chapter XVIII

By the time we return home it is almost light out and I really need to use the bathroom. I quickly brush my teeth and then inform Shilpi that she should use the bathroom first. My head is spinning such that I can barely stand anymore, so I peel my pants off, take off my shirt and lay down for a minute waiting for her return.

I open my eyes a few hours later as our maid Protima is brooming beneath our bed. My body feels as if it weighs one thousand pounds and I head towards the bathroom as unsteady as drunk after a particularly fierce binge. My head is even heavier than my body and I careen into the wall.

The good news is that we get to do it all over again today! After resting a bit more, we dress and head back out to Tumpa Pishi‘s. She greets us downstairs and escorts us to her first floor apartment.

I find my way to Babaji’s room where some of he and some of his friends are already hanging out. As I enter, everyone simultaneously grasps their faces, ‘Home Alone”-style:

“Oh my God!!!!!!” The chant in unison.

I hear repeated pleas for forgiveness from Babaji and and elder brother Bittu. They apologize for their drunken friends’ behavior but I assure them that I was not bothered at all. It turns out that Subhaiyu became quite ill sometime this morning although it completely escaped me. “Subhayiu puked all over the place,” Babaji's friend Madhumita informs me.

“Where? I was here all night and I didn’t come to know of it.”

“The question is not ‘where did Subhaiyu puke?’” Babaji explains, “The question is ‘where did he NOT puke!’”

Sitting with Bittu and our distant cousin Booniya in Babaji’s room, we spend much the afternoon in good natured conversation. Bittu is very sad to be in New Delhi and he misses Calcutta greatly. At least he is here for the holiday, although he has to fly out the next morning. I try to bring Shilpi into the room to join the conversation, but she adamantly refuses.

While sitting in the living room with the other ladies, Tutu Pishi’s grandson enjoys playing with Shilpi and even sits on her lap.

Pore batsur ekta choto Paramseva dekte chai. Dere koro na!

“Next year want to see a little Paramseva. Don‘t wait too long!” Our Aunt Munnu Pishi advises. But our Mithu Pishi knows that Shilpi has just been married a few days to an American, so she comments, glancing at Shilpi’s private parts and nodding her head side-to-side;

Ekhon…tomar niche char’sho bish!

“Right now…your ‘down there’ must be totally destroyed!”

[NB. there is no English equivalent to this allusion to a card game, “420,” so I have just aimed to get the gist of it.]

As night fell, we prepared to take Ma Kali to the Ganga to be submerged. This process, called visarja, or bhashon, is always enacted after a festival where a temporary deity is worshiped. At the beginning, the priest invokes the deity to come and incarnate in the material form of clay and once the puja is completed, the deity is thanked for her blessings and submerged in a body of water, preferably the Ganga.

As the time arrives for the deity to be moved from the pandal, two hired musicians began beating the traditional Kali Puja beats on their drum and gong. Everyone came forth to watch the procession and the men began dancing in a circle. A large clay pot full of frankincense burning atop coconut husks appears and it is skillfully passed around by the dancers like a stage prop, sometimes held in had, sometimes balanced upon a head or chin until it falls and breaks.

Tumpa Pishi joins the dance circle as the tempo increases. Tubri fireworks shoot sparks high into the new moon night as the dancing becomes frantic. The circle of our cousins, uncles, and friends takes on a life of its own and its hard to resist joining. Bittu, Tumpa Pishi’s eldest son [pictured above], is dancing the most enthusiastically. With only three days leave from his job in New Delhi, he seems determined to enjoy the festival the most.

Natcho.

“Dance,” I say to Shilpi as I gesture towards the circle.

Sei’to nas noi, sei’to lapha.

“That’s not dancing, that’s jumping,” she states in her distinctively Bangladeshi accent.

Natch’ta parbo na

“I can’t dance,” I declare.

Kicchu khai nei.

“I didn’t have any drinks.”

Outside the front gate to the apartment building a truck, called a lorry here, is waiting for us. We all help raise the deity onto the back of the lorry and climb in ourselves. Maybe twenty of us pile in the back and Babai, Chellu, and Babaji head up to the top of the very top of the lorry’s cab, a good seven feet above the rest of us. The musicians enter last and keep up the rhythms as we start for the Ganga. Most have brought seats with them and plant themselves firmly as we take off with a lunge toward the Ganga.

Like a dog with his head out a car window, I prefer to remain standing, my head over the four foot-high wall of the lorry. Tumpa Pishi stands opposite from me and the look on her face is one of pure bliss. I have never seen her so happy. From on top of the cab, our cousins take turns chanting Ma Kali’s glories in a mix of Hindi, Sanskrit, and Bengali. Everyone responds loudly to their prompts:

Ma Kali ki…

JOOOOY!

“All glories to Ma Kali!”

The city is mostly deserted at this hour and we pick up speed easily, passing through central Calcutta we race recklessly through the streets. Often we pass other lorry full of Kali's devotees. Gongs and drums beat furiously, the men cheer loudly and the women with loud splashes of vermillion across their faces smile so brightly that I can see their teeth clearly as we pass each other in the night.

Occasionally we are passed by a lorry returning from the Ganga. All are full to capacity with passengers, many of whom are holding long balloons over their heads. Folded over onto themselves, the balloons whistle loudly as the air forcefully passes through them. Indeed it’s as much a custom to have such a balloon-whistle on returning from the Ganga as it is to have a pumpkin in front of your house on Halloween in America.

Riding past Calcutta’s most famous landmark, the Victoria Memorial, I am struck by how beautiful the building looks illuminated at night. As Kali Puja is always on the dark-moon night, bathed in immense wattage, the Memorial appears like a gleaming diamond.

Arriving at the Ganga, we are greeted by traffic cops directing us to our proper place in the line of lorries awaiting their turn to bring their precious cargo to the river’s edge. Circles of devotees dance to the drums like whirlwinds within the greater crowd. It seems as if all of Calcutta has come; hundreds, maybe thousands are here with the single purpose of performing their rites for their patron Goddess.

We do not have to wait long. Quickly I take off my shoes and remove my watch. I place it on Shipli’s wrist and tighten the strap. Bittu notices my pant legs rolled up to my knees and makes an expression of mock surprise;

“You’re coming with us?”

I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Carefully we accept the deity’s weight as she is carried off the lorry. We are lead to the river and the priests their chant the appropriate mantras as we gently place Ma Kali into the river. The cool water flowing over our ankles is remarkably refreshing. Quickly the deity sinks into the inky blackness and we offers our pranams before turning to leave. I saw a quick prayer, thanking the Goddess for giving me such an unique opportunity.

Before mounting onto the back of the lorry, we stop to purchase some balloons from one of the many vendors present tonight. The balloons are long and narrow, like the kind clowns turn into figures to amuse children. Once aboard the lorry, Babaji shows me how to double the balloon over itself and hold it tightly between my arms. Pulling the ends apart as much as I can, I raise my arms over my head in emulation of my cousins.

As soon as we pick up speed and begin racing through the largely deserted streets, the air passing through the balloons creates a high, fluttering whistle. The sound resonates through the night air and we keep our arms upraised as long as possible, oblivious the soreness in our shoulders. The drums and gong continue to beat and our cousins take turns leading the chanting all the way back to Tumpa Pishi’s apartment:

Ascche batsur?

“And next year?”

ABAR HABE!!!!!

“We’ll do it again!”

please continue to
chapter XVIIII