THE BIRTH STAR
by Tirumal Mundargi
I pull the chain and jump off the coach as the train stops. Threading through thorny bushes I find myself in the middle of a dark field. I turn to see if anyone has seen me getting down. Some men in uniform scamper about the coach and the train starts again, whistling, chugging past the bushes.
After the train has gone, I turn toward the field. Four am. Two more hours to go before the Sun shows. A swarm of glowworms passes by and a bright one hovers over my head and I dodge a bit. I go and sit under a tree, peering at the receding galaxy of worms.
Morning, I find myself under a peepal tree with crows and sparrows engaged in their chorus. Doors of a temple opposite have opened up. Devotees arrive, sounding the bell at the entrance before visiting the sanctum. After some time, a man in saffron strolls out. He squats by my side on the grass and opens a brass kit. He has brought a little water in a copper vessel that he pours into a small copper cup. He turns to me and says, “I’m the temple priest. Who’re you, sir? Where have you come from, if I’m not disturbing you?”
“My name is Sunder,” I say. Camphor vapors emanate from the temple. “I’ve come here to meet my grandfather, Dharma.”
“Oh! You’re Dharma’s grandson? What do you do? How did you arrive?”
Waiting on the Bridge, by Ajay Prasannan
“I’m a lawyer. I heard grandfather is not well.”
He nods and starts grinding a sandalwood piece on to a round smooth stone, putting a little water from the copper cup. The sandalwood paste sends up a whiff.
“You’re right, Sunder. Dharma’s not well. I visit him everyday. He’s stopped speaking though he’s still capable of chanting the whole of The Bhagavadgita without any break.”
“I want to meet him,” I say. He raises his head and peers at me. “I want to meet him and talk to him.”
He stops grinding, and with his forefinger scoops the paste and collects it onto a tiny copper plate and starts applying it to his body. Maybe in his late seventies, about the same age as my grandfather, he has got a well-formed chest, ample biceps and a small paunch. He applies the paste to his forehead, middle of the chest and to its right, and three stripes over the stomach.
“Do you know where exactly he’s now?” He asks me.
“At his home. Where else?”
“You’re wrong. He left the home long ago. Now he’s at a place where nobody goes, even if one wishes to.”
“Please take me to him.”
“Yes, let us go after the worship. Please take a bath and come into the temple sanctum,” he points to the open well. “You may keep your belongings in my room.” He hands me a key and shows a corner, very close to the temple.
He goes into the sanctum without looking back. I unlock and enter his room. A straw mat and a dirty pillow, some four or five pegs where clothes have been hung up, there is not much in the room. I remove my shoulder bag, undress, take a white loincloth, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste and leave for the open well in front of the temple.
I see some boys swimming, some jumping from the nearby tree, cluttering the well. I’m in no mood for a swim, I brush my teeth and take a bath sitting on the steps. I wear the white loincloth. As I enter the sanctum the priest notices me, comes out and gives me the holy water and basil leaves. I bow and sip the water and pop the basil leaves into my mouth. “You wait for a few minutes. Let us have lunch.” He goes into the sanctum. I come out and sit under the peepal tree.
The Sun has climbed up, and the boys come out of the well, one by one. I wait for over an hour when the priest comes out and motions me to follow him. We enter a kitchen hall in the rear of the temple where they have spread banana leaves on the marble floor. We sit and the kitchen attendant serves the food. I’m hungry, and I eat to my fill. Folding and taking the banana leaves with us, we come out, throw the leaves into the bin and wash our hands at the tap. We go back to the room. He changes into a white dhoti and shirt and I get into my trousers and shirt. We step into our sandals, he locks the room and we go out.
Walking for fifteen minutes on the black tar road, we come across yet another temple. The paint has peeled up and mold has covered some parts of the gopuram. We leave footwear at the entrance and together we enter the temple. An alleyway leads to underground steps. As we descend into the increasing darkness, the steps open up into a verandah where some sunlight is peeking in. We enter a room, and I see grandfather reclining on a straw mat on the floor.
“Dharma! See who has come,” the priest says.
I go near him, touch his feet and bow to him. He smiles a wry smile. How’re you, Grandpa, I ask. He says nothing, just raises his right palm.
We sit on the stone floor and Grandfather straightens up a bit, his back propped to the pillow. His hair has become jute white, his cheeks have sunken up, his eyes see as if from outer space. “I have come to take you home, Grandpa,” I say. He smiles yet again. “Do you remember Grandmother?” His smile vanishes. “You just can’t stay here like this. Please come home. Please! Please!” He turns away from me and lies down with his head on the pillow, and goes to sleep.
We climb the steps back, out the temple, onto the tar road. “He has become very lean.” I say to the priest.
“He hasn’t been eating well. I carry food to him everyday but he eats very little,” he says.
We go to priest’s room where I collect my things. “I’ll come back again.” I say. “This time I’ll try to bring father, too.”
“Your grandfather did great injustice to your father. He mustn’t have doled the land out to farmers,” the priest says.
“Not at all. He’s done the right thing. The land belonged to the farmers. We never worked there.”
The priest becomes silent.
“Where’s the railway station?” I ask him.
“Railway station?” He raises his eyebrows. “Even the railway lines are hundreds of miles away from this place.” He takes a pinch of snuff from a small tin and sniffs it. “Why did you ask this? How did you arrive to this place?” He sneezes and wipes his nose with a handkerchief. “All right. I’ll come to the bus stop and see you off. By the way, if you don’t mind, what’s your birth-star?”
“Punarvasu.”
“Amazing! Dharma’s is Punarvasu, too. Don’t worry. I’m administering your grandfather some herbal medicines. I’ve gone through the Almanac and checked very carefully. Everything will be okay.”
“All right. But I want to confess, sir. I’ve never traveled without a valid journey ticket, either on a train or a bus. I’ve never pulled the chain to stop a train, nor caused inconvenience to fellow passengers. I’ve never been fond of insects. Especially glowworms. Yet all these things come back to me, again and again.”
“No problem,” he says and comes with me up to the bus stop, walking another half an hour in the heat. Boarding the bus, I wave at him from the window and he waves me back.
© The Birth Star, Tirumal Mundargi
© Waiting on the Bridge, Ajay Prasannan
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