Last night I had gone to the Kali temple for the Amavasya puja. I had also gone to pray for my mum. Earlier the priest had told me that I could give the material for the puja to him and that could be offered during the prayers. I have been a little wary of involving a priest to establish any sort of connection with my mom. But it was Ma Kali and mummy and I have a tiny secret related to her. Or not so much a secret, just a mother-daughter thing.
When I was a child, I remember seeing the first Kali murti, I think it was in a temple in Bombay, and being very pleased with it. That she could be my friend. The fact that the version I saw was the fierce manifestation of a dark goddess and all that didn't somehow feel real. I felt that she looked all enthusiastic about something and would like you to participate. Who wouldn't like that?
Then I don't think I visited a Kali temple for a long, long time. Then, in Pune, I was somehow very drawn to her. It was quite sudden. I still remember that one morning I was brushing my teeth and I had this urge to get connected with her. Like looking up a school friend.
So I did.
I went to the Kali temple in Khadki and well...I can't explain. I don't know what it would feel like to the best, most free and innocent part of you that made it's very first friend. But it felt like that.
One day, I got a very small and pretty Kali murti from Shaniwarwada. I would keep her in the terrace amidst all my plants and light a candle in front of her at night. On full moon nights, when the light shine down on my flowers and terrace, there she'd be - looking happy and earnest.
Around that time, when Mummy would visit, we both would sit in the terrace and have our coffees, watching the soft glow of a candle flame dancing off Kali's brass surface. Apparently, there are a whole lot of rules of whether you should keep a Kali murti in the house and where and how you should keep it, etc. I have never followed that. She just felt too much like my own to bother with protocol.
Anyway, one night, Mummy and I were playing ludo on the terrace. I was looking deep into a candle flame and told my mom that fire was such a beautiful thing. Mum said that this sweet, cool darkness in the heart of fire was where Kali stayed. And her hair looked like black flames - wild, unruly, strong. (Mom had this knack of describing something very visually.)
Months later, Mom's health started declining. She hadn't had the cancer yet but she was getting weaker and restless at times. Around that time I started visiting the Kali temple in Vashi. A friend had told me about it. (I like Kali temples anyway because they are usually empty and seem more 'playful'.) But that place is one of my favorite places in Bombay. It's so cheery. I like the way the priest sways a little with a rose in his hand when he is doing the aarti. And there's often tasty mithai. And the vegetable khichdi Prasad there is really good.
And Kali there in that temple is just too cute. Unlike other Kali murtis, where the goddess has a longish, slim face, the one there has a full, round face. She looks like a cherub. I know that she is the mother goddess and all that. But whenever I see her, I think of a little girl who wants to jump in puddles of stick her fingers in jam and invite you to do the same.
I used to take my mom there later. I think that was the last temple that she visited.
Last night, as the aarti was going on, I saw Kali the same way my mum described her - a friend who lives in the cool darkness in the midst of light. With hair like black flames.
Maybe mum is braiding it now.
I get the sense that a few things are going to end now. I keep making plans for September and October and November and December, etc. But something inside me is telling me that none of it is going to happen. That in the next few days, some things will collapse or evaporate or something. But in a good way.
As mum had once told me during a game of ludo, that fading to black is perhaps the most important answer to a prayer.
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