The following samples are excerpts from my personal writing project in progress.
“Sara!” Granny called out from the temple compound, her frail voice flew over the covered heads of devotees moving in and out of the complex. Nani, as we called her, was squatting in front of a five-by-five-foot enclosure of Shiva Lingam, the holy representation of Lord Shiva, when I approached her. The universal creator and destroyer, one of the three main Hindu deities, Lord Shiva is worshipped as a stone structure resembling a teapot or Aladdin’s lamp with its top cut horizontally to create a flat, rounded platform with a cross-sectioned spout. The lingam, representing Shiva, is a cylindrical structure with a rounded top that vertically emerges from the flat platform. In its entirety, the Shiva lingam represents all cosmic energies.
Nani tore open a half-litre plastic milk bag with her teeth and poured its contents over the cylindrical stone while murmuring chants. The precious milk flowed over the shiny black stone, onto the flat circular platform and slipped down its base. The five-year-old boy who begged for a few morsels of food outside the temple crossed my mind as the protein and calcium-rich creamy liquid went down the drain. She then took a water container and poured the contents on the Shiva lingam, a mark of her respect for the deity. Three other women had assembled behind her with milk bags by the time she finished her ritual. She held my hand and pulled up her tired seventy-five-year-old body, her legs shaking under her beige chiffon saree as she got up.
“Chalo.” She slowly trudged away to pay respect to other deities.
Nani was the only religious family member I knew of. She was a devout Hindu who prayed for two hours each morning and evening to multiple Gods and Goddesses, their miniature figurines neatly stored on a shelf in her cupboard. Being the oldest child in my generation, I spent my summer vacations with her tiny home temple during my kindergarten days, when the deities resided under the kitchen counter.
Nani would fetch water and prayer beads as I ran around her garden plucking roses for the ritual. I sat beside her, legs folded under my red-and-white polka-dot frock, hair tied in a pony, and hands joined in a namaste as I imitated her slow rhythmic back-and-forth trance, swaying my upper torso.
When instructed, I excitedly put tiny dots of kumkum, a red powder made into a paste by mixing with water, on the deities’ foreheads and hers. She would then put a tiny dot of kumkum on my forehead as I’d be ready to follow her next instructions. I had memorized all her hymns to Lord Ganesh, Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Hanuman.
“Ganesh ji… remove all obstacles in our path,” she’d murmur.
Once our morning prayers were done, we would go out in the front yard with a water container and look for an open sunny patch. Nani would squint at the Sun God, murmur more prayers, lift the container over her head and slowly pour the contents on the ground. I squatted two feet away from her, my bare feet burning on the cemented floor, as I watched her godly saree-clad figure pouring water against the bright sky. I later recognized her posture in a science book as the Aquarius water bearer constellation. On some occasions, I got the chance to do the fun pouring ritual. I’d carefully hold the container above my head, holding my breath and slowly pouring the contents just like she would. Once finished, I would look at her curiously like a student gawking at the teacher in the hope of receiving her approval.
“Chalo,” she’d say to me.
There wasn’t any assessment of my skillful pouring act, nor any instruction on how and why we do it. Nani moved in a set rhythm; her daily rituals of praying, cooking, stitching, and more praying continued with the same matter-of-fact rigour and dedication, doing her ‘Nani thing’, what all Nanis were supposed to do as far as I was concerned.
The ferry bounced up and landed on the water with a splash as the ocean waves hit the hull and rained inside the boat. The thirty-odd passengers held on to their seats while I stood plastered at the front holding on to the mast, my naked sunburnt arms drenched in Phuket’s sea salt. I was one of four girls on a bachelorette party for a childhood friend.
A young boy climbed down from the mast beside me and moved around doing odd jobs in the boat.
“Have you been to Maya Bay? Mate, you gotta give it a go! It’s the best beach in Phuket,” he said to a group of seniors as they nodded to his recommendation.
I watched him put the unused life jackets back into the storage cabin. He must have been twenty or younger, but the hard work under the sun and constant hauling of ropes had toughened his boy charm. His arms and face were sunburnt three shades darker than the pearl-white skin visible on his shin under his half-folded pants.
“Where are you from?” I said as he picked up the spare lifejacket beside me.
“My folks are back in Port Fairy.”
“Australia,” he added, seeing my confused look.
“Are you studying here?”
“Nah, my mum and dad got a fishin’ business back home, so I came here to start my own.”
Oh, you’re brave.
I looked at him as intimidation mixed with amazement went down my throat, watching a twenty-something kid out alone in the world, unafraid.
He grinned and called out to the other boy working on the ferry.
“Don’t you miss home?” I said.
“If I were gonna miss home, I should’ve never stepped out, eh?”
He chuckled, picked up the empty bucket and walked away into the boat.
I watched him in awe as he hauled the rope across the pier and pulled the ferry closer to the deboarding platform. He had no fear of falling behind his schoolmates or leaving his childhood sweetheart, if he had one.
What would it be like if I just moved somewhere… like him? But where will I go? Australia? Too far. Maybe Europe… What about Canada?
Sakshi Daral 