20. The girl will ride in a chariot

Maii (Leela)

Interviewee: Maii, Interviewer: Rohini, in person, Date: 5/25/11

Maii called me today morning around 10:00 AM and said that she was feeling fine now and that I could go to collect the happy memory that she had promised. I was eager and was standing outside her door in less than an hour. The house was quiet and I could hear Buster barking as he sensed my arrival. Buster keeps Maii company during the day till the family returns home from work and school. Maii asked me to give buster a treat to make him happy so we could talk at leisure.  We settled on the couch in the big tiled family room.

Age: 86 yrs.

Birth place: Thane, Maharashtra, India

Background information: Maii was born in 1925, was one of the six siblings and spent her early childhood at Mumbai and did her schooling in Pune. Maii is quite frail and seemed more so today as she was recovering from an illness. She is an upright old lady with deep set eyes a sharp memory and an amazing capacity of finding common acquaintances. As I realized today she is quite a story teller too. The following is a story as narrated to me by Maii.

The girl will ride in a chariot

I was 16 years old then. My father was worried about my marriage. He was not sure how much dowry he would have to give. I was very thin even then and very aware of my ordinary looks. My older sister was very beautiful and yet my father had to give a dowry…it was a norm that time. It was around Christmas time, a palm reader came to our house. I clearly remember him even today. He was dark, was from the south, wore a head gear (pheTA) and had a white scarf with red border (long uparNa) and was carrying a stick. Since my marriage was uppermost in my father’s mind he called me and asked me to show him my palm for a reading. He looked at it very briefly and said to my father “do not worry about her marriage. It will be fixed soon, next month actually. But do not hold the marriage ceremony in February, which is not a good time for her. Push it out by a month and this girl will ride in a chariot!”
On hearing his words I was happy but I laughed at the chariot part. Here we were barely able to afford a Tonga (a horse cart) unless we had some luggage with us and he was predicting that I will ride in chariots.

But let me tell you something…what he had said came true. My husband came to see me while he was on his way to ‘Athani’ their village near Miraj. He said he was agreeable to the proposal. My father asked me what I thought, what could I say? And had I said no would my father have listened? No….I said if it is ok with him then it is ok with me too.

My husband's family suggested a wedding date in February but my father remembered what the palm reader had said and so postponed the date saying that he wanted me to take the Matric final exams scheduled in March….So I got married in April. I stayed at the village for a while he (Maii’s husband) was in Bombay. But I joined him soon and time went on. After about eight or nine years things started to change for us. He got promoted with a big jump in salary. There was no turning back from then on... We would travel in First class compartments initially then in Air-conditioned coaches and finally by airplanes! Those were the chariots the palm reader had predicted. These were the chariots for me…I always travelled in style with grace of God. But who knew it back then…I had even laughed at the palm reader's prediction... but only God knows what lies ahead! We don’t know. It is all because of good deeds from past lives….

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

River Indrayani and three small children

I had a neighbor in Pune, who thought of me as her daughter. She had three small children. When her youngest baby boy was born her husband renounced the world and became a ‘sanyasi’ at Alandi, a holy city on the banks of Indrayani river. My neighbor was furious with her husband’s decision. She went to Alandi and fought with the Ashram's holy men. She questioned them on how they could induct a man into the hermitage despite his family responsibilities. The Ashram was helpless, since what was done was done, but they were kind to her and said that they would give her all the money that was collected in the temple on full moon and new moon. That became her sustenance...

I was nine then and we had gone to Alandi to receive my neighbor’s money. There was a bridge being built on Indrayani then. An engineer had come to Alandi on the project. He had two young children who were my age. So I would take my neighbor’s children 5 and 3 and would go to the engineer’s house to play. I was returning home one day. I had to climb down the brick steps, the kind you find on ‘ghats,’ then walk some flat land, and then climb up the steps again to reach my house via short cut. (You can imagine a very wide un-paved arroyo with steps on either side). I was coming home with my two little friends and as soon as I stepped down from the steps I heard a very loud roaring sound, I quickly turned around and saw an immensely huge wall of water approaching us very fast. In the blink of an eye I picked up the baby and we ran up the steps as fast as we could. Before I could turn around Indrayani had gushed past us. I was trembling and started to cry. We went back to the engineer’s house. He asked me to sit down for a while and came to drop me off the long way this time…
Once we reached home the engineer told everyone that it was due to my presence of mind and quick action that all three of us were still alive else no one knows where we would have ended up!

That neighbor was glad I had brought her children home safe and sound and I was glad we all were alive with the grace of God!