yet
clear,
like the bed of a sleeping river
before you stepped in.
The only sound
was the sunlight
dappling the earth,
when the wind in the trees
decided to remain quiet.
I wish I could show you
the swing under the tamarind tree
Or the acres of woods, and the deep green pond.
They said an alligator lived in it, and I
believed them then.
I remember
baths in the canal
and catching fish
with a white muslin towel.
The sweet tart taste
of half-ripe mangoes
Hide and seek among the trees in the orchard.
The dark store room with
its huge stone jars and pungent smells
Pickles and salted tamarind
Bitter gourd kondattam.
Long ago I counted as
priceless treasures
A battered tin trunk,
full of old dolls and
Meals of clay on banana leaves
to appease them.
Sharing Cadbury's Gems
Smooth round stones
and particularly ripe
red cherries.
Mosquito bites
and scrapes that faded
to scars beneath BandAids.
Power cuts, and scary stories
during the monsoon thunderstorms,
Watching the flame flicker
in the kerosene lamp -
Another story to make me laugh
or my eyes shine with wonder
Until
I forgot to be scared.
Paper boats to float
and cry over when they sunk.
Evening came
At my mother's feet,
and my head on her lap
Pretending to understand
and eventually falling asleep
while the grown-ups talked.
I never knew the arms that lifted me
or tucked me in
But if I woke in the night, afraid
She would be there, indistinct
in the dark.
Warm, breathing, soft
And burrowing against her side,
I would find
Safe haven in the crook of her arm.
To sleep, again.
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