Restoration
My faith has always been a fragile thing. It started out hesitant and wavering, and no matter how much I sheltered it, it never really gained a full and steadfast identity. And then it was lost, seemingly forever. One night, one death and the small light was gone. When I regained some measure of it, it was many years later and in a different shape and form. Religion, God, Godmen and their ilk never entered the equation at all. And never will. Instead, my faith came back to me in the guise of steadfast friends and a loving family I chose for myself.
That faith sustained me through the deaths of two beloved women, six years apart. The first loss was hard to bear, having spent my entire life keeping her at bay, imagining that we were not closely woven like one of her tapestries. The realisation that we were forever part of the same pattern came too late. I struggled to accept that she and I were connected through the invisible threads of memory, both in my world and in whichever universe her atoms have found their way to. The faith of my family and friends pulled me through those dark days, and led me to discovery – of my writing, of my voice,of my self.
The second loss, just a few days ago, was of that woman’s alter ego. Two women, poles apart in the very nature of the atoms each was composed of, found themselves reluctant sisters in the same home. As opposite poles do, they repelled each other but were held fast by the nature of their relationship. One was a go-getter, ambitious, unafraid of breaking every rule that threatened to tie her down. The other was a conformist, quietly bending those same rules to her will, yet never stepping out of line. The similarities between the two were startling, though the two of them would have rather died than admit it. Come to think of it, they did die, six years apart, rivals to the end, but with a grudging respect for each other’s life experiences. One lost a child, the other almost lost her dignity and standing in society. Both women had backbones of the hardest mettle, both protected their territory fiercely, and both were terrible losers. Each of them became pitiable caricatures of their former selves in the last years of their lives, ravaged by illness and made dependent on their men. Neither lost her spirit though. Neither gave up her hard won role as the decision maker, the leader of her little world.
These were the women who shaped my life. My mother and my aunt. Both demanded the highest order of love and loyalty, which I was at first unable and later unwilling to give. One wanted my mind, the other my heart. I think they were very proud of the girl I was and rather disappointed with the woman I became. I was neither the career woman my mother wanted me to be, to soothe her own thwarted ambitions. Nor was I the homemaker that my aunt had tried to train me to be, to show off to the world as her creation. These were difficult, complicated relationships, to say the least. Still, I loved them both the best I knew. Now they are both gone and as with each upheaval in my life, I am again at the crossroads, in danger of letting my faith slip away once more.
The call came at 3 am on the monday after my birthday. My aunt had died in her sleep, after years of physical and mental pain. The first emotion was of immense relief, followed by a gnawing sense of guilt because I had used every excuse to not visit my hometown and her in the last two years. I spent the rest of the night trying to buy tickets to reach my hometown in time for the funeral. Finally, angry and frustrated, I managed to book a flight for Tuesday. I would miss the funeral but make it in time to attend the rest of the prayers.
I was supposed to be at a brunch that monday morning with some friends and decided I wouldn’t cancel on them. Rushing to get ready, I remembered a small gold flower pendant my aunt had gifted me after I performed the griha parvesh on her new house, some forty years ago. I slipped it on a chain and left for my brunch appointment. The friend I picked up along the way admired the gold flower. I confessed to her that my aunt had just passed away and in fact, her funeral was taking place as we walked to the restaurant. As soon as we sat down at our table, the chain slipped off my neck and fell to the floor. I bent down, some sense telling me that the pendant was gone. I hadn’t worn it since I was a child and I cursed myself for not checking the clasp carefully that morning. My friend (let’s call her S) took one look at my face and sent me off to the washroom to check it hadn’t slipped into my clothes. She rushed off to check the elevator and the stretch of road downstairs. Both our faces were glum when we met a few minutes later. I consoled myself that someone would find the little flower and wear it happily. Inside of course, I was sure that my aunt was having the last say, perhaps showing her disappointment with my behaviour in the last years of her life.
S urged me to search the stretch of road myself. I tried to focus on every inch of the street but I wasn’t really paying attention. I knew that the pendant was gone. Hadn’t it fallen from my neck at the exact same time that my aunt’s body was being consigned to the flames? She was definitely signalling her disapproval.
I re-entered the restaurant to find our other friends had arrived. Another friend, L, asked me where I was coming from. The story of the missing pendant came tumbling out, and I had to blink back a stray tear as the enormity of the last few hours of loss hit me.
Now, L is our golden girl. Her light shines clear and bright. It shows on her face, in her voice and in everything she does. I think we all have this light that shines for others. Sometimes, we dim our own light and hide it away but it is the truly brave souls who allow it to blaze from the heart, a beacon of hope for all around them. In my L’s case, that light pours out with a wonderful abandon.
As soon as she heard the story, she threw up her hand.
“All of you wait here, I’m going to find your pendant,” she said. Then, because it’s L, she added, “I’m just back from M-abad, and I prayed very hard for all of us. My M-baba will help me.” L’s spiritual home is M-abad, where her M-baba has his ashram.
And she swept out the door.
She was back a few minutes later with an extraordinary story. As she had walked down the route S and I had taken, the manager of a clothes boutique had noticed that for the third time in ten minutes, a woman had walked past, searching for something. Since L is a customer of this boutique, the manager hailed her and asked if she had lost something. L explained the matter to her. The manager replied that the old lady who cleaned the boutique had just mentioned that she had found a windfall a few minutes before. The manager would find her and check just what this windfall was.
We had a lovely brunch. As we were leaving, L’s phone rang. It was the manager, asking us to stop by the boutique. My heart was tripping double time as I entered the shop with L, all our friends crowding in behind us. A wizened old lady, dressed in a cotton sari, hair neatly combed into a small bun, stood there with the boutique staff, looking slightly belligerent. Then she looked at my face and hers softened somewhat.
“Yes,” she said, “I found something outside the neighbouring shop.” She pointed down the way we had walked earlier. “I thought it was my lucky day…but if it belongs to you, I will return it to you.”
A friend hugged my suddenly trembling shoulders. We watched as she unearthed a tiny package, and proceeded to unwrap three layers of paper, plastic and finally a tiny scrap of cloth. She held out her wrinkled palm, in which lay my aunt’s gift.
I hugged everyone in sight, short of the security guard. I was babbling incoherently, trying to explain what the little pendant meant to me. The old lady blessed me and everyone crowded around her, the absolute hero of the day.
I left early the next morning for my hometown. Through the ceremonies and prayers for the dead, which hold no meaning for me; through the smarting eyes from the smoke of the sacred fire and the heavy head from a lack of sleep, I held on to these memories of the day my aunt died: of the honesty of the old lady, who admitted that she had found something valuable and would have kept it if no one had asked about it, but who returned it to me without any argument whatsoever. And of L’s shining faith, her calm confidence that her prayers would be answered, even on behalf of a friend who doesn’t believe in anything other than the laws of physics.
That flickering light of faith? The two of them sheltered it the morning of my aunt’s death and helped this sceptic believe again for a moment or two: in the kindness of strangers, in the strength that comes from spirituality and in the comforting knowledge that things happen for a reason, whether we can see the connection right away or not.