Ganesh Chaturthi

It's Ganesh Chaturthi, Ganesha's birthday celebration,the time when members of a household worship a clay likeness of him, and then submerge it at an immersion site. Neighborhoods compete with each other in building the biggest murti. There are pujas and other rituals, and delicious kozhakottai, a dumpling made from rice flour with a stuffing of coconut and jaggery, is offered at the temple.



I make use of these details in Rescuing Ranu, when I say about Nela, the ostracized daughter, that "The closest she had ever come to believing was during the Ganesh Chaturthi when she had fallen into a line of devotees with prayers written out on scraps of paper to give to the priests. She had written one, too, a wish more than a prayer. Let Amma live." One of the scenes in Shiva's Arms also incorporates this celebration. Nela has just sacrificed her hair to gods she no longer believes in. Her mother is ill, and she will try anything to help her recover. "On her way back to her room,... Nela spotted a small earthen version of Ganesh... She picked it up and ...waded out waist-deep into the river, the murti in her elbow's crook. A flotilla of figurines streamed by, with their streaked features half- erased, and their trunks of clay dissolving. She released her icon like a bad debt, like a broken promise."



At the intersection of my fictional world and real life, I keep a soft spot for Lord Ganesh. I like the idea that a gentle elephant god should be Remover of Obstacles. He's a good problem-solver, too: when charged with circling the universe, he walked around his parents, saying they were all his worlds. One morning, he paid me a visit.



I was opening the first gift my mother-in-law had ever given me. It had been fifteen years since I married her son, and I tore into the package - hope over experience, I guess. I drew out the long gold chain from a carved teak box, and uttered a sound like speech, but wasn't. My husband said, "Mother melted down her marriage bangles to have this necklace made for you." Her blessing, hard won but fully given.



For years I had been considered an interloper, taking what did not belong to me. Family members not yet born at the time of the family shame absorbed it, and confronted my husband and me with it years later. "Amma will never accept!" a niece only recently informed me. Memes perpetuate.



My head was suddenly filled with the noise of cultures clashing, and the gold links weighted with family history began to slide from my hand. It was then that I saw the tiny vermilion Ganesh emerge from the metal. A mantra moved through my brain: Vakrathunda Mahaakaaya Suryakoti Samaprabha Nirvignam Gurumaydeva Sarvakaryeshu Sarvada.



Obstacles removed, I slipped the necklace over my head and kissed it like a Catholic.