Human Rites and Rituals
Kavita Nandan
Why is it that when human beings strive to reach the spiritual, they never appear more solidly human?
Each time my friend’s son, 21, leans forward to sprinkle a combination of marigold and rice on the brass god, his backside makes an inauspicious appearance; certainly not as pretty as twin suns rising on one of those exotically named planets in your typical science fiction movie.
In the second row, his mother coughs in scores of three, the result of that extra bit of wine surreptitiously consumed late yesterday. Her husband, sitting ramrod in the front, and closest to the pundit, swats at flies as if action of any kind will somehow lessen despair.
The pundit notices nothing; sitting on the most comfortable cushion; he has achieved a higher state of being and is well into his tenth Aum. A thick gold chain nestles comfortably in one of the folds of his neck. His hair neatly parted, exposes 2-week regrowth.
The pundit reminds me of the caterpillar in Alice and Wonderland: sitting silently on its raised toadstool, sucking the hookah deeply and blowing out puffs of smoke into the azure heavens. The pundit appears uxoriously content with his position and portable kit.
There it lies in all its righteousness.
Hanuman and Ganesh emanate golden rays on a sheet of red cloth. Ram and Sita lean against an upturned beer mug. Khrishna’s boyish blue smile warms the morning’s leftover dewiness. The goddess Lakshmi, majestic and knowing, waits for anxious supplications. There are brass lotas and bowls filled with substances about to be alchemised – ghee, mustard oil, milk, honey, fruit, coconut, rice, water and some cooked food.
The red and orange hues of marigold, honeysuckle and hibiscus mingle with each other in a pile, offsetting the faded cardboard box with ‘CHICKEN CHIPS’ and ‘best before Feb 86’ printed on the front.
The young man turns his round face to the sun; lifting the lota, he pours. Water trickles down into the garden bed. Suriya Bhagwan has been honoured; the ceremony can begin.
The pundit continues to chant whilst uncannily interspersing instructions directed at the seeker: ‘dai hath’, use your right hand and ‘sub bagal pani choro’, spread the water on the four sides of the kund.
The seeker is like a kathakali dancer whose hands are totally devoted to his vocation. He sprinkles, slides, drops, picks up, puts down, circles and spreads; he’s really getting the hang of it and the rest of us are either transfixed or thinking of anything but the present.
His mother, who is sitting closest to me, is meditating on that sacred space where she feels sexual, desired and alive in a downtown motel – her right, her entitlement for all her many acts of acquiescence in the home.
I believe the second part of the puja has started. My friend’s husband has lifted the lifeless hawan kund, placing it at the centre of the ceremonies. He piously breaks pieces of wood and casts them in the fire as if each one were a sinner of the worst kind – the cuckolding type.
The pundit fuels the fire with camphor and ghee as the seeker gathers a single puri with lumps of hulwa, a piece of paw paw to which the pundit adds the tip of a banana undressed by his holy self. This assortment is placed on a paper plate in the centre of the fire. The blessed smoke from the hawan kund is rising into the all embracing sky and mingling with burning rubbish from adjacent plots.
The pundit is gathering steam and the invoking of gods has begun in triple earnest. The family rooster is strutting past the baigan and bele plants and crowing at inappropriate moments; not for long though – he is going to be curry on Saturday to celebrate three days of not eating meat. Sri Devi streaks past the mat to get in the open door of the house and is caught, fur bristling, in the grip of one of the participants.
Animals.
What do they understand about the rites and rituals that mark a human being’s life?
There it is – time for the family to participate; I slink into the back wall. The pundit is ladling out spoons of sweet milk in cupped hands and smearing sindoor and chandan on eager, chaste heads.
Sticky hands and cool forehead.
The pundit resumes his chanting but he is getting softer, more tired and just as I am being lulled, that special Fijian laugh from the roadside; so full of mirth and life strikes a chord in my consciousness and I am fully awake.
The dish is hot on both sides as I circle the arti three times around the gold framed picture of Ram and Sita. My friend’s son is told to stand up and circle seven times with the arti. The pundit tells him in perfect English “do not fall and circle gently”.
An educated pundit, works as a lawyer for an insurance company; punditing: a part-time job for his spiritual benefit? I am beginning to feel dizzy.
We make everything about the rights of human beings: the right to seek heaven and in seeking heaven to disturb the Gods and worse, the neighbours; the right to be blessed and in being blessed to destroy flowers in their mid-life and to pollute the environment; the right to be rewarded for our piety and in being rewarded to eat the rooster for the evening meal, and if that isn’t enough, we turn around giving life to what is clearly inanimate.
The puja is coming to an end. Prasad has been duly offered to the gods and then shared amongst us mortals. The last rite the seeker must follow, the pundit instructs him in no uncertain terms, is to ask for his parents’ blessings. The pundit stands up in creased black pants with a loud ‘Hai Ram’ to explain his cracking joints. I would make his age out to be fifty; hardly ancient.
As my friend’s oldest child bends down, grinning at me (what do I think of all this?), I look over the bushes to see a Fijian lady walking past in her Sunday best; her umbrella closed and thrust forward as if it were guiding her to heaven. He touches his mother’s feet first and then his father’s. As he rises, lifeless flowers fall from his head; one lands on his shoulder for a brief moment before it falls to join the others on the ibe. The pundit ties a yellow string around his wrist.
My friend, cleansed, walks to the kitchen with new dignity to serve the pundit his lunch. The older son asks his mother if she wants the yellow string as well and she says no. “Thum kai mangta ghos?”, you want to eat meat? resentful that she has been quicker than he.
The pundit is sitting at the table eating mattar, dhal and baath, wholly silent now and fully absorbed in the physical task ahead. That inexorable tropical drizzle has begun, leaving the star of the show to click the heels of his bare feet together three times, or in this case zap on Sky Pacific and lead us into another human fantasy.
Kavita Nandan is lecturer of Literature at USP. She is the editor of ‘Stolen Worlds: Fijiindian Fragments.’ She is currently co-editing a new Pacific anthology of poetry and short fiction.