Golden Eyes and Silver Feet

 

Balaram was born in a farmer’s family in a small village Gunnathota Valasa near Bobbili town in Andhra Pradesh.

 The first son, in fact the first child in the family, he was named Balarama for the plough-bearing older brother of Lord Krishna. The second child, also a son was named Krishna and the third, a daughter, was inevitably Subhadra. The day when his mother went into labor and Subhadra was born, his father collapsed in the fields and was brought home dead. Later, the village elders pronounced that it was the impudence of naming the children after the divine siblings which brought about the father’s end.

As it was a custom in the south, the first  delivery child, Balarama was born in the maternal grand parents’ home in Jakkuva, another village. As a baby, he was fair and attractive and the entire village wanted to carry him and play with him.  It was summer, the month when the village worshiped their village goddess Daadi Thalli. In this nine-week festival, the goddess, in the form of a garlanded brass pot, is carried round the village in a procession every night and every household makes offerings of rice, sweets and fruit. Women compete for the honour of carrying the goddess on head; babies are laid on the procession’s path to receive the goddess’s blessing as the women walk over them. Balarama, beautiful child that he was, enjoyed being carried round the festivities and fed sweets and fruit. 

One evening during the procession and celebrations, moving from one villager’s shoulders to the other, the baby suddenly balled his fists, drew rigid and had a seizure. The villager’s rushed him home and everything was tried to revive the baby in vain. The body grew cold. Someone suggested that branding the baby would revive him. So this was done and a hot iron was placed on his wrists and knees and forehead. Still, no life. The women began wailing. It was past mid-night, the goddess had been returned to her shrine outside the village. 

The village Brahmin, and the village considered itself lucky to have at least one, was slightly knowledgeable in herbs. Hearing of the wailing and the death of the child, he arrived. After an examination of the body, he pronounced that there was still some flicker of life which perhaps could be rekindled with a kashayam of three wild root herbs; Verri, Veysari and Kaaru samba. Immediately, the villagers dispersed into the surrounding area with hurricane lanterns. An hour later they were back without being able to find the herbs. It was pitch dark and these were wild shrubs. By now, everyone had given up and the body was moved outside the home, to be buried in the morning. 

Balarama’s grandmother could not give up. How could she? This was her daughter’s firstborn and a male child in the family after years. She called a farmhand and rushed herself to the Daadithalli shrine outside the village, braving the snakes and wolves. 

Prostrating herself before the goddess, the old woman wept, swearing that if this baby was saved, she would lay him at the feet of the Goddess during the procession and offer her golden eyes and silver feet. She wiped her tears and turned back. The farmhand shone the lantern so the despondent old woman could walk the uneven path home. Then, in the light, in the enclosure within which the shrine lay, the astonished farmhand sighted the first of the three herbs. Then, a few steps away the second. And nearby, just ahead, the third. These three herbs, never sighted together, were found right there near the goddess. They both rushed home, the kashayam was made, the baby’s rigid jaws forced upon and the mixture poured down the throat. And Balarama (now Balaram) lived to tell this story. 

In the next day’s procession he was laid in the goddess’s path to receive her blessings. Balaram even today has the brand marks, a deep scar in the middle of his forehead and stains on his wrists and knees. And in his maternal grandmother’s village, Daadi Thalli has shining golden eyes and silver feet.

(I am grateful to Suchitra Balasubramaniyam who wrote this piece impromptu when I casually mentioned this fact of my life.)