A Cut-Like Wound (19 page)

Chikka pushed the doors but they were latched from inside. From within he could hear the chanting. Chikka glanced at his watch. The puja had taken longer than it should have.

He tapped gently on the door. One of the eunuchs opened it. ‘Come in, quickly,’ Rupali said.

Chikka swallowed and stepped across the raised threshold. Would Anna be angry, he wondered. Would Anna’s wrath blaze and burn, for every Friday Anna became Angala Parameshwari, the goddess of wrath.

A
nger has no friends. Anger only has acolytes. Slavish creatures that feed the seed of rage with their daily obeisance of resentment and bitterness; hurt and betrayal; deprivation and wounds to the soul. Anna knew all about anger.

Anna made his acquaintance first with anger when he was a baby. He saw with his fierce baby eyes his drunk of a father slap his mother around. He felt her wince and shrink with each blow and kick. He felt her nuzzle him closer to her breast, but as the slapping grew in intensity, her nipple slipped out of his mouth. He shrieked his anger. She wept her pain. When he began to walk, he found a face for anger.

They lived in a little hamlet, Maruthupati, a few minutes away from the Mayannur temple. Every Friday evening his mother took him to the temple, trudging through a cremation ground. It would live forever in Anna’s mind. The reddish-tinged twilight skies, the cawing of crows as night fell, the feel of the hard ground beneath his bare feet as they walked through giant clouds of billowing smoke from the still burning funeral pyres, the stinging in his eye, the smell and taste of smoke incense and wood, and underlying it all, the stench of charring flesh.

Anna learnt to negotiate his way through the pyres as he learnt to be unmoved by the anguish and sorrow that hung over each death. In the temple was Angala Parameshwari, the goddess who demanded angry tributes. Anna saw there the face his mother wore as she cuffed him under his chin or slapped his calves. He saw how anger made his mother
strong and how the timid creature turned into a powerful goddess who matched her husband’s violence with screams and blows that petrified him. Anger would not allow her to be kicked around any more. Anger was her weapon and it was this secret weapon she bequeathed him.

Every Friday, his mother retreated into herself. She would wash her hair and let it flow down her back. The turmeric paste she applied on her face before her bath emphasized her eyes which she outlined with ‘maie’. She would bring out the red sari she wore only on Fridays. These were the colours of anger: Yellow, black, red. From her would waft the fragrance of camphor and incense, and the bitterness of dreams turned to ash.

She would place the bronze statue she had of the goddess on a wooden pedestal. Then she would dress the statue as she had dressed herself. She would adorn the goddess with flowers and light a lamp. And slowly her lips would part and words would form:

Om sri maha kalikayai namah

Kreem hum hleem

Kreem kreem jatt vaha

Kreem kreem kreem kreem kreem kreem svaha

As the frenzy and fervour of the chant grew, her voice would rise in a rhythm that stoked some strange fire within. Slowly her body would begin to gyrate, the bunches of neem leaves she held in her hands swirling as she sang:

Sooranai vadhikai wanda samariye

Soolam eduthe aadiya angakaliye

Anna would cower by the doorway, watching his mother metamorphose into a woman who invoked the goddess
in her with strange words, rhythms and a manic frenzy – howling and screaming as she spun wildly.

When his mother was in her trance, she ceased to be the woman he called Amma and snuggled up to in his sleep.

He trembled in fright, watching her every move.

Who was this woman who stood before the goddess and ate the meat she had cooked early at dawn, chewing on each morsel, sucking on the bones and drinking deep of the pot of arrack? Who was this creature who raised into the air a chicken, its feet tied, to slit its throat and let the blood drip on her? Over her hair, her face, her chest and back; rivulets of warm blood that turned her into a horrifying monotone of anger appeased. When the blood ceased to flow, she would curl into a deep sleep from which she would awaken only some hours later.

Anna would sit there wondering about this woman who seemed to have created a ritual of her own. Who had taught her this? His mother could barely read. But the words she spoke were weighed with knowledge as with an inbuilt rhythm. Every syllable was exact, precise and loud. This from a woman whose speaking voice was like that of a sparrow.

When Anna was eight, he asked his mother, ‘How, Amma? What happens to you?’

His mother smiled. Anna saw in that smile a secret. ‘Ma Kali Amma lives in each one of us. When it is time for her to emerge, she will. And then she will demand you worship her in the way she wants you to. She will tell you what she expects of you. The tribute you pay her may horrify everyone else, but if it appeases her, that is all you should think of. And she will then bestow on you all you wish for. She will make her weapon yours. Anger. That is her weapon. For those of us who have nothing, anger is our only blessing.’

Anna learnt about anger when a year later his father dragged his mother, his baby brother and sisters to Bangalore. He had been offered a job as a watchman. ‘And you can work as a maid somewhere,’ his father said, opening the door to their one-room tenement in a slum near Shivaji Nagar.

Anna had looked around and wondered how they would all fit in. After the warmth of the sun in the fields of Maruthupati, the air in Bangalore chilled him, causing little shivers to run down his legs. Why had Appa brought them here? This little hole of a house and the crowds of strangers bustling around. Why had Appa done this to them? And thus Anna stumbled upon the anger in himself.

Soon anger and he were on first-name basis; soul mates. And, as his powers grew, nurtured and fed by anger, the goddess made her demand for tribute.

Chikka, who had seen their mother turn into a frenzied, fierce creature, had hoped that with her death, all of it would cease. But here was Anna now, seeking to be the repository of the goddess. Anna, who said the goddess expected him to invoke her in the guise of a woman. And that to help him arrive at his full powers, he would have to be surrounded by a bevy of eunuchs. For in the hermaphrodite exist both he and she, and in the coming together of man and woman is Shakti. The goddess at her fiercest.

What could Chikka tell Anna, who only did what he wanted to? Chikka had learnt young that with power came an arrogance that didn’t like to be questioned.

Now Chikka waited, leaning against the wall, as Anna dressed in a sari and with braided false hair stood with hands stretched out, palms wide open. One of the eunuchs placed a piece of camphor on each of his palms and lit them with a
lamp. With blazing hands, he circled the goddess, three times around. Chikka flinched at the thought of the searing heat but Anna wouldn’t use a plate. If he did, the plate would absorb all the divine powers and Anna wanted it all for himself.

Chikka looked at his watch surreptitiously. A few more minutes and Anna would be done. Fortunately, this was only the weekly puja and not the amavasya one. That went on for hours and Anna took a long while to emerge from the trance.

Then Chikka heard a gasp and turned around.

Ramachandra stood at the door, gaping. His eyes were wide open and his mouth parted in shock.

In an instant, the eunuchs surrounded Anna so it was hard to discern who was who. Seething with rage, Chikka grabbed Ramachandra by his elbow and dragged him away.

‘Who the fuck asked you to come in here?’ he hissed.

Pale and trembling, the man stuttered, ‘I … I…’

‘Forget what you saw here. Do you understand? If you breathe even a syllable of what you saw here, you’ll regret it,’ Chikka bit out.

‘I … the corporator…’ The man began to make amends.

‘The corporator’s not here. He is at the Muthayalamma Devi temple on Seppings Road. What you saw is a family ritual. But we don’t like strangers intruding or talking about it.’

Ramachandra swallowed. He knew he had seen the corporator dressed as a woman. He knew the corporator’s brother was lying. But he dared not contradict him.

‘I suggest you come back tomorrow at three p.m. Anna will see you then,’ Chikka said, opening the door.

Chikka stood by the doorway, watching the man leave.

‘Did he see me?’ Anna asked softly. Chikka jumped.

He turned around. ‘I am not sure. I said you were at the Muthayalamma temple.’

The corporator licked his lips. ‘Do you think he believed you?’

Chikka didn’t speak. What could he say? He dropped his gaze till he heard Anna leave the room. He wondered: what next?

G
owda was combing his hair when his phone beeped. Again. A flurry of text messages between U and him. In less than twelve hours he had taken to calling her U, so even you became U. It was a little conceit that U seemed to delight in, as he did her G. They were creating a little parallel universe of their own and, for the first time in many years, Gowda let thoughts of work slide to some lower realm.

What colour shirt are you wearing?

Navy blue. And U?

A lemon yellow sari
.

Lovely. Have U left already?

No, G. Just about to. Ready to leave?

In a few minutes
.

Gowda saw his son reflected in the mirror. He pocketed his phone almost surreptitiously.

‘Was that Amma?’ Roshan asked. ‘I heard your phone beep. I thought you were texting each other.’

Gowda put down the comb. ‘No, just some work-related texts. Besides, you know your mother texts only if she needs something.’

‘Where are you going? You are all dressed up.’ Roshan leaned against the door.

Gowda frowned. Did the boy suspect something? The
only thing to do was intimidate him into silence. ‘Who’s the policeman here? You or I? What’s with all this curiosity?’

Roshan shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen you looking so smart, Appa.’

Roshan’s smile made Gowda flush.

‘Thanks,’ Gowda said, trying to hide his pleasure. ‘I’ve been invited to inaugurate a photography exhibition.’ On an impulse, he added, ‘Do you want to come along?’

Roshan straightened. ‘I’d like to, but are you sure?’

Something about the boy’s tone squeezed Gowda’s insides. The longing. The fear. The thought that his father saw him only as an irritant, an intrusion. Had he ruined his relationship with his child for ever?

‘Yes, of course, I wouldn’t ask otherwise. You have three minutes to put on a clean shirt and run a comb through your hair,’ Gowda said, gently propelling Roshan towards his room.

In the car, Gowda kept an eye on the boy. In turn, he realized the boy was watching him. As he adjusted the rear-view mirror, changed gears and fiddled with the radio, he felt Roshan’s eyes tag his every move. We are like two fighters sizing each other up, Gowda thought. Despite our differences, my father and I were never like this. So when did I become this tyrant? Or rather, how did you let this happen, G? Urmila, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in his head, queried. If you don’t do something to heal the rift, the time will pass and it will be too late.

‘I usually play Hindi songs when I am in the car. But if there’s something else you would rather listen to…’ Gowda offered. A small bridge of understanding towards something more concrete.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll listen to whatever you like,’ Roshan said.

‘So what does that friend of yours, Osagie, do?’ Gowda asked.

‘He’s doing an MBA,’ Roshan said. Then, as if on an impulse, he added, ‘It really is a hard life for the African students here, Appa. No one will give them houses to rent. They get turned away if they go to clubs or discos … We are as racist as anyone else.’

‘I am not sure if it’s racism,’ Gowda said.

Roshan turned around. ‘What else do you call it?’

‘Some of them deal in drugs. But you don’t know who is doing what … so people tend to be cautious with everyone. Once a place is known as a spot where drugs can be bought, it brings with it a whole caboodle of other issues. That’s what it is.’