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It all began in the nippy winter of the year 1980 when I was barely three and a half years old lying on the chaape (mat), chewing my own thumb while my granny generously massaged me with coconut oil. After having pinched the apex of my pointed nose multiple times and having rubbed my cheeks and forehead, she clasped my tiny fingers and pulling them towards her crossed them sending the left arm swiftly towards the right and the right straight towards the left. And then air jailing them for a while, she widened her buttoned eyes, shut them tight and uttered a prayer. I stared at her muttering mouth for it amazed me to see how the front teeth drew the air into them from within the gap and how her black-pigmented tongue dangled up and down, back and forth and how the tunnels of her nostrils grew darker and deeper. I then observed how her flabby cheeks curved and hung at every wrinkle, how her ears flapped from side to side and how her iridescent nose ring diffused light like the sparkling coin of the sun.   

Her threadbare heavy rouge blanket wrapped around her shoulders had big black blocks on it and it flew over my bright eyes like a dark cloud scudding across the sky. When she bent a bit to adjust the rug, my head went completely under it and I thought that the night had arrived and when she moved back the blanket, I thought the day quickly chased the clouds away and that kept me occupied. I did not cry and my granny probably thought I would grow up into an obedient child, someone who wouldn’t need flogging. The world would go on with its business but my granny religiously taught me one thing, that in the tiniest speck of dust lies the miracle of creation and to see it is the unravelling of life’s most treasured secrets.

When the chilly night swept the sky, everybody resigned from a hard-to-cope-with day. The kerosene lamps kept you from floundering around, and the carmine moths went spiralling around in excitement as if suffering were an otherworldly thing, and the bats flew about the tamarind tree like they were feasting on the dark, the cold, the invisible. The tenderly white beams of moonlight crept through the chink from underneath the door and pooled around like the shadow of a humble visitor. It was difficult to know if the windows creaked or the gusty wind sang a squeaky tune and then all of a sudden lulled and stilled itself. My granny pulled out the threadbare chadar (blanket) from the metal almirah and carefully covered me with it. She kept my face uncovered so she could measure my expression and go on with her chatter that had a beginning like the burst of the rising sun and no end like the encapsulating stellar sky. She then lay beside me on the cow dung smeared floor with her face resting on the triangular placement of her right arm and smiling at me with her benevolent gaze.

The smearing routine happened on every festive occasion. She herself picked the dung of Saraswati, our three-year-old cow, who had a deep glossy black coat with a diamond-shaped white patch on the forehead, leaf-shaped ears flapping sporadically, a bell that hung from a rope around her neck, the tinkling of which was in semblance to a divine tune and a playfully wagging tail that shooed away the house flies; tethered in the cow shed. After having generously curdled the dung with water, taking the squatting position, dipping her hand in the paste, she smeared it on the floor inside and outside with beautiful and elegant strokes of the right arm and patiently waited for the floor to dry.

She harrumphed, tossed the areca nut wrapped in betel leaf into her mouth and said, “Diya, do you know what your name means?”

I kept my eyes locked on hers. Then she repeated the words that ran into a slur, “Do you know what your name Diya means, my putta (little one)?”

Then I realised that my granny expected me to look at the kerosene lamp and blink. So I did that and smiled. And her head slipped off from the supporting arm and she just sat there, upright, staring at me astounded as if I had won a battle that she considered was way out of my league. And by the look in her eyes, I deduced that apart from what she taught me day in and day out, I was learning things on my own. And she had to pray. So she quickly sat up and folded her palms and moving back and forth muttered, “Diya is growing… Diya is growing… Oh Bhagavanta, Oh Hare Krishna, she will be all alone.”  

My granny began worrying about me even before I had uttered a word. She was worried I wouldn’t be able to say appa or amma. I would have to suffice with ajji. Little did she know that that was all I had been preparing to say. That the word ‘ajji’ meant the one who crooned me to the ‘tola bantu tola’ story, the one who dandled me on her knobbly knees and sang ‘aane bantu aane’, the one who tickled my armpits, the one who washed me, dressed me, fed me, and when she had a horrible cough and she couldn’t talk or sing, she gestured me to sleep on my own. Oh! That I didn’t even know that parents existed, that they were supposed to bring you up against all odds, making things look okay when they fell apart. I didn’t know how ‘ma’ sounded, how she lovingly nestled you in her arms, embraced you with her kisses, how she fought for you, stood by you, and how her caring eyes followed yours, how your first step made her teary, how she held pride in the tiniest display of skill, how she pinched your lips off to look at the first tooth pushing off the gum. Oh! I just didn’t know and that was that.

My granny woke to the deep full cry of a child. Only it wasn’t me. It was Anant from the neighbourhood, doing his rounds of wailing when the lamp went off. And when it was lit again by his mother, he would continue his tantrums.

My granny bawled out, “Oh Ananta! Sleep or the ghost from the mountain will come to your doorstep.”

Anant listened to her, went quiet and before my granny could gratify herself, he yowled out like a siren and his father erupted into a roaring laughter. Addressing my granny from across the window, he said, “Basavajji, let the sun rise, you will have to chase two chickens. And that too apart from the flock that we have in our backyard. And yes, these are very sharp, mind you.” 

The neighbourhood always has its share in weighing your growth and Hittale, the village named after the brass metal, was a mere point on the map of India. This point that had never had more than thirty houses in its periphery, had never been visited by a politician or had a shehari babu (city dweller) residing permanently. It never had a riot or blinked at electrical bulbs or had pucca roads, and its list of nevers never could nullify the brassy rays of the sun that melted the vast expanse of paddy fields into dazzling streams of green when just planted and into gorgeous hues of gold when harvesting was due. The susurration of the backwaters with a yellow haze softly settling over them, swam the soul away that gave an earnest ear to it. Very rarely a herd of spotted deer could be spotted nibbling off the blades of verdant grass. And then there were rafts of ducks flapping their wings and taking off into the channel and then paddling their way through it this way and that. Silver carp, Koracha, Saymeen, Koorlu, Charmeen, Pipefish and many other species of freshwater fish darted and pooled in its depths. We often threw puffed rice into the stream and if lucky they would touch the surface when their eyes shone like marbles. The dragonflies with their purplish papery wings patrolled about the channel. And then there were rabbits on its banks, some snow-white, some deep-grey, some light-brown always hopping, always bouncy, and if one approached them they would run helter-skelter. The fragile life is weary of its fragility.