I was lying in bed when I heard the song from the Ramayana. By the time I woke up it was gone and my nephew was trying to attract my attention.
“Sandeep, did you hear the people singing this morning?”
“Yes, mama, I heard them”
“Do you know where they are? Do you think we can find them?”
He nodded. “Are you sure?”
Another, less certain nod. “Let’s go,” I told him.
“But why, mammaya?”
“I want to videotape them.” His eyes lit up. He liked to dance in front of the camera. I could involve him in the process and edit out his antics later, if I had to. For the next hour I followed him around town. He didn’t know where they were, but I knew we would find them up the street from pedda atta’s husband’s fertilizer and pesticide shop begging for alms. One of them was clearly Rama; his blue face was framed by hair that curled out from underneath a gold crown. The other, with a tail poking out of his pancha and round monkey cheeks, was Hanuman. I outstretched my hand, full of change, and shook my camera while Sandeep, even though he didn’t have to, translated my excitement into words the singers understood.
Like Rama in exile, they wandered the earth acting out a story they had inherited. At night, crouched next to their bundle of masks and tails, they would chat with others who stopped to sleep under a temple’s stone roof- yogis, pilgrims, and mystics. Some were born into this existence; others had renounced their former lives for this one. They were points in motion connecting one stone platform to another. One town to the next.
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Aug 4, 05:50 PM