Lord of Fire
8th April 2021
It seemed ominous as I read the last act of Andha Yug of Dharamvir Bharati in English this morning as it recounted the ushering of the age of darkness, I received a message that my next door neighbour and elderly gentleman in his early nineties succumbed to the blind age of the epidemic. These were certainly not the best of times and they do count among the worst amidst a pandemic that swallowed swathes of people who merely count among numbers. My neighbour however like everyone else who found their untimely exit was no statistic. For all the years that I have known, he seemed like the immovable pivot who would scarcely age nor perish and stood indomitable, unflappable like the grand Arunachala hill at Tiruvannamalai. It was often with this centre we measured out our lives however tawdry or arduous they seemed. Like that holy hill he was a silent presence with who we at times rebelled, and at times endeared and at all times feared. He was the Lord of Fire, Agniswar, a name that always sounded fearsome and mysterious to my childhood sensibilities.
We scarcely exchanged words but his mere presence was enough to make me search if I had inadvertently made an error which his stern look would be sufficient admonition to search my soul and expiate a wrong doing. Yet despite the stern demeanour he was soft, warm, and a vigorous youth at heart who preferred the simple joys of life amidst his circumscribed wants. And those times when he revealed his smiles, our hearts sang in unison. I believe that today I lost my father a second time especially given that after my father’s death, I did look up to him as my compass though I seldom referred to it formally. “Cheenu” he would call in a slightly high pitch, causing my heart aflutter wondering what he might have to say. I have grown less fearsome of that call but more welcoming as an umbrella amidst the drum roll of diurnal cares. Not that he would advise me nor assist but then he might casually hear my woe in silence, not respond and retreat back leaving me unburdened nonetheless.
Despite my mother often narrating the antecedents of many a neighbour, I believe I have never taken their facts or chronology seriously. As a child I have been often bewildered at the predominance of South Indians in my building and amazed at the diversity in their custom and practice. Most if not all my neighbours were from Kerala and Malayalam rang through the staircase like the fragrance of coconut oil seasoning pervaded the stairways offering the comfort of the familiar. The gardens like Kerala backyards blossomed with Jackfruit, Coconut, Mango, Guava Colcassia etc. Yet there was difference too with Nairs and Brahmins in close proximity and Tamil clamouring its special privilege colluding into little “Mandrams”. The Brahmins discernible through their upavitams displayed with pride upon their bare chests in white mundus, trotted about on every new moon day to offer obsequies to ancestors, muttering Sanskrit verses “Tarpayami, tarpayami, tarpayami”. In most houses the walls were adorned with huge pictures of South Indian deities, Guruvayoorappan, Ayyappan, Perumal, Satya and Shirdi Sai Baba, Pilliyar, Murugan and others jostling for space. Much else win the home was austere and Spartan and purely functional. Strains of Carnatic classical music mingled with popular Hindi film music in odd ways. We probably stuck out like a sore thumb, for we were from Andhra speaking Telugu, had different festivals, had different culinary tastes if not fare, held scholarship and professional expertise at a premium, than sports and games, and much to my mother’s chagrin was secretly ridiculed as “Nasrani” a pejorative for a Syriyan Christian from Kerala.
My neighbour was a Palghat Brahmin household and as different from us as chalk and cheese in their customs and engagement. We were fish and meat eaters and have always felt a pang of guilt at the inconvenience caused by the strong odours of meat and spice, while they spoke fondly of gentle tempering of their “Thorans, consistency of their Kalans, and Olans, the exotic sounding Eriserries, Molagootals and Pradhamans while we held our silence about curries of fish, mutton and chicken. They spoke of their observances of their ‘Sandhyas”, Amavasya Tarpanams, Upanayanams of an endless lists of children and grandchildren while we held our silence at absent heirs. I wondered as a child how “uncle” seemed so cool about their children’s academic accomplishments and paid a premium on their sports, health and fitness while my own parents wore me down with learning and study, not that I was good at any games or sports. I wondered if we might exchange our fathers despite my fear of uncle.
Mr Agniswar or “uncle” was to my childhood a figure of discipline and sternness. He seemed the fittest personage in the building with a discipline that even the military would envy. He was sturdy of frame and his skin glowed of health and vigour and there was always the fragrance of sacred ashes and incense that pervaded him like the ascetic Shiva. He had a facial deformity that I once shamefully as a child mocked to his daughter and was so severely reprimanded at home that I never even took notice of it again. He exercised religiously like his sandhyavandanam and never seemed to fall ill or even age. The womenfolk in the building set their clocks by watching his movements. My mother observing him from afar arriving from office would exclaim, “It is already five o clock!” He was a busybody and filled his hours doting on his family and rendering so many domestic chores himself that women envied his wife. I remember my mother once remarking probably half mockingly to ‘aunty” “you must have worshipped the gods with golden flowers on a golden platter that you have a husband like him”. She alluded to his culinary skills with envy and remarked that he held his palm to every footfall of his dear wife. At other times my mother declared that the devotion he displayed to his wife was paralleled only by Parameswara to Parvati. He weathered many a stormy weather in his lifetime with his children as he supported, disciplined and admonished them and courted disapproval and approval in equal measure as he waded through changing mores and values that differed from his own conservative upbringing. We stood silently by the side-lines watching him change from defiance, to resignation to acceptance. Through all the change there was also much that was constant. Years later when I resettled in my old home after a tumultuous breakdown I was amazed at his pressure cooker whistle going off at precisely 3.30 am each morning signalling time of meditation in that Brahmamuhurta though it distressed a few others.
Though I lost my father soon after my resettlement I was comforted in no small measure by the mere presence of my neighbour. It is not that I did not have my moments of frustration with the “Tamil Mandram” elderly and often chaffed at their parsimony and exasperating scrupulousness in accounts. But there were few differences and it was always a cocoon of warmth and affection that shone through the austerity. Many a day would be brightened with “uncle” bringing me what he could spare of his special festive sweets and savouries that I claimed nosily as sole recipient. I would eagerly wait for Janmashtami and will never forget how amidst the sorrow of losing my father on Janmashtami I stared at the savouries uncle prepared for puja, brought by Shernaz his daughter in law to the hospital (and in who I found a kindred spirit). I was often touched when he would lead me to view his “Vishu Kani” every 14th April and make me peer into the symbols of prosperity in the mirror, of grain, fruit, gold and money, gifting me a small token coin, all of which I have saved as his blessings. He often mentioned that he would always want me as his neighbour and I was touched if not flattered by his faith, though my mother had differing opinions despite her often grudging admiration.
Yet as the years went by I was saddened by the gradual decrepitude of the building and its surroundings as the succeeding generations resettled elsewhere and the elder generation stared vacantly at the changing seasons. The aroma of incense and ashes was now mingled with stale air of decay and disrepair as unlit rooms stood silent in a mournful if not reproachful dirge. We hurried our exits and never remarked about the need for repairs until serious plaster falls shook up the fragile security of a place called home to our uncle. Through all the change my ‘uncle” remained unshaken “achala” a constant isle of quiet in the welter. When I told him shamefacedly that I bought a new flat and that I intend to move, I knew it broke his heart as he accepted my sweet offering in silence. Something was irretrievably lost that day and a new ominous pace gathered of vacant plots gobbled up by Rahu, surrounding buildings demolished and daylight eclipsed with clouds of dust, hastily laid plans of exit made in strange secrecy. My mother and I stood stunned when suddenly one day he remarked that he was leaving the place he called home just then as we scrambled to assemble some token gifts, shocked as though the hill we stood upon moved.
Life was never the same again as we tried hard to regain our composure and continue our quotidian routines with a tug in our hearts that something had changed forever. We kept just a sliver of contact and broke our promises to visit him often, buried as we were of our own cares. When we heard of his wife’s passing away a fortnight ago, we knew that the strings of the veena were broken and the mridangam struck an ominous taala. I marked my reluctant though polite presence at the funeral fearful of what contagion I might bring home. While I made all the right noses I was thrilled to see uncle in the extreme corner sit in composure and I sat by him holding his hand. We did not need words to exchange and all that was unsaid was said. As I mourn his passing away my mother admonishes me that this was a better outcome as he would have been facing the enormous emptiness of an absence and threw his carefully cultivated routines off kilter. She stoically reads his devotion to his wife as the cause of his exit and does not give the gleeful virus any credit.
Today an entire generation of frugality, ascetic parsimony and probably purity was given a solitary cremation as few were permitted to see his hearse roll out. Both Agni and Agniswar must have emerged from the flames to receive this Lord of Fire!
