Divine intervention needed

Apparently, it was Diwali yesterday. But, in this household, it seemed like a regular day. Sure, the humans exchanged Diwali wishes and I smelt some scalded kheer in the air at night, but the occasion lacked festivity.

Compared with Halloween excitement the night before - costume planning, preparation, trick or treating, candy gorging - Diwali seemed more like an afterthought.

Grandma religiously calls mom every major festival to remind her to impart her heritage to the kids. But my humans aren’t very religious people. They’re too darned lazy to actively invoke god other than when they’re in trouble. Usually, guilt drives them to the temple … and, on occasion, good food.

Despite her upbringing in a traditional Hindu household, mom’s always felt claustrophobic in temples, especially in the inner sanctum. With no ventilation, the chamber usually smells of ripe coconuts, musty silk, flatulence and jasmine flowers. The windowless inner sanctums are burglar-proof, but not critter-proof; so, while the people around her are seemingly lost in a trance, mom passes time checking out scurrying rats out of the corner of her eye, or nervously avoiding the yellow geckos milling around the tube light.

Of late, however, mom’s been invoking the gods fervently because she’s misplaced her mangalsutra. She’s looked everywhere and is praying that it will somehow materialize in her drawer before grandma gets to know about it. (This 30-something woman is still afraid of her mom’s disapproval.) Grandma will be upset, not because mom lost her mangalsutra, but because she took it off.

Like Macha, one of our friends, looks high and low for a sacred thread before he pays a visit to his folks in Madras, mom will have to improvise the next time she goes to India, or risk a half-hour lecture on tradition, sanctity and sheer carelessness as soon as she lands.

I recommend she call Ajmeri Baba.