The Deliverance of Binapani

The small shack was hot and sultry. Binapani, its hapless owner, looked up thoughtfully towards the gaping hole in her thatched roof. The harsh October sun scorched her bare back as she adjusted her soiled sari to cover it and shaded her eyes as she waited with bated breath.

It was the morning of Bijoya Dashami, the last day of the five-day festivities that celebrated the homecoming of the Goddess Durga. For Bengal and its diaspora all over the world, this was a day filled with sadness and forlornness. A day when they bid farewell to their favourite daughter and await her return the next year.

However, it was different for Binapani. Unlike the rest, she would wait all year for this day. She would drag her tired body across the floor of her small shack and position herself right beneath this gap on her roof. Her legs, stiff and useless lay folded beneath her waist. Paralysis had crippled her, and she spent her days dragging herself across her small hut. She was a thin small woman, and her bent back made her look even smaller.

When the locality boys stole the tiles on her roof, she had cursed them. But she later realised, it was indeed a boon in disguise. Though the rains drenched her little hut and the sun scorched it, Binapani never tried patching up the roof again. While before she had to drag herself to the door of her shack and sit watching the stray dogs haggling for food and playing in the open drain running in front of her hut, now she had the sky as her vista. She would sit beneath the gaping hole for hours and watch the sky turn from a pale blue into a dusky yellow and then to black as day passed into the restful arms of the night.

Besides, on the days of festivities, such as now, the lights from the surrounding streets would filter in through this gap and fill her small shanty with their multi-coloured neon glow. Not only did it help her save on her monthly ration of kerosene, but it afforded her with a new reason to exist. 

Every year, she would stare through the gap as the sound of the dhak beats filled her ears and her whole being. She would try to envision the beauty of the Goddess who she believed blessed them on each of the five days. As the sound of the conch shells reverberated with the Dhaks and reached a crescendo she could imagine the glow of the 108 earthen lamps lit on Ashtami, the third and most important day of the festivities, illuminating the visage of the goddess in an ethereal beauty.   Finally, sleep would overcome her, and she would drift off with the vision entrenched in her mind.

More important than anything, the broken roof was the source of her deliverance. Binapani lifted her rickety lean hands that were bones covered with a shroud of shriveled skin. She shaded her eyes against the angry glare of the sun. Binapani ignored its fury and refused to shift her gaze. 

Soon it would be time when they would raise the idol from the pedestal and lift it on the truck to carry it away to the river for immersion. That was the time when the devotees bid their deity a final farewell.

Binapani heard the men shout instructions to each other and knew the time was approaching. She crept forward to position herself at the right angle. Outside, the men raised their voice in chorus to hail the mother goddess

“Bolo Dugga Ma ki Jai!”

Binapani could feel her heart beat wildly inside her chest as she realised they had lifted the idol. The time was finally here.

And then her decrepit shack was graced with the divine smile as the visage of the mother goddess filled the gap in her roof. The wide slanting eyes stared back at her with unspoken love. The third eye on her broad forehead smeared with the vermillion glistened in the morning sunlight, her golden crown sparkled with glory.

Binapani’s heart was filled with joy. She closed her eyes and raised her hands to touch her forehead as her tired and chapped lips uttered softly.

“Mother, you have come to me!”

Silent tears trickled down her cheeks as Binapani felt blessed. Unlike others who had left her to wallow in desolation and poverty, the Goddess did not. This single glance was what made Binapani survive through another year of struggle to simply exist. This one moment made all her sufferings a bit more bearable. This one day was the reason she left her roof broken.

This simple truth brightened up a corner of her heart with enough radiance to drive away the darkness shrouding her mundane existence and rendered a meaning to her otherwise worthless life. 

For once, in the whole year, Binapani felt truly alive!