Burning Goddess

NOW

I stand outside the fence of the burnt ruins of the barn and think to myself about the Goddess facing the trial by Fire. The song in Her voice is unwavering as She proves her purity to the world. However, when the Goddess emerges unscathed from the purification ritual, the Fire engulfs the repugnant creatures who put her through it.

This barn is simply a place that could neither be the purgatory nor the divine.

My life transformed when I first saw this barn about a month ago.

***

BEFORE

My wife and I were returning to Mumbai after dropping our daughter off at University in Pune when she suddenly got the inspiration to drive through the countryside as opposed to the conventional expressway. It was nearly sunset but nevertheless, I readily agreed to this. In retrospect, I could say that it was fate that led us to take that road less travelled. In that instant, I simply wanted to delay the unavoidable void that we would experience on returning home, now that our daughter was off paving her own path in the world.

In the spirit of exploring the unknown, while delaying the inevitable, I swerved somewhat spontaneously to the left on a rough and muddy patch of a kutcha road. Our car was definitely not prepared for this adventure as both the front tyres of the car had been badly punctured. Needless to say, my wife was livid as I had not kept any spare tyres in the car.

The GPS showed us that the narrow road where we were stuck was on the outskirts of a village called Devinagar, which literally meant the abode of the Goddess. I remembered reading about the village as research for an article I published a while ago. The folklore in Devinagar spoke of the story of a Goddess who had emerged in the human form on Earth and was asked to walk through fire to prove her purity. She emerged unharmed through the fire but cursed the demons who made her walk through it. All those demons died in the fire.

The nearest car service was in Devinagar but to our surprise, they blatantly refused to come on the road after sunset. Finally, we had to call highway patrol which would not arrive for another two hours as it was technically not an emergency.

The early risers among the stars began to peep through the orange glow of dusk. The dirt road had huge farms on both sides. Although there were no houses or people to be seen, we could see a barn, in the middle of the farm on our right. At first glance, it seemed pretty normal. As we had some time to kill, we decided to check it out. We saw that the barn itself had a wire fence around it, which was unusual. On a closer look, we realized that its brick walls were entirely charred and the patch of land surrounding it had no vegetation. It must have been some fire, my wife exclaimed. She pointed to what would have been the entrance. We were still a few feet away from the fence but we could clearly read the sign that was placed on the fence in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and English:

ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN AFTER SUNSET DUE TO INEXPLICABLE SUPERNATURAL OCCURRENCES

Being a journalist, the sign intrigued me greatly. Against the advice of my wife, I decided to enter the barn.

When I touched the fence, I heard Her voice. It was faint, almost like a whisper so it was unlikely that my wife, who was a couple of feet away, would have heard it. I decided not to spook my wife any further and crossed the fence alone. The soft whisper, almost indiscernible, was getting louder with every step that I took. I knew that this was not normal and yet there was something about the whisper that made me continue walking steadily towards the barn. The whisper changed into a soft song as I went closer to the barn. I recognized the tune as being similar to the melody my daughter used to hum whenever she used to play happily in the backyard.

As I faced the front door of the barn, I was convinced there was something supernatural about this place. However, it was not frightening. I felt a deep sense of pain and sadness which I assumed were coming from Her song. I placed my right foot into the interior of the barn, the soft song changed into the cries of a child. I had tears in my eyes and was overwhelmed with inexplicable emotion. And then I lost my senses.

I don’t know how much time had elapsed when I regained my senses. It was completely dark now. I was at the fence once again where I could hear the softly whispered tune again.

I returned to the car, quite shaken. My wife was waiting for me there. She did not look too worried as it seemed like I was inside the fence for only about fifteen minutes. She asked me if I saw a ghost. I laughed uneasily and told her it was just a regular barn. It was just then that we saw the highway patrol in the towing truck arriving to help us out.

***

AFTER

It was past midnight by the time we reached home. I removed my jacket and found a newspaper article that I had written about fifteen years ago. I had no idea how it got there in the first place. I was a rookie journalist when my editor gave me a piece to write about a Sarpanch (village leader), his wife and three sons, all getting burnt alive on a farm under mysterious circumstances. While I believed the matter to be highly incredulous, I went with the philosophy of the newspaper I used to work for – to make everything sound “sensational” without bothering to cover all bases.

Generally speaking, I am not a person who remembers dreams but following my first visit to the barn, every night for the next two weeks I had bizarre dreams. Some were about a baby crying. Most other times, it was a girl playing happily humming the tune. I used to wake up randomly in the middle of the night to hear Her soft whispering tune. When I confided in my wife about the recurring dreams, she guessed that it could be because of our daughter being away from home for the first time.

I dedicated myself to getting more information about the barn. My days were spent calling people who could possibly know what happened to the Sarpanch family. My nights were spent dreaming about a child. I visited Devinagar a couple of times as well to talk to the acquaintances of the Sarpanch family. Most people believed the Sarpanch to be a devout person who had allocated significant funds and effort to renovate the temple of the local deity Goddess. The local villagers believed that they must have accrued some sinful past life deeds which resulted in such a painful death. However, when it came to the topic of the barn itself, nobody spoke a word. Everyone was scared to their guts.

Looking at my obsession over this article, my wife was starting to get really worried. And rightfully so - I was indeed losing my mind. About three weeks in, I had lost all my appetite to eat and simply wanted to decode the source of Her song.

Just when I was about to lose all hope, I received a phone call. It was a doctor from Devinagar. He informed me that the Sarpanch’s wife had given birth to a girl child just before the tragedy occurred. The Sarpanch had paid off the doctor to keep quiet about the birth of his daughter. The entire village was under the impression that the Sarpanch’s wife gave birth to a stillborn. The doctor did not know what happened to the baby girl but just wanted to ease his conscience by talking to me.

That night, I dreamt again. However, it wasn’t Her song. This dream was from Her perspective. The Sarpanch kept repeating, almost like a chant, that there was no place for a girl in his family as a girl child is a burden. The Sarpanch was burning the Her alive in the barn. She had just been born but had no place in this world.

A girl child is an impure soul. A girl child is a burden. Impure. Burden.

Burn.

***

NOW

As I enter the fence again, I can hear Her song. The song that She never got to sing. In the soft whispering voice of the girl that could never grow up.

I take out the clipping of my new article on the horrors of female infanticide which I had called Devi – the name I gave Her after the Goddess. This is my offering, I say out loud.

This time She lets me enter the barn where She breathed Her first and last. Where the flames engulfed the demons. The singing gets louder for a moment and then fades away gradually into the oblivion of peace.

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