Divine Beings

The sun blanketed her face and body. The sandstone in front of her became blindingly white. Her metal pick was a fish in the river, slipping through her sweaty hands. Three hours after starting, she was still left with formless ridges on the side of the block. This was the first time she had been commissioned to carve stone destined for a temple’s gopuram. Her carving would live on the temple for a thousand years. 

The temple currently under construction was to be the tenth and final one in King Yashovaram’s reign. The most impressive of all, it was predicted to be the cornerstone temple in the grandson of the moon’s tribute to his divine origins. The Khajuraho temples would be the Chandela Dynasty’s symbol of their eternal devotion, and Aadhya’s art would be part of it. The gravity of the task simultaneously straightened her shoulders and weighed in her belly. 

The sun at the top of the sky meant it was time to return home, eat, and rest. Shuchi usually arrived for their meal together after Aadhya, who would prepare the food as she waited. Aadhya slipped off her chappals before ducking into the doorway of their home. She propped the door half-open, allowing rays of light to slip into the main room. Their door would stay like this until Shuchi returned, brightening the room again. 

After lunch, Aadhya, disposing of the banana tree leaves they ate on, heard Shuchi sneeze in the main room. She looked over and saw that Shuchi was leaving to continue teaching her Kathak classes. Immediately, Aadhya grasped her waist before she could cross the doorstep. 

“I know you have to leave, but please sit down for two minutes. You know it is bad luck to leave right after sneezing.” Aadhya pulled back to sit on the cot with Shuchi on her lap.

Shuchi shook her head and laughed. “Aadi, you know all of that superstition is old—it has no meaning now. I bet some rishi was just making a joke and everyone continued it for generations,” she said. 

Aadhya nuzzled the back of Shuchi’s neck, feeling the girl’s soft locks of hair caress her cheek before tightening her embrace from behind. “Humor me. It does no harm to anyone to be cautious Shu. It has been long enough that you can leave now, though.” Shuchi smiled as she stood, and Aadhya let her arms fall from Shuchi’s waist.

 “I’ll see you later.” Shuchi kissed Aadhya’s cheek and hurried back to the temple. 

The following day, Aadhya remained dry of ideas. She had received only one instruction for the carving: symbolize the four necessities of life. She had an infinite number of ways to depict kama, dharma, artha, and moksha. Many carvers chose to present kama, sensuality, through sex, but Aadhya didn’t have a large affinity for such representations. Others focused on dharma, duty and the reason to live, with scenes of Arjuna and Lord Krishna from the ancient Mahabharata. Some chose artha, financial livelihood, and showcased different professions. Carvers depicted moksha, enlightenment, through scenes of prayer. As she reflected on the four purusharthas in her life, Aadhya smiled. Inspired, she put her pick to the stone.

***

Aadhya felt the woven jute beneath her back. In the rising sun’s rays laid Shuchi, who during the night had tugged away more than half of their shared blanket. Shuchi’s chest rose and fell to the cadence of her breaths, the steady gentle sounds a reminder of her presence. Aadhya sat up and stretched her arms, letting the ache in her back from the night disperse with her yawn. Shuchi was not performing today, so Aadhya decided not to wake her and surprise her with roti and dhal to start the day.

 She prepared to bathe in the bavadi, gathering a luminous indigo sattika from the shelf, the accompanying choli a lovely turmeric color. Every time Shuchi saw Aadhya wear it, she would sneak up behind her with a Kathak dancer’s grace and slip her arms around Aadhya’s waist, letting her palms rest on Aadhya’s stomach. Aadhya, taking in the scent of jasmine blossoms Shuchi placed in her hair each morning, would unconsciously lean into Shuchi’s embrace and rest her head on Shuchi’s shoulder. 

After cleaning herself and yesterday’s sattika with freshly gathered reetha nuts, she returned to pray. Aadhya entered their abode in the corner of the room. There, many idols carved of ivory marble and stone lay in an open half-circle. Some of them were painted with colors, others held their beauty from the smooth details on their white surfaces. Aadhya’s most prized idol was a statue of Lord Ganesha, almost as tall as a shiva lingam. She had spent almost six months adding his pensive expression, gentle curved elephant trunk, and laddoos in two of his hands, a hatchet in another, and an elegant lotus in the last. She remembered the process of smoothing and shaping that lotus; coaxing its gentle curve from the hard stone had required soft maneuvering, and this piece was a testament to her worship of her own craft and her faith. Even during Ganesha Chaturthi, when she shaped the god out of wet clay to release into the river with twenty-one leaves, she filled her fingers with the same tender love she touched Shuchi with. 

After dotting the kumkum with her first and second fingers on her forehead, the idols, and the ripe mango she picked the day before, Aadhya poured oil into her diya, added a candle wick, and started a fire in the little clay pot. She pierced the skin of the mango and started praying. The Sanskrit verses expressing her awe at God’s benevolence rushed out of her throat. She prayed for Shuchi’s health, their life together, her craft, and thanked God for all of her riches. To communicate her reverence to higher beings and purposes. To revere godly human beings. To spend her life memorializing those same themes, images, and people onto the skin of temples. 

***

As the weeks passed, the image on the sandstone slowly began to take shape. Immortalized in the rock was a slender woman in a chudidhar. The permanent swish of her skirt portrayed her mid-spin form. The dancer’s hands in alapadmam reflected her own flowering beauty; her feet were adorned with tinkling anklets. Aadhya could almost hear the anklets sounding music from the dancer’s lively movements. 

*** 

Watching Shuchi’s temple performance for Shivaratri, Aadhya felt peaceful. Every story Shuchi told with her spins and expressions tingled Aadhya’s skin. The crisp flicks of Shuchi’s hands and the thrum of her anklets from her rapid jumps and steps entranced Aadhya. Aadhya could depict divine myths and heavenly beings on stone—Shuchi lived them for others. As Shuchi, the bard, spun five, ten, fifteen times, Aadhya couldn’t look away. She made eye contact with Shuchi every spin, hoping she would spot Aadhya in the crowd. 

After the performance, Aadhya asked the rishi in the temple for rock salt. Immediately, he gave her a handful and told her to deposit it outside of the temple after she was done. Shuchi finished her final prayer to Lord Shiva before turning to Aadhya. Shuchi sat down and Aadhya circled Shuchi’s head with the salt three times while repeating drishti thiyatam in a murmur. She exited the temple in silence and threw the salt outside, banishing any evil or negative energy directed at Shuchi. She brushed her hands together, the grains chafing against her palms. 

When they were back home, Aadhya repeated the process to truly ensure that no drishti was present. Shuchi was tired after such a long performance so that night they held each other and slept until the next dawn. 

***

Aadhya looked down at her work. For months she had carved her life’s purpose into the sandstone. The image of the dancer adorned with anklets, a beautiful chudidhar, and a mastery of her craft was imprinted into the rock. Her legacy and love would rest for millenia on the gopuram, forever her way of revering the divine beings.

by PRANATHI SRIRANGAM