Rajnesh Chakrapani

An old friend who Appa grew up with assures us that N can get inside, the friend used to work for the Indian Administrative Service and is now a private detective. We enter the cavernous grounds of the temple, long corridors with chiseled columns, inner and outer sanctums, courtyards, and water tanks. Some parts are so crowded with people I can hardly find a place to continue forward, other parts completely empty. We walk all the way inside and pass security. The private detective knows a priest who will help us get us inside with a foreigner. There’s so much security because of all the terrorist attacks, says Appa. The priest asks where we were all from and we use our script, N says she's from Delhi. The priest leads us into the inner sanctum. At the gate the guard shouts “foreigner!” N repeats she’s from Delhi and the guard shouts, where's your potu? He ushers the people behind her inside. We go back to the security office and where a guard says N needs a conversion certificate that proves she’s Hindu.

I'm familiar with the ways Hinduism is weaponized against me, but it's weaponized against other people too. I ask about the conversion certificate, the whole certificate that proves N is a Hindu feels weird, I thought there is no conversion to Hinduism. I think it’s the potu that got us caught, says the private detective, it's too late but N applies a vermillion potu. N and I had talked about this scenario too. I stay with her outside the sanctum and the private detective and Appa are surprised I want to stay outside with her. They go inside for darshan. I’m allowed in but I don’t go in. It’s a few days before mother’s day . . . would you have stayed with me if I had not asked? she says. I don’t know, I’m a bundle of influences. Since we’re here I would have liked to receive the goddess's blessings for our son, the last time I had been to Madurai was about 35 years ago. I don’t know if I would ever be here again, but I understand N felt left out for no reason and wants me to wait with her. The person who advocates for N are my relatives and the private detective, they want her to have full access to the temple and participate in the Hindu rituals, it's Appa who passively waits for acceptance unsure whether she can participate. Outside India the diaspora masks and creates a distorted understanding of acceptable behavior. The rule of thumb is that Appa describes India and especially my relatives as more conservative than they actually are.

Some years ago N and I visited India when we weren’t married. My parents told us not to visit our relatives because they would not approve of us traveling together. On this trip I finally had a chance to ask my cousin in Chennai if he knew about how my parent’s discouraged us to visit them. He said that family in Chennai was aware we were traveling to India and we were not married. They would have been happy to see us and told Amma and Appa but the message was not conveyed to us. Later on in the trip when a relative asks me whether I eat nonveg, my knee jerk reaction is to lie about it, I didn’t want to appear as the first person to break tradition in the family by eating meat. Amma died and I don’t know if I’ll ever travel to India again with Appa, maybe this is the last time my parents mediate my encounter with relatives.

We walk around the temple grounds and I’m reminded how little respect there is for personal space, it’s hard to stop for a moment without someone pushing up behind me, people jostle for the spot where I stand. The only option is to keep moving with the flow in predictable patterns. Keep moving with the flow in predictable patterns, makes me remember something I read about the mahavidyas, the terrible manifestations of the mother goddess. Most of the women in the temple wear their hair tightly braided, N wears her hair loose. Tightly braided hair in Tamil Nadu ensures feminine conformity and control through the cycle of maidenhood, marriage, and old age. Several of the mahavidyas exist in polluted states, openly sexual, hair untied, not caring what society thinks. N isn’t allowed into the temple because she doesn’t look Indian.

Mahavidyas mean great knowledge, great goddesses. The goddesses look fierce, shatter preconceptions of what spirituality can look like. They live in places off the beaten track, places people avoid going. The goddesses don’t care about morality and use violence, terror, screams, dominant sexual positions, they are not hysterical woman. Mahavidyas bring someone across boundaries, don’t care whether they’re comfortable with the process. The most popular mahavidya Kali excavates people from linear time. Tara is vibrations, constantly bringing into focus our validations. I’m fascinated by the idea of violence in the food we eat, the moral judgements we make of people. Many of my family members frequently judge people who are not vegetarian, Indians abroad who don’t follow Indian traditions, judgement as a form of violence. My family judges male family members who don’t shave their facial hair. I make boundaries and restrictions to morally purify myself then silently exclude and diminish people who don’t follow the same.

It's a Tamil baby shower, the meaning of the word a combination of glass, copper, and gold bangles. It’s said the baby can hear the pleasing sounds of the multiple bangles on a mother’s wrists. Everything is taken care of by my cousins. They dress N up, bring me clothes to wear, cater the food, rent the hall, invite the guests. My cousin says they organize several family events every month. I’m amazed by the ease and resources with which family handles decision making for me, all I have to do is show up. Decision making can be nerve wracking, I imagine a parallel reality where I’m uncertain about a job, whether to move or stay put, marriage, whether to have children, family sweeps in to decide everything.

The ceremony is all about the mother, special food, costumes, songs, and gifts. Appa calls some relatives and asks them not to give us gifts, if they insist on giving us something it should be cash. What are you going to do with the cash? I ask. I’ll donate it to the temple in Kallur, he says. I gently tell him that it’s not his decision. He sarcastically says we can do whatever we want with the money, but I’m not convinced about his intentions. While my dad is embezzling the money from the Valaikaapu for his own religious pursuits I lean over to my brother and suggest that instead of supporting the temple in Kallur to create a pathashala, maybe we can create a madrasa. I don’t have the heart to tell Appa about my misgivings. This whole trip to India is very Hindu, seeing temples and the religious sites where Amma lived, a nine day ritual in Varanasi for her, the end result of all the proceeds and leftover money could be a hybrid pathashala/madrasa in the village where Appa grew up.

There is another Kallur near Kallidaikurichi. When Appa asks around the town where Amma grew up, people get confused because they think he’s from the local Kallur. Then when we go to Nagercoil, another place of Amma’s childhood, the woman who rents the house is also named Gomathi, my mother’s name. Her husband is named Venkataraman, my grandfather’s name. Growing up in the USA I thought Gomathi is such a beautiful name and there was only one Kallur in the world, names and places will disappear unless I preserve their memory. In South India I realize there are many towns with the same name, there are hundreds of Gomathis in Nagercoil where the name is as popular as Sarah. After we ask around for a while we finally find the house in Nagercoil where she lived and it’s been completely demolished. The only proof that it was her house is that a Padmanabhan used to live there and had four daughters which is accurate for my Amma's grandfather, we find a Banyan tree in the backyard which Appa remembers was in the original house.

After the ups and downs of nurturing our tiny curry leaf plant in our small apartment in St. Louis, we find a huge healthy curry leaf tree in the backyard. I pluck a few leaves and rub them between my fingers. To love Amma I want to smell all the curry leaf plants she smelled but I can’t yet describe the smell or the sound of the slot machines she liked to play.

In this early part of our travels one of my favorite moments is when we eat seafood at Rameswaram. The hotel is such a miserable place with a broken toilet, nonfunctioning wifi, a cacophony of sounds at all hours. But out of nowhere we find Jeya Sea Foods which is recommended by the hotel reception, there the waiter brings out fresh fish and crab for us to see. The waiter pours some water on the leaf and asks me to use my hand to clean it. I brush the water across the leaf and the fragile texture tears. He laughs and gives me another leaf and tells me to brush the water parallel to the grain. Appa sits with us while we eat our nonveg and pretends not to mind. Back at the hotel N is tired and immediately gets into bed. One of her feet sticks out from under the covers. Take hold and drag it for a bit. She laughs. Where are you dragging me?
Where are you dragging me?
You can drag me wherever you want.

In the morning when we check out the lobby blasts Indian classical music. “I can feel him kick for the first time,” N says.

Appa overhears us and says, “Yeah, now’s the time to really enjoy. You can play some classical music, it will be good for him. I don’t want to be religious, but some chanting will also be good. He’ll listen to it come out happy. And if you want to harm your baby, play some rock music.”

You took a big risk coming here, says Appa to N. Many of our relatives scolded Appa for bringing N to India during the summer heat. Our doctors in the USA said it’s perfectly fine to travel to India before the third trimester, even with the heat, but some of my relatives in India don’t agree. As usual Appa takes the side of my relatives over his own immediate family. It’s hard for me to comprehend this behavior, why he needs the approval of his relatives in India. The statement annoys N. You took a big risk coming here.

On the last day before N leaves we end up at an expensive resort on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Surya and I go for a walk around a lake. I forgot my goop sunscreen back in Los Angeles. Most people don’t wear any here and I don’t know which brand to buy. The only people who can afford to stay here are foreigners and corrupt politicians, says my cousin over whatsapp. After N leaves, the quality of the hotels takes a steep decline. “You’re men, you can handle it,” says Appa.
When N leaves Surya asks how I’m going to handle the hectic schedule without my support network. At least my support network is a human being and not money. Of course I don’t say that. What do people do with their siblings.

In Ahmedabad we’re on another whirlwind foodie trip, gujurati thalis, seven flavored pani puri, five star buffets, street snacks. It’s another opportunity for relatives to teach me about food, ask me questions like whether I’ve ever eaten pathra before, or whether I can find thalis in Los Angeles. Yes to both questions but sometimes I simply enjoy hearing them cheerfully tell me about things. Unlike the trips to see my relatives when I was young, the older relatives are no longer running the show, they’re not able to run at all. At family gatherings where everyone crowds around, Surya and I are the center of attention. Later I go into the bedroom to rest, after some time my Uncle and everyone crowds into that room too. The particular kind of love as family overflow. I meet my two cousins and we talk about a lot of things, feels like I’m talking to a group of students in Los Angeles. It was after I lived in Rubeden that I attended art institutions in the USA where I met mostly young people and I much preferred their ideas about the world.