MEETING WITH MAHASHAKTI

The Nightmarish Vision

It was a sticky hot summer night.Param and I  were fast asleep together on a cheap bedstead.Our mother was sleeping on another bed a little distance away from us.We lived in a one room rented house under an asbestos roof.Although the heat was too high we were acquainted with it.We didn't have a ceiling fan even.My mother was drawing a monthly pension of rupees 250 then in the year 1997.Silence was reigning supreme everywhere.I felt someone or something very strong push me awake.When my eyes were still closed tight because of the chilling vision inside my head of Mother Kali,I cautiously and petrified,studied the vision.I saw a cremation ground;it was not our village cremation ground.It was different being without much green grass and with tall palm trees in it;the cremation ground at the end of my village  was completely grassy full of big bushes,ant-hills and small shrubs.It was clearly visible that dogs and jackals were pulling at a corpse in the bid to tear flesh from it and feed themselves. There were skeletons, skulls and bones of humans and animals scattered here and there.There  were vultures too with scarggy necks.The eyes of those angry dogs and jackals were balls of fire displaying their cruel ravenousness.The dogs charged at those huge ugly birds when they tried to grab their mouthfuls of the half-eaten corpse. Paralysed with fear,I was watching the vision convinced that I was in front of a  man-eater and the slightest bit of any kind of fear would strike my racing heart out of me for ever.Quite unawares,I gave a piercing cry with the exclamation,
"What the hell is this...?" My voice went tearing through the profound silence of that midnight hour.

My mother and brother got up with a start.
I was shaking like the washing machine did when turned on to dry the washing in it.

They appeared confused and a little frightened too.

They knew I was worried about landing a prestigious job.I was fanatically ambitious in this matter. Param advised me every now and then to help myself to any source of income that might be available to me those days.I had got a large number of rejection letters from top publishers from almost every English- speaking country in the world.I was insanely preoccupied with the dream of becoming a full-time writer.

"What's it...?"demanded Param.I was trembling.My mother Ahalya enquired,"Was it a bad dream?" I was so scared that I could scarcely speak a word.A dark woman with a pig's face,long wavy hair and a bare body was signalling me from  a corner of the room to keep quiet.She seemed to be enraged with me even though I had spoken nothing to Param and Mother.She was a ghostly figure but her feathers were pronounced and distinct.

They observed me for some time and consequently lost their interest in my foolish behaviour in the middle of the night.
Mother was going to make tea and Param laughed at her saying that half of the night was still there for them to sleep away. Mother used to be bad-tempered and strict then and didn't tolerate any comments on her odd behaviour.

Param and mother appeared relieved

After my mother and brother had resumed their sleeping,I came out into the dining room and paced up and down with the brilliant vision still vibrant in my mind with all the scary details.What I was watching was a huge black stone statue of Mother Kali...! I was  reminded of the prediction a queer stranger woman had made when  I was barely four years old(I have given a detailed account of the peculiar vision and incidents following it in a forthcoming chapter of the prediction that was now coming true).One hour ticked by.I looked at my wrist watch.I was full of panic and didn't know what was going to happen next.The dogs and jackals were still pulling at the rotten corpse.I tried to identify the corpse.I could only see a dirty mud-smeared black vest bearing the letters in gold POPULAR.
With the vision still in my mind,I tried to fall asleep.It was difficult to go to sleep. I lay in bed  and saw a vision of the landlord and his bandy-legged wife weeping copiously.I could not understand anything.The landlord and his wife were two odd characters in the drama of life.They were fabulously rich and wanted nothing but they pretended stark poverty.Both were illiterate but few of  us knew about the secret until we were told that the old man had been engaged in illegal drug-peddling all life.He never touched any drugs for personal consumption.He was sheer miserliness personified.He rode a shabby bicycle and never visited any places of pilgrimage fearing expenses.

The vision of Mother Kali was frightening; she was wearing her usual wreath of skulls and blood-red china roses.A shining sword,a trident,a wheel with a serrated border and a human head from which blood  was oozing appeared in her hands.She had a lolling tongue.The masked face of Lord Hanuman and the figure of Mother Kali had always made my heart tremble.I had been convinced from the beginning that she was evil and dangerous and not to be worshipped. My mother's view of her character was diametrically opposite to mine.She had told me again and again that she was there to protect the innocent and slay the wicked.I had not yet been able to have genuine love for her because of the panic that her appearance inspired in my mind.In fact, I disliked her believing her to be evil.It was only a fortnight ago that I recognised her as the most compassionate Mother of all humanity.The frightful vision of the Divine Mother was obstinately stuck in my mind.My best efforts to expel the vision had failed;it seemed she was determined to stay there.I was desperately praying to her to go away. A lot of time passed and I didn't succeed in dislodging her from my mind.

In the morning I got up to the loud wailing of the landlord's wife. What had gone wrong?The old man usually shed crocodile tears to show honesty and character in compelling situations.They always quarrelled and both sought my mother's mediation to sort those duels out.She would decide and solve the matter arbitrarily.The landlord was a demon of a husband and severely beat up his old wife for slight mistakes.Mother would advise the landlord to check his anger as stop beating his wife. Once I had heard him say to mother:"My ancestors had all been illiterate and bad-tempered rogues...! Yes all of them were monsters who have established the custom of wife-beating...Mausi(Auntie), I never went to school.Never read any holy books..And this is the result...!Yes this is the result..! I know the gods reside where women are worshipped. ..I am a victim....A victim of anger..! Anger is man's greatest enemy..."
After his departure, mother would curse him and mind her work regretting the unnecessary loss of valuable time.Then it be our turn to mimic the old man's superb theatrical style of delivering dialogues.
Param took meticulous care to exactly reproduce his dramatic dialogue delivery style.I enjoyed his acting to the full. Mother didn't pay any attention to us.She would always complain about him expressed her displeasure with the odd couple who left no excuse to come to her with complaints and good news too(Many of the chapters of my novel "Love is Not Time's Fool." have been inspired by them and their peculiar stories.)
They loved mother just like a goddess and allowed her to make arbitrary judgments on their fights and their quarrels.The old man was a legendary promise-breaker in the locality. None of them ever thought she had been biased or partial in her judgments.She disliked this sad business wholeheartedly and urged us to find a rented house elsewhere.

The day Param succeeded in joining a public school to teach Geography to high school students,my mother was the happiest of all of us. Her immediate concern was to shift to a new house. Her dream soon became a reality.Now too the old man and his short stocky wife came to mother but very rarely and  the visits  were amicable.Their son was a very talented student of science and it was his poor maternal uncle who had been financing his studies since he was issueless for eighteen years of his marriage.