Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (45 page)

Charvi nodded again, still not looking at Kokila, but just before Kokila left the room, she cried out loudly.

Kokila stopped in her tracks and turned around. Charvi’s calm face was red, as if ready to burst with anger.

“I hate you,” Charvi said, and the words were choked out of her. “I hate you.”

Kokila was taken aback. “Why?” she asked, more out of surprise than hurt.

“I hate you,” Charvi repeated instead of explaining. “Get out,” she said next, and then went back inside the bathroom and locked the door.

Kokila wondered if she should stay. Charvi never spoke like this. It was as if . . . as if she were someone else, a child. Yes, Kokila realized, her behavior was childish.

Kokila worried about Charvi, wondering if she should speak with Doctor Garu and see if he had some suggestions about how to make Charvi less volatile. But it seemed like the wrong time to discuss Charvi’s mental health. Doctor Garu was getting ready for the
pralayam
Charvi had predicted.

Kokila didn’t tell anyone about Srikant Somayajula’s son’s letter. Most people at Tella Meda, especially those who had recently arrived, didn’t even know who Srikant Somayajula was. They didn’t question who Tella Meda belonged to. The basic structure, the building, was considered irrelevant, considering the deity who lived there. And those who lived in Tella Meda had become so much a part of it, just like the fading whitewash on the walls, the rotting windows in some of the rooms, and the creaking fans, that they didn’t question their right to live in the formerly opulent house.

And Kokila didn’t want to worry everyone unnecessarily. She hoped that Srikant Somayajula’s son would have his father’s benevolence and generous heart, along with the wealth, because only a wealthy man could ignore the three
lakhs
of
rupees
that could come from selling Tella Meda.

Kokila worried about how to write the letter and what to say in it. While everyone went about getting ready for the arrival of the
pralayam,
she wondered how to avert this more real catastrophe waiting to be unleashed upon those who lived in Tella Meda.

Kokila wondered if it was the letter that had pushed Charvi over-the edge. Charvi had never predicted nonsense like this before. She pretended to cure people and somehow some of them did get cured but this was a new facet to Charvi, an exhibition of a new self-proclaimed power. And Kokila worried that it was a ruinous one. People would never forgive Charvi for not being correct about the tidal wave that was supposed to engulf the town of Bheemunipatnam.

The activity in the temple room soared in the next few days. It was just a few days to doomsday and no one was taking chances. And since Charvi had said the only way to be saved was through prayer, people from all over the town came to Tella Meda to pay their respects to Charvi and join in the singing of devotional songs with her.

“I’m so tired of cooking and making tea all day long,” Sushila complained, flushed from standing in front of the stove for hours. “I don’t think I have seen so many people in Tella Meda before.”

“And all of these people are going to throw stones at us when nothing happens,” Chetana warned. “
Array,
Meena, what does the weather report say?”

“Sunny and bright . . . a little cold, only seventeen degrees on Saturday and Sunday,” Meena said.

“We can’t rely on weather predictions all the time,” Padma said. The girls usually agreed with each other, but this time Padma was taking her mother’s side, while Meena was taking Chetana’s.

“Babu is going crazy talking about the
pralayam,
” Bhanu complained as she moved her suckling ten-month-old son from one breast to the other. “Says we should leave, go stay with his mother in Visakhapatnam. That woman lives with her useless brother and mother in a small flat. We should also go and live with them? I say that’s when we’ll have
pralayam,
when I lose my mind living with that old lady.”

“If it’s just for a few days, you should go,” Sushila advised. “If we had anyplace to go, I’d take Padma and leave.”

“So you don’t believe in Charvi?” Chetana asked.

“Of course I do. That’s why I want to leave,” Sushila said.

Chetana shrugged condescendingly. “If you believe in her ability to predict the big wave that will eat us up, you should also believe in her ability to save us. That’s what I think.”

While Chetana and Meena debated the possibility of Charvi having lost her mind, Kokila wrote a letter to Kedarnath explaining why it was important to let Charvi continue to live in Tella Meda. She suggested that Kedarnath could decide on rent if he liked, though Kokila wasn’t sure how they would all survive if they had to pay rent, especially after people found out that Charvi was just menopausal and couldn’t really see disasters in the future.

Karthik was full of questions about Charvi. He never really saw Charvi as the
guru
of the
ashram,
just as this old lady everyone deferred to. Now he was old enough to understand that she was someone different and was curious if she was really able to see the future.

“Do you think she can tell if I’ll get good marks in my science exam?” he asked Kokila.

“I don’t think so,” Kokila said.

“If she can’t even see that, how can she see the destruction of a whole town?” Karthik wanted to know.

Kokila didn’t want to disparage Charvi in front of her son. No matter how she looked at it, they all lived in Tella Meda because of Charvi. And Charvi was an old lady. Kokila didn’t want Karthik to think poorly of Charvi for being unable to control her emotions due to surging hormones.

“Maybe she only sees important things,” Kokila said. “And there’s no guarantee that a tidal wave will consume our town. Okay?”

Karthik wasn’t sure and wandered around the house listening in on conversations about the upcoming
pralayam
and dropping by Kokila to give her the details of what everyone was saying and how he had more questions because he was listening to them.

Finally, the day before the
pralayam,
Kokila finished the letter to Kedarnath and dropped it in the postbox. She said a small prayer to Lord Venkateshwara Swami by the postbox and put her faith in the goodness of a strange man and the miracle of God.

Back in Tella Meda, Charvi was delighted at how much attention she was getting from everyone. The letter asking her to leave Tella Meda in six months was all but forgotten. She had given that problem to Kokila, she decided, and therefore she didn’t have to worry about it anymore. The sun was bright and the sky was blue but Charvi wasn’t daunted; she knew what she had seen and she could feel the force of knowledge, of power, within her.

Having heard of her sister’s pronouncement, Manikyam had arrived in Tella Meda as well to show her support for her estranged sister. Charvi still refused to speak with Manikyam and her husband, no matter how many people tried to convince her otherwise. Manikyam’s husband didn’t really bother much with trying to convince Charvi to accept him again but Manikyam did. She sincerely believed that Charvi was a true incarnation of a goddess and being disliked by her was a catastrophe in itself. As she was getting older, Manikyam was turning more and more to religion and piety and it was becoming very important to her that Charvi accept her and forgive her for her past behavior.

Manikyam came frequently to Tella Meda, wanting to spend time with Meena and Bhanu, whom she openly called her granddaughters now. She showered Shashank, her great-grandson, with clothes and jewelry when he was born. She knew this was the only future for her family, as Prasad’s wife had passed away a few years ago and everyone had thought it was a blessing for her. Prasad was dying slowly; at least that’s what her husband told her. Due to heavy drinking, Prasad had serious liver problems and spent as much time in hospitals as he did in bars.

Bhanu accepted Manikyam with a polite and pleasant demeanor but Meena didn’t bother with her at all. Chetana seemed to encourage Meena’s behavior and never failed to remind Manikyam that if only she had been able to convince her husband to accept them in the beginning, they all could have been a family, a happy one, living in Manikyam’s big and now empty house in Visakhapatnam.

Charvi’s other sister, Lavanya, also heard of Charvi’s forecast of imminent disaster and wrote her a scathing letter that would not reach Charvi until long after the day of
pralayam
passed.

There were critics, but mostly people believed Charvi and she was flattered, humbled, and delighted. More and more people came to Tella Meda every day, bringing her offerings, and Charvi was torn between weeping and laughing most of the time.

“See,” she wanted to tell Kokila, “look at how people believe in me. Not like you—you have never believed.”

Charvi was
guru
again, in charge of Tella Meda. Kokila could make the small domestic decisions, Charvi decided, but she wasn’t going to take over the
ashram.
She was just a servant, while Charvi was the mistress of the house. Just because she wasn’t bothered with the small details of running the household didn’t mean she was less important than the servant.

On the morning of the day of the full moon night people started to fill the temple from dawn. Devotional songs were played on loudspeakers and there was a festive atmosphere at the temple. People brought along their precious belongings and took refuge in the temple, praying to God, hoping to avert the upcoming disaster with their faith and prayer.

“There isn’t a cloud in sight,” Chetana remarked, looking at the perfectly blue sky. “They’re going to lynch her in that temple.”

Sushila had convinced Chetana to come to the temple and she now sat with Kokila, who sat next to an excited Karthik.

“So, if this happens, there will be no school tomorrow, right?” Karthik asked.

“There will be school tomorrow,” Kokila said.

“But all my friends said that there will be no school tomorrow . . . no school building, so no school,” he said.

“Well then, we’ll just have to find you a new school to go to,” Kokila said.

Karthik thought about it for a moment and smiled. “But that will take some time and I will get a free holiday.”

“And what will you do? We won’t even have a home. If the school building is eaten up by the big wave, so will Tella Meda,” Kokila pointed out.

Karthik nodded gravely. “That is a problem. Let me think about it.”

A local Visakhapatnam television news crew, a cameraman and a man with a microphone, had also made their way to the temple. They were filming the people and had done interviews with Charvi, the
pujari,
and some of the people at the temple.

“Do you believe in
pralayam
?” the man with the microphone asked Kokila and Chetana as they were sitting together.

For an instant they didn’t answer and then Kokila said, “We are here, aren’t we?”

The man moved on, hoping for more detailed answers.

“We should have told him the truth,” Chetana said.

“And achieved what?”

“I don’t know. I’m just so angry to be here. This is foolish,” she said right before Charvi, who was seated on a podium by the idols of the temple gods, started to speak.

Devotees were sitting next to her, tuning musical instruments, getting ready to sing and celebrate the power of God.

And even though the celebration was about preventing a
pralayam
and showing respect for God, people were still trying to make money out of it. The man who ran the canteen by the toddy shops in Bheemunipatnam had set up a food stall with the permission of Pujari Garu. He had promised the temple 25 percent of all his earnings from the night. Plates of food were priced exorbitantly.

“They’re making money off people’s misery,” Chetana said.

“You don’t have to buy that food. I have brought food for all of us,” Sushila said, and opened three tiffin carriers full of rice,
sambhar,
curds, pickles, fried potato, and green bean curry.

As the day slid into afternoon, the sky remained clear, but as the afternoon became evening, the skies started to change, to become dark.

“The weather forecast didn’t say anything about this,” Meena said.

“I told you that you can’t always rely on the weather forecast,” Padma said smugly.

The people in the temple started to sing songs for Lord Venkateshwara Swami with greater gusto and Charvi’s voice was the loudest as she sat in front of the microphone.

“It’s happening,” people cried out.

“Amma, Charvi, save us,” some others cried out.

“This is nonsense,” Chetana muttered.

But now even she wasn’t so sure. Rain started to fall in big large drops, and the wind blew hard. The bright day dissolved under ominous-looking clouds and the air smelled of a storm.

Charvi, who’d never had any doubts, was not surprised. She had known that this would happen, that a storm would come and a wave would rise.

“So, what do you think?” Chetana asked Kokila, who just raised her eyebrows in amusement.

“Looks like Charvi might be able to predict storms,” Kokila said.

“See, I told you, you can’t rely on the weather forecast. Amma is right—Charvi does have the power to see into the future,” Padma said to Meena, pleased with herself.

“It’s just a coincidence,” Meena said defiantly.

As coincidences went, Kokila had to give high marks to Charvi in the luck department. The two hundred people gathered in the temple were talking excitedly while Charvi read scriptures from the
Bhagavad-Gita
and Upanishads on the microphone.

“Usually she gets tired if she has to sit and eat with all of us. Today, look at her sing and preach,” Chetana remarked.

It was as if Charvi had received a new shot of energy. As the rain slapped onto the earth and waves clamored to reach the sandy shore of the Bay of Bengal, her strength rose. Charvi was in full goddess mode, sure of her ability to predict the future.

Since the rain had begun, more people had come to the temple, skeptics mostly, who had never thought Charvi could be right.