Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents Read Free Page A

rosy-cheeked, slightly plump and curvaceous in the manner of a maternal Marilyn Monroe. The benevolent smile she wears is, admittedly, at odds with the fearful scimitar and dagger she wields and the bloodied demon corpse at her feet.
    Below these basic bits of information, in the neat, curling letters of our language, my father has inked thirteen generations of male names. Naanji, at the tree's root, rises thickly into his lineage of sons who begat sons. Halfway up the page, the tree begins to branch. The most prolific limb is that of Narsai, my great-great-grandfather.

    I am interested in whether the genealogist has any further information about these ancestors. Any birth or death dates? Any tidbits on occupation, place of residence, fees paid? And—might the charts list the names of the women?
    "Possibly," he says politely, which also means possibly not. He regrets that our books are traveling with his cousin just now; but for three thousand rupees, or sixty dollars, they will hand-copy our genealogies and mail them to us.
    The price is steep in Indian terms, the result uncertain; but he knows we are from America. We will pay. Meanwhile, we sit in the half-dark of the power outage as he tells us older tales—muddled, mysterious, mythic.

    Once upon a time, he begins, the god Vishnu became furious.
    I am familiar with Vishnu; when I was thirteen, I impersonated him for a school presentation. Coached by my father and dressed by my mother, I arrived at my suburban Michigan high school festooned in blue, red, and gold silk, with thick bands of bells around my ankles. In the school library I sat cross-legged and explained "my" role as preserver of the universe, the member of the trinity who keeps everything going, maintains the status quo. I described, in some detail, "my" ten incarnations on earth—the giant fish who saved the world from the floods, the turtle, the boar, the lion-man, the strong dwarf, and so on—and fielded questions from white classmates who did not know the first thing about "me."
    The genealogist is speaking of Vishnu's sixth incarnation, a holy warrior whose mission was to eliminate all the other warriors on earth. Enraged by mankind's endless warfare and the arrogance of kings, this divine warrior slaughtered all of the world's Kshatriyas. When they sprang up again on the battlefield by means of miracles, he kept going. In the end he killed them off twenty-one times; apparently the twenty-first genocide did the trick. Then he turned their lands over to the priests and returned to his heavenly abode.
    But as any good Hindu knows, by the laws of karma you can never end killing by killing. After the slaughter, the priests had no way of defending their realms against either the demons who roamed the earth or the corruption in their own ranks. Without warriors, the earth was overtaken by sin. And the Earth herself, a goddess, begged for relief.
    The great sages decided to do what they could: pray. With their fingernails they dug a giant pit in which they lit a sacrificial fire. They begged the gods for new warriors to destroy the forces of evil, including a demonic she-buffalo who was terrorizing the land. By the power of their prayer, from the fire arose a fearsome divine being, never before seen on earth: Ardhanaarishvara.
    Here my father raises his hand for a pause, to translate the word.
    But I already know it.
Ardhanaa,
meaning half.
Ishvara,
meaning god or goddess—or, in this case, both. Divided down the middle, Ardhanaarishvara is half god and half goddess, portrayed in the full glory of divine femininity (one round breast, one curvy hip) and divine masculinity (half of a flat, muscular torso, one arm bearing a weapon). She/he is a sort of patron saint for India's eunuchs and has been claimed in recent years by gays and lesbians as well. Spiritually, Ardhanaarishvara symbolizes the union of opposites: male and female, certainly, but also effort and surrender, reason and faith, worldly joys and