Chapter 16 #2
Panic iced through her. “Surely, there’s no need to rush.”
“No?” Padma returned. “Are you not so eager, then, to start your married life with Dr. Fairfax?”
Constance sensed a trap. “Oh—I’m desperately eager,” she quickly countered. “You have no idea how eager I am. I’m practically burning up with eagerness.”
Ellie stumbled beside her.
“It’s only that—you know—one hardly wants to rush these things,” Constance continued hurriedly. “The anticipation is half the fun, isn’t it?”
A strangled sound gurgled at the back of Ellie’s throat.
The noise gave Constance a spark of helpful inspiration.
“Besides, Neil would want his parents to be able to attend, and Ellie’s father gets terribly seasick.
Why, he can barely handle anything longer than a channel crossing!
They would have to complete the journey to India overland.
Or we can simply plan the ceremony in England.
Really, that makes the most sense. I’m sure Neil and I can contain ourselves until then. ”
“Can you?” Padma returned with deceptive ease.
Constance schooled her features into an expression of solemn determination. “With great fortitude.”
“How lucky that you are such a model of self-control,” Padma returned, straight-faced. “But ah—here we are.”
They stood before a small building of roughly the same dimensions as the neighboring storefronts.
The bricks of the facade were painted in bright hues of blue, green, purple, and gold.
A small tower rose over the back half of the structure in cake-like layers that tapered to a rounded peak at the top.
“It’s a temple!” Constance exclaimed, recognizing the distinctive shape of the shikhara that crowned the sanctuary.
“Of course, it is.” Padma took a basket from Mr. Mahjoud. “Now come inside, and don’t forget to take off your shoes.”
?
Constance followed her grandmother into the colorful building, buzzing with excitement about her first visit to a Hindu temple.
She had watched Padma perform puja to the murtis on her household altar before, so the concept of Hindu prayer wasn’t completely foreign to her.
However, both of her parents were Church of England, and Constance still attended services with them when Sir Robert and Lady Sabita insisted on it.
It was easy enough to sneak a novel into the hymnal and catch up on a little reading during the sermon.
She remained deeply curious about her grandmother’s faith, soaking up all of Padma’s stories about her beliefs and practice.
“Who are we coming to see, then?” Constance asked excitedly as she freed herself of her boots, setting them on the rack for shoes that stood by the temple steps.
Padma answered her with a secretive smile.
They stepped from the covered porch into a modest hall. The temple was a place of neighborhood worship rather than a sprawling institution like Lord Jagannath’s home in Puri. The tile floor was swept clean while the paint on the walls was slightly cracked with age.
A young priest stepped forward to greet them, dressed in dhotis with a saffron scarf over his chest. After a brief and polite exchange in Odia with her grandmother, he led them into the temple’s inner sanctuary, where a single goddess in painted stone and plaster awaited them, standing on a raised platform.
The blue-skinned woman with four arms waved a bloody sword in one hand.
Another held up a severed head. A necklace of carved skulls ringed her neck while severed arms, daubed with red paint, served as her kilt.
The accessories were admittedly gruesome, but the figure was still surprisingly lovely.
Her eyes were large and luminous under arched brows accented by a red bindi.
Her sky-hued complexion was smoothly polished.
The vermilion dart of her tongue extended from between bow-shaped lips while marigolds garlanded her chest.
A beautiful man lay on the ground at her feet, bare-chested and prone with a serene expression on his face. The goddess’s uplifted right foot was just coming down to rest against his flawless skin.
Constance recognized it all with a buzz of excitement. “Is this Kali?”
“Dakshinakali,” Padma mildly corrected her. “But you may call her Maa Kali if you like.”
Padma rang a brass bell that hung by Kali’s shrine. The clear, low tone echoed through the close space of the sanctuary. As the sound faded, Padma gracefully dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the floor in front of the goddess.
Constance had been through this before when she had watched Padma perform puja at home. She pressed her palms together and gave the goddess a respectful bow, nudging Ellie to do the same. After all, even if one wasn’t strictly speaking a Hindu, one could certainly be polite.
“Isn’t Kali a goddess of death?” Ellie asked.
Padma removed items from her basket, handing them to the priest—a garland of red hibiscus blooms, a bag of rice, a box of sweets. “Maa Kali is many things.”
The priest set Padma’s offerings out at the feet of the goddess.
The figure’s two open palms were painted crimson and held out in gestures of blessing.
Constance vaguely recognized the position of her upper hand—raised to the shoulder with the palm facing out—as the mudra for fearlessness.
“Who’s the fellow under her foot meant to be, again? ”
“Lord Shiva,” Padma replied. “He is her husband, when Kali is Parvati.”
Constance decided to offer Ellie a little help. Her friend was already frowning with confusion. “The Hindu gods are always turning into each other. Don’t worry too much about it. But why is Kali stepping on her husband, Aai?”
The priest began to pray over the offerings, his voice low and even.
Padma gazed steadily at the goddess. “Kali’s rage is the rage of a mother—rage against the evil of the world that would exploit the powerless.
There is no force like Kali when her thirst for vengeance has been unleashed.
She grinds the most powerful demons into dust and feasts on their blood.
Then she dances with a violent joy that would tear the world to pieces if she were not stopped. ”
The priest finished his prayer. He lifted a flickering oil lamp from the altar and brought it to Padma.
“That is why Shiva lays himself down in her path,” Padma continued. “It is only when Kali feels his flesh beneath her foot that she remembers herself and reins in her rage. Now shush.”
Padma brushed her fingers over the fire, gracefully bringing them to her forehead. The priest brought the lamp to Constance, who did the same, imitating her grandmother’s gestures.
The heat of the flame danced against her palms under Kali’s steady gaze.
Constance looked helpfully at Ellie. “You can do it, too, if you want to.”
“Even if I’m not Hindu?” Ellie pressed uncertainly.
“Our gods are not jealous,” Padma informed her warmly.
Ellie considered her words, then tentatively offered her hands to the priest. He brought forward the lamp, and she moved her fingers from the fire to her brow. The gesture was more awkward than Padma’s had been, but the temple attendant didn’t seem to mind.
“Sit,” Padma ordered, lowering herself to her knees in front of the goddess.
Constance studied Kali’s fiercely lovely aspect. She was less familiar with this deity, as Kali wasn’t among the murtis that sat on her grandmother’s altar at home. Still, she had to appreciate a divine lady who wasn’t shy about carrying her own weapons around.
She wondered what Ellie thought of all this. Participating in a temple puja was perfectly thrilling to Constance, but Ellie didn’t have a Hindu grandmother.
Ellie studied Kali with frank curiosity and wonder.
She certainly didn’t appear to find any of this strange or savage.
Constance could practically hear the questions whirring around in her friend’s brain.
She was sure they would all come spilling out as soon as Ellie sensed it was an appropriate time to ask them.
The thought triggered a warm burst of affection.
Constance had no qualms about asking questions. She could hardly imagine Kali was going to mind. She looked like the sort of woman who appreciated a forthright nature. “This is all very lovely, Aai, but is there any particular reason why we’re here?”
“You girls have both said that you find Lady Sita, Lord Rama’s wife, to be weak,” Padma returned frankly.
“That’s because she spends most of the story sitting around waiting to be rescued,” Constance pointed out.
“Not every story,” Padma corrected her.
“Do you mean that there’s another one?” Ellie pressed, curious.
The priest took a seat at the edge of the room, waiting with comfortable patience.
“They call it the Adbhuta Ramayana,” Padma replied.
“It records the sage Valmiki’s words when he was asked whether Lord Rama’s story contained any wisdom that had been hidden from those who were not ready to understand.
In response, Valmiki told of another battle—one that had not been mentioned in the original text.
A battle against the demon king Ravana’s older and more powerful brother, Thousand-Headed Ravana. ”
“Thousand-Headed Ravana?” Constance returned dryly.
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” Padma treated Constance to a withering glare.
Constance schooled her features. “Yes, Aai.”
“Lord Rama was not powerful enough to defeat Thousand-Headed Ravana,” Padma continued. “He fell in the battle. Seeing him wounded, Sita’s rage was kindled, and she rose against the demon herself… as Kali.”
Constance studied the fierce, blue-skinned goddess with her bloody sword and garland of skulls, comparing the image to the lithographs of Rama’s pretty, placid wife. “You’re saying Sita turned into Kali,” she elaborated skeptically.
“I am saying,” Padma returned patiently, “that Sita was Kali all along.”
“I thought Sita was supposed to be an avatar of Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort,” Ellie cut in.
“She is that, too,” Padma easily agreed.