A TALL STORY
St. Joseph’s Cathedral. Hyderabad.
My eyes stare into the gilded details of the altar…the gold and pastel on the statues swell and appear to melt into each other ,as their blurry swirls take me back in time.
Sunday Mass. I can still smell the mix of old leather, weathered walls, and the passing whiffs of various perfumes as I’d walk in to take my seat up in the front row. Over a century Old, this Church with faded but ornate arches & chipped statues of the various stages of Jesus’s life, sets the scene for much social activity. Everyone is here to pray. But once the prayers are done, it is time to catch up with friends, family, or meet some new faces. Tarnished smooth wooden pews, the edges of which are softened by time neatly flood the space that is tiled with patterned mosaic. Their kneeling posts are padded with faux leather stuffed with a foam of some sort. You could kneel on them without it grazing or hurting your knees.
Just one slight problem. I’m not tall enough to see over the bench when I kneel on it. I am of course barely 6 years old.
I kneel nonetheless when the adults do. As a child I am both a breaker of rules and fervent follower of tradition. Flexible. It depends on the time and place. And right now, it’s my time to observe the world around me hidden from the public eye. There’s the lady who covers her face with the ‘pallu’ of her sari. Maybe it is so that no one will know that she falls asleep during the sermon. There’s the princely gentleman who comes to church dressed to the nines with the strut akin to that of a peacock’s. I notice him: Everyone does. And it appears to please him very much. There’s the guy with a nervous tick (he will always touch his belt on his way back from communion.) Almost as if to make sure his pants are still held up nice and secure.
Best of all, I’m at eyeline with others like me.I make eye contact with another little girl, and we smile at each other through the gaps in the carved woodwork of the pew. We both know the thrill of being out of sight yet we can’t wait to grow up so we can be tall enough to take a yummy bit of 'host' from the priest dunked in a bit of wine. Host is what they call the delicious rice chip handed out to all confirmed catholics that melts as soon as it touches your tongue! They call it the body and blood of Christ (sounds like a gory analogy for something so tasty -I would know because my dad once snuck a bit of it out for me. Don’t tell anyone though!
I listen to nothing the priest says.
It’s all a bit of echoey mooing to me. It’s also been an early start to a Sunday morning for my dad and me & I’m a bit drowsy. I hear something about heaven being the dream to aspire to. I've never seen heaven. I’ll bet it’s nice…But as dreams go, I have better things to dream about.
Like the hot air balloon festival, I had just witnessed an hour before.
I’ll never forget it. The bright silken fabric of the balloon, the loud hissing of the burner system…once again, I’m below the fence. A bit roughed up between the onlookers and the lucky folks that get to ride in those balloons.
“For a fee” I hear someone chatter, “you can go too!”
Could I? I think silently to myself.
I’d probably be too short to see anything from the basket! What if a giant gust of wind carries the balloon far, far away?!! I might go with it ?! no?
NO. Too scary. I’ll watch from here.
Soon they’re all blown up…Tall like buildings! Big bright colors -Vibrant hues of yellow, orange, magenta, Blue, purple, green! So many beautiful designs. They stand tall, now hovering slightly above ground…while I was ogling at the colors, their fortunate (or not!) riders are already in them. They appear to be levitating…. And so do I…I’m being carried away. Back to the car.
“It was alright” I hear a passerby say. Alright??? No way! It was incredible! I turn around over my father’s shoulder. I tell him quietly that I want to go back! “You can ride one of your own when you grow up” he says and plants a kiss on my cheek.
I look over his shoulder again. The balloons now smaller. I can fit them between my index finger and my thumb if I look at them just right…
They lift gently off into the distance…
One day, I'll ride a balloon of my own.
Years later, I am back home. Now legitimately tall enough to kneel. Maybe too tall for I can’t hide anymore. No secret observation posts. No daydreaming. Still, my eyes observe things around me as do my ears. Most things have stayed the same. Some have changed. I now notice that the pious, sari-clad lady wears a Mangalgiri silk. It drapes beautifully across her now aged face, her eyes closed. She appears to be sleeping yet her lips move steadily in chants of prayer. Her fingers moving the beads of her rosary necklace. I wonder to myself what she’s talking to God about. The princely gentleman now drooped over in his seat. The clothes he once wore still the same, a bit faded. He doesn’t seem to care anymore about the attention of the crowd.
The guy with the nervous tick though...still worried about his pants!
A Sacristan (caretaker of the church) comes by with a collector for tithes (contributions- money, of course )… we each do a double-take. I was much smaller when he last saw me, and he much younger. We smile and nod at each other. I give him a little something from my wallet and he moves on. I’m listening to the sermon today. I weigh every word and realize that it still sounds like mooey echoes … The echoes soon fade into the distance as I look out of the tall windows of the church, at a clear blue sky.
I squint, as something colorful catches my eye.
"Could that be a balloon in the clouds?..."