Glossary

Dhak – drums
Saptami – The seventh lunar day
Astami – The eighth lunar day
Thakurdalan – place where idol is worshipped
Alpona – designs made with chalk
Thamma – grandmother
Kosha-kushi – double-spoon, made of copper, used exclusively for offering holly water by the priests during puja.
Didi, Dada – elder sister, elder brother

Sandhya-arati - evening prayers

Purohit - Priest





The blue lotus

Shiuli was lost in the rhythm of dhaks, reverberating on a Saptami morning. The entire family was up early. Their ancestral house has been given a fresh coat of paint. Shiuli's cousins had spent the earlier evening decorating the 'thakurdalan' with streamers. Her mother, thamma and other elderly ladies had their hands full... arranging the ingredients, drawing 'alpona' . Shiuli tried too, but her five year old fingers couldn't grasp the patterns.

She watched with excitement - one banana plant being carried by the purohit, followed by Papa and her uncles.
"Where are they going, thamma?"
"To the riverbank, Babughat."
"Why?"
"To bathe the tree and then adorn it with a new sari."
"How can a plant wear a sari?"
"Oh, the priest takes care of that!"
" But why a sari? Why not a salwar-kameez?"
"Bacause that is the ritual, dear one."
"Can't the ritual be changed a bit?"
"Some things never change, Shiu. Would you enjoy a pizza on your birthday, instead of a cake?"
"I want to go with them. What's wrong with that?"
"Stop it, Shiu. I can't talk with you so much. Got lots of other work to do. So many guests would be coming!"
"Y-e-e-a-a-h!" She clapped her hands and rushed upstairs. Mom was yelling, "Don't run like that, Shiu, you'll fall!"
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She couldn't find anything in her room which can match a banana plant. She looked around, cuddled her teddy, Tintin, and returned downstairs. The air was heavy with smell of fruits, and flowers. Her eyes travelled around the neat stack of sweets, apples, the 'kosha-kushi", the 'ghot', insence sticks and got stuck in one corner. There was a bunch of fresh lotuses. "Don't touch on anything, they are all kept for Puja", Ma warned.
The lotuses were a bit bluish, with heavy buds bent down from slender stalks. She must get one of them, after the Pujas are over, drape it with a piece of Ma's sari - won't it resemble the 'banana -bride'?
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Evening was filled with relatives, friends, neighbours and curious onlookers. Her Bubaidada has arrived from Murshidabad, Mistididi along with her parents from Chandernagore, Ratandada from....from? She has forgotten the name of the place. Laughter, scents, new dresses, colours all merged into the thick white smoke of Sandhya-arati. Shiuli was so busy, as if seated in a carousel spinning round and round the fleeting moments...
Astami morning prayers are always special. The Sanskrit slokas were too hard for Shiuli, but thamma helped her out. In the evening she went out with her cousins for 'pandal hopping', a trip to the world of merry-go-rounds, phuchkas, ice creams, lights, decor, idols, crowds, traffic...Suddenly she realized they were back home.
The house appeared unusually quiet, one ambulance was waiting beside the main entrance. The thakurdalan was nearly empty. Everyone has gathered upstairs - in and around thamma's room.
Shiuli watched thamma being taken in a stretcher. From all the words that flowed around her, "cardiac" was the one she heard most. Mom told, thamma is ill and needs to get hospitalised.
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In the days that followed, the mood remained somber. Shiuli didn't forget to acquire one blue lotus, though nobody seemed to mind. After a week, thamma returned in a framed photograph, smiling. Shiuli was told, she now resides with the angels, somewhere amidst the stars.
"When will she return, Mom?"
"Never, Shiu. When one becomes very old and very ill, she goes to her home in the Heaven."
"Must everybody go there?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"When I 'll get old, yes."
"Papa?"
Mom was silent.
"Me?"
Shiuli felt her mother's arms around her. For the first time, she came to know tears can trickle down even without receiving a wound.
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It was a Monday morning, the school was to commence, and Shiuli was ready. Suddenly she remembered the lotus. It was kept carefully between the pages of an old dictionary on her table, which no one else uses. She found the blue colour of the lotus has turned brown, and an ugly smell was coming out of it. Shiuli tucked it into her pocket and threw it on the garbage bin outside their house.
She will get a new one, next year.