Bell-Bell

A Reminiscence.

She came to stay with us when my brother was four and I was eight years old. By day, my brother pestered her; by night, he curled up next to her, quiet and obedient, captivated by her stories. I took silent comfort in her presence. Her given name was regal: Raja Rajeshwari (Queen of Queens—She Who Is Goddess to the Kings), the name of the Goddess Parvati herself, consort of Lord Shiva. Yet she rarely used this lofty name. Instead, she went by Balamani, meaning a young (Bala) jewel (Mani). We children took it further, creating our own nickname—Bell-Bell—because Mani also meant bell, and we got a kick out of calling her that.

We went to her for everything, from snacks to stories, often cajoling her into joining our games in the middle of her chores or forcing her to listen to whatever had momentarily captured our interest. When she was particularly busy, she would put us off gently with her standard phrase: “ippa varaam tuo? (I’ll be right there, okay?)

Most precious to us, especially to my brother, were her nightly stories; those magical journeys to mythical lands, with demons and gods, and fantastical creatures that fought, prayed, loved, and died with purpose and glory. Every night, we were transported to places that appeared more real to us than the peopled world of daytime.

How awe-inspiring to witness in our minds the monkey-king, Hanuman, grow to a massive size and leap across the ocean to Lanka (Sri Lanka) in one bound! To imagine Lord Krishna as a child dancing on the head of the five-headed serpent Kaliya to subdue it. To hear of faith so powerful that it manifests God roaring out of the palatial pillars as Narasimha (a half-man and half-lion form of Lord Vishnu, a fierce protector of the righteous and a vanquisher of evil) in the story of Prahlada, and his father, the demon king Hiranyakashipu.

My father wasn’t entirely happy about these nightly story times. He was concerned these stories from Hindu mythology would taint our impressionable minds with make-believe and superstitious nonsense. But my brother didn’t care. “They are so fascinating!” he protested and ignored my father’s admonishments. To Balamani, the tales were real. To my brother, they were a portal to a rich, exciting world, much more fascinating than the mundane world of homework and school.

Balamani would never begin her stories before she had written the sacred name of Lord Rama in a special notebook she kept for the purpose: a hundred and eight times she wrote Sri Rama Jayam -victory to Lord Rama. She wrote it painstakingly, with complete focus, her lips moving as she wrote, her mind fixed on the task at hand; a type of meditation. While my brother waited restlessly, feet tapping, wriggling around, I lay on my stomach, head dangling over the edge of the bed, and watched her. My brother dared not utter a word of protest or impatience, or she would start over. It was a lesson in patience such as he had never had to endure, a lesson he never applied in any other situation.

I found Balamani’s nightly rituals mysterious and comforting. It seemed silly, but I could not cast it aside as such, drawing me in despite my mental objections. We never had any prayer or rituals at home; my father subscribed to the view that “religion was the opiate of the masses.” We grew up in an atmosphere of intense philosophical and spiritual inquiry, but of clinical rationality and scientific objectivity. He would rather have us in discomfort but wide awake; no make-believe anodyne for our fear or sorrows.

What was Balamani’s role in our household? Technically, she was a maid because she did the cooking and cleaning while my parents went to work. But she also minded us, played with us, fed us, and told us stories, which would make her our Nanny. To my brother and me, she was family.

Because Balamani was born in an upper-caste family like ours, she was given certain privileges that I had never seen my mother afford any other maid. As a child, I never questioned any of this. I accepted reality for what it was, just as I accepted Balamani as part of the family without ever considering the exact nature of her relationship with us. She was very much the fabric of my childhood, the warp and weft that made childhood safer, more familiar, and stable.

Bell-Bell was a bit of a mystery herself. She looked different from the women I had encountered in our family or elsewhere. Of indeterminate age, thin, flat-chested, and extraordinarily fair, with a whiteness that made her stand out wherever she went, she was an anomaly among the dusky and even fairer folks of our region. Her hair was thin, brown, and dry, which was unusual in a culture where most women had thick black hair. She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, traditionally beautiful, yet, if she had grown up in the West, with the aid of make-up and styling, she could have been quite attractive. Balamani, however, cared little about her appearance except as it related to neatness and cleanliness, showing little interest in embellishments or adornments. I don’t know whether she considered herself attractive or plain. It seemed to me she did not think in such terms at all.

Obsessively clean, she was constantly wiping down the surfaces as she chopped vegetables or cooked rice. The kitchen sparkled, dishes were always washed, dried, and put away, the floor was swept, and beds were made. Even a speck of dirt bothered her. In between cooking, laundry, and other chores, she was constantly dusting or organizing.

My parents trusted her implicitly- with their children, their home, and their money. She had a terrible fear of being thought dishonest and fiercely safeguarded her reputation. If my mother accidentally left some change on the table and was leaving for work, Balamani got agitated. She insisted that my mother put it in the safe. She would go on and on about it, irritating my mother, till the offending coins were safely in my mother's custody.

Balamani had other peculiarities that irked my mother. She was particular about things, such as the kind of soap or toothpaste she used. I never understood why this bothered my mother so much. But my mother thought Balamani was being high and mighty. “Does she think she is royalty? Why can’t she use whatever soap I give her?” If my mother gave her a different soap (sometimes just to avoid giving in to her demands), saying we didn’t have the other kind, Bell-Mani would sulk.

This was the age before cell phones, and Bell-Bell had few distractions in her life; her life revolved around her chores and her faith. She rarely watched television, but when the dramatization of the Hindu epic Ramayana was released, she was like one possessed, watching it religiously, even delaying her chores. To her, the actors on the screen, depicting Rama or Sita, were not just representations of these figures but God-like themselves. She became absorbed, eyes shining with a devotional gleam. Rama, Rama, she would mutter as she got up when the show ended.

For the most part, Balamani’s idiosyncrasies were indulged and tolerated, and even looked upon affectionately, because she was considered a valuable part of our household. She came from a similar cultural, though poorer, upbringing, thus fitting seamlessly into my parents’ social milieu. My mother never worried about whether guests would be received properly in her absence, whether they would be shown adequate hospitality, or served satisfactory food and drinks. In fact, everyone who came to visit us inevitably liked her, often asking about her when she was away.

Bell-Bell’s first big transgression, if it could be called such, was falling in love - falling in love with a member of our family, no less! No matter how many privileges she was given because she was from the same caste, it was incomprehensible that she should aspire to raise her eyes to one of ours. She was not of the same class. Everyone in the family was aghast. They agreed unanimously that she had crossed a line, forgotten her place.

My aunt said, “If Ettan hears of this, there’s no saying what he will do.”

“Rightfully so, Edathi. Who does she think she is? In what fantasy does she see herself worthy of being Ettan’s wife?”

“She’s always been a little off her rockers. It looks like now she’s gone off the deep end.”

Bell-Bell had seen my uncle only a few times: a macho-looking ex-military man, with a big, curving mustache, but that was enough to capture her soul. My uncle exuded the kind of masculinity that came with a faint whiff of danger. To Balamani, he was the epitome of a hero from one of her mythological stories, strong, manly, someone who she could serve and who would protect her in this earthly realm. Perhaps she imagined him as Rama to her Sita, projecting onto him qualities of an ideal man and husband. Had she dreamt of marriage before? Had she accepted life as a single woman till she encountered my uncle? I will never know her life stories, her dreams, or disappointments before she became our Bell-Bell.

The incident came to light after Balamani had gone to stay and help out my paternal grandmother for a few days when she was unwell.

It so happened that one day, as she sat next to my grandmother, massaging her legs before the afternoon nap, Balamani blurted out her feelings: her hopes that she would one day be my grandmother’s daughter-in-law. I don’t know what my grandmother told her, but she had eventually relayed this incident to her daughters; now, everyone was up in arms.

I was in my late teens, immersed in romance novels, nursing crushes for movie stars. An age when romance was the pinnacle of happiness, the prince and princess riding off into the sunset. I heard of this incident from conversations among my aunts. Not yet an adult, I sat on the edge of these conversations, observing and unobserved. My invisibility gave me access to many such exchanges; being an adolescent was like being a fly on the wall, unwittingly privy to adult thought processes. I remember thinking, What was wrong with Balamani and Uncle getting married? He was single, divorced for many years from a brief, unsuccessful marriage. She had never been married. They seemed to be close in age, and most importantly, she was in love! Balamani, whom I had always considered family, would now really become family!

I didn’t know how Uncle felt until much later. Evidently, when he heard of this, he said: “Chee! I will rid her mind of such ideas!”

“How dare she? And you all - why are you encouraging this?"

The sisters had pacified him, saying that it had been taken care of. Balamani had been sent to a distant relative's house, ostensibly to take care of an elderly couple for a few months.

“She’s a little unbalanced. A few days away and she will forget this nonsense.”

I saw Balamani many years later, still unmarried. She still looked the same; she hadn’t aged a day. I ate with her in the kitchen, -something I enjoyed doing as a child- sharing her rice gruel. She slept on the mat on the floor by my bed, as she had done all those years ago. In another notebook, she inscribed Sri Rama Jayam, her faith undiminished. My brother had outgrown her stories, and we no longer followed her around, but lying there on the bed, watching her, I felt the old peace of childhood cradle me; a sense of comfort from her presence; a sigh of relief that somehow, because she existed, there was goodness in the world.