Mistress by Anita Nair

‘Chris, do you remember what Uncle said when he agreed to tell you his story? That he would interpret not just his life, but the lives of all the others involved. It’s part of the kathakali technique. The scene has to be set and explained before the character makes his appearance and the actual story unfolds. Only then will the audience understand why a character behaves in a particular way.’
    I stopped and searched his face. Was he bored?
    ‘No, no,’ Chris said, pulling a notepad out of yet another pocket. There was a little stub of a pencil in his hand. ‘Go on, it’s fascinating.’
    I leaned back against the stone steps. ‘I would suggest that you take a crash course in Indian mythology, or you won’t understand much of what I am saying now or what Uncle will tell you in the next few days.’
    He smiled. ‘My knowledge of Indian mythology is adequate. You were saying …’
    ‘I was saying, for instance in the Ramayana—you know the Ramayana, don’t you? Or, at least, about it? Well, anyway, there is this episode of Rama stepping on a stone and the stone coming to life and becoming Ahalya. The story is that Ahalya, the wife of Sage Gautama, was discovered by her husband in bed with Indra, the king of the gods, and so he cursed her to become a stone. Only when Rama stepped on her unknowingly—and Rama would come many epochs later—would she be freed of the curse. That’s what the libretto of the kathakali play says. But what a good kathakali dancer will do is interpret how this episode came to be. He will show how one day, while Ahalya was plucking flowers, Lord Indra, who was cruising the skies on his white elephant, looked down and saw this woman beckoning him. The gesture that you make to pluck a flower that is overhead could very well seem like the gesture you use to call someone down from a height. Indra is attracted to the woman. Still, he asks, pointing to himself—Me? Are you talking to me?
    ‘And Ahalya repeats what he thinks is an invitation. So he takes the form of her husband and slips into her bed when her husband is away. Perhaps he thought the disguise would dispell any doubts she might have.’
    I stopped, aghast. Why had I chosen this anecdote to explain my
point? Would Chris interpret it as an invitation?
    I pursed my lips and finished, ‘To understand my uncle as a dancer and a man, you need to know about his parents.’
    Chris put the tape recorder and notebook away. ‘Baggage, I suppose,’ he said softly. ‘None of us is free of it and yet, if we were, we wouldn’t be who we are.’
    I laughed. ‘Considering you travelled across many continents with a cello, how can you even talk about baggage or being free of it?’
    Chris reached across and tugged at a lock of my hair. I laughed again. I felt like a child who had spotted a rainbow. Then I stopped abruptly. ‘I must go,’ I said.
    ‘Before you go, tell me what happened to this guy Indra. Did he get away because he was a god? Or was he cursed to become a stone?’
    ‘Indra was cursed, too,’ I said. ‘In Hindu mythology no one is spared. Hinduism teaches that we cannot escape our actions. The curse of the sage is said to have caused a thousand marks on him.’
    ‘What kind of marks?’
    I flushed. ‘The vagina. He had a thousand vaginas imprinted on him so that everyone who saw him knew he had been philandering.’
    ‘The poor guy! And then?’
    ‘And then, he was forgiven because that is the other aspect of Hinduism: redemption. So the vaginas became a thousand eyes which allowed him to see better, I guess,’ I added.
    Chris grinned. ‘So he did get away?’ He leapt off the wall and ran up the steps. I rose quietly. What could I say? He was right. Thinking about it, Indra managed to get away with little more than embarrassment. It was poor Ahalya who bore the brunt of the curse. Let that be a reminder to you, I told myself.
    Chris held his hand out to help me up.
    I hesitated. In his country, this was merely a