The Pitchers on the Tree

Parama was watching the empty small pitchers hanging from the low branches of the guava tree, through the window of the hall. Soon, they would be gone. They would be drowned in the pond of the Guin family.

Then new pitchers would be hung from the same branch and the branch would keep on growing. Thamma would not allow it to be chopped off even during the monsoon when all the trees in the yard would get pruning. Her instincts identified something auspicious about that branch.

Every year in the middle of November, new troughs of baked earth and a pair of new pitchers, as small as two inches high, also of baked earth, used to be bought from the Dashakarma stores. Parama always liked shopping at Dashakarma Stores. They used to be full with everything needed in religious ceremonies and festivals.

She loved the white Kadam flower mimics hung in a bunch at Dashakarma store. When she was too young, she loved feeling those flowers with her fingers. They were carved out of softwoods and then painted meticulously, mostly white, sometimes yellow, sometimes scattered red or purple on one or the other petal, conspicuous among surrounding white or yellow. Later they were the carvings on Sola or solid polystyrene. During Saraswati Pujo those mimics of Kadam flowers were used for decorating the idol, its background and the chapel’s doorway. 

But November is all about harvest. Earlier, Thamma used to have a trip to the Ganges to fill up the newly bought earthen trough with fresh mud from the bank of the holy river. In the same trip she used to fill up the newly bought tiny pitchers with holy water of Ma Ganga. Later, the Dashakarma Store used to sell Ganagamati, the holy mud from the river and Gangajol, the holy water of the Ganges, along with the trough and the pitchers made of baked earth. Along with the empty or full trough and the pitchers, Thamma and Ma used to buy seeds of peas.

Thamma was the matriarch of the family. She was the mother of Parama’s father. It was her duty to lead every rite in the household. Including the harvest rituals of Itu.

Thamma used to plant the pea seeds in the soil within the earthen trough with the tiny pair of pitchers in its middle on the first day of Agrahayana, the month of harvest. Then, Thamma, Ma and other women and the girls of the household, including Parama, and her Pisi, Thamma’s daughter, younger sister of Parama’s father, used to worship the set up of the trough and pitchers as early as possible during the day.

Thamma never told Parama why they had to complete worshiping before noon. Ma told her, “So that the worshipers don’t suffer from acid reflux in their respective stomachs. After all, they were fasting all morning.”

Pisi had a different answer, “We worship Sun. To urge the Sun to shine steadily so that our crops grow well and we could make the harvest as huge as possible. Afternoon sun is too hot and harmful. So we offer Sun the ablutions to stay cool. Don’t you see we pour water in the pitchers from our paired up palms?”

Baba humored, “My sister, your Pisi, Parama, can never be wrong! Though, she is correct about worshiping Sun but her explanation about early hour worshiping of Sun can be wrong.”

Then he explained, “Worship of Sun should be done before the man of the house goes to the field so that he can work in the field with the blessings of Sun and harvests the crop in a cool dry climate. His sons and grandsons used to join him in the field. Hence, the respective wives and daughters of all these men must finish worshiping the Sun during the dawn.”

Parama lamented in surprise, “Neither Pisi nor I see dawn unless we’re at the sea shore or mountains and competing for shots of sunrise.”

Baba laughed, “Nor do I go to the field. I work for the bank.So does your mother.”

Ma added, “Our lives have changed. We’re not anymore farming communities. Yet we’re trying to preserve our rituals.”

Pisi said, “Even I’m earning a living by teaching students at a school, unlike being a supportive fixture of a farming household.”

After the first day of Agrahayana, every Sunday of that month of harvest, the women of the household used to worship the set up, early in the morning before doing chores and running errands. On the last day of Agrahayana, the trough used to be covered with pea seedlings, tangling into a mesh of soft green trunks of the newborn creepers, dangling from the brim of the trough. It was the final day of month-long solar worship.

That day's meal used to be a hodgepodge of freshly harvested Gobindoghog rice, newly picked peas, newly harvested cauliflower, carrot, flat beans and potato with a dollop of ghee, and a pudding of the same Gobindoghog rice in milk sweetened with freshly extracted and refined molasses of dates with scattered balls of banana. Those banana balls used to be lumped with all purpose flour and sweetened with the same molasses and then used to be fried in ghee.

In the afternoon, after the worship was over, Thamma used to mix cubes of orange cloves, cucumber, banana, jicama and water chestnut with spoonfuls of grains of Gobindoghog rice and grains of tiny sona moong dal with date molasses. In the evening that used to become a nice syrupy fruit salad which used to be called nabanna, the new rice and harvest. It used to be an evening snack in the household.

At dinner, fluffy, gluetenny luchi made of all purpose flour or bran rich atta and alurdam with freshly harvested potatoes was to be relished. The desert used to be the same rice pudding with Gobindoghog rice and banana balls, all sweetened by fresh date molasses.

On that day, after sunset, the trough with pea seedlings and previous year's pitchers hung from the guava tree used to be drowned together in the pond of the Guin family, the largest pond in the neighborhood where Parama lived her entire life. Before drowning the trough, the pitchers full of holy water from the Ganges, that were planted in the middle of the trough on the first day of Agrahayana, used to be dislodged from the soil in the trough and used to be brought back to home. Then those pitchers used to be hung from the same branch of the guava tree.

Parama used to feel angry about drowning the old pair of pitchers and replacing them with the new pair. She sensed an unfair treatment in this replacement. She used to abhor the new ones and used to have a longing for the old ones sunken deep beneath the pond of the Guin family.

Yet, as the year used to circle to November another year, she found herself in similar longing for the pair of the pitchers hung by the branch of the guava tree in the yard as she felt for the previous ones hung there the year before. When she searched for her erstwhile abhorrence for that pair of pitchers, she could not find it.

She felt uneasy. She did not like her affection growing on comparatively new replacement pitchers. Yet it was a cycle. First the pitchers would annoy her with their newness and bright look. And, by and by, gathering weathering marks on their surfaces, they would catch Parama’s fondness. Then, they would be gone.

However, year after year she accompanied Thamma, Ma and then Pisi in their respective shoppings of the pitchers and trough in November. Thamma passed away of old age. Pisi moved away with her sweetheart. Ma continued the tradition.

Ma passed away, after baba. Pisi came back to live with Parama.

Pisi continued the tradition. She explained, “I miss them so much.These traditions still keep me connected to them. Whenever I practise these rituals, I feel closer to them. As if, they haven’t gone. They’re still here among us. I can feel their existence, but can’t touch them or can’t hear them talking.”

Pisi passed away. Parama continued the tradition.

She dreaded drowning the old pair of pitchers. Yet she bought a new pair of pitchers.

She realized that a month-long worship did not create enough attachment with the trough and pea seedlings. But a year-long association with the pitchers, seeing them getting gradually waned away by vagaries of weather, develops a fellow feeling with them, as if, as the molecules of water in the pitchers evaporates, it gets filled up with a tiny bit of Parama’s self.

This phenomenon of filling up made Parama feel melancholy after the pitchers were drowned. She felt new ones irritating till a part of her inner self was attached to it. Thus, every year, a part of herself drowned and died in the pond of the Guin Family.

This epiphany made Parama realize it was the same for Thamma, Ma and Pisi. Each year they drowned part of their respective selves along with the pitcher, after filling them up bit by bit of their respective existences through their respective cohabitation with the pitchers all round the year. Thus, they remained close to each other for eternity.

The tradition brought a new meaning for Parama. She felt grateful to the laws that prohibited filling of the ponds. She felt overwhelmed that now she can feel the proximity of Thamma, Ma and Pisi more with these sunken pitchers.

One November, Parama bought a set up of a trough and a pair of pitchers, planted with peas. After shopping, as she entered home and placed the set up in the chapel, she realized that a bit of her soul had already gone into the pitchers, probably at the moment when she shopped for them. She sat there for a little too long. She hummed the prayers that her Thamma, then Ma, then Pisi used to sing at this place at this time of day on occasion of bringing the set up to the home. 

She guessed that she was not humming out of the faith, but because of the attachment to the people of the foregone era that engulfed her.

Then she became eager ever more to see the end of the month so that she could sink the pitchers once more and to reach a little closer to the departed ones.

Parama closed her eyes to feel them around her and capture the feeling till she would depart.