Yesterday my usually snow-free hometown was blessed with half a foot of white powder! Our power was out all day, so I was forced to forgo blogging for winter walks, snowman construction and knitting by the fire. (Forced, I tell you!)
Today we have both snow and power, so I humbly offer the next installment of Manuscript Monday on a non-alliterative Tuesday. Today's story involves the Indian festival of Navratri, which celebrates Shakti, the divine feminine, with nine nights of revelry in October.
I awoke at sunset. I felt refreshed, but annoyed that I’d guaranteed myself another sleepless night with “The Nanny” by failing to stay awake all day. It was too early for dinner, so I headed to the internet café to check my e-mail.
While I was sleeping, the bustling five-lane road in front of my hotel been transformed into a discotheque. Two large flatbed trucks were parked in the far lane. The first carried a wall of speakers large enough to amplify a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. They were piled precariously high, anchored by a quartet of men lounging on top. Judging by the men's smug smiles, these were the VIP seats.
Two long ropes stretched from the back bumper of the first truck to the front bumper of the second truck, forming the rectangular borders of an improvised dance floor. About 100 people, mostly women, were squeezed into this roped-off nightclub, dancing wildly to Indian pop music.
I wanted to get closer to the action, but the rush-hour traffic was moving too fast. A steady stream of cars and scooters veered around the parked trucks, accelerating impatiently past the curb where I stood. I began a little dance of my own: Step into the gutter with my left foot. Then my right foot. Lean into the road. Yow! Jump back! (James Brown would have been proud.)
Unbeknownst to me, I had an audience. A bus driver sitting in his parked tour bus had been watching me execute this curbside cha-cha underneath his windshield. Once his amusement wore off, he decided to take pity on me.
He disembarked and stood next to me, silently. Our eyes met. He gestured forward with one arm and began boldly crossing the street with the supernatural traffic reflexes of a native Mumbaiker. I was very certain I would pass out from fright if I looked at the oncoming headlights, so I narrowed my focus to the crisp short sleeve of his shirt. I kept pace with him as we haltingly progressed across four lanes of speeding vehicles. No one slowed for us; we simply found spaces between their rushing paths. As soon as my feet touched the safety of the sidewalk, my crossing guard disappeared into the crowd.
I looked up to find myself staring into the eyes of a goddess. The bed of the rear truck held an altar to the goddess Durga. She was dressed in shocking pink robes, topped with an elaborate gold crown and armloads of fresh marigold leis. Electric lights, gold columns and a pink lotus-flower chandelier formed a pastel Easter-egg universe around her.
I was mesmerized. Here was an image of female strength unprecedented in my world. Christian goddesses, when acknowledged at all, were generally seen wearing chaste robes and nursing babies. Riding a lion, Durga carried a sharp trident in one hand and swung an ornate hatchet in one of three others. Obviously, there was more to this female force than piety and childcare.
With the irrational adoration of a child, I wanted Durga to be my Indian mother. I’d spent the whole week scurrying from hotel room to restaurant, dodging the stares of strangers and feeling homesick. Now I wanted Durga to use her axe to cut a path through this busy, draining country and show me what I was supposed to be doing here. Where was my purpose? Who and what needed my love here?
I had no idea how to ask her. I wasn’t even sure how to pray here in rush-hour traffic with Punjabi techno rattling my eardrums.
Confused, I fell back on the familiar role of tourist and attempted to take her picture. Shot after shot, my camera refused to focus. Clearly, this was not the way to embrace her. There was nothing to do but dance.
I walked around to the front of the truck to watch the worshippers. They leapt and shimmied inside the roped-off dance floor with an abandon rarely seen in public India. Light bounced off the gold sequins on their saris, off sweat glistening on brown skin, off their bright ecstatic eyes.
Music vibrated through the concrete sidewalk and right through my body like a sonic massage, erasing all fatigue. I wanted to dance, but I held back. I’d read that some religious events in India were “Hindus only” and I didn’t want to offend anyone. I searched the crowd for other tourists and saw none. I touched the rope, longing to join the dance, waiting for permission. I stayed there, swaying my hips slightly, until the trucks began their slow roll down the block with the crowd still dancing along between them. Durga, and my prayer for her aid, slipped away.
Freed of the dance-party bottleneck, the traffic resumed its five-lane frenzy in front of my hotel. I was stranded on the other side. I took a step off the curb, looked at the speeding cars, and stepped back onto the sidewalk again. I realized this might take awhile.
Suddenly, the bus driver who’d escorted me across appeared at my side again. It seemed incredible that he’d been waiting for me, since he obviously had a job to do, but there he was. I followed him lane by lane back to the door of my hotel. Then he nodded curtly, without smiling or attempting to make conversation, and boarded his bus again.
I’d failed to articulate my prayers for guidance, but someone was still looking out for me.
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