Note:
Every day morning, I wake up listening to the “Nachiyaar Thirumozhi”
(hymns of Goddess Andal describing the dream she had about marrying
Ranganathar) at home and it leaves me wondering about her love for the God. I
got a sudden inspiration today and here I am, writing a story based on their
love. I have modified it to fit the modern age. Pure imagination of how the
love would have been in the present age. No intention to offend anyone's
sentiments.
Please find the previous part here (Part 1)
The street
was a typical example of what people called an ‘Agraharam’. It was a long,
broad street extending from the palatial entrance of a grand temple; it had
lines of houses built following some uniform pattern. The early morning sun was
rising, bathing the houses and people on the street with dim yellow light.
Venkatesa Suprabhatham rose in the air and blended itself with the ‘sarak
sarak’ sounds when few women swept the street and with ‘slukk slukk’ when
people sprinkled water on the street, preparing their house’s
entrance for the daily routine of ‘kolam drawing’. In front of few other
houses, women were bending down to draw kolams on their door step.
Athuzhaai
was sitting outside one of the houses on a stone bench (read as ‘thinnai’)
wearing a light green long skirt, pink blouse and pink half saree. Even while
sitting, people would easily be able to judge that she was quite tall. She had
a slim yet perfect figure with an oval shaped face on a willowy neck. There was
some inexplicable attraction about her almond shaped, dark brown eyes, her
slender nose and her dense black eyebrows. Her lips looked like they were
chiseled by the finest of artists available under the sky.
From her
expression, it was transparent that some serious thought process was going on
inside her beautiful head. Her long, thin fingers were pressed hard against the
stone bench and there was a rhythmic jingling sound lingering about the air as
she was tapping one of her legs absentmindedly.
“You can go
in.” – grandmother said as she stepped out of the old Brahmin style house.
Somehow realizing that her grandmother was referring to this house as temple
and wondering why God should be inside this house, she ascended the steps
silently.
The house was
just like every other house on the street. It had three long rooms constructed
one behind the other. The first room was empty. Athuzhaai walked along the hall
and was about to step into the next room, but froze on the spot with one leg on
the small step that separated the two rooms, for the scene she witnessed in
that room was completely unbelievable and remotely sane.
She saw
Lord Ranganathar sleeping on a battered old wooden bench with his back facing
the door. He was in a complete human form wearing a blue dhoti on his waist and
white pearl strands around his neck. He was tall and lean with dense curly
black hair and adding mystery to the already insane situation, He was
breathing.
Athuzhaai
convinced herself that she had gone completely mental and turned to leave the
place but her heart stopped beating when she felt a hand enclose her thin
wrist. The warmth and gentle pressure of the hand made her turn automatically.
She saw that the Lord had woken up and had stopped her from leaving by holding
her hand. Too shocked to react, she looked blankly at his face.
He looked
at her with so much love that her heart forgot to pump blood to her brain and
the brain stopped thinking. With an endearing smile curling on His flimsy lips,
He sat bolt upright, pulled her close to Him and made her sit on His lap.
Chuckling softly at the shock on her face, He looked deeply into her eyes and
ran His long fingers along her cheeks slowly and lovingly. He touched her lips
with the tips of His fingers and embraced her totally.
Athuzhaai
was dumbstruck and couldn’t react when He dug His face deeper into her
neckline. She felt remote with her own self when she felt His heaving chest against her own. After few
minutes of silence, God lifted His face up and whispered in her ears –
“Athuzhaaii, Give me your anklets.”
Now, she
couldn’t have heard him right due to her slow processing brain, her anklets?
Athuzhaai pulled back and looked into The Lord’s face. He smiled softly and
said – “Athuzhaai, Give me your anklets.”
As if in
trance, not taking her eyes off his brilliant eyes, her hands automatically
moved to her legs to remove the new anklets that she was wearing. Not breaking
the eye contact, Lord Ranganatha bent sideways and held her hand to stop her.
He said – “I need your old anklets, Athuzhaai.”
Athuzhaai
got up from his lap and ran outside the house. Panting for breath, she told her
grandmother who was waiting outside – “God wants my old anklets.”
Without
stopping to see her grandmother’s reaction, she hurried into another house and
came back to Lord Ranganatha within minutes. When she came back, The Lord was
sitting cross legged on the floor. She leaned on the door frame and took deep
breaths to calm herself down, looking at the Lord.
He turned
towards her; with immense love pouring out of his flamboyantly lustrous eyes
and with a mysteriously captivating smile on his lips, he extended his hands
and beckoned her closer. When she walked shyly and stood next to him, he pulled
her by the arm and made her sit on his lap again.
He hugged
her again and the comfort and security she felt in his touch, made her hug him
back. She was astonished that she was able to feel the sweat on His skin
against her palm and the bones of his shoulder blade. Even in that situation,
Athuzhaai wondered why the Lord is so skinny.
She also
realized that the Lord’s touch wasn’t at all alien to her. It was as if Lord
Ranganatha hugs her day in and day out, a daily affair.
He
whispered in her ears again – “Have you brought your old anklet?”
She nodded
and opened her palm. Her blackened, old anklet was sitting on top of it. Lord
Ranganatha smiled and enclosed her hand with his broad, warm hand.
“Holy
shit!!”
– Athuzhaai sprang up from her bed and looked around at the room. It looked as
normal as she had seen it before she dozed off the night before. She checked
the time on her mobile. It was nearing day break.
She opened her palms and looked down
at it; the feel of His soft, wet skin was still etched on her hands. She sucked
in a lot of air and breathed through her mouth to calm herself down.
“Damn it.
The dream was so real.”
– She thought and wiped her face with her hands. She groped around for her
water bottle and drank deeply from it. She slumped back on the bed and wondered
how stupid and insane she might sound if she narrated the dream to anybody.
Nonetheless, first thing in the
morning, she narrated the dream to her father Vishnuchittan.
“and
Ranganathar asked for my anklet paa.. Why would he want my old anklet paa?” – She wondered loudly and continued animatedly
– “You know how he looked like, he had
lot of curly black hair, brilliant black eyes, thick eyebrows, small lips, long
nose, prominent ears, and big big hands.” She added as an afterthought - “skinny.”
Vishnuchittan frowned at his
daughter suspiciously as the description sounded familiar to someone he knew.
“He looked
exactly like how I have described the hero in the novel I am writing paaa. Blue
dhoti, strands of beads, thilak, tall, lean..” – She was saying with flourish.
“What????” – Vishnuchittan cut in,
totally taken aback in disbelief.
To be continued…
photo courtesy: www.exoticindia.com
---Bala Iyengar---
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