The rangoli box in her hand made plain why she stood in the veranda. That black stone box must be the one she had bought in Hardwar when, along with other pilgrims, she had come to stay in the dharamshala built by Tripathi, Dinakar's foster father. Within a couple of days, the lustre in Sitamma's face had endeared her to Tripathi, and she had come to stay in their house. Every day she would get up at dawn, sweep and sprinkle the veranda, and after a bath in the river Ganga, she would spread her hair on her back. Then, with great concentration, she would take up pinches of different-coloured rangoli powder and, slowly sifting it between two fingers, draw on the earth of the veranda. So the ancient house of Tripathi suddenly acquired the charm of new prosperity. Sitamma had taken the vow of cooking for herself, and she insisted on doing all of the cooking. When the rangoli-laying was over, she would go into the kitchen to make upma or kesaribath or idlis, and feed everyone in the house as if she were their own mother.
She was at that time in her middle years, a widow of about forty-five. Tripathi was already seventy-five, a rich man from a good family, and a well-known charitable soul. With great affection, he would call Sitamma ‘little sister.’
‘Little sister, we too are brahmins, we don't even eat onions. You don't have to do all the cooking, you can eat what we eat.’
Since Tripathi spoke in Hindi, Sitamma couldn't understand him. But her son Narayan Tantri had learnt Hindi in school as a result of the zeal of the Hindi movement, and also because he loved debates. Therefore, he became her constant interpreter.
∗
Dinakar now stood before Sitamma and said ‘Amma’ and Sitamma, with narrowed eyes, gazed at the amulet as Shastri had done. Then she looked into Dinakar's face. Her eyes slowly began to shine with the compassion of a mother and, as she went back in time, it seemed she was recreating him. Dinakar, in sweet pain, watched apprehensively.
‘Ayyo, isn't it Dinakar?’ she said. Because she was in a state of madi, having just bathed, she did not embrace him immediately. But her eyes gave him all the pleasure of a mother's touch. A moment passed like this. Then Sitamma turned to Shastri and said, ‘What, Shastri-gale, why shouldn't I bathe again and then make your food?’ So saying, she came and took Dinakar's hand, not even asking why he hadn't come to see her all these years. She cried out, ‘Nagaveni, bring coffee!’ Then, when she started to go inside to bring the rattan chairs out to the veranda, Dinakar said, ‘Amma, lay your rangoli, I want to watch.’ Although she didn't understand the words, Sitamma guessed his meaning.
‘You always liked that, didn't you? Sit down. I will draw what you used to like in Hardwar. Watch while you drink your coffee. And you, Shastri-gale, go and have your bath. There is hot water if you want.’ Smiling to herself, she squatted down to lay the rangoli.
With her thumb and index finger she took a pinch of rangoli powder and rubbed it to make it firm, moving her fingers just enough for the delicate thin line to appear. In a moment, at the very center of the swept and cleaned veranda, she had drawn two intersecting triangles, one upward-pointing and the other downward-pointing. In one, god's grace descended from heaven to earth; in the other, the soul ascended, aspiring toward god. Because of Sitamma's faultless eye, both met in perfect harmony.
Dinakar drank his aromatic coffee from a silver cup, becoming immersed in Sitamma's creation, as he used to do twenty-five years before. What for thousands of years took form on the walls of temples and in the verandas of cottages, no matter how poor, had begun to manifest this morning on the veranda swept with cow-dung. A vine where one was necessary, and a leaf on the vine; for every leaf a flower, and a swastika to guard it all, and then peacocks, and then — look — there was Lord Ganesha, and even his mouse to ride on.
As she drew the mouse, Sitamma smiled and said to herself, not bothering that Dinakar didn't understand Kannada, ‘This has gone a little crooked. My fingers aren't strong enough. My hand shakes a little. Tomorrow I will do it better. Tomorrow Ganesha will come in the center. Tomorrow he won't be sitting, he will be dancing.’
4
‘My Nani always gets up late. But his son Gopal is up very early. When we went to Hardwar, Gopal was a very small child. He had lost his mother. A girl called Gangubai used to look after him, you may remember her. She was crazy for getting bangles fitted, wherever she saw bangles she had to have them put on. Do you remember all this? She has a son now, younger than Gopal by a year. Gangu went to school again and has become a high school madam. Her child's name is Prasad. Our Nani got a house built for her. Gangubai got married from her mother's side. Her husband doesn't understand much, but he's a gentle one, like a cow. He also looks after cows himself, and he milks them. Some milk he keeps for the family, the rest he sells. You see?
‘My grandson Gopal has begun to run about a lot these days. My son became president of this municipality — my big son did such great work — and now my grandson wants to save the whole nation. For appearance's sake he got “lawyer” put beside his name on the signboard along with his father's name. But does he care for his father's advice? Today he's in one party, tomorrow he is in another. Early morning he gets up and begins to phone while listening to Subbulakshmi's Venkatesha Stotra. You will see for yourself how he will buzz around when he sees you. Whenever we have seen you on TV we have talked about you. Nani says you must have forgotten us. But I always tell him, “I will not die before seeing him again.” I say to Nani, “Why don't you write to him?” but Nani is lazy. “He has become a big man, he must have forgotten us years ago,” says my son. What big man you are I don't know.’
As Dinakar sat on a stool in the kitchen listening to Sitamma, not understanding a word, she came to pinch his cheek — then remembered that she was in madi and laughed, stepped away, and squatted again before the earthen oven. She went on talking in the same way, waiting for the kadubu to be steamed.
Sitamma always cooked squatting at the firewood stove. She herself mixed the mud and built it, the main oven opening sideways into another, and then another. Every morning she would clean this stove, sweep it with cow-dung mixed with coal dust, and lay rangoli on it. Nobody else could arrange the pieces of firewood in the way she did, to make them burn with such a glow. In the main oven it would be bright and hot, and in the other two the flames would be diminished. On each one of these outlets Sitamma put whatever was the proper thing to cook there. She would sit before the stove and become as absorbed as when she was laying rangoli — here, lifting a little piece of wood to let fire catch in it, or pushing in or pulling out or placing one piece of wood on top of another, so that the fire would cooperate with another piece of fire, making the fire grow. Watching her skill in building the fire, Dinakar again remembered the Hardwar days.
In Hardwar she had got the right kind of mud and built a stove for Tripathi's house, and she who had come for ten days stayed for a month.
‘What was I saying?’ she said to herself, and kept on talking, even though Dinakar didn't understand.
‘As soon as I saw the amulet, I knew it was you. Let us see whether Nani recognizes you in your new attire. And what about Gangu? But how could they forget you, they have even seen you on TV. How could they forget your eyes? If you had not taken this vrata, I would have waved drshti over you’
Sitamma noticed Shastri at the kitchen door, listening intently as she spoke.
‘Do you see how mad I am, Shastri-gale? How I am chattering away, forgetting that this boy doesn't know Kannada? In Tripathi's house, my belly felt as if on fire when I looked at this orphan boy. What a great man Tripathi was. He didn't let this boy down. Only five years old, they say, when his mother came to Tripathi's house, herself like an orphan. She came with a trunk and a bag full of clothes. Tripathi knew only that she was from the South. He was such a large-hearted man. Seeing what state she was in, he didn't ask, “Who are you? What about you? Why did you come?” and all that. He just gave her a place to cook her food and stay. He got her all the materials for setting up a kitchen. Just one time he asked her, because of the kumkum on her forehead, “Shall I go and search for your husband?” But when she stood there, not answering, her eyes full of tears, he never asked that question again. He even warned the other women not to ask her any such questions. Isn't one woman always curious about another?’