Varun shares a tender tale of love, destiny, and healing set in Kerala’s vibrant landscapes on DifferentTruths.com.

Sharanye Trayambake Gauri Narayani Nomostute
Om Sarva Mangal Maangalye Shive Sarvarth Sadhake

Arjun slowly, quietly, and hesitantly began to chant along as he followed four women who had begun their parikrama (circumambulation) of the Bhagwati goddess – Pisharikkal Devi – the one who heals poison. He found it appropriate that his journey into the hinterland of Kerala, close to Thrissur, had brought him to this temple precinct quite by chance; there was much toxicity in his body and mind, like within so many others in these days of kalyuga.

Some kind sponsor from the adjacent village had donated a modest sum of a few thousand rupees to light up the perimeter of the temple. Arjun had never quite seen anything like it. The proportions, the aesthetics, and the architectural precision were marvellous, inducing a feeling of awe even before you entered the temple courtyard. Scores of diyas were welded to a wooden lattice of beams that went around the temple walls. 

Volunteers from the adjoining villages were co-operating in the whole process. They took turns filling them with oil, laying the wicks, and then lighting them in an order they were much used to. Dusk was about to settle, and the monsoon winds had picked up speed. The glow from the diyas had a warmth that touched Arjun as he stood mesmerised by the spectacle. The whole experience made him feel like he was in another era, a time when people believed, and faith was not a scarce commodity.

Sagar, a village elder who seemed to be supervising this process, broke Arjun out of his reverie. “Come, join Aarti,” he kindly offered. Arjun felt included there for some reason, even though he was a fish out of water there. As he began to walk in enthusiastically beyond the mandapam, Sagar alerted him to the dress code: “Shirt off; this is not Mumbai.” An embarrassed Arjun began to unbutton his shirt and looked sheepishly at the women gathered there, who looked amused at the situation and murmured something in Malayalam to Sagar.

The devotees had continued their chanting as they stood in front of the closed temple doors; suddenly, they fell silent as the doors to the Sacrosanctum opened. The image of the goddess, resplendent in her finery and the light of the diyas encircling her deity like a vaijayanti mala on a sculpture, was spellbinding. Arjun gasped and for a minute forgot he was bare-chested now. The warmth of the diyas seemed more tactile on his chest now. 

The aarti itself was a brief affair and rather quiet relative to Arjun’s earlier experiences. At the end, the head priest stepped out slowly and offered prasadam. The tika was a deep yellow and had a lot of turmeric in it. Sagar applied some on his forehead, and he felt the coolness of sandalwood too. Arjun bowed his head and prayed to the goddess to detoxify his being.

As the evening ceremony ended, all the devotees gathered outside the temple, and the mood got informal. It was the onset of the Indian monsoon, the time of Karkidakam, the season of rest and renewal, similar to the Chau masa in the north. Sagar began to tell Arjun about an ancient Ayappaswamy temple in the vicinity in Arattupuzha, which had traditional pooram and melam ceremonies. In broken English, he described how it was a grand affair, with elephants in golden regalia, ensembles of drums called chendas, horns, and a frenzy of devotion.

Arjun could barely comprehend the scale and grandeur of the event, as Sagar intended it, but he could gather it was a big deal and his heart yearned to witness it. As he walked back home, his ears picked up a faint sound of percussion in the distance, and he wondered where the sound of the ritual went when the ceremony was over. The humid air seemed heavy with the harmonic elements of drumbeats. He sighed and let it wash over his fatigue.

The Temple of Healing Lights

Arjun stood impressed on the central vista of the Sakthan Thampuran palace grid; two-wheeled cannons on both sides of the garden ensconced the pathway. The fusion of architecture struck him as the palace held enmeshed within itself. He wondered where the tradition of terracotta tiles covering the building roofs came from. The deep red in the soil of Kerala gave the tiles a hue distinct from the Mediterranean orange and the Chinese yellow. Behind him there was a flagstaff hoisted by Tipu Sultan, reminding one of palace intrigue, provincial rivalry, and military alliances. 

What a syncretic blend of Indian and European design, he thought, and so was the royal horse-drawn carriage used by the honourable Thampuran, which was aptly positioned at the entrance foyer. It had earlier found pride of place in the Cochin house in British New Delhi, perhaps to escort the Kochi royalty from Jantar Mantar to the English durbar in sycophantic pomp. As he was admiring the chariot and thinking about the long rail journey the chariot must have taken to get here, she walked past him nonchalantly. 

The palace was now a museum, and behind the chariot was the first gallery of historic terracotta shards and figures. She paused there. Arjun caught up, pretended to be interested in the same Buddha figures she was looking at and remarked casually, ‘Isn’t the workmanship exquisite, what detailing!’ She looked up, a bit startled, and then with a gentle, encouraging smile, she responded, ‘Indeed it is!’

‘So, what brings you here on a Sunday?’ Arjun asked hurriedly to keep the conversation going.

‘I am new to Thrissur.’

‘Me too’, he retorted. ‘Are you fond of museums?’

‘Yes, I try to catch art in my spare time, and it distracts me too. My name is Subhadra’

‘Nice to meet you. I am Arjun,’ and then the coincidence of the names hit them, and they both smiled at each other as if it was a signal to keep the encounter going.

‘You seem like you are from the north, clearly not from here!’

‘Guilty as accused, and you?’

‘From Calicut, but here for treatment,’ she paused for a bit, and then said slowly while looking at the Buddha figure again, ‘I don’t have much more time,’ a bit startled at what had made her confess like this to a stranger.

Arjun tried to focus on her gaze and her words, his heels digging into the ground. ‘What do you mean, at the museum or in Thrissur?’

She looked up to him with doe-eyes that seemed to have made peace with pain and said, ‘I have a rare form of cancer; the doctors have no cure for it!’

Arjun was at a loss for words, and his throat suddenly felt parched; he stammered some words of empathy that were unrecognisable to her.

‘Shall we see the museum now?’ 

Arjun stayed frozen in his place for what seemed to him ages, his face a shade paler than before. How could someone so beautiful, so young, not have more time to live…so unfair, he thought to himself. 

‘What did you say? Sorry, I got distracted.’ And then he mustered the courage to ask, or rather implore, ‘May we see the museum together? Subhadra looked at him, partly amused, partly miffed. ‘Hmm, why not!’ She nodded and moved into the adjoining courtyard with ornate teak wood carvings.

They didn’t speak much as they glided through the galleries of bronze, hero idols, and numismatics. Arjun was walking like a zombie beside her, still trying to process the situation, and had lost interest in the artefacts. Subhadra seemed engrossed in the captions, and he didn’t want to intrude on her experience, so he followed suit and stopped where she did.

When they climbed up a level and reached a room depicting the bedroom of the Thampuran, she finally spoke, as if to lighten the tension.

‘What kind of mattress would they have used on a cot that must have taken years of handicraft?’ She looked up at Arjun for an answer.

Arjun’s mind was not ready for trivia; he fumbled for options, but then he pulled himself together somehow, sensing her need to normalise the situation again. 

‘I guess cotton, jute, coir perhaps, given we are in the south? No clue actually!’

‘It’s not an exam question; the mind doesn’t have all the answers!’ she said with a sly smile and winked at Arjun.

‘Yes, they should give more complete context; these captions are so limited in their imagination!’ he responded peevishly but was glad they were in a flirtation game again.

They had reached the gallery of the royal oil portraits when the caretaker announced that the museums were about to shut for lunch.  

‘That’s an odd practice, but so human.’

‘Yes, we take our midday meals very seriously here. Would you like to break bread with me?’

‘I would be delighted to; I am famished as well!’ Arjun said with newfound enthusiasm.

As they walked towards the museum cafe, he felt the urge to hold her dusky hands, as if to reassure her that he would walk with her in this time of suffering. She was telling him about elaborate Sadhya meals on banana leaves during the Onam festival, but his mind was elsewhere. Arjun was thinking of the travesty of justice, of the cruelty of time, and why this palace with all its bricks and tiles, the objects inside, had withstood for hundreds of years, watching the world go by, and why this creature of true beauty was being snatched from the world, and from him, so soon…

A Chance Meeting in the Palace Museum

It was the first time that both of them had seen the Ghats in Thrissur. One needed a bird’s-eye view to look that far, and the imposing Bible Tower afforded that; the aerial view of the city was liberating. For some reason, they had continued their sightseeing even though they had plans to return after the palace tour. Still, time was at such a premium, and they both sensed a hunger for something undefined, something inviting them to stay together some more.

Arjun felt the urge to be transformed into a kite and swoop down over the rich foliage of trees surrounding Shiva’s fulcrum abode in Kerala’s cultural capital – the Vadakkunnathan Temple. Subhadra imagined herself as a fruit bat flying solo across the temple due south to a netherworld that only she knew the map of. Thrissur looked different from this drone view, greener perhaps visibly, but more pious and more kind. One had to take an elevator to the top of the viewing gallery, which had Bibles in umpteen languages displayed on bookshelves, and then walk down the thousands of steps, where the walls were a veritable history of Christianity and its introduction in Kerala, expressed in different media by zealous artists.

Subhadra paused at the wooden carving of Jesus healing a blind man and a leper and gazed at it for over a minute. She sighed and then began to confess again to Arjun, as if an unknown force were prodding her along.

‘It’s not that I feel pity for myself; it’s Tara that I am worried about! ‘She is only four and has had to face such an ordeal with my domestic violence and now my health. Dushyant has never been kind to us, never!’

She welled up as she continued, ‘And how will she cope after me?! Keshav can’t keep her; it’s just so unfair!’ Arjun offered her his hand; she took it, perhaps also because she realised she didn’t want to lose balance as they wound down those distracting steps while viewing the artwork. He held on to it with care and firmness. It was then, when she felt his caress for the first time, that she realised she had been speaking in Malayalam, but she had a feeling Arjun was hearing her deep inside.

For a few flights down, they just held hands and walked like they were part of some strange marriage ritual descending from a celestial abode into mundane realities. They were now both oblivious to the artwork.

‘So, what brings you to Kerala?’ Arjun paused for another flight of steps and then sheepishly responded, ‘I guess I am trying to find myself!’

‘Some of us don’t have the good fortune for such lofty pursuits!’

‘I feel that’s a boon sometimes! Sometimes, a quest can be a curse; it’s better to live a full life oblivious of the divine and then move on guns blazing.

‘Are you a believer?’

‘Aren’t we all, in some way or the other?’

‘Why don’t you walk me back? We are staying with my brother Keshav.’

‘Sure, I have nothing keeping me.’ He felt curious to learn who all she lived with.

As they began to walk, she noticed a butterfly, with faint signs of life, pressed against the road tarmac and picked it up gently in her hands. As she stroked it with compassion, she deplored it.

‘What a tragic way to die for someone who has so little time in the world anyway!’

From the Bible Tower to a Butterfly on the Road

As they reached Keshav’s courtyard, Subhadra called out, ‘Tara, where are you? I am back!’ A young girl, perhaps not even in school yet, came rushing out wailing and held her tightly. She looked angry and scared at the same time. Subhadra was shaken out of her daze suddenly and felt embarrassed that Arjun was suddenly privy to her reality.

‘You must leave now, immediately!’ she said, hurrying in with Tara to a grim scenario. Arjun was taken aback by this curt ending of their romantic encounter, but more than anything, he wanted to ensure Subhadra’s well-being, so he stayed mum. He felt the urge to escort her inside but then realised the gravity of the situation when he heard a loud male voice bark at her with insults he couldn’t understand but could feel. He held himself back and felt it was best not to wait or say anything, lest he complicate the situation further.

‘Who was that man with you? ‘Dushyant bellowed, his feet staggering after a day of heavy drinking. Tara began to squeal.

‘Mind your own business!’ Subhadra retorted, having found new courage after the day out with Arjun today. Normally she would have let all provocations pass to avoid being beaten up later. Tara had squeezed herself into a little corner of the room, anticipating the usual, and continued to squeal! He picked up the brandy bottle and hurled it at Subhadra. She ducked just in time!

‘You philandering bitch!’ he picked up the vegetable machete and hurled himself at Subhadra. There was a mad rage in his eyes, his usual temper aggravated by a fit of jealous anger. Subhadra had never seen him like this before, in all the years of torture she had endured. Tara was now a statue, frozen in her corner. 

Suddenly, a coconut hit Dushyant hard behind the head, and he dropped the machete, wincing in pain. He looked behind to see Keshav approaching him with intent.

‘You bastard, how dare you!’

‘Do you realise the state she is in? Don’t you have any pity on her; she has so little time left.’

Dushyant continued to hurl himself at the target of his anger, and Keshav, realising the state he was in – he was beyond reasoning – deftly tackled him to the ground. With the trained strength of a merchant sailor, he held him pinned to the ground. Soon the neighbours were in, having heard all the commotion, and shortly the police had him handcuffed and sobered up.

‘You have suffered enough with him, Sister.’ Keshav kept interspersing his testimony with these words to a dumbstruck Subhadra as he gave the eyewitness account to the police.

‘Enough, indeed,’ was all the energy Subhadra had left to respond with, and her mind raced back to the thoughts of the day earlier with Arjun – the touch of his hands still felt tactile in her own fingers. She managed a slow smile and pulled a sobbing Tara close to her in a tight embrace.

The Night of the Coconut and the Machete

‘Arjun, you need to come back home; your father is not well at all, and we have so many chores that we can’t manage at this age,’ his mother entreated him as he lay thinking about the day with Subhadra. His mind was still anxious about Subhadra’s well-being.

‘Arjun, are you there?’

‘Yes, yes, Ma, I just need some more time with myself!’

‘For god’s sake, you are not a teenager anymore; for what do you need time?’

‘I don’t know yet; I am searching for something!’

‘This is so unfair on us, Arjun!’

Arjun thought of the butterfly and Subhadra and said in a muffled tone, almost to himself as he hung up, ‘Give me some more time, Maa!’

Arjun had barely slept that night. Images of Subhadra, Tara and that monster of a man, whose menacing voice was all he had heard, kept surfacing in his psyche. His feet had a sense of urgency as he hastened towards the house where he had dropped her, as if he had a premonition of what had transpired last night and knocked on the door five times. After a few moments, what felt like hours of excruciating suspense to Arjun, Keshav opened the door, a bit dazed.

‘Can I see Subhadra?’ he blurted out. Keshav looked at him, angry he had been woken up after a night of no sleep as well. ‘And who are you?’

‘Is she ok? Is she here?’

A bit concerned after last night’s episode, Keshav continued his line of inquiry. ‘What business do you have with her? She is not well!’

Arjun looked over his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, or wishing she had heard his voice; then he realised that Keshav really knew nothing about him or their rendezvous from yesterday.

‘Look, I am a friend of hers, and I had a nightmare last night that she was in danger! I have to know that she is well.’

Keshav took a long, hard look at him, the long gaze that mariners are trained for. He sensed empathy and a genuine concern in his eyes.

‘Come inside.’ He sat Arjun down and shared the gory details of Dushyant’s bloodthirsty assault. Arjun was aghast; his worst fears had come true!

‘Is she ok, is she hurt and her daughter?’

‘Yes, she and Tara both had a close shave, poor girl – to see all this violence at such a tender age! Look, I am in merchant shipping and have to set sail soon.’

‘So, I checked Subhadra into a palliative care hospice in Irinjalakuda last night. As for Dushyant, good riddance finally! We had rented this place for her treatment; now I can wind up and head back to our ancestral home in Calicut.’

Arjun wasted no time getting to Shanti Niwas. It was an elaborate setup atop a hill with a bird’s-eye view of the adjoining villages on the outskirts of Thrissur. He raced to the reception and told them that Keshav had deputed him as Subhadra’s attendant. When he reached the room on the top floor, he saw Subhadra lying sedated in a white room. Tara was playing with her toys on the couch; she seemed happy to see him again. He just smiled at her and asked her if she liked chocolates.

There was a lovely monsoon breeze floating through the room, and as Arjun looked out of the windows, he could see lush paddy fields. He caught a glimpse of the large Shashta temple complex that Sagar had told him about, and he felt he could see elephant processions and festivities. But the atmosphere inside was just the opposite. The nursing station was playing news on All India Radio, the kind of news where the reader speaks without any emotion. The whiteness of the room, the floor, and the furniture made the hospice feel like a triage before the after-world, packed with silent suffering.

He was just so relieved to see that Subhadra was fine. She looked like an angel on those white sheets, so serene. He sank into the visitor’s chair and dozed off, looking at her breathing like a calm child. 

‘Uncle, wake up.’ Arjun heard Tara’s sweet entreaty as he felt her tiny fingers clutching his arm and shaking it. As he came to life, he saw Subhadra smiling weakly at him. 

‘I was trying to wake you up, but my voice was too faint to do the job. I got Tara to lend a hand; it looks like you didn’t sleep well last night.’

‘Well, I was worried for you and rightly so; Keshav told me the whole story!’

He jolted from his chair and hugged her. ‘I am so happy to see you again.’ Tara looked at them, puzzled, like she didn’t know such an act was possible between a man and a woman. Subhadra had not been held like that in decades, and she had forgotten the taste of the nectar of affection, or even how to receive it. Her eyes welled up, not with longing, but with gratitude. They both gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled. Sometimes words are so unnecessary.

Over the next few days, Arjun spent a lot of time at Shanti Niwas. Calls from his mother had continued relentlessly, but he couldn’t leave Subhadra like this, especially with Keshav leaving soon. His own complaints seemed petty in comparison to the lives of the patients there, awaiting their tryst with their undertakers. Subhadra was the only outlier; she had found a new zest for life after realising she was now free of that rogue of a husband. Tara seemed at ease too, even though there was pain and death around her.

‘Please take me away from here, Arjun!’

‘But they take such good care of you here!’

‘I am not used to such tender loving care,’ she said with a dry smile.

‘And it’s a place for those without hope! I don’t feel like that anymore; I feel liberated for the first time, and I want Tara to remember me like that.’

She emphasised the word remember. Arjun thought for a bit, consulted with Keshav, and they both decided to honour her dying wish. Keshav found a homestay near the Arhirapally waterfalls and escorted them there before he took off to the seas. He hugged Subhadra dearly and kissed Tara on the forehead. Then, as if he remembered Arjun was also in the picture now, he retraced his steps back, placed his hands on Arjun’s broad shoulders and said sternly, ‘She is in your hands now! ‘I don’t know which guardian angel of our family sent you from an alien land, but we are glad that you showed up on time!’

Arjun mumbled something peevishly and nodded. The next morning Subhadra woke up to the sound of a brook flowing nearby. She had not noticed it on the way in at night, but the flow of water had a lovely sound, which was such a nice contrast from the hospice. ‘Let us go for a walk,’ she cajoled Arjun.

From the Hospice to the Homestay by the Brook

The Kathakali dancers looked so frigid and robotic; it was almost like the costumes were meant to straitjacket their ability to express with the body. The talent was in emoting within the real estate of your headspace; the hands and feet were mere accompaniments. The world would be a kinder place if we all held back our words and deeds, emoting only with our visages in colourful spectrums, Arjun thought to himself.

Subhadra felt alive to be out for a performance like this. She hadn’t been to one in decades since her parents, who were aficionados, passed away. She was absorbed in the performance, yet, realising Arjun’s ignorance of the language, she explained the plot of the Lalitha Panchali to him. The two main characters – Draupadi and Lalitha, the demoness in disguise – were deep in negotiation as the performance progressed. 

When Lalitha’s persuasion failed, and Panchali remained steadfast in her resolve, the Chenda drums and background score picked up a crescendo, and the mood changed. Subhadra clasped her hands on Tara’s eyes. As Lalitha turned her large posterior to the audience, the audience seemed tense. When she turned, she was unrecognisable, her flaying matted locks of hair whirling with her gyrations, her eyes contorted in mad rage. She pounced on the terrified Panchali.

Arjun felt Subhadra’s fingernails claw into his thigh’s flesh as she gasped in fear. He held her close and caressed her hand gently. He felt like Lalitha was the Yamdoot, taking Subhadra away from him. For a few moments, he entered the stage in his mind as the third character. He fended off Lalitha’s attempts valiantly, as a fierce battle for Subhadra’s custody ensued in his imagination. He saw in Lalitha a symbol of injustice, greed, and vile lust, and he lashed out at her with all his might. When he finally came back to his senses, Panchali seemed to be losing the will to resist!

As they walked back to the homestay from the recital venue, Subhadra seemed languid. Perhaps the episode had reminded her of Dushyant again, or it was just a lot of excitement for her to handle. But she was happy to be with Arjun in the last days of her life. They put Tara to bed and decided to take a stroll by the brook again. After just a few minutes, she sat down by the brook on a large stone by the bank and dipped her feet in the water. Arjun could see she was tired. ‘You will catch a cold!’

‘The water feels just right on my feet; sit with me.’ She snuggled close to him and lay her head on his shoulders. She seemed like a nymph in the moonlight of Guru Purnima, her dusky skin glowing despite the fatigue.

‘I worry for Tara after me.’

Arjun thought of how close he and Tara had become in the last few months. She had begun to see men in a new light thanks to his character. And he too was very fond of her. She spoke broken English and he a few functional words in Malayalam, but they found a way to communicate with each other that was very special and endearing to Subhadra too.

‘I can assure you she will be fine; I promise to take care of her.’

She took a long, hard look at him and realised he was being sincere. At that point, something in her shifted; she had felt free after Dushyant’s exit from her life, but this felt like a big burden had been lifted off her shoulders; she felt light, like a butterfly. She shut her eyes for a few seconds and could again see herself as that fruit bat flying over Vadakkunnathan Temple. She looked up and locked lips with Arjun for a long time, this time with the passion of a first kiss. She had remembered to love again.

As he embraced her, she shut her eyes gently, and her arms fell quietly and limply to the ground. She had passed silently like true lovers do, with a smile in their hearts. Arjun put her head on his lap and, with tears in his eyes, looked up at the starry night, with the hope of reuniting with her in another lifetime in another garden of kindness.

Picture design by Anumita Roy