Matabari

Lalitha sat on the bed with a sigh. She did not want to admit it but she was getting ol..ol..old-er. Why should she admit to some physical age when the inner self is ever free, limitless and always existent. From her daily dose of Samavedam, Chaganti and Garikipati, she knew that much for sure. Yet, when it came to her inner circle - her immediate family, she was loath to admit any such grand notions. So what if one is sat chit ananda, currently she was a mother. As a mother was it not her duty to ensure the best for her daughters. One a widow, the other a divorcee. No grandchildren in her fate. Sometimes she fell into depression while performing her daily tasks, her husband couldn’t care less, he, having troubles of his own. Early retirement and eighties will do that to any young and handsome male. How good looking he was, she had never met anyone more charismatic in all her seventy seven years, reminisced Lalitha. He was brilliant too. What is the use of all this, when we cannot pass on these genes to anyone.

The widow was into Vedanta and there was no hope of a grandchild from her, the divorcee was picky, and well beyond child bearing age now. What to do. Lalitha the mother found solace in Lalita Tripura Sundari. Her husband Shiva found solace in writing his memoirs; oh there was so much to share with the world! They had witnessed independence, wars, emergency and the slow decay of their family values. Who should they look up to for advise, who could they complain to now. Their parents were long gone. It was to Shiva and her that everyone ought to look up to. Yet they did not. Today’s young liked to fall before getting up. They wanted to waste a lifetime making mistakes. Lalitha adjusted her sari. She was glad to have packed it. Her daughter, the widow, had ordered that she bring only a carry on with her. It is not easy to fit clothes for ten days in a small suitcase, but she was an expert at this. So many moves, from one state to another, one house to another. Lalitha had been the one doing the packing and unpacking while Shiva went to work and their daughters went to school. Ah! Those were the days. This was a kota. They are easy and light to wear. At this age anything heavier was a burden. As though she did not have enough problems as it is. She heard her daughter call out impatiently.

“Maa, where are you, it is time for darshan”.

That is Shodashi calling out. Ever since her husband passed away she has been finding solace in chanting the Lalitha Sahasranamam with her mother on Fridays. Hordes of women descended on their quiet household on those mornings and their house was filled with laughter and musical notes until the afternoon. Then they all left after chanting the Lalitha Sahasranamam 108 times and after partaking in their share of the prasadam. Lalitha had been a part of this group for almost thirty years. But then Shodashi was still in college and had no time for god or goddess. Youth is such, it makes one forget that there are many travails in this world, smirked Lalitha. It was not easy to console her daughter, it was tougher to console herself. Twenty five years of marriage washed away in seconds. It was the second dose of vaccine that caused the heartattack whispered a few well-wishers. Whatever it was, Lalitha knew that she must get her daughter on track. Without devi in her life, she was bound to face more and more troubles. Shodashi’s husband had died leaving her penniless and issueless.

“Of course I will worry, look at me at this stage in life when I ought to be playing with my grandchildren, I am scared of the future because my daughters have no one to take care of them after me, you must look after them maa, you must,” Lalitha confided in her ishta.

It was not madness, her talking to her chosen deity in this manner, after thirty years of sincere sadhana the deity is bound to respond, one has to recognize the signs. At first the clues are very subtle, it is a hit and a miss, brushed away as coincidence by many. Then the outreach gets persistent. The language of the goddess is simple, it is mostly silence. There is no complication in her speech. She is also Vani after all.

In the dead of the night a few years ago when Lalitha had gotten up to use the bathroom, she had witnessed a resplendent figure by her bedside smiling affectionately at her.

“You cried yourself to sleep maa, what is troubling you, am I not here for you?” Lalita, the goddess, was here in flesh and blood on her bed and Lalitha the human could not comprehend this at all.

“Why the disbelief maa? Have you not called out to me the past few days, asking me where I was and why I was not answering your prayers?” Lalita the goddess was shining and was trying her best not to burst into laughter at this human Lalitha’s predicament.

Shodashi and Shambhavi’s mother recovered quickly from her sleepy deportment and decided that she must use the bathroom, wash up thoroughly and then think this matter through. There was no use waking up her husband who must have fallen asleep on his writing desk again. Lalitha clambered back onto her side of the bed with half worn slippers and a wet nightie after ablutions. She was still drowsy. Was it a dream? Was maa really here?

When Lalitha’s daughters were in primary school she had told them of the story of Daksha and his daughter Sati. How Sati had ended up marrying Shiva much against her father’s wishes. How Shiva was insulted by Daksha and how Sati had jumped into the sacrificial fire immolating herself unable to bear the insults meted upon her dear husband. After which Shiva had danced the terrible tandav picking up his wife’s half burnt body from the ashes. How Sati’s body parts had fallen all over the Indian subcontinent in the process. And how dearly Lalitha wished to visit each and every of these shakti sthals. There was an Amar Chitra Katha called ‘Sati and Shiva’, she had bought it for her daughters, and had read it aloud at bedtime until they knew each panel of the illustrated booklet by rote. Lalitha had always wanted to bequeath her love of devi to her daughters. Middle Class families such as hers did not have much else to give anyway.

“You want your daughters to believe in me but you still doubt my existence!” Lalitha could hear her maa, Lalita, laugh. It sounded like a brook meeting its lover on a full moon night.

Ever since, Lalitha was visited by maa during the nights and they would converse. In the mornings under the glare of the harsh Hyderabadi sunlight Lalitha would be full of doubt. Was it really maa? What if it was a dream? Could they be my own hallucinations? Also, Lalitha asked herself; what language did they converse in, if they did, Telugu? Hindi? English? This was not very clear. She remembered communicating with maa but how they did that was something which remained a mystery. Henceforth I shall take notes right away, decided Lalitha with determination.

The very same night maa was waiting by her bedside impatiently while Lalitha was washing up her feet in the bathroom. She came out to find Lalita, her maa, shaking her head in disappointment. There was an air of mischief about her though. And then she spoke clearly in English: “I feel you might be more comfortable in Telugu”. Lalitha’s eyebrows shot up involuntarily at the clipped accent. “On the other hand you might consider it too low-brow? Wait…..” And then maa continued in Hindi:

agar talab mein pani hoga
uday poora snan karega
kurma peda bhojan banega
aur uska kalyan hoga

And so it came to pass that by her bedside a small notebook full of strange scribblings could be found at any given time. Lalitha hid it away from the maid and her daughters by slipping it into her pillow cover. As it is Shiva never ventured into her room and if ever he did he would stand at the doorway and make his demands. So she was safe. Lalitha’s worry was that she might be committed to a mental hospital if she told her family about these nightly tête-à-têtes, nowadays in various languages.

During the day her time was spent in listening to as many pravachanams as possible after her daily chores were completed. By now she had heard Sati’s story re-told by all her favourite pravachanakartas. They unfolded it from every angle possible, and from every Purana that it appears in- the Vayu, Skanda, Bhagavata, Kurma, Padma, Linga, Shiva and the Matsya Purana. It has to be true isn’t it if so many Puranas talk of the same story, wondered Lalitha in awe.

Being so immersed day in and out in devi shruti and stuti, and allowing the nights too to be taken over maa, Lalitha was slowly withdrawing into herself. Shodashi and Shambhavi were not too pleased, noticing with alarm this change in their mother. Why, maa hardly spoke these days. She was either glued to her iPad or to the T.V. listening to those spiritual Telugu talks. Her eyes were swollen from lack of sleep. Was she crying or was it because she could not sleep at nights, the daughters could not come to a proper conclusion.

The girls decided to investigate. It was time to wrest control from the parents. They did not realize that they were growing old. That they needed looking after. Maybe with grandchildren around them the transition would have happened naturally but with none in sight, this was it. I am now the head of the household, Shodashi proclaimed to herself and soon set about proving that to everyone. Shambhavi did not take kindly to this declaration. She too set out proving something of her own.

Lalitha had a beautiful darshan of maa Tripureshwari and also Tripuresh. She even got a chance to sit down and chant Lalitha Sahasranamam on a Friday, the day of her weekly fast. The priest had pointed to the smaller Chandi devi saying- our kings took her with them to battlefields. The pilgrim lines were not too long in June. Although the weather was humid and it seemed like it could rain at any time, it did not. Shodashi had plonked a plantain leaf in her mother’s hands full of gorgeous blue water lilies and a garland of fiery red hibiscus to offer maa. In her own hands she had carried a box of pedas, the traditional offering. They had run up the stairs to meet a blood red roofed structure housing devi. Matabari, the mother’s house, their driver had called it. In fact everyone around knew of this shakti sthal as Matabari only. A few goats were bleating nearby. Shodashi gently pulled her mother away from the bali area and towards the lake. A local old man with beautiful wrinkles regaled them with the story of how the black shelled tortoises endemic to this Kalyan sagar lake, called bostami, would climb up the stairs and give up their lives at the feet of maa, when they were about to die. This was a kurma peetha. He also told them of Raja Dhanya Manikya’s dream. Devi had appeared in his dream and asked him to build a temple for her here. Mother and daughter sat a while admiring purusha and prakriti, and soon climbed down the stairs in full contentment.

“Where to next?” asked maa full of excitement. Shodashi smiled to herself happily. She had managed to convince maa to fly with her to Agaratala, Tripura, from where they had hired a friendly taxiwala to drive them to Udaipur, 35 kms away. This was maa Tripura Sundari’s abode on top of a hill.

“Well, there are fifty more places maa, let us make a list!” Shodashi answered gaily. “Yes, yes, let us do that…here maa’s little finger of the left leg was found kadaa, let us go from feet up, putting her together as a whole while we do our yatra …”

Good, maa now had a project and we have maa back, thought Shodashi and texted her sister Shambhavi, “..all good, thank you for cracking that strange Hindi puzzle..”.

“No problem check with me viz dates next time if you want me join don’t assume am free when you are”

Shodashi rolled her eyes in mock anger. Younger siblings were always trying the one-upmanship game. But this time it was for the best. She scrolled up to see her sister’s text from a week ago:

“Cannot believe you could not decipher it. Agartala/ Udaipur duh! Tripura Sundari temple. Just google na, seriously, have tons to do don’t disturb me for such simple matters”.

Jai Maa!