January 15, 2008 – Joann Klimkiewicz
With Pongal now in full swing, it was as if all of Chennai let out a collective holiday sigh today.
Streets normally filled with the frenzy of motorbikes and autos mellowed (by Indian standards) to only a dull buzz. Even the cows seemed to be on holiday, curled lazily along dusty roadsides, managing to be even less interested in the day’s comings and goings than usual. As I passed them on my morning run, their droopy eyes barely took notice, as if to say, “Whatever, Lady. It’s Pongal. I don’t really care about you today.”
And so, we began our day with a virtual Pongal feast. Rani spoiled us with a breakfast of fluffy dosas and peanut chutney, savory egg omelets and a heaping plate of tender papaya. We also had our long-awaited taste of the red banana – sweet and thick and very filling.
With many schools out for the holidays, we set off for our days with some minor adjustments. Ginny, Jan and George headed to SEAM for the morning, where they treated the children to sugar cane; watched them play a competitive game Jan likened to Capture the Flag, minus the flag; and where Ginny dispensed all her Kleenex to the children – not because they had the sniffles, but because they were curious about tiny, rectangular tissues they saw her pulling from her bag.
Ruth went off to her usual day with the nuns, At St. Joseph’s Social Services Center, Elyse and Lucy had a productive day ripping the crumbly, yellowed wallpaper from the small chapel – next up for a facelift in the yearlong overhaul there.
And then there was Roma, Anne and me. With the daycare children still away for the holiday, we had a sluggish day at Assisi Illam. It was a challenge to find creative ways to keep the 8 children who live there, all of wide-ranging ages, engaged and active. But I think we were successful. I’m pretty sure we’ve played every conceivable game you can play with a tiny tossing ball. And we went over addition and subtraction with the older ones, read and sang with the smaller ones, and sat on the ground to colored with the whole sweet bunch of them.
When we first arrived at Assisi, the children raised their tiny palms to show off the burnt orange swirls of henna paint decorating them. A young woman assisting there offered to paint the Mendhi designs on our three Auntie’s palms. Anne and Roma wisely declined. (Have you tried chasing after children with one useless hand, caked thick with paint?) But I offered up my right palm, and when I did the woman gave a tentative glance to another assistant there. I asked if it was still okay. The two exchanged a few fast words in Tamil, gave me the old head nod and an “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And then, the woman set to squirting a tube of brownish paint onto my skin. The children stood on tip-toes to see the curls and loops and dots filling my palm. And when the woman finished, I was left to write awkwardly with my left hand on the chalkboard, working on math equations with Lakshmannen, right palm outstretched and flat to dry. Right about then is when another woman came out to see the finished design on my hand. When I raised up my right palm, she giggled. “It should be left,” she said.
Left?!
Wait – but I thought the left hand was virtually shunned here, used to assist with just one singular chore. Exchange money, shake hands, even paint – we had been told none of these things should ever be done with the left hand. So why would you want to decorate the taboo hand in henna paint? The woman explained that since the right hand is used for eating, you wouldn’t want to have it painted. “You using fork?” she asked me. I said yes. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said.
In the evening, we were treated to a fabulous folk dance performance, held in a dusty lot on a large main stage some minutes from our guesthouse. We came early and nabbed the front row of plastic lawn chairs, getting a great view of the performers and their colorful costumes. As they drummed and danced and enchanted, families nibbled on fried sweets and popsicles, as their children ran and tossed about Frisbees. It felt not unlike a late summer town fair back home in the states.
The performance’s crescendo was a brilliant fire balancing and breathing act. But it was cut short when an organizer deemed it unsafe and too close to the children clustered up front. The decision left the star performer – a short, cartoonish man with a pencil thin mustache – to stomp off in a huff. George and I, standing near the back stage, got a great view of the tantrum.
After a brief hunting for our dear Roma, who went missing in the thick crowd, we wrapped up our evening with yet another feast, at the same hotel restaurant we first dined at last week.
One last thing, I promise, in this decidedly long entry. I’ve been thinking a lot these past two days about Pongal, about its rituals and its intention toward celebration and gratitude. In particular, I’m taken with the concept of Bogi – discarding and burning off what is old to start anew. And my wish is for all of us, in our own little way, to take part in that ritual. Because I suspect all of us have old things we’ve been carrying around with us for too long, old habits or hurts that we’d like to unload and burn off here in India, so that we might make room for new and better things when we return home.
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” George Elliot.
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