4. CELL

The monk was recovering quickly and by the time the dark moon appeared in the sky pink scars were already forming in places where the bear had dragged its sickle-like claws. What helped with healing was Atisha´s youth, Savitri’s healing ointments and - maybe most importantly – the unending attention he was getting from both girls. As his wounds were healing, the color of Savitri´s saris was changing. From calm and dark blue to yellow - shining and sunny.

Atisha seemed to enjoy the company of both girls but it so happened that it was he and Savitri who spent most of their time together. Even when she was away he still felt her presence – as if she were still sitting by his bed on a small mat — like she used to during the first two days. And her fragrance - it filled his cell - faint during the day and strong at night and this time it was not a product of his imagination. Savitri was always wearing in her hair a small garland of white jasmine flowers and every evening before leaving she put it on his bed. All night long he was drifting on a cloud of dazzling white fragrance.

In the evenings the monk started to go out of his cell. He did not go far - just made a few steps and then sat down by the wall to watch the sunset. Sometimes he thought that this mystical and eternal performance was enacted just for him: he had never seen anybody else watching it. Savitri was the first person who had ever joined him.

As they were sitting there in silence the hot air of the day was cooling off, small ants were running busily on the ground trying to finish their daily chores before the departing Sun put an end to their daily frenzy.

One evening Atisha asked her: - my parents died... and I found a new family in my monastery. And you... how did it happen that you live in the temple? How did you become a temple dancer?

Savitri glanced at him with doubt. This story was buried in her past and in all these years she never went back to it. She slightly lifted her head to look at the huge red-orange disc - at this very moment it was inserting itself neatly into a narrow slot that stretched behind the horizon and in front of the sky; there it would stay till the next dawn.

But there was another dawn, a long time ago.

She took her eyes away from the setting sun, looked into the monk´s eyes and said: - Here is how. Listen. And you will see it.

She breathed in deeply.

The light of the day has just started to mingle with the darkness of the night, dissolving it bit by bit into a milky white dawn, promising a bright and hot day. Turning round I see that the priestess walks down temple steps so I run up to her to touch her foot for blessing.

She looks the same as yesterday: her shining hair is black, her silk sari is white; the skin of her bare arms and waist is cinnamon. But today she is smiling – and I smile back, too.

She takes me in with her calm and gentle eyes and like other people, cannot help saying: -  But look, your skin is so white…

I look at my arm with sudden interest but it is not really so white. Whiter, of course, then my sisters’ but then everybody in our family is dark skinned,  except me . Even my parents are. My mother said that our grand grand parents came from the North - this is where our Dravidian roots are. Even our Great Mother whom we worship, Kali, came with us from these faraway places. And her skin is so dark that it even looks dark blue.

I came to this temple yesterday. My parents brought me here. But why?.. Because I am so different from my sisters?.. but then – if I look different from them and even different from our Devi – why bring me here at all? That I did not understand. Then I think about another possible reason. Once I heard how my dad said with a deep sigh to my mom: ”no sons... but one more daughter is born...  more and more dowries... so that our daughters could get married…”

But later I learned that none of my guesses was correct. The real reason was different.

The true reason was an astrologer. One day my parents consulted a temple astrologer in our town – and what he told them completely changed my life. The astrologer prepared a chart of my planets and saw a misfortune coming my way. So he took a crystal ball and looked into it – long and hard.

Finally he said that this white girl – that was me – would not bring good luck to her husband. “The man who will want to marry her – announced the astrologer - will love her so much that it will bring ruin upon him”.

And that was it. You know that before making any big decision we go to the temple of our kula-devata – and we also go to the astrologer.

So... what could my parents do? Next year they consulted the temple astrologer again and after that brought me here. To serve our Devi. 

The road to this temple was hot and dusty. And very long. It first took us out of our noisy and busy town, then led us through green fields and finally brought us here where it ended abruptly at the gate of this ashram. Never before had I been so far from home... Never before had I seen a rock temple like this – so beautiful and so strange.

To announce our arrival to the Devi we all in turn rang the brass bell - my father had to raise me as it was hanging high under the entrance arch. After that we stood there for a while listening how its deep sounds added to the chanting coming from the bhajan hall.

We passed under the arch and crossed the yard – it was paved with stones – they were so hot that our feet were burning, went up the steps and entered the temple. It was like entering a different world. It was filled with the dense scent of burning incense and with the sounds of chanted bhajans – as they were hitting stone walls of the temple more and more sounds were born and they were mingling with the spicy aroma of curling incense smoke.

Several big and round clay vessels were filled with precious castor oil and wickers in them were burning with even flame in front of Devi.

When we came closer to her shrine our bodies threw shadows on the walls and I thought: when we go out - are they doomed to stay there forever in the darkness of the temple? Or could they fly free one day into the high blue sky?

Then I looked at my mom. I still remember her eyes… tears made them so big. They glistened in the darkness of the temple and the flame of a wicker reflected in them like an imprisoned shining snake.

The way back home for my parents would be even longer then today´s road to the temple. The door between us closed and there was no way back.

I stayed in the temple with the priestess.

- From now on you will be serving Devi - she says solemnly. - You will become a devadasi, a temple dancer. Have you seen them? – and she points with her hand at statues chiseled in the stone wall not far from entrance columns.

The front half of their bodies has been freed by the sculptor from the rock - now they are stepping forward out of the eternity into our world. But they will be always dancing locked in solid rock monolith – eternity will hold on to them, not let go of their beauty and their celestial dance.

I silently nod and look at them with admiration. Their celestial bodies are as flexible as branches growing on a young tree - apsaras stopped in breath taking postures. I will never dance like them. How can I? I am mortal and they are divine.

The priestess walked me past them, past the shrine and then along a dark and narrow corridor cut deep in the cave and we entered a cell – it was tiny and I was surprised that so many shadows could fit into it; a dot of light flickering in a clay pot had no power to dispel them.

- This is where you will stay tonight – the priestess said calmly, almost indifferently. – till the dawn starts.

The cell is not only dark – after the hot sunny day I feel cold and frightened. I know that I am a grow up girl but still I feel like crying. How could they leave me here... But the priestess holds me by the shoulder with one hand and then puts another on the top of my head. What is she going to do? say something? these useless words? How can they help me?

But she is silent and even does not look at me. Then heat rushes down from the crown of my head... to my neck and chest, into the belly, between my legs, then down to the toes – and the buzzing warmth fills my whole body and then like tiny bubbles of air rising through the water, it goes up - to the top of my head. Suddenly the cell becomes lighter and all the creeping shadows are gone.

I raise my eyes and look into hers… what is she doing… but her eyes only reflect back the shimmering flame of the clay pot that is standing on the floor; they do not give away anything. Then without another word she removes her hands, turns abruptly and disappears in the darkness of the temple, leaving me alone. But before she stepped out of the cell and completely dissolved in the shadows she said something. I did not understand her quite well but I think I remember it correctly. She said: “Straight line is the longest. The longest path is the shortest.” – and then she was gone.

Soon a servant brought me a fresh chapati and a brown clay bowl filled with warm white rice. For a while I was holding it in my both hands. I thought about today´s trip. It started right at the gate of our house and ended with the sound of the temple bell. On this road I lost my parents and my home... and my place in the familiar world. But strange as it might seem that already sounded like a story of a distant past. Instead I was so hungry… hungry as if I had been starving for days.

Very soon I put a bowl on the floor – it was empty, not a single grain of rice was left inside. Then it became dark and cold.

A melody of distant chanting is reaching my ears again. It has not stopped for a minute since I entered the temple and that seems to be a long time ago: - Ooom kriiiing, Kali kayiii namaaah… I bow down to you, Kali…

They are praising the Devi who abides in all beings in the form of intelligence… Salutations to Her, Salutations to Her, Salutations again and again…

The chanting is monotonous; some parts of it are repeated over and over, again and again. Listening to them I close my eyes. Eyes open or eyes closed – it really does not make any difference because it is dark in the cell either way.

And then I see Her.

She suddenly appears in front of me out of the impenetrable darkness. Kali... She looks the same as on the picture that we kept on our home altar. Though not big, this picture always scared me a lot.

Its two main colors are red and black. Black - for Kali and red…. red, for the blood pouring out of her mouth… and for the blood dripping from her shining sword... but what scares me even more then this crimson blood is a white garland hanging around her neck. The garland is long and it goes almost to her knees... but no... it is not usual praying beads. She is wearing a mala made of white polished human skulls.

I always wondered about her mala: whose heads are these? Whose heads does she usually cut off?

I must say that this question tortured me a lot but I never dared to ask my mom: what if… if she could cut my head, too?..

In the darkness of the cell these sculls of Her mala are staring at me with their non-existing eyes and then one of them suddenly grins with its empty socket. When it did so I gasped with fear and forgot to breathe out... and my eyes darted up, from her mala to her hands. I wish I had not done that... what I saw there was even worse then looking at white skulls of her mala: one of her four hands was holding a head by its long hair. Just head... She had severed it with her sword just seconds ago – I knew that because warm blood was still dripping from the cut neck.

I get really frightened, I do not want to see anything – nothing at all! But how can I separate myself from what I see if my eyes are already closed?

And then... then I hear her roaring laughter - it resounds in the endless sky above me and after that it enters my head. I close my ears with the palms and, of course, it does not help.

So I quickly look down – where Shiva is. Divinely beautiful Shiva is lying calmly under Kali´s feet. I look at him without any fear - but instead with endless surprise. How can he be lying there as if in yoga nidra... so peaceful and so detached while ferocious Kali is stepping on him…

Their world is the world I know nothing about.

But I do know that I will spend my whole life here, in the temple, serving Her... And I know another thing: what the biggest virtue is. It is obedience to my parents.

Soon Kali´s laughter turned into silence and chanting from the bhajan hall returned to me one more time. These bhajans are familiar and soothing and I join in their distant melody from my cell – at first quietly, then louder. Chanting makes me feel calmer and what I like best of all – warmer. And I keep chanting. The sounds vibrate inside my chest, then they rise to the throat, then higher into some place inside my head and there sounds - like Kali´s laughter – exhaust themselves into silence.

And then suddenly I fell asleep…

…and now I am standing in the yard and the priestess is telling me that my whole life will change. Of course, it will. I know that – I was the eldest of my sisters! I only do not know yet how…

Yesterday I did not expect anything good to happen to me but now I am watching the break of day. And waiting for Surya, the Sun, to rise above the horizon.