Never Mind the Bullocks by Vanessa Able

Author:Vanessa Able
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
Published: 2014-10-25T18:30:00+00:00

Radhika assured me that consecrating Abhilasha would not be a problem; she suggested I have the blessing performed right there in Pondicherry and immediately dispatched the ever-acquiescent Bagalavan to follow me on his motorbike to the Manakula Vinayagar temple in the centre of town. Particularly appropriate in that it was dedicated to none other than Ganesha himself, the temple came complete with its very own elephant, who went by the name of Lakshmi, and who stood obediently outside the main entrance. Lakshmi’s main job appeared to be taking coins and bananas from faithful devotees and nervous tourists and in return imparting darshan, a blessing, in the form of a light pat on the head that made most recipients quiver and screech.

Following Abhilasha’s recent manhandling on our way from Kanyakumari to Tiruchirappali, I was very wary of the lumbering, runny-nosed proboscidea. However, Lakshmi appeared to be a different class of elephant altogether: elegant, polite and decked out in some rather attractive ankle bracelets. She seemed quite happy to dole out blessings to anyone who tossed her a prize, and I eventually succumbed to her charms and flipped her a ten-rupee coin. I figured garnering a bit of goodwill with a real-life Ganesha could only further my cause of maximizing favour with the gods.

Bright-faced and businesslike, Bagalavan wasted no time in rushing me towards a kiosk inside the temple, where he pushed some rupees over the counter in exchange for a couple of flimsy tickets. We took these around the corner where a Brahmin appeared, ready with his assortment of materials for the ceremony. Wearing a dhoti and a thread looped diagonally across his bare chest and over his shoulder, he was balancing four limes and a pot of deep red sindoor on an aluminium tray with a burning oil lamp soldered onto the end of it.

Bagalavan disappeared somewhere and I was left grinning at the Brahmin over the smoke of his oil burner. I pointed towards Abhilasha and his expression became grave as he nodded his head in a gesture of acknowledgement. Bagalavan returned with a garland of marigolds, which we hung from Abhilasha’s rear-view mirror, as well as a line of jasmine for my own hair.

And so the ceremony began. The Brahmin started by standing in front of the Nano’s bonnet and applying dots of sindoor on her headlights, number plate and a spot on the windscreen that fell roughly where her forehead should be. Then he circulated his burning oil lamp around to the driver’s door, where he got in (my maternal gut clenched at the sight of an uncovered, smoking oil lamp thrust deep inside her delicate and presumably flammable interior) and proceeded to dab bits of sindoor powder around the steering wheel and dashboard. He then placed a lime underneath the front and back tyres, before moving around to her posterior, where he applied more sin-door dots to her rear lights and number plate. The remaining limes were duly placed under Abhilasha’s left tyres and all that

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