Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (28 page)

Kokila shook her head. “The one man I was legally bound to I left. The man I was illicitly seeing died on me. What decent man would want me for his wife?”

“Someone better than Ravi, I’m sure,” Chetana said. “You could have a real life, a happy life. Don’t give up.”

“Give up what?”

“Hoping and dreaming,” Chetana said.

Kokila marveled at her friend’s resilience. Despite everything that had happened and all that had been beaten out of her, she could still hope and dream.

Chetana and Kokila reverted to their familiar roles of working in the kitchen and serving everyone while they were in Chandra’s house. Chandra was flattered and pleased, while Charvi enjoyed everyone’s love, affection, and tireless efforts on her part, as she always did.

It was decided that they would walk up the hills to Tirumala, the main temple, instead of taking a bus. Kokila tried to persuade Chetana and Harini that an eleven-kilometer walk was not good for them in their pregnant condition but to no avail. It was God’s desire, the pregnant women said, that they walk on the
sopanamargas
from Alipiri, at the foot of the hills, to the house of Lord Venkateshwara Swami.

“The Lord will take care of them,” Charvi said to the concerned Kokila. “It’s his wish that they come to him and that they walk. It will be okay, just trust the Lord of the Seven Hills.”

So the small group of men, women, and pregnant women started the journey.

“You’re crazy and stupid,” Kokila informed Chetana, who shook her head with determination. “Charvi might want to trust God but I think God wants us to trust our good sense.”

“I made a vow that I would climb the seven hills to get to Lord Venkateshwara Swami. I need a wish fulfilled,” Chetana said as she huffed and puffed up the
sopanamarga.
“Have you made a wish?”

Kokila shrugged. She had been thinking about it but could not come up with anything. Almost everyone who went to Tirumala to see Lord Venkateshwara Swami made a wish and a promise to do something if the wish came true. It was destiny and legend that if you made a wish and promised God that you would climb the seven hills to get to him, or shave your hair off and offer the hair to God, your wish would come true, but you had to fulfill your promise as well.

“I’m going to shave my hair off too,” Chetana told Kokila, who gaped at her. Chetana was very vain about her looks and it was proof of her devotion that she was going to have her head tonsured.

“Why?”

“I told you, I made a wish,” Chetana said.

“He can’t make your baby a boy or a girl,” Kokila told Chetana.

“Shiva and Madhu are both going to do
angapradakshinam,
” Chandra told Chetana and Kokila. “You know, for the health of our grandchild growing in Harini’s belly and all others to come.”

Several hundred devotees every day would lie prostrate and roll down the Vimana Pradakshinam, which ran around the temple.
Angapradakshinam
was difficult because of all the rolling involved and was therefore a strong proof of devotion to Lord Venkateshwara Swami.

“They have to wake up very early and bathe in the Swami Pushkarini before they go to the temple,” Harini told them, showing off about her husband and father-in-law’s level of devotion to her unborn baby. “I want to wake up early too, for the Suprabhatam.”

“And what time is that?” Chetana asked.

“At three in the morning,” Harini said with a smile, and Chetana shook her head. It was one thing to be devoted, quite another to wake up before the sun did.

Kokila laughed softly at Chetana’s expression. “And you want to tonsure your head and whatnot? You’re not even ready to wake up early for the Suprabhatam.”

“I’ll wake up if you do,” Chetana said.

“Have you made a wish?” Chandra asked Kokila, who shook her head.

“Nothing?” Chandra was more than surprised.

Kokila shook her head again.

Chandra smiled. “You must have a content life if you have nothing to wish for.”

Chandra wasn’t being sarcastic; she genuinely believed that Kokila had a satisfactory life. It baffled Kokila. She didn’t have a content life, but a hopeless one. Those who had hope wished for something. What could she wish for? A husband? No, she wasn’t going to be with another man ever again. Children? Hmm . . . yes, she would like children, but it was hard to have children without a husband in this world. So no, that wouldn’t work either. As she went through a list of common desires in her mind, not one appealed to her. Everything she could wish for was already tainted by decisions she had made and she couldn’t go back and change her life.

They had to stop often to rest because of Harini and Chetana. Charvi seemed to glow with the light of a devotee and a goddess. The result was a sublimely happy Charvi. She wore a smile on her face as she looked up at the temple, their destination.

“Whenever I come here, I’m filled with joy,” Charvi told Kokila. “There’s something, isn’t there?”

Kokila nodded, unsure of the “something” Charvi could feel.

This was her first time in Tirumala. She had wanted to come for a long time and now that she was here and the chants of devotees around them were loud, she wondered what the fuss was about. Was this very different from praying to Lord Venkateshwara Swami from the temple room in Tella Meda? Did the Lord really care where she prayed to him from?

It took them almost all day to reach the top of the hills and the temple, and the free
choultry
where they were to stay. Shiva had pulled strings and managed to get two rooms for their group. One room was for Charvi and the other room was for everyone else. Shiva and Madhav were planning to sleep outside or in the hallway. The nights were balmy and it wouldn’t matter where they slept.

Two bathrooms were shared by everyone in the
choultry
and Chandra cleaned the bathroom before Charvi went to take her bath.

“That is devotion,” Chetana said cynically.

“If I weren’t pregnant, I’d do it,” Harini said easily. “You live with her every day, don’t you see the light within her?”

Kokila and Chetana looked at each other in disbelief and shook their heads.

“Then why do you live in Tella Meda?” Harini asked, a little angry that they, who were so fortunate to see Charvi every day, didn’t seem to appreciate her.

“We live there because we have no other place that will take us,” Chetana said.

Harini didn’t speak to either of them for the rest of the evening.

They ate at a small Brahmin canteen where they were assured that only Brahmins had cooked the food. Charvi wasn’t particular, she said (after all, Chetana wasn’t a Brahmin and cooked in Tella Meda), but when she was eating “outside” food, it would be so much better if she knew a Brahmin with his clean hands had cooked the meal she put in her mouth.

Replete after a dinner of rice, curds,
sambhar,
potato and cauliflower curries, mango and ginger pickles, and
payasam,
Charvi went to sleep with Harini in her room for company, while Chandra sat up with Chetana and Kokila playing cards.

“This is so blasphemous,” Chandra said, even though she was smiling. She was obviously not as uptight as her pious daughter-in-law.

“Why?” asked Chetana, and pointed to the cards. Lord Venkateshwara Swami’s serene face was plastered on the playing cards. “If they can put his face on the cards, then it must be okay to play with them. Think of it as a kind of prayer.”

They played until late and then were woken by Shiva at two in the morning. After a quick bath they all went to the temple. After standing in line for an hour they were allowed inside the temple.

It was disappointing. There were so many people there that it was impossible to see the idol of the god.

The priest began to sing the Suprabhatam to wake up Lord Venkateshwara Swami and the devotees joined him, their hands held together in prayer. A tape recording of the prayer accompanied all of them.

There was jubilation within the temple when the first stanza was sung, a stanza memorized by almost all devotees of Lord Venkateshwara Swami.

Kausalyasuprajarama!
Purva sandhya pravartate,
Uttistha! narasardula!
Kartavyam daivam ahnikam.
O! Rama! Kausalya’s auspicious child!
Twilight is approaching in the east.
O! best of men!
Wake up, the divine daily rituals have to be performed.

There was a palpable feeling of love for the god. It was three in the morning but instead of sleepy devotees, everyone present stood, mesmerized and submerged in prayer, the power of the Lord shining within them.
There must be some kind of magic,
Kokila thought,
when
even Chetana who never wakes up before nine o’clock, can be bright at this
hour of the morning, singing the song that will wake up Lord of the Seven
Hills.

After the prayers, Shiva and Madhav went to roll around the temple with the other devotees who were also performing the
angapradakshinam,
while the women stayed to touch the feet of Lord Venkateshwara Swami.

He was a large idol, handsome, beautiful in black, adorned with heavy gold and diamond jewelry. Something shifted inside Kokila at the sight of him and she closed her eyes. Sometimes you had to reach your destination to know the purpose of the journey.

May his soul rest in peace,
she said inside her heart, and hoped that Lord Venkateshwara Swami heard her and granted Ramanandam, in death, the peace he never seemed to have had in his life.

Since Chetana wanted to shave her hair off, Kokila and she went to Kalyana Katha, where several hundred barbers were sitting in long queues shaving hair off the heads of hundreds of devotees. The hair was collected and then sorted and sold to the thriving wig businesses in Tirupati.

Chetana and Kokila stood in a long queue awaiting their turn. There were at least thirty heads that needed to be shaved ahead of them.

“Do you also want to have your head tonsured?” Chetana asked Kokila, who raised her eyebrows in response. “Are you sure?” she asked. “If you have any wishes, this will certainly ensure they come true.”

“I don’t believe in this promise-and-vow business. I don’t think God is that petty,” Kokila said.

“A lot you know,” Chetana said, a twinge of nervousness bathing her words. “Do you think it itches after?”

“I think so,” Kokila said, seeing a young girl with her head tonsured being led away by her mother. The girl was trying to scratch her head while her mother was holding a bottle of coconut oil promising to lather her bald head with it soon if she didn’t scratch now.

“And how long do you think it takes for the hair to grow back?” Chetana asked.

“A year . . . maybe more,” Kokila said. “Why? If you’ve made a promise then just do it, stop wondering about the consequences. It’s just hair, it’ll grow back.”

When they finally got to a barber, Chetana all but ran away from him and his sharp razor without a word of apology.

Harini was even more disappointed with Chetana now that she had backed out of getting her head tonsured.

“My Madhu and father-in-law both did the
angapradakshinam,
” Harini said. “If you make a wish, you have to fulfill the promise, otherwise . . . you can’t cheat God, you know, ever.”

“Oh, Harini, the good God above is not keeping track of such things,” Charvi said before Chetana could give their hostess a piece of her mind. “Chetana did what she could do and that’s more than enough. No good God will ever blame her for not shaving her hair off.”

Harini was appeased because the words came out of Charvi, but Chetana still wondered what kind of punishment Lord Venkateshwara Swami would mete out now that she had backed out of her promise. Obviously her wish would not be fulfilled now, would it?

It was anticlimactic to sit in the train as it headed toward Visakhapatnam after their visit to Tirumala. After the noise of the city and the sounds of prayer, the rhythmic grunt and crunch of the train almost felt like silence. Chetana, Kokila, and Charvi were comfortably ensconced in the ladies’ coupe in the second-class compartment with two other women. They were sisters on their way to see their eldest, dying sister in Visakhapatnam.

Both Gayatri Devi and Pushpa Lata were taken with Charvi and agreed that the light of the goddess did shine within her.

When she was younger Charvi had been reluctant to tell anyone about Tella Meda and who she was, but that had changed with the passing of years. She was a good-looking woman in her early thirties, unmarried, yet more independent than most women. She was confident now, sure of who she was and of her purpose in the world. She easily told Gayatri Devi and Pushpa Lata that her home was Tella Meda and she was the daughter of the late, great writer Ramanandam Sastri. She introduced Chetana and Kokila as women who lived with her, indicating that they were devotees and not just residents in her house.

Pushpa Lata had apparently heard about Tella Meda from a relative and immediately put two and two together. They started calling her Charvi Amma and she didn’t seem to mind. They asked her advice on how to deal with their dying sister and she quoted
slokas
from the
Bhagavad-Gita.

“She still doesn’t call herself
guru,
” Chetana pointed out to Kokila. “Still doesn’t call Tella Meda an
ashram.
”

“But she believes it now,” Kokila said. “
You
certainly have changed your opinion about Charvi.”

Chetana shrugged. “After living my life it is almost impossible to believe in anything spiritual.”

“You have to believe in yourself,” Kokila said. “That’s all you need to do.”

“Everything I have done hasn’t worked out. Bhanu is with Renuka, Ravi is with every whore in town, and I tried to be a tailor, but those women were just whores. I thought they were my friends but, you know, Ravi actually went with one of them,” Chetana said with a laugh.

“Really?” Kokila asked, shocked and curious as to how Chetana felt about Ravi going with a woman Chetana had started to consider a friend.