By Prem Gongaju

“Once upon a time, a very long time ago, even long before there were plants, parrots and people, there were two full moons in the sky,” Kamala’s Grandfather began the nighttime story, sitting by the window of his mud-built house with thatch roof in a fishing village by the Sea of Shambhala. He was smoking hookah, filling the lamp-lit room with the gurgle from the coconut belly half-filled with water. Grandfather exhaled the swirling bluish white smoke at regular interval, momentarily masking Kamala’s view of the full moon.

“Grandfather, your hookah smoke is as cloud-like as the cloud in the sky,” observed Kamala.

“Yes, my child,” replied Grandfather, “all night clouds floated up from the hookah smoke exhaled by the aged people like me.”

Meanwhile, Grandfather continued to draw on the hookah filling the room with the gurgle beats, which was music to Kamala’s ear.

“It’s good to keep in mind, though,” added Grandfather, “that the sky-gods and goddesses prefer smoke offerings only from the folks like me, old and aged; they frown on the young ones dallying with the smoke stuff.”

“You mustn’t worry, Grandfather,” Kamala assured her Grandfather, “I won’t smoke till I grow old and aged like you, then we will sit together smoking our hookahs and send the smoke offerings to the gods and goddesses in the sky.”

Kamala’s plan for future smoke offering caused the grand old storyteller laugh mirthfully, which in turn induced the laughing fits in Kamala. The reverberation of their combined laughter was borne by the gusts into the evening hush of the village.

“The old man’s up to his story telling mood tonight,” murmured the villagers. Kamala’s Grandfather was known for his gift for telling stories among the neighbors. He was respected for this favor from Saraswoti Mata.

The art of story-telling and story-listening brought these two souls together for some time now. They also shared one other phenomenon: the full moon. Kamala turned nine on the very day of the last full moon, and the full moon before the last was Kamala’s Grandfather’s seventy-seventh birthday. They considered the lunar link to their births as heaven-ordained events of momentous significance that would unfold in the fullness of time, in the fullness of their lives. Since the beginning of their beginnings occurred under the auspices of the full moon, the villagers regarded the grandfather-granddaughter duo as the living talisman against the probable ill winds blowing in the village by the Sea of Shambhala. And the villagers looked forward to receiving the laddoo prasad consecrated by Lord Ganesh on the celebratory occasions of their birthdays. Both Grandfather and granddaughter considered it their sacred duty and social privilege to oblige the wishes of their fellow villagers.

“How come, Grandfather,” wondered Kamala, “I have not seen the two full moons in the night sky at all?”

“By and by, my dear granddaughter, I will unspool the saga of the lost full moon,” said Grandfather, meditatively.

The old raconteur drew on the hookah, while the seeds of the story germinated in the soul of a connoisseur storyteller.

Kamala waited patiently. She was familiar with the pregnant moments prior to her Grandfather’s birthing of a new story.

“Once upon a time, there were two full moons in the sky,” Grandfather began the spinning of the lunar yarn of the two full moons.

“Naturally, the nights were much brighter than tonight. The sister moons were the celestial fixtures of the night sky. Both moons appeared punctually at the ordained hour in the night sky, soothing the tired, weary folks to mend, to recoup, to slumber under the spread of the soporific web softly over them all.

And to the nocturnal critters the sister moons cast the chiaroscuro veils adding an extra layer of protection for the skittish and timid ones in the wild,” Kamala’s Grandfather paused to draw on the hookah.

“The halcyon nights continued uninterrupted in accordance with the order of the heavenly realm. All was well with the world. But on this particular night, one moon decided to play hooky because she had a tiff with her sister moon,” said Grandfather.

“Why was she upset with this moon?” asked Kamala.

“You see, Kamala, they were siblings, just like you and your sister, Timila. Apparently, they too had their silly squabbles. But this time one moon decided impetuously to run away from the heavenly realm on a chariot camouflaged by the fluffy cotton-wool clouds. The sly moon glided down swiftly into the liquid realm of Samudradeva and went into hiding in the gloomy depth of the sea.

As you know, it was the night of the two full moons. But there appeared only one full moon in the sky. As a result, the Sky Goddess, who is known as the Queen of Heaven in her neck of the heavenly realm, could not exchange her usual greetings by winking at the round, milky face of her absent daughter. It troubled her otherwise cool and calm regal bearing, for they were the apple of her eye.

…To Be Continued on Jan. 20