Shawling Out of the Ground

They put bodies of the freshly rotten into wooden coffins with no locks. My first time, I wore the white frock that hugged my waist and flowed out at the hips like a palm tree. The elders wore wooden masks, all with different animal caricatures. Surrounded in a tight circle of peacocks, fish heads, some monkeys, and one hippo, I realized I’ve never seen their faces before. They brought out a body and fashioned it with a cotton dress stitched by the village seamstress, notorious for sewing fragrant grassy herbs and flower stems into the hems. Its shaved head carried a black wig that resembled night. Its feet were left bare so that, as my mother said, it can connect with the earth again. 

The coffin was buried 5 feet under. They left a wooden owl mask, a bowl of water, and a square-shaped scarf next to the tombstone. The tombstone itself was a grey slab of granite with 4 metal rungs cemented down the stone. It read: 

We came back after two weeks for the final ceremony. For the ritual, Mother dyed my white dress with an indigo-black ink. I secretly added designs with pink and yellow paint to the underside. 

I thought the metal rungs would be used as a ladder, like emerging from water. But they balanced burning candles and incenses across each of the steps. The elders started chanting. I wondered how they all knew the phrases by heart. Her hand emerged from the rumbling dirt and immediately grabbed the shawl. She waved the scarf over the ground where her chest should be, and the dirt seemed turn into sand and easily sifted to reveal her top half. She was woman. 

Mother told me that the elders should not see my face as she emerged, but I caught a glimpse. The whites of her eyes were somehow darker than her bones. She pulled the scarf up high to cover her face as the elders put on her mask. She slinked her body side to side, in the shape of a “U,” as the elders were all doing. They outnumbered us. 

I looked at my mother. She was smiling and bared her teeth, possibly out of relief. Her eyes were wide with worry. She looked back at me, and her smile and eyes grew wider. 

Pool of Knowledge

“Watch where you’re sitting!” Sara jumps from her mother’s scream. “Sorry Amma.” The young schoolgirl looks at the faded wooden seat bottom to see that she sat on a flower, one that her parents intend to offer for the morning prayers. Somehow, the flower remains voluminous and ever vibrant. Her gaze guides her mind up and straight across the room. 

Given a 30’ by 30’ room that contained the kitchen, bedroom, prayer room, and half a bathroom, her house doesn’t leave much room for secrets. As she paces 15 steps from the kitchen sink through the home, she reaches her destination at the end of the paisley carpet. From here, she sees the frayed, white corner of paper peeking through the rug fringe. Her memory fades to when her friends played out on the road, the sun oppressive and sweltering.

With a vine of rotten grapes as a playful repellant, Parvati chased Lakshmi and her down the streets. Their bare feet thumped onto searing pavement as they dashed past two-story condos that housed 3 to 4 families, the grocery store with 3 too many people in the garage-like cube, autocars with the intimidation level of a scooter, then a large white building made of stone. It was magnificent, a Victorian marble marvel that spanned across two blocks and up three stories. Sara had not seen this building before. 

Lakshmi led the way up the beige stairs as Sara cautiously followed and stepped through the doors, her freshly-burned feet chilled by the tiled floor. The building was just one room, much like her home, but was more expansive inwards and sideways than she could have imagined. Shelves on top of shelves next to even more shelves, this room must have had thousands of books! As a sweaty girl with no shoes, Sara tried acting inconspicuous and picked a book from every other section, stacking them so high that it towered over her. But she couldn’t control her frenzy of excitement, diving into the pages of each pool of knowledge. An older woman with a necklace made of glasses shooed the trio out of the building. 

Sara realizes her eyes had been closed, for who knows how long. She looks down at the carpet end and resolves to wait. When her family falls asleep deep in the night, she waits 20 more minutes, then reaches down to the end of the carpet and pulls out stolen pages methodically ripped from different books every time she snuck into the library. The top paper portrays an image of a veena in full color.  Sara admires its crest-shape and wonders what it would sound like. She knows she will know someday. Her name is Saraswati, and she knows she is destined for great things. Nowhere in her plan does she have space for hiding. 

Big Girl

I cried when I saw my first blood, wondering if I’d been ripped open. The suspicious syrup daubed my light underwear like a generously violent crime scene. My 8-year-old sister was the only one home, so I melted into the couch and whimpered until my mother came home. She asked me to help take the groceries from the trunk, but before I could say yes, a sob creeped from my throat. I didn’t immediately her and just waited, as if an axe-murdered had been waiting for the right moment to slash. When I curled into her arms, she told me that God blessed women with the ability to experience such intense happiness in their lives that they also must experience the most excruciating pains.

            I owned a bra already, but it consisted of one filet of fabric that swathed my chest down to an open field. On a misty Sunday, my father took me to Limited Too for an initiation bra. He didn’t speak a word in the car and left me to browse the sale section in the back. A short woman with light skin and blue-black hair guided me to the intimidating front rack of the brassiere, the neon colors drawing me in like a siren. The sizes had numbers and letters, possibly an encrypted code that only awakened women could decode. I touched the cups of the smaller bras and wondered why there was so much padding for something that I wanted to hide.

            I scanned the store for racks with muted colors and found the one. It was a soft beige with two flat pads and a pink bow on the adjoining bridge, a vaguely feminine secret. The back clasp has only one hook and was easy enough to figure out. When I showed this to my father, he made no eye contact and shoved a credit card towards the cashier. He bought me a 12-inch popsicle from the gas station afterwards, but I wasn’t in the mood.

            I still have this bra, with underwire so overused that it curls into a “U” and digs into my breasts. The bow is untied with traces of worn-out superglue. Time warped the right cup into a triangular point, creating a dull pyramid and not the spherical curve. With barely a use for it, the bra still holds property in my wardrobe, with an occasional use under a sweatshirt or heavy tee. It has no use to anyone if I donate it, yet I don’t have the heart to throw it away. I used to think of grocery bags that ease the pain of carrying essentials home. I still do.