A narrative

 It was a dark and rainy night. The whole village was gathered together for the funeral. The whole village was grieving and lamenting the loss with loud wails and cries of agony. The little girl sat in the huge room, women on one side men on the other watching the wailing and loud crying with astonished eyes.

She almost giggled but knew that would be inappropriate. She curbed her smile and felt the gust of the overpowering emotion. It rose in one section and abated in another, this wave of open grief. The women sat on their haunches draped in nine yard saris, beating their chest moaning and groaning loudly. She had never witnessed such an open show of emotion before. They duck-walked to each other and wept on each other’s shoulders. This expression was so loud that it seemed insincere. Even she did not cry that loudly not even when her favorite toy fell into the valley and disappeared forever.

She sneaked a glance at her mother. Could her mother do this open wailing show? No, her mother was sitting on the ground (not squatting) and she was weeping, but no loud sounds came from her. The little girl was relieved. There was a measure of sanity in her world. She continued to watch the exaggerated display of emotion utterly bemused.

It had taken them a long time to get to this place. She remembered the flight, the first in her yet short life. They were over the clouds or alongside of them. She had pointed to the clouds in the window with such joyful wonder that her mother had laughed joining in her delight. And the lovely airhostess had offered her candy, which she had refused out of politeness of course as trained, but was glad when the lady insisted and her mother encouraged her to take some: even then carefully picking a few not to seem too greedy.

A few years later travelling alone to an African country to meet her parents there, she had been taken to the cockpit by the co-pilot and had gazed in wonder at all the little blinking lights and the switches and the knobs. What a ride that had been.

And then there had been a bullock-cart ride, another first, on the third and final leg of their journey to the village of her father’s father. It had been extremely novel in the beginning. She had been rather wary of the large animals with their long horns and angry swishing tails and she kept well out of their reach holding on to her mother’s hand for additional safety. There was a romance to the motion of the cart, the slow rhythmic sway, the clatter of the wheels, the gentle breeze. But it died soon enough as the road got bumpier, the air dustier and the sun became scorching hot. The thirst in their throats was mildly mitigated by the rationed water. They were tired and desirous of reaching their destination.

In between was the train ride, which she hardly recollected. Probably because she was used to train rides. Every summer vacation they took the train to visit her mother’s mother’s homestead in Bombay. She would sing the ditty in time with the clackety-clack of the train wheels.

“jhuk jhuk jhuk jhuk agin gaadi,

dhuranchya resha havet kadhi

palti jhade pahuya

mamachya gavala jaooya

mamachya gavala jaooya”

{jhuk jhuk jhuk jhuk fire engine train

drawing smoke lines through the air

let’s watch the trees run

as we make our way to uncle’s town }

she did not get the irony of the stanza that went

“mami mothi sugran, roj roj poli shikran”

{Aunty is a great cook as she makes banana-pudding every single day} as that was her favorite dish anyways.

There was none of her favorite food at the meal they had upon reaching their destination at her father’s father’s village. It was good to be on firm ground at last, on a surface that was not in some kind of motion. They were fed bhakri (rough bread) and something very spicy. She wanted to ask for some jam something sweet to make the food palatable, but her mother shushed her and she vaguely realized she was a child of the cities, familiar with urban ways. This village in the back of beyond was alien in more ways than one.

At the mourning she grew bored with the tides of public lamentations. It went on and on crescendoing in one place and then in another, her chest fluttered occasionally with the reverberations of the emotion. The drama was not theatrical enough to sustain her attention. She was tired she wanted to sleep. She asked her mother to pat her back as she lay down to help her fall asleep. Her mother stiffened, already too aware of being different, dressed in a five yard sari, not a nine yard one, unable to join in the loud wailing; she ignored her little girl. The child was not deterred. She closed her eyes and patted herself to sleep, self soothing in that strange if not bizarre situation. Occasionally she opened her eyes as the loud noises got to her and she observed a few of the women sniggering as they pointed to her surreptitiously. She could sense her mother’s embarrassment but by now she was angry, angry at being dragged so far away from her regular ways, not being able to comfortably eat or sleep. She ignored the women and her mother and kept on patting herself till at some point she fell asleep amidst the din.

They must have come back late from the cremation; the two brothers, her father and her uncle, along with other males of the village. It was probably strange and bizarre for them too, to have the entire village mourn for their father. A man in a powerful position, who was respected and feared for his authority. A man who had belittled them and put them down countless times. They could not hold the emotional dissonance it created to grieve for one who inwardly they rejoiced was dead simply because it set them free. They were also drunk, drunk with the power of their father’s might. The loud lamentation created such a discord between their internal state and the public persona that they had to find an outlet, to vent their conflicting emotions and the suppressed memories.

And they came upon her laying there innocently in the dark. They entered the room stealthily. She slept unaware until she realized that she was not safe. Then she escaped, she fled her body. A thin long subtle yet strong chord kept her connected to her physical form but she was gone. Out through the ceiling on to the roof and up into the stars.  The rain had subsided, the clouds had cleared the stars were shining bright. She looked at them and she knew she belonged there that she was made of the substance of the stars. Whatever they did with her physical form she was far gone. No wonder she did not remember what happened, because she was not there. She floated in her true home and returned only when others were awake and about, probably the next morning.

And whenever it happened that is where she went. It could not have been too frequently, simply because of the logistics. India is so densely populated that you cannot be alone for very long anywhere. She was saved by the multitudes in a sense. And the stars, the millions and millions of stars that glittered and twinkled and held her in their embrace.