Aatish Taseer - The Temple-Goers

‘I must hurry,’ he said. ‘The morning is on its way.’ Then looking back at the crowd, he began, ‘In the meantime, Tara’s husband has woken up to find that Tara has gone. He instantly saddles his horse and sets out in search of her. On the way, he, too, encounters the same bandits who had tried to rob Tara. They manage somehow to tell him where she went and he gallops on, arriving at Rukmani’s hut just as the sacrifice is about to begin. From a window he watches the two women perform the rites to Kali. When they are complete, Rukmani offers the raw meat to Tara, urging her to eat it. Tara balks and tries to resist, making the excuse that she can’t until her husband does. But Rukmani implores her, saying she knows that Tara intends to return to the palace and distribute the meat without eating it herself. She must at least take one bite to show that she has honoured the sacrifice.’

The crowd watched in horrified silence as the MC raised two fingers to his mouth, holding an imagined morsel of flesh.

‘Tara is about to eat the meat,’ he says, ‘when her husband, now no longer able to restrain himself, barges in. Tara quickly hides the meat in the end of her sari. “What are you hiding there, Tara?” the king demands. “Nothing, nothing,” she says. “I’ll tell you when we’re back at the palace.” “No, tell me now,” he says, and pulls at her sari. It comes away in his hand, but instead of meat and blood, honey and butter fall to the floor.

‘Raise your hands,’ the MC roared, ‘and say, “Victory to the true durbar!” ’

‘Victory to the true durbar!’ the tent thundered back.

The MC, adopting his best sarcastic voice, and imitating Tara’s husband, said, ‘ “Oh, Tara, you’ve learned magic in one night, have you?” She says, “No, this is the goddess’s work.” “Is that so?” the king replies. “Then let’s see if your goddess can fix this.” He pulls out his sword and in one stroke slices clean through the neck of his favourite horse. At that very moment Tara is herself transformed into the goddess. “What harm did this animal ever do you?” she asks the king. “You think this is a test of my powers? Go home and sacrifice your son, then you’ll see my powers.” ’

The MC was speeding along, fighting the break of day: ‘Tara returns to her original form and the two rush back to the palace.’

‘But their horse?’ one of the colony boys yelled.

‘What?’ the MC snapped.

‘How can they go back if their horse has no head,’ the boy asserted firmly.

The MC’s face soured. ‘Tch, bloody fool. He’s a king, you think someone won’t lend him a horse? It’s a bloody honour to lend a king a horse. He could get land and money.’ He chuckled. ‘Made me lose my thread. Stupid boy.’

‘They go back to the palace,’ someone yelled.

‘Yes,’ the MC said, his momentum returning, ‘they go back to the palace on a borrowed horse. And there the king, on seeing his son, severs his head from his body and cuts him into small, small pieces. You must have heard of the killings in Sectorpur. Just the same, but even smaller pieces and not with a knife from a mall, but with a sword. Can you imagine, a father cutting his own son, cutting, cutting…’

The crowd let out a cry of dismay. ‘And then he offers it to the goddess. There they sit, Tara and him, performing the greatest of all sacrifices to the goddess. But the meat stays meat; it doesn’t become the boy.’ The MC looked with relish at his audience; they looked back expectantly, knowing that in India stories didn’t end this way. ‘The king turns to Tara and says, “Look what you’ve done. You’ve sacrificed my heir for your bloody goddess.” Tara falls to her feet and raises up her hands in supplication. And once again she becomes the goddess. “Divide the offering into five portions,” she orders. “Feed the first portion to your horse…” ’

‘What horse?’ a colony boy yelled.

‘Bloody fool,’ the MC yelled back, ‘wait for it. The king is amazed, but he takes the meat of his son to the stable where he finds his horse restored to perfect health. What’s more, the meat has turned to apples, oats and sugar cubes. Victory…’

‘Victory to the true durbar!’ the crowd screamed, and threw up their hands.

The MC smiled. ‘Then the goddess says, “Feed the second portion to your son.” Again the king is amazed, but at just that moment the boy appears, saying he was woken from a gentle sleep where sweet lullabies were sung to him, and as he says this, the human flesh in the king’s hands turns to sweets and soft things. Because this is what children like…,’ the MC said. ‘Victory…’

‘Victory to the true durbar!’

At this point, the MC’s saffron-clad helpers had appeared in the crowd and were handing out tea and sweets. As the MC detailed where the remaining portions of the human sacrifice were to go, the ending of his story became the end of our jagran. The sky was now full of light and 108 lamps fluttered in the morning breeze.

‘The king was told,’ the MC said, ‘that Rukmani was none other than his own sister-in-law. And in this way,’ he added, now tired himself and hastily wrapping up the tale that had reached its conclusion with the break of day, ‘the curse of two lifetimes was broken.’ With this, the MC announced a final opportunity to donate, a closing ceremony, the ritual washing of feet and the distribution of food and offerings, ‘Then you to your houses and me to mine.’

The presence of daylight on the all-night gathering was at once jarring and beautiful. Everyone was recovering from the strange effect of the story and its ending timed to meet the morning.

Megha rose, pushing her way to the front of the closing ceremony. She told me firmly to stand next to her. Soon I could see why. The family, Amit and others, were all pushing close to the front so that they could be part of this final ceremony. Hands clutched at hands. Food that had been left at the front as offerings was distributed. Amit made sure that I got a small leaf plate with a blessed one-rupee coin.

‘What about me?’ Megha asked.

He ignored her.

‘Amit?’

‘Don’t speak too much out of turn,’ he snapped.

She pulled a banana off the plate and marched out of the tent, gesturing to me to come along.

Outside, in the clear morning light, fat black ants crawled over the sandy ground and carpet; wires hung limply from the halogen lamps; a man lay sleeping on a cemented surface; a concrete water tank loomed; cows appeared, looking for things to eat. Little girls were assembled at the front of the tent and Aakash’s family symbolically washed their feet. On one side, Aakash was distributing puris and a mountain of sweet, pulpy food. Megha called to him from time to time: ‘Aakash, kaka, Aakash, kaka.’

He looked grimly up at her, then told her for no apparent reason to be quiet. In the meantime, the little sweeper had appeared and was digging with his small, strong nails at a piece of offering. Around us, the durbar was being taken down, gods undressed and carried away, their torsos separated from their legs. Kali’s lion was being stripped of its mane.

Megha picked up the little sweeper and pointed at the now shorn animal.

‘Loin!’ she said. ‘Loin! What does a loin do?’

The little sweeper roared, raising his short, tough arms over his head and gnashing his teeth.

I had managed to escape unnoticed and was standing apart, scanning the street for Uttam, undoubtedly asleep in the front seat of the car, when I felt Aakash’s hand on my shoulder. ‘Hey, man? What’s you doing, man? Dude?’

Around us, cows having found what they wanted, walked away with orange rinds in their teeth.

‘Go and sleep, my friend,’ Aakash said. ‘We’ll see what tomorrow has in store for us.’