Stars And Stripes

Amma asked her about Mallika, her younger daughter. Vatsala wiped her eyes with the palav now warm. She slapped her forehead. "Aiyoo, don't ask, ma, about that girl. So much trouble she is giving us. She has one more year to go, in B.A. For her sake only we are staying here." She sighed. "She wants to marry this Marathi boy. Tangam is very much against it. These modern girls are difficult, ma." She brushed her brow with the back of her hand."She wants to work. That I think is good. Because south Indian boys have become modern now, they are looking for working girls to marry. What they call it in the US? Yes, double-income families. Like our old joint families. Only ours were multi-income."

She poured coffee into her mouth, swirled it about, and gulped it down. "It is very bad here now." Then she smiled, "Aiyoo Ananda, I completely forgot, with Lord Venketeswara's blessings our Mohan has got very good job in Chee-ca-go. He has got Green Card only last month. He will come, this Deepawali. We are looking for a homely Tamil girl for him. He is asking us to go with him also. Tangam says he can nicely find an easy job in the University there." She smiled. "I think we'll go ma. It is becoming so terrible here. Aiyoo Muruga, I think the stars are too bad for this country now—it is kaliyug here. Ore hopeless." She frowned, "But one thing I am worrying about ma," she wiped the sweat on her nose, under her eyes, and neck, disgust writ on her face because of the heat, "it must be so cold in Chee-ca-go."

When Kanan and Shekar arrived, they removed their Naykiiz at the door, white tick marks stitched on their sides by poor children of the 3rd world. They were dressed in jeans, but not Levis or Layviz as Vatsala called them. Kanan's blood-red Tee-shirt had blue stars splattered over it, arguably not a predictable colour for misgivings, I agreed with aunt Vatsala, although later I was able to convince her that it could symbolise optimism. Three ash stripes, unaltered, on his forehead traversed the distance in between. He and Shekar had traversed a long distance. Over-Seas. They appeared lost.

They found their mother in bed, numb. They touched her knees beneath the sheet mistaking them for her feet. She had shrunk. But not that much. Kanan talked unabated in a Photostat American way. My brother Shivam was more liberal in the use of what he called euphemisms.

I queried him often. How do your cookies crumble so easily, Shivam? And when precisely does your shit hit the fan? How does your gravy have a train? Why do your flies sit on the wall or seep into some ointment? He had lived in the US for twenty years. In San Francisco.

Kanan sat on the bed, pensive, then in peculiar haste opened a bag. "From the US," he said to his mother, "firstclass brand. Espensive. Not to worry, I got 10% off on my Visa card." He rolled out the sheets of branded super absorbent mattress liners. Economy Pack. Then ever so gently the sons lifted their mother, smoothened the imported liner carefully on the bed, brandname up, death-faced, and then laid Lakshmi down on her one-anna back.

Shekar unpacked the blue Samsonite, it was almost entirely filled with Kellogg's cornflakes. Economy Packs. "Amma loved them," he said, "when she stayed with us in Yel-Lay. Choco-coated."

"But, Shekar, they are available here now," I said.

"Mmm," he considered, "but I bet after converting into rupees, Kellogg's still cheaper back home." He blew down the Vee of his starred Tee-shirt. It was hot.

Lakshmi died two weeks later. Moments before she did she told amma, "Don't forget, sell my Tata Steel shares, ma. Get whatever. It will at least pay for those flavoured flakes Kanan bought for me." Even death was a purchase. Tata Steel closed

at 198.9 that day.

I went with amma to Bangalore. Shivam had arrived in it a few months ago. His company specialised in water treatment and manufactured mineral water for the Cola companies that labelled and peddled it anywise into the liberated world. He'd clung to standards all his life, and numbers took precedence over fact, so Shivam strategised that India's X-million urban middle-class population would demand Y-million bottled drinking water by Zee-year.He was working on a massive project that, he was convinced, would provide pure drinking water to all city people. But just three months after his arrival, he seemed unsettled.

"Christ," Shivam said three hours after I arrived, "darned village, just one kilometre out of Bangalore, and NO WATER. What do I purify? People?" His eyes wilted. He had strayed home.

"I must confess, my statistics are not infallible," he muttered with a lost expression. "Damned country still lives in its villages. Even cities are full of them!"

I tried to understand his ire. Perhaps, such ordinariness produced rash, radical disbelief, and for him, the past was programmed to recede. But here, it was meant to prevail.

The next day, not yet at ease, he told me we were off to Tirupati. "I have rented a Hertz."

"See-yello," amma added, "fully air-conditioned."

"Ceilo," Shivam said, "chauffeur-driven. I've booked two rooms. Food's great there, I hear. Amazing, VISA's accepted everywhere. I am doing the kalayanautsav."

Amma intervened, "It's the re-marriage of our Lord Venketeswara. He was married to Lakshmi in heaven. But when he wanted to marry princess Padmavati on earth he had to take loan from Kubera. He promised to pay him back after Kaliyug. So to help the lord keep his promise his devotees go to Tirupati to fill up his coffers."

"How much was the loan?" Shivam brightened a bit, regaining his interest in numbers again, "and when is after Kaliyug?" Time was a countable sum.

Amma waved a hand at him, and the crow that sat on the satellite television cable outside. Shoo. "It's a long ceremony," she said, "shoo, Lord Venketeswara is re-married to both his wives with all Hindu rituals. Shoo. One has to book years in advance." Shoo. The crow flew away.

"Ah, but I fixed it through the Ministry of Irrigation," Shivam beamed. "That's one advantage in this indefinite country. The minister's PAs are powerful." Then his face took on a definitive form. "I decided I would do the kalayanautsav if god Venketeswara blesses my water project. Mutual interest. Fair?" Fair.

He chuckled; his sides shook like Jell-O. He said, "Calculated risk on both sides. I paid 2,500 rupees for the Lord's wedding. Freebies inclusive. I can take five people. Free. Fair?" Fair.

Shivam was dressed in a silk veshti for the kalayanautsav. His chest bare but for the lines of the sacred thread that he luckily bought from a pitiful pujari. We waited in a queue. Amma talked to an old man behind her.

"Myself, P.R.M. Nagarajan, from Tee-Nagar, Madras. My misses, Wasundra," he pointed to a woeful woman, "and my sons, from Silicum Va-lli. NRIs." Their skins were bleached, heads tidily tonsured. "They bought their sacred threads from a pujari this morning. He charged them four times more. Such thin threads also. Cheating rascal! How they just can smell out an NRI these days." He coughed. "Ah, my grandchildren. All four fully American citizens from birth. Wasundra went, for evv-ry delivv-ry," he emphasised the V. He pointed to Shivam, "Your son? Nice."

Amma nodded, "from Kaliforniya."

"Achichoo, he's wearing his thread wrong, ma," Nagarajan showed Shivam how the thread had to be worn over the other shoulder.

The marriage took place in a large hall. Shivam sat in it with a hundred others. We were not allowed in the hall but were caged into a corridor fixed with iron bars. We saw Lord Venketeswara re-married to his wives. For free between the bars. For free via colourless TV monitors that relayed the holy matrimony in disrupted lines. Three hours later, with striped vision, I fumbled out into the sun-spawned court. Shivam was in it fizzy like a can of stirred warm Heineken.

"Now we have to go to the Padmavati temple," Shivam announced.I refused to go. "Aiyoo you have to come," amma said, "the goddess will curse you."

Ganesh, the driver, used my free pass. Fair.

I was thirsty. I spotted a man selling coconuts. Not far from him I saw three poor boys near a tap. A clothcradle hung from a tree with three bulges, one for the child's head, one for its bottom and another for its middle. Its mother stood near, her breasts taut.

When the boys were not throwing water on each other they were filling empty mineral water bottles with it. The older one took the filled bottles to a cigarette shop. The shopkeeper gave him something in return for them. Fair.

The boys splashed about in the water. The baby cried in the cradle. Its mother begged in the street. Her breasts were strained with milk.

The shopkeeper held out cooled bottles of mineral water to Nagarajan's NRI sons. They scrutinised the seal. Unbroken Blue. They gave the bottles to their wives and children. I bought a coconut. I drank it without the straw. Sweet water trickled down my throat. Sticky, hot rivers.

On our way back, Shivam remarked, "Aren't you scared something terrible would happen," he looked grim, "the goddess's wrath..." a nerve ticked on his temple.

An hour later a stone hit the car's belly. "The petrol tank is leaking, sar," Ganesh whined crouching on the road. Shivam's nerve ticked more, he chewed hard on the Wrigley, "there, Padmavati's scorn!"

A battered taxi came by, a dirty cloth flying on its window like a truce flag. The driver studied Shivam's nerves; they computed a compromise—twice the normal return fare. Fair? Fair.

Shivam crushed notes into Ganesh's palm. "Aiyoo, what to do here? It's nowhere!" Ganesh uttered. Shivam fanned out seven crumpled one-dollar bills. Ganesh took them in disbelief, "I went, didn't I, sar? Why is goddess Padmavati angry with me?" He heaved. "I'll go back now only, on foot, and offer her four dollars.