By Prem Gongaju
“The winged messenger dove straight for the moon’s lap in the inner sanctum of the choral palace on the seafloor. It stretched its neck, long and sleek, to be caressed by the sea-bound moon. Both were happy in each other’s company. And the starfish went round and round their lunar queen and the cormorant, rejoicing, dancing their starry little dance, while the seahorses did the merry-go-round, their horsey heads going up and down, up and down. Before long the cormorant remembered its mission into the moonlit floor of the sea. With its head bobbing, the cormorant delivered the Sky Goddess’s message stored in its capacious gullet to her missing daughter in toto. The winged herald regurgitated the Sky Goddess’s verdict, word-bubble for word-bubble that floated upward and popped harshly against the moon’s ear. Each word of decree stung the hapless moon, filling her heart with regret and remorse.
Doomed by her own rash, thoughtless act, she realized that “Not all [her] Tears wash out a Word of it.”
Grandfather paused and puffed on the hookah, while studying the sadness sweeping over the face of his granddaughter.
“No sooner than the sea-bound moon acknowledged her mother’s pronouncement delivered by the pet cormorant,” Grandfather resumed the story, “the lowering of her luminosity began gradually. She grew duller and duller and soon lost all her lunar luster. True to the letter of the Sky Goddess’s verdict, the marooned moon transformed into a giant turtle. Subsequently, the seafloor turned gloomy. The starfish lost interest and stopped dancing around the giant turtle and scuttled away into darkness. And so did the seahorses with their teeny-weeny gallops into the watery gloom. The rest of the retinue all went their watery ways. Deserted by the erstwhile admirers, the moon-turtle too swam away clumsily into the murky realm of the sea.”
“Poor moon-turtle!” Kamala sighed and turned her gaze at the full moon shining with its singular brilliance in the night sky over the village by the Sea of Sambhala.
“You need not be too, too sad, Kamala,” Grandfather tried to cheer up his granddaughter. But she looked askance at her Grandfather.
“Just because a turtle lives in the sea doesn’t mean she lost all her affinities with her stellar sister in the sky,” said Grandfather. “She still has most of the features of the full moon albeit without its luster and luminescence. The sisters are alike in many ways, though one shines up in the sky and the other swims below in the sea.”
“How could that be, Grandfather?” Kamala asked skeptically.
“Well, we can go and find out for ourselves,” Grandfather said encouragingly, “if we are lucky, we may meet a turtle or two coming ashore.”
“I’m ready!” Kamala jumped at the chance to shake off the vexing feelings.
“First you should go ask your mother.”
“Indeed, Grandfather.”
Grandfather, tall and old, stooped slightly when he walked. Kamala thought that it was gracious of her Grandfather to tilt his head down just a bit so that she could meet his sunflower face unhindered by the snowy beard during their walk to the sea. After walking a little ways on the soft powdery sands under her feet, Kamala was enchanted by the sight of mica bits gleaming and glittering under the moonlight in the sandy dust. They reminded her of the fireflies in her Grandfather’s garden. She liked to kick up the clouds of powdery sands with her frolicsome feet and watch it softly fall, while the bits of mica sparkled around her happy feet. She did the kicking-up bit only when she was mostly by herself, but never with Grandfather by her side.
A mutt came sauntering with its half-hearted whuf-whuf at them. It stopped, sniffed, and wagged its tail, its wet black nose shined like onyx in the moonlit night. And the newly thatched roofs in the village glowed dimly with the dull glow of gold under the full moon. People were out sitting on the stoops and porches. Some were smoking hookah and others were rocking babies on their lap, singing lullabies.
“Namaskar, Jal Daas Baba,” a murmur of greetings issued forth from the villagers, as they walked on the winding road flanked by the mud-built homes. And Kamala’s Grandfather returned their greetings with gentle nods and Namaste.
The sea breeze wafted in bearing the briny whiff of the sea. The saltiness in the air awakened Kamala’s dormant emotions. She remembered her late Grandmother who exuded the attar of frangipani and sea foam. Her Grandmother seldom missed an early morning immersion in the Sea of Sambhala throughout her life. Once in a blue moon, Kamala tagged along with her Grandmother during her morning ritual. She passed away in her sleep a year ago at the age of seventy-one. Kamala remembered the meteor shower during the cremation of her grandmother. She relived the vivid recollection of the rare occurrence of the shooting stars rushing down to meet the rising embers from the blazing pyre of her Grandmother. For this, she was thankful for the sea and the sky.
Kamala looked up at the sun-soaked, sea-swept face with the cascading white beard of her Grandfather and was reassured by the faint smile on his face.
“What a cool, slaking name my Grandfather has!” Kamala thought to herself, while walking beside her Grandfather. Then she remembered what his Grandfather’s name meant. Jal Daas literally meant ‘water slave’. She felt oppressed by the abusive connotation of her Grandfather’s name.
Kamala was born with the embodiment of azadi in her soul; she was imbued with the indomitable spirit from the earlier Vedic period, enduring and undying that coursed down through the veins of Maitreyi and Meerabai. Imbued with an aspiration for freedom and justice, she resented the notion of slavery and servitude. Her soul rebelled against man’s inhumanity to fellow human beings. She saw the oppression of the meek and the poor by the rich and the mighty, and the mistreatment of the landless by the landlords in her village. To her, slavery was wrong. Adharma it was through and through. Therefore, Kamala could not wrap around the idea of her Grandfather, an honest, upright man, as the slave of water. She understood the sacred and secular roles played by water in the lives of the villagers. But being enslaved by water!?
…To Be Continued on Feb. 10