Tell A Thousand Lies (7 page)

Murty
garu
broke everyone out of the trance by raising his stick at the man. “Is this some kind of joke? Look at Pullamma. She’s no Goddess. She’s just a young girl.”

I turned to Ammamma in desperation. She seemed frozen, her eyes wide with horror.

“Here,” Lakshmi
garu
said, pointing at my feet.

The man rushed to me. “Save my son, oh Pullamma
Devi
,” he begged. “Let him live.”

“Are you mad?” I squeaked.

“What is the harm, I say,” Kondal Rao
garu
said. “Let him put the baby at the girl’s feet. When that fails, he can admit the child in the children’s ward, himself in a mental ward.”

“No!” I pleaded. “Please. I’m no Goddess.” I stumbled backward.

“Wait,” Lakshmi
garu
said. Her nails dug into my arms.

My lungs began to squeeze. Breaths came out in short bursts.

The man fell to his knees, and began to unwrap the bundle. A pale child emerged. The man placed the unmoving child at my feet.

I began to shiver.
God, don’t let the child be cured at my feet. Please, please, please.

Its eyes remained tightly closed.

“Live, Child, live,” the man urged the infant, fanning it with a piece of cloth. “Goddess Pullamma blesses you.”

No change in the infant.

He then balled the cloth, and thrust it under the baby’s nose.

I swallowed.

The infant wailed!

“My baby lives.” Crying and sniffling, the man pulled the infant close to his chest, raining kisses on its forehead. Then he touched his own head to the ground. “A thousand thanks to Goddess Pullamma! My baby lives!”

I turned to Ammamma in confusion. Her jaw dropped.

Suddenly Kondal Rao
garu
shoved the man aside. He fell heavily at my feet, his back forming a hump over the belly that squished on the ground.
 

What was he doing?
I tried to move back, but he hung tight to my ankles. He, an elder, touching my feet!

“Pullamma
Devi
,” he said, angling his head upward. Tears started to make their way down. “Oh
Devi
! Oh Goddess incarnate! Thank you for arriving on the earth to bestow your blessings on this innocent life.”

Everyone eyed each other in bewilderment. The groom’s father considered the prone Kondal Rao
garu
, a frown on his face.

“A miracle! We’re witnessing a miracle!” Kondal Rao tilted to a side, like a prone buffalo raising itself in the mud pond, put a hand on the floor for support and settled on his knees with effort. Then, astonishingly, he began to sway. “We’re witnessing the birth of the Goddess herself!”

The groom’s father lurched in the direction of my feet. I stared down at their heads, not trusting my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Not to me. I giggled in disbelief as the groom’s party tumbled at my feet like broken-stringed puppets.

Chapter 8

Chinni Gets Married

E
arly next morning, I set off for Chinni’s house at the very edge of the village. I was dying to tell her about yesterday’s happenings. Though she was bound to have heard – hard to miss gossip this juicy – only I could give her the details.

Who would have thought Malli’s bride viewing would turn into such a drama? Imagine a powerful politician like Kondal Rao
garu
falling at my feet!
My feet
, like I was a holy person or something. As for saying I was a Goddess, that joker oracle – I quickly took God’s name for this disrespectful reference to an elder – was completely mad. Anyone with two functioning eyes in their head could see I was just a normal girl who had to milk that stupid cow twice a day.

Ammamma and Murty
garu
were going on like something unfortunate had happened. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t see the funny side of it; an elder – a really fat elder – tumbling at my feet. Life in the village could be incredibly boring. Chinni would be so upset she’d missed out on something this exciting. Served her right for not being at the bride viewing. Even as the thought occurred, I knew I was being unfair. Chinni was getting married in five days. As the wedding date drew nearer, her mother grew strict. No loafing about in the village, no getting into mischief, no going out – not even to my house. Her virtue and reputation had to be safeguarded until she was handed over to her in-laws.
Bah!
Aunty was taking all the fun out of life.

“
Tataiyya
!” I called out to a classmate’s elderly grandfather, as I hurried past their house.

He peered up into the tree.

Did he think I was perched up there? This
Tataiyya
was getting to be too much. Growing ancient, but still refusing to wear the hearing aid his grandson had sent all the way from ‘foreign.’

I crept towards old
Devamma’s
house and aimed a stone at a particularly luscious guava.
Crack!
I looked at the shattered window in disbelief. I was known throughout the village for my deadly aim; I was better than the boys, even.

I waited fearfully for Devamma to storm out and twist my ear, b
ut
all she did was poke her head out, give me a startled look and hurriedly close her doors.

“
Vanita
.” I waved to an old friend walking towards me.

Vanita
suddenly veered towards the temple.

Had everyone lost their hearing today?

I walked towards Chinni’s, feeling sad. Summer on its way and Chinni wouldn’t be around for it. Life was just not fair.

We’d spent our entire school life waiting for summer, and with it, the freedom from the tyranny of school
–
no lectures from the Master, no homework.

By the time March rolled around, we were quite beside ourselves in anticipation. Shimmering waves of heat rose from the parched earth. Even the cows couldn’t be bothered to moo. This was when Chinni and I were at our best, or some might say, our worst.

Our families never had the money for frivolous things, but neither did most of the villagers. Cinema was our great escape. Sunday evenings, films were screened under the banyan tree in the village square. The films were projected on the flat wall of our village
sarpanch’s
double-storied house. Come time for re-election, no one forgot whose wall it was the movies were screened on.

Most popular were the movies starring the Telugu superstar
Chiranjeevi
. Each time he made an appearance on the screen, the village boys screamed themselves hoarse. We pretended to be above such immature behaviour but, of course, we were waiting for the raunchy, high energy songs that were his trademark. For the suggestive kissing behind big flowers, for the lewd, heroine's-bottom-smacking dances
Chiranjeevi's
movies were so famous for.

For movie watching all of us sat on the ground, men on the right, women on the left, a pathway in between. Village elders, along with the rich and the powerful, sat on chairs positioned for the best viewing. The projector was placed way in the back, behind the audience. Each time someone got up to move about, their shadow blocked the hero's knee or the heroine's backside onscreen, causing the audience to boo out its displeasure. If the cinema was particularly serious or boring, or if an especially embarrassing scene came on and the audience began to fidget – an intimate scene between the hero and the heroine, for example – we pretended to get up for the bathroom, giggling as the indignant booing started.

Our antics made Lata mad. "Can't you immature creatures control yourself for two-and-a-half hours?" she hissed.

After a while, this became a game for the two of us – the more engrossed the audience, the greater the challenge to position our heads so the obstruction was the funniest.

><

I sighed. No more fun at the movies; my best friend was getting married and moving away.

I sidled past the whiskey-chicken oracle’s house, not particularly wanting to encounter the crackpot. Not after what she’d done at my sister’s bride viewing.

I walked past the
Durga
temple, where I could hear chanting. A couple went by, doubles on a bicycle, the woman sitting demurely on the crossbar, both legs to one side. Neither looked at me. A child ran past, raising dust on the un-tarred road. I sneezed.

I finally reached Chinni's street. Their lane was narrow, as were most in the village. Open gutters lined either side of the lane, with narrow footbridges leading up to each of the houses. I stopped in front of Chinni’s and took a deep breath. Her house was sure to be filled with people busy with the wedding preparations, but I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave. The best I could do was to go through the back door. I circled behind, eyes half-closed, trying not to look at the ancient Kali temple perched on the rocky cliff above. It was rumoured that human sacrifices had been performed on the temple premises in the days kings did such things. Children whispered of spirits of those unfortunate souls still haunting the area. A few boys assured us that grinning, half-buried skulls littered the back of the temple. Chinni and I often talked about checking this out for ourselves, but we were too scared to even let our glance graze the temple (though I’d die before I admitted this to anyone).

I knocked at the door. Chinni's mother opened it. I gave her a distracted smile, and tried to walk past.

“Wait, Pullamma,” she said.

“
Hanh
? Oh. What is it, Aunty?”

“Chinni is getting married in five days.”

“I know.” I gave her an uncertain smile. Was something wrong with her, too?

“I am a poor widow,” Aunty said. “If Chinni's wedding gets cancelled, I won’t be able to fix it again.”

I looked at her, puzzled. “Why should it get cancelled? Is the boy’s party demanding more money?”

“Bad things are happening.”

I cocked my head, checking Aunty out carefully. Was Chinni’s upcoming wedding making her mad? “I don’t understand all this,” I said impatiently. “I have something important to tell Chinni. Can I go in?”

“No!”

I froze.

“There is talk about you in the village.”

“What kind of talk?” I was getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I can’t afford to let any scandal touch my Chinni. Not this close to the wedding.” She averted her eyes.

That silly incident at Malli’s bride-viewing, where Kondal Rao
garu
had actually believed I was a Goddess!

Now the behaviour of the villagers began to make sense. “Aunty,” I said. “You know I’m no Goddess. And even if I were, Goddesses are revered. They are not like oracles, who make such a spectacle of themselves.”

“Who knows what you are – an oracle, or a Goddess, or even the devil? I can’t afford to give the groom’s side any reason to withdraw their proposal.”

Shocked at her words, I peered past the door.

Chinni stood in the back, a stricken look on her face.

“Aunty,” I begged, “you have known me all my life. How could you –”

“Pullamma.” Aunty’s face was hard. “Please.”

“Will you at least let me say something to Chinni?”

“Say it from here.”
Aunty pulled the door closer, leaving enough space that I could see Chinni, but not so much that I could step inside their house.

“Chinni, do you believe what they are saying about me?”

Chinni wouldn't meet my eyes, though I could see her shoulders shake.

My chest got so tight, it hurt to breathe.

Chinni and I had been friends since we were babies, since the time her newly widowed mother came to my house to learn tailoring from Ammamma, five month-old Chinni in tow. She and I had learned to crawl together. We’d shared our first meal ever on the same plate and had been fast friends since. We had spent long, hot summers in each others' houses, eating raw mangoes with salt and chilli powder, squealing when the sourness spiked its way to the backs of our jaws. We’d planned important roles for ourselves in each others’ weddings. Our children were going to be close as cousins; closer even.