In My Father’s House - by Suneeta Peres da Costa
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLYThis is part of our new 5-piece suite from South-Asian Australian writers inspired by the COVID situation in India and the Australian response
I wander in the dark among the rooms in my
father’s house, touching talismans for blessings
and luck. Graffiti of old wounds cover the walls;
the ceiling sags and there are places where the
limestone is pocked and shell-shocked. We are
on land but the water is rising. Baby frogs, escaped
from the long-unused well, are found, delicate as
foreskins, among the Macau china. Teacups brim
with water and madness. Throughout the night,
rain pounds and enters our dreams. Drip, drip,
drip – grandmother climbs up to straighten a roof
tile, undeterred by osteoporosis and cataracts.
She unlatches the window to shout obscenities at
invisible soldiers … Brothers sit in the front room,
slapping each other, devising a new method for
killing mosquitoes. As I pass, one covers his mouth,
the other his ears – habits they learnt early and
cannot break. Father is still delirious from the fever
he caught chasing toddy. I get into bed next to him,
but he refuses the steaming congee which spills
onto the sheets. He begs – now for feni, now mercy.
The virus has been among us now more than a year …
There are many rooms in my father’s house, I whisper
to the geckoes, feasting on the white ants crawling
out of the beams … There are many rooms, I say
to the mongoose and kites and bats flying blindly
toward the Ghats. To thee do we cry, I tell the dogs
and the small mice escaping the drowning fields.
Poor banished children, I shout, my voice echoing
through the empty rooms and into the night,
shattering the nacre of ancient windowpanes.
Saibini!*, I call, but the goddess does not answer,
the goddess goes on smiling, silent in her shrine. ▼
* ‘Saibini’ is the name for the Mother Goddess in Goa, India, and is invoked by Konkani people throughout the west coast of India. Prior to the Portuguese conquest of Goa (1510), Saibini – the equivalent of the titular ‘Dame’ in English – referred to the local Earth Goddesses, Santeri and Shantadurga, that were later also incorporated into the Shakti Hindu tradition. Post-conversion, the name ‘Saibini’ became associated with Mother Mary too, and is used by Goan Catholics, East Indian Catholics and Catholics of Kanara.
Image by Vanessa de Sa
Saibinn, 2020, mixed media on paper
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