This is the story of Dhamni, a tribal woman living in the Deccan plateau of India’s South somewhere in the decade of the 40’s. Dhamni was married to a pot-bellied good for nothing, who reveled in gambling the night away. They were a childless couple.
On the pond, the women taunted Dhamni. “Keep your distance Vanzoti (Infertile). Let not your shadow fall on us. It made her sick and extremely irritable. “Who do you think you are calling Vanzoti?” She rushed at them in furious rage, throwing down her own pot of water. Frothing at the mouth and shrieking with blind rage, she hit out at one of the acrid younger one. But they were all off and in the distance; she heard their mad raucous laughter. Angry, hurt, and suddenly drained, Dhamni walked to her hut. Her husband was waiting for dinner. Immediately thereafter, he was going to the ruins behind the temple, where there were four from the adjoining village coming today. He was salivating at the thought of turning lucky tonight, so he could drink himself silly this weekend and gorge on succulent goat mutton!
Dhamni entered the hut fuming and enraged. He was about to ask for lunch, but one look at Dhamni, and he started to put on his shirt and leave the hut.
“Where is the dog for Chris-sake??” Dhamni’s tone rang warning bells in his mind.
“The municipal workers were poisoning all strays today. Quite a few have turned turkey at the corner of the street.”
“Oh is it so? Why don’t you poison me and finish off once and for all?” “I told you to look for that dog and all you can tell me is some cock-and-bull story?” yelled Dhamni.
She entered the sleeping place in the hut and shut its door with a loud bang.
Her husband made good his escape while there still was time!
Dhamni lay on the rug tears welling up in her eyes. Why did the village women always behave like this? Even when sifting grain in the lazy afternoons, the women cringed as she walked along and sat at the edge of the room to help them sift. A pall of gloom would hang in the air in their otherwise animated conversation. Dhamni could not take the insults anymore. Today, even the stray dog that she had petted, left her.
“Why me? Why me?”
Her mother was a Devdasi – one whose life is offered to the temple god and one who lives on the alms offered by devotees in the temple. Her hair was rough, matted and extremely smelly. Custom decried that she not wash her hair. Her features were coarse and she was very dark. But the whites of her eyes were pure and in the eyes was a fondness, reserved for Dhamni, when Dhamni lay with her head on her lap. People in distress came to her mother and asked her questions regarding many things. She applied kohl to grains. Within the blackened grains, her mother saw figures which talked to her of the unknown and unmanifested.
During one of her predictions, Dhamni heard her mother tell a prosperous fat lady with loads of gold on her, “Go to the temple on the No-moon night and bury a large fruit in the soil in front of the temple. But take care, you must go alone.” Dhamni heard the woman draw her breath in sharply at the very thought. “Follow it word-to-word and you will obtain your desire. A bonny baby will visit your womb.”
And in the blackness of that lonely and ululating night, Dhamni decided to test what she remembered of her mother’s words. She decided to take the trial by fire.