Athai - by Lakshmi Narayanan
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
When COVID-19 hit India, I thought of one person only. Athai.
Athai was my first example of feminism in a culture that taught me to aspire to marriage and motherhood. Athai did get married once, when she was just seventeen, to an abusive man, who had an equally abusive brother. In the summer of ‘55 she left him, running 20 kilometres from her marital home to her ancestral village, with nothing but a pair of worn-out Bata sandals on her feet and a small jute bag clutched to her chest. Her return set the small-town rumour mill on overdrive – some village folk whispered as she walked by, while others were more direct, taunting and shaming her. The only noble thing to do, they said, was to go back.
But she didn’t go back. Didn’t marry again. Didn’t have children. She moved to the city and got a job, a drivers licence and a beaten-up Suzuki scooty, all of which made her a poster girl for the modern Indian woman.
“But she didn’t go back. Didn’t marry again. Didn’t have children. She moved to the city and got a job, a drivers licence and a beaten-up Suzuki scooty, all of which made her a poster girl for the modern Indian woman.”
The last time I saw her was in January 2020, in Chennai. She had just been diagnosed with stomach cancer, but you’d never have known it from the way she moved. On our last morning, she’d been up since 5 am cooking breakfast – idli, sambar and boli, a sweet flat bread stuffed with lentils and jaggery. Her niece’s favourites. She was draped in a kanchi cotton sari – pleats on point, hair oiled into a tight bun, and face covered with three layers of sandalwood talc, turning her brown skin grey.
She hurried me to get ready and I peeled myself off her vinyl kitchen tablecloth, took a bucket bath and threw on a salwar kameez – cotton, so I could breathe. We set off on foot to the local temple, a daily pilgrimage that Athai had been making for nearly sixty years. We weaved through streets and alleyways where stray dogs barked aggressively; at an intersection, a man in beige trousers stood relieving himself against a wall of posters for the latest Tamil blockbuster. Autos zipped in and out of our path, threatening to slice off a foot. I looked at Athai, alarmed, but she motioned for me to keep going with that no-nonsense expression of hers, so we continued.
She stopped only to buy a garland of flowers from the local flower lady. Jasmine. She examined each bud like it was a jewel, interrogating its freshness. They went back and forth on price. Finally, she agreed. Before I could search my purse for rupees, she’d paid the woman and fastened the string of jasmine to my hair. ‘Jora irukuthu,’ she smiled, proud of her work.
“Before I could search my purse for rupees, she’d paid the woman and fastened the string of jasmine to my hair. ‘Jora irukuthu,’ she smiled, proud of her work.”
When we entered the temple it was cool and dark, a welcome respite from the madness outside. She ushered me in and we hit the altar circuit, praying to each deity, decorating our foreheads with vibhuti and kumkum. The priest waved us over; he was about to do an abishekam – the headline act at any Hindu temple, where the main deity is given a kind of ‘spa treatment’ – bathed in honey, saffron-infused milk and ghee. We made our way to the main stage, where other temple-goers suddenly appeared in droves and squeezed up against us. Athai ruthlessly elbowed them and pulled me to the front, so I could get an unrestricted view. This was no joke. We were in a mosh pit now and Lord Shiva was Kurt Cobain.
“This was no joke. We were in a mosh pit now and Lord Shiva was Kurt Cobain.”
The priest held up a flame of burning camphor on a bronze dish. He chanted a mantra that sent vibrations through the stone corridors. Honey oozed down Lord Shiva’s face. A brass bell rang out. As the chimes got louder, the crowd grew wilder: ‘Om Namah Shivaya,’ they repeated. It was a type of call and response I’d never experienced, and something inside me stirred. I gazed over at Athai, whose eyes were firmly shut, hands brought to prayer, head gently swaying to the rhythm. She looked at peace.
The heat of unwelcome breath from the man behind me snapped me out of my trance. On my left, a woman’s back was pressed so hard against my arm I wasn’t sure if it was her sweat or mine that was dampening my salwar kameez. When the abishekam was over, the crowd dispersed in seconds. I wondered where they all went.
I left for Sydney that night, not knowing that Covid-19 was on its way to turn the world upside down. I gave Athai a hug and then fell to my knees to do a namaskaram. She clicked her tongue at me to get up, but I stayed on the ground, touched her feet with my hands and then brought them to my eyes as a sign of respect, of reverence for someone who has shaped me in ways she will never understand. I breathed in her sandalwood scent. ‘Poitu varen,’ I said – a phrase in Tamil which means, ‘I’ll go, and come back soon.’
*
I called Athai last week and we spoke over a crackly line.
‘Stay indoors,’ I urge in my hybrid Tamil English. Tinglish.
She chuckles and says she’s fine.
‘Are you wearing a mask when you go outside? Please wear a mask.’
She tells me not to worry. Everything is okay. Asks how I’m doing instead. What I cooked for dinner.
I want to tell her that I feel sick with worry. That she means so much to me. That I love her. But I know she doesn’t like a fuss.
Instead, I say, ‘I made upma. Your recipe.’
She seems pleased.
‘How’s the chemo going?’ The cancer has spread. It’s stage 4 now.
She says her appetite is back. She finished a whole idli today.
I tell her that I’m happy to hear that, but it comes out stifled because I’m holding back tears.
She says she has to go. The milkman is at the door and she needs to pay him.
I wonder if he’s wearing a mask.
Before I can ask, she says, ‘goodbye, kanna.’
The phone clicks, and she is gone. ▼
Image: Flower Market, George Town, Chennai - by Saurabh Chatterjee
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