Tell A Thousand Lies

by Rasana Atreya

  Ammamma opened her mouth, then closed it.

  Lakshmi garu’s eyes almost popped out.

  Nagabhushan garu got up, grabbed his wife’s arm and pulled her to the cowshed. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but could tell it was a heated discussion.

  Savitri garu turned to us and said, “We’ll have the wedding in our village, as previously discussed. In addition, we will bear all the wedding expenses.”

  Ammamma’s eyes glazed over.

  Lakshmi garu gave Ammamma a triumphant glance.

  Nagabhushan garu sat on the cot heavily, expression unhappy.

  “If you really believe I’m a Goddess,” I said to Savitri garu, “why is your husband sitting in my presence? Why isn’t he falling at my feet, hanh?”

  “Pullamma,” Lakshmi garu said in warning.

  Nagabhushan garu looked up, face devoid of expression. “Pullamma Devi will preside over the wedding,” he intoned. “And Kondal Rao garu will be our honoured guest.”

  ><

  I sank to the floor, watching in a daze as Malli’s in-laws to-be finalized all the details. Then it was time for them to leave. Savitri garu fell at my feet. “Bless this union, Oh Goddess!”

  “Come, come,” Nagabhushan garu said from the courtyard gate. I watched the back of the woman’s head. She got up and said something to me, palms of her hands joined together. Her lips moved, but I heard no sound. She touched my feet once more and left.

  Ammamma tried to get me to move, but my limbs were frozen. She hadn’t committed to having me preside over the wedding, but I was devastated by her betrayal all the same. This Goddess thing wasn’t as funny as I’d thought. People were either afraid of me, or in awe. My best friend wouldn’t talk to me. How would I ever get a husband now?

  Visions of oracle Ranga Nayakamma haunted me. Her children were alternately tormented and ostracized in school. Who wanted to be friends with someone so scandalous? The villagers were split between Ranga Nayakamma being a joke, or Goddess-incarnate. I didn’t want to end up the village joke. Or its Goddess, for that matter.

  ><

  Ammamma unrolled her sleeping mat and lay down across from me.

  “How could you?” I said. “How could you finalize the wedding after they put me in such a position?”

  “See it from my side.” Ammamma’s eyes begged forgiveness. “They aren’t asking for dowry, they are even paying for the wedding. Think of the money we’ll save. We’ll be able to use all of that for your wedding, and Lata’s.”

  “And how will you marry me off? By finding me a God?”

  Ammamma had no answer.

  “So you’re going to sacrifice the life of one granddaughter for the benefit of the other two?”

  Ammamma covered my mouth with her hand. “Say good things, Child,” she begged. “The Goddess issue is out of the hands of even Malli’s in-laws. People are beginning to think of you as a Goddess. Nothing I do, or say, will change this.”

  “So you might as well take advantage of it, and get two granddaughters married off. If the life of the third one is ruined, well... too bad.”

  Ammamma broke down. “Yedukondalavada! Oh, Lord of the Seven Hills! The sins of my previous births must have been of immense magnitude that such great misfortune has befallen my grandchild! I don’t know whether to be happy at my Malli’s good fortune, or be terrified at my Pullamma’s horrifying one.”

  I started to cry, too. Ammamma stopped her crying and looked at me. Her helplessness scared me as nothing else could have.

  Chapter 11

  What Next?

  Two more days went by. Each time I stepped out of the house – to the village shop, to the temple, or for some other errand – people fell at my feet. I waved my hand over their heads, not sure what I was supposed to be doing. A few thrust money in my hands. Parents of my friends no longer welcomed me in their homes. They sought my blessings, or looked at me fearfully. Elders no longer scolded me. They gave me gifts, instead.

  Lata continued with her nasty comments.

  All Ammamma did was weep. I wish she’d let Malli come home from our relatives’ house so I’d have someone sensible to talk to. But Ammamma didn’t want the scandal touching my older sister, didn’t want to give her prospective in-laws any reason to back out of the alliance.

  Unable to take any more of this, I stormed out of the house.

  I saw my schoolteacher out for his stroll. “Master garu.” I waved desperately, trying to catch his attention.

  His eyes darted from side to side, like a trapped squirrel’s, before he acknowledged me. “Yes?” But he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Please, Master garu. Everyone is behaving so strangely with me. You’ve always said we shouldn’t be superstitious. You, of all people, should know I am just an ordinary girl, no special powers, no nothing. The very people who caught me by the ear and dragged me home to Ammamma, complaining about a stolen guava, or a plucked flower, are now avoiding me.” My voice broke. “They don’t know if I am really a Goddess-incarnate, or possessed by the devil.”

  “I have to go,” my teacher said.

  I watched him hurry away. Could it be true? Was I really a Goddess? I shook my head at the stupidity. I walked around the village. Everywhere, people rushed at me, fell at my feet. So many people, so many of them strangers.

  ><

  “Seetamma!” Lakshmi garu called out from the courtyard.

  “I’m in the kitchen.” Ammamma squatted by the earthen stove on the floor.

  I sat by her, waiting for the pot of rice to bubble over. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but eating lunch would give me something to do.

  Lakshmi garu burst into the kitchen. “People are gathered outside your compound wall.” Her voice sounded odd.

  “Whatever for?” Ammamma swiped a hand across her forehead, leaving behind a swathe of coal-soot.

  “For Pullamma’s darsanam.” Lakshmi garu’s eyes feverish were with excitement. “They want an audience with the Goddess.”

  Ammamma fell back against the steel bin of water.

  Lakshmi garu’s husband, Murty garu, followed his wife in. “I have to be honest, it isn’t looking good out there,” he said.

  ><

  Later that afternoon Lata and I climbed the staircase that ran the length of the courtyard, trying to get a count of how many people waited for an audience with me, their ‘Goddess.’

  The line of devotees went through the village square, snaked past the post office, and disappeared in the direction of the Durga temple. I walked down the stairs on rubbery legs, across the courtyard, to the veranda. I sank onto the mat next to my grandmother.

  Lakshmi garu and Murty garu sat on another mat. Murty garu leaned against the wall behind, eyes scanning the courtyard. Thank God, the walls were too high for people to see inside.

  “How many people?” Ammamma said.

  “I don’t know,” Lata said. “The line is going back past the temple, maybe beyond the school.” For once, she had a frightened look on her face.

  The voices outside grew louder.

  Ammamma joined her palms together and raised them above her head to the pantheon of Gods on the wall of the front room, visible through the window. “Yedukondalavada, Venkata Ramana, Govinda! What did we do to incur your wrath? Why are you testing us like this?”

  Chanting of some kind had started up beyond the walls of the courtyard. We strained to hear what was being said. “Open up. Open up,” the devotees chanted in rhythm from the other side of the gate, their combined voices drifting up over the courtyard walls. “Give us darsanam of the Goddess.”

  Ammamma looked at Lakshmi garu. “What do we do?”

  “Let them in,” Lakshmi garu said. Her eyes shone.

  “What are you saying, Lakshmi?” her husband said. “Think of that the poor child.”

  I slumped against the wall across from Ammamma, struggling to blank out my thoughts. The chants increased in volume.

  “Think about it. They’ve been
queuing up all day,” Lakshmi garu said. “Patiently waiting their turn. You think they’ll go away without receiving an audience?”

  “What do we do? What do we do?” Ammamma twisted the free end of her sari between her hands.

  Another roar went up. “Pullamma Devi!”

  I broke down. “Ammamma, please don’t make me do this. I promise to be good. I’ll milk the cow and wash her, cook and clean. I’ll get up in the middle of the night to fill water, no need for help. I’ll practice to be more ladylike. I don’t care if I never get married, I will take care of you in your old age. Just don’t make me do this.”

  Ammamma closed her eyes, but the tears leaked through.

  “Pullamma Devi!” The roar was louder now, scarier than the time the dam up the river had breached, hurtling a wall of water towards the village, ravaging everything in its path. God, I’d rather be in the path of raging waters, than in front of raging devotees.

  “Give us your darsanam! Pullamma Devi! Pullamma Devi!”

  The gate to the courtyard began to rattle.

  Ammamma jerked her head to the gate, her mouth a wrinkly ‘O’.

  The five of us watched in horror as the gate was pushed more and more. It gave way. Hordes of frenzied devotees ploughed across the fifty feet to the veranda – the village sweeper, the parents of my classmate Vanita, the flower seller. “Where are you, Pullamma Devi?” they cried. “Bestow your mercy upon us. Give us your darsanam.”

  I cowered on the mat, cheek pressed against the wall, trying to make myself smaller.

  Lakshmi garu grabbed me by the shoulders and swung me sideways. “Gods should sit facing the East.” She settled next to me and raised an arm. “Seek relief from your deepest pain here. Come with a clean heart. Be blessed by the Goddess.”

  Dozens of hands reached for me – the temple priest, the village shop keeper, and the one that shocked me the most – my former teacher.

  I rested my chin on upraised knees, trying to hide my face in my half-sari.

  They came at me from all sides, heads bent, touching my feet, while the others continued the chant, “Bless us, bless us.” The rich, and not-so-rich. Young men, and elderly women. All manner of people. They jostled each other as they brought out their incenses and their bells, their sweets and their money. As each person passed by me, Lakshmi garu guided my hand to the tops of their heads in blessing. She accepted the offerings on my behalf, placing the money and the jewellery in neat piles. The rest, she shoved aside.

  I watched from the corner of my eye as the piles at my feet – coconuts, and saris, and flowers, and everything else – grew. A few, frenzied worshippers produced scissors, snipping off their hair to place the locks directly on my feet. My toes twitched from the itchy hair. The scent of burning incense, crushed flowers and overripe bananas mingled with sweat from the people to make me feel sick.

  The news of my ‘miracle’ seemed to have spread, because strangers, perhaps from neighbouring villages, poured into our courtyard. I had always thought of our courtyard as huge. Now I felt suffocated.

  They thronged for my audience.

  “Cure my daughter’s cancer,” the doctor from three villages over sobbed at my feet. I stared down at him in shock. He was the doctor. Why was he asking me for help?

  “Curse my wife. She ran away with her lover,” my teacher said, face hard. For the first time in my life I felt intense distaste for gossip.

  The postman shoved the teacher aside, and fell at my feet. “Find a good groom for my daughter, Oh Pullamma Devi!”

  If I had those kinds of powers, I’d have got one for myself, wouldn’t I?

  Devamma pushed through to making an offering of guavas. The very fruit my friends and I had routinely stolen from her tree, and had our ears twisted for.

  Murty garu watched for a while, then took charge. “Form two lines, one for the ladies and the little ones, one for the men. No need to trample each other. Don’t fall on Pullamma, stay back, stay back.”

  A few men separated from the crowds, and started herding people in lines. The line moved in a ‘U’ – people came from one side, made their offerings, and exited from the other. Finally, I felt as if I weren’t suffocating.

  The day lengthened. I sat in a daze, feeling removed from it all. This wasn’t happening to me. That didn’t seem to dampen the ardour of my devotees. They came, and they came, and they came. Lakshmi garu must have guided my hands in blessing to a few hundred heads that day. She didn’t seem to tire, because she had a constant smile on her face.

  I didn’t say a word. After a while the faces began to blur.

  I blanked my mind, trying to visualize myself walking by the river, stick in hand, chasing Chinni and her goats. The sounds outside my head swirled around, not touching me, leaving me in a curious vacuum.

  I felt myself being shaken. I blinked.

  “Look,” Ammamma hissed.

  I found Kondal Rao garu at my feet. He lay prone for quite a few minutes before being helped up by his swarthy henchmen. He raised a hand at the clamorous crowd. The noise died away. Turning partially toward me, still facing the gathering of devotees, he began to sob noisily. “Oh Pullamma Devi,” he cried. “You have showered me with such blessings. By making an appearance in your earthly form in my constituency, you have shown the world my chosen path is the right one.”

  “Jai Kondal Rao garu,” a henchman roared. Long live Kondal Rao garu.

  “Jai Kondal Rao garu,” the crowd roared back.

  A man hobbled up on crutches.

  Kondal Rao garu stepped back.

  The cripple touched my feet. “My legs have failed me. Cure me, Oh Devi.”

  Lakshmi garu guided my hand to the top of his head.

  The cripple closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he bowed to me, and rested a foot on the ground. An expression of wonder swept over his face. He shoved one crutch aside, then the other.

  The crowd watched with bated breath.

  He took a step, then another, then another. He walked ten steps, circling back to me. He fell at my feet. “Pullamma Devi has cured me. For the first time, I can walk.” He was overcome.

  “Jai Pullamma Devi,” Kondal Rao garu said.

  “Jai Pullamma Devi,” the crowd roared back.

  I had cured him? I had those kinds of powers? I looked at Ammamma.

  She stood to a side with Lata and Murty garu, face ashen.

  First the baby, then this cripple. When the first miracle occurred, I’d been too innocent to recognise it. One miracle, I could overlook. But two? A sense of awe at my own power enveloped me. Kondal Rao garu was right. I was a Goddess. I sat up straight, filled with sense of purpose. Maybe I should stand up to give my devotees darsanam. Everyone deserved an audience with me. I struggled to my feet. Hours of sitting in the same position had caused my legs to go numb.

  Ammamma rushed forward and grabbed my arm. “Pullamma Devi needs to meditate now,” she announced to my devotees. She started to drag me into the house.

  I tried to pull free. “Ammamma, I need to cure the suffering of these poor people. They need me. I can’t just walk away –”

  Ammamma held my arm so tightly, it hurt. “She will give audience again at seven a.m. tomorrow.”

  Kondal Rao garu’s nostrils flared, but he stepped aside.

  “This way,” Murty garu said, pointing a hand at the gate. Obediently the devotees bowed before me, and began to file out of the courtyard.

  Kondal Rao garu joined the exodus.

  I watched the leaving devotees with a sense of panic. What was my grandmother doing? “Ammamma! Everyone’s leaving.”

  “Not now, Pullamma.”

  Why was Ammamma doing this? What would happen to my devotees? How could I let them down? All of a sudden I felt deflated, unable to move, unable to respond. Thoughts seemed to have been sucked from my head. Ammamma walked me past the huge piles of offerings – sweets, coconuts, money, gold and silver ornaments, hair.

  I could h
ear soft sounds of weeping. It occurred to me much later that the person weeping was me.

  ><

  Over the next few days, the news of my miracles trickled in. A woman whose jaw I’d touched was cured of cancer. A man, on whose documents I’d hovered a finger, won his case after a twenty year fight in the courts. Four miracles that I knew of. How many others that I knew nothing about?

  Ammamma wasn’t letting me do anymore audiences. She had told the devotees that I was in meditation, and was not to be disturbed. What could I do? My poor devotees were desperate for an audience with me, and here I sat, trapped by an unreasonable grandmother.

  Ammamma had no cancer I could cure, no court cases I could help win. How was I going to convince her that the powers I possessed were very real?

  Chapter 12

  Headmaster Steps In

  Clang! Clang!

  The wall clock clamoured twelve, shattering the stillness of the night.

  Ammamma sat in one corner of the veranda breathing through her mouth, head thrown back, tracking the motion of the fan with her eyes.

  Lakshmi garu, and her husband, Murty garu, sat next to each other, staring bleary-eyed in different directions.

  I watched Lata’s head bob when sleep got the better of her, followed by jerky wakefulness – till her head fell to a side again. I huddled next to Lata, head on my knees, feverishly trying to come up with ways out of my predicament. The devotees outside were desperate for an audience with me. I had so much wisdom to impart to them, it was only natural they would repay me with gold, jewellery, silk saris, and money – so much money!

  The Vedas, the Upanishads – all the ancient texts that had answers to life’s deeper questions – did they have nothing on dealing with unyielding, unreasonable, stubborn grandmothers? Did Ammamma not realise she was keeping me from the fame and fortune due to me?

  To think I’d have been satisfied with a good husband, and a municipal water connection that supplied water during daylight hours.

  The gate rattled. I looked up, exhaustion mingling with hope.

  “Pullamma, go inside,” Ammamma ordered.

  What, she was going to order me, a Goddess, around? At the look on her face, I scrambled to my feet. Lakshmi garu and Murty garu exchanged a quick glance.