Goose-bumps

“Rupa, stay close and don’t go outside the gate,” said the mother to her five year-old daughter who having released her hand from her mother's grasp as they entered the premises of the ancient temple, went around jumping playfully. Rupa assumed an unspoken state of safety within the walls and, by extrapolation, a permission to roam freely. The walls were built with unsteadily cut fossilised shingles. The flooring was a patchwork of large, unequal rocks, cut roughly - just enough not to cut the feet, yet with enough crests for a natural acupressure. 

The mother turned left towards a rusty iron shoe rack. She slipped out of her overused slippers, and pushed them gently in the bottom row of the rack. The morning sun was still gentle on her naked feet. She washed her feet under a tap jutting out from a roughly cemented wall. The place for ablution was sloped to draw water along a furrow and irrigate trees and shrubs. 

The mother was fair with large black eyes, pointed nose, chiseled cheekbone, wrinkled face that was too early for her age thanks to bearing and rearing seven children. She was tall but slightly bent from the back, graying and shapeless, the sort of woman most men would look through. Vermillion marked her hair partition, a mangalsutra, a special necklace worn by married Hindu women, graced her neck and bangles stacked up her slender wrists. The free end of the brown sari brocaded with golden designs covered her head signaling her elegant marital modesty. She effused genteelness and a sense of peace. 

Rupa turned right and went about merrily humming sweet nothings in her shrill girly voice that tore into the silence of the temple. She seemed to be blossoming from the most beautiful gene of her mother. Her beauty made her parents call her ‘Rupa’, beauty. She wore a peach frock with a lot of frills, with greenish lilies weaved into it. Her shoulder length hair fluttered in the mild wind as did the hem of her frock. She looked like a younger self of her mother, only more beautiful. 

Rupa spotted a bench facing the deity, ran and sat at the edge amidst broken twigs, dry leaves and stone-hard berries that had fallen from the overhead foliage formed from an imposing banyan, an intruding neem and an ambitious jujube tree. She started swinging her feet as she pulled herself deeper into the bench, breaking a twig and crushing a leaf in the process. A chappal slipped out of her swinging feet and arced its way to the ground a few feet from her. 

Rupa jumped out of the bench immediately, both hands covering her open mouth in the shock that she had flung her footwear in the direction of the God. She looked at her mother, who cast a disapproving look back at her. 

“Come up with me,” the mother said sternly as she began climbing the flight of stairs leading to the actual temple, “leave your chappals there,” she pointed at the bench where Rupa sat.

Dutifully, Rupa goes to bring back the defected chappal, looking around to ensure no one else witnessed her ‘ungodly’ act. To her horror, a bald priest, sitting cross-legged on the floor in a nearby corner, was smiling at her. He wore a white dhoti; a white clothe covered most of his chest, a sacred thread ran leisurely across his torso. 

‘Tong, tong,’ rang the bell in the temple. 

The priest gestured with his hands, calling her towards him. She was always told to respect the priests. Having committed one sin, she didn’t want to commit another by disobeying him so she went to him despite herself, hesitating, repenting, scared. 

“I’m sorry,” she started apologising before the priest could begin, “I will not do that again.” She almost choked, ready to cry at the slightest hint of rebuke from the priest. 

“That’s ok my dear,” said the priest with a benign smile, “God is very kind, he has forgiven you already.” 

“Has he?” asked Rupa, not able to believe her ears, instant relief returning to her face.  

“Oh yes, he has,” the priest declared before adding, “and he will give you whatever you ask for with a pure heart.” 

“Namami shamishan nirvan rupam, vibhum vyapakan brahma veda swaroopam,” the conversation was broken as Rupa’s mother began singing the Sanskrit hymn called Rudrashtak. Both Rupa and the priest glanced in the direction of the sound before returning to each other. 

“Will he?” Rupa’s face lit up, eyes widened, “Will he give me a chocolate?” her mouth was agape even after she finished the question. 

“Yes,” said the priest, guffawing, “so go now, join your mother.” He lovingly patted her shoulder as she left. 

“Chocolate, chocolate …” Rupa recited excitedly as she scurried back to the bench, took off her footwear, placed them properly beside each other and ran towards the stairs, full of anticipation. 

Her mother sat cross-legged next to a Shiva-linga, the presiding deity of the temple. She melodiously recited the famous Sanskrit hymn Rudrashtak even as her body swayed to the tune. The free end of her sari had come off her head. 

“Nirakar omkar moolam turiyam, giragyan gotitamisham girisham…”

Rupa bowed to the Lord from the top of the stairs. She jumped a couple of times in a vain attempt to ring the bell hung overhead. Too high. She scampered through to her mother whose eyes were closed and looked completely lost in devotion. As Rupa’s hand gently brushed her mother’s forearm she immediately lifted it as if she was pin-pricked. She noticed that her mother had goose-bumps all over her hand. A vein stood out from the left of her neck. Rupa’s eyes surveyed her mother’s skin: upper arm, back, shoulder, neck, cheek – everything that her blouse and sari could not cover – horripilation all the way. 

Rupa had never noticed her mother this way. She realised this was not normal. She felt her own arms to see if the same happened to her. No. Nothing of the sort happened, nor did she recollect having ever experienced such a thing. 

Rupa’s original reason for excitement – chocolate – was well and truly forgotten. She noticed how beautiful her mother looked in the devotional trance. Her face radiated a divine glow, a bliss that did not belong to earth; she had lost all sense of time and space. Melody came to her as if by some other worldly intervention. Rupa’s attention transferred from her mother’s physicality to the mellifluous hymn. The symphony of Sanskrit incantations stirred something in her soul. Rupa suddenly wanted to be there, in the thick of things, in the heat of the action. She suddenly hankered to sing the hymn like her mother, add to the symphony. 

A prayer came straight from Rupa’s soul, into her heart and onto her mouth, “Oh God, I do not know how to sing this like my mother. Could you please make me sing this hymn of yours like her?” she beseeched. 

Nothing happened. Her mother continued her blissful recital – unaware of her daughter’s evolving fascination from chocolate to devotion. 

Rupa placed her hand gently on her mother’s shoulder. 

She opened her mouth, as if guided by some invisible force, and out came the miraculous words, “Tusharadri sankash gauram gabhiram,” she matched her mother, word for word, tone for tone, incantation for incantation, “manobhoot koti prakahshri shariram.” The miracle happened. She started singing the Rudrashtak as if she had known it for years. It all came to her, and it was overwhelming for a five year old. 

Rupa found herself swaying in sync with her mother. In the middle of the recital, she felt immense gratitude for Lord Shiva, to whom she bowed in obeisance. There was peace, joy, bliss and love effusing from within her. 

She was all that her mother was, and more. All the mirth emanating from within made her hair stand out, opened every pore of her body as she experienced for the first time in her life – goose-bumps.