The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

to a change of faith. Fifteen years ago, Father Mulligan became a
Vaishnavite. A devotee of Lord Vishnu. He stayed in touch with
Baby Kochamma even after he joined the ashram. He wrote to her
every Diwali and sent her a greeting card every New Year. A few
years ago he sent her a photograph of himself addressing a
gathering of middle-class Punjabi widows at a spiritual camp. The
women were all in white with their sari palloos drawn over their
heads. Father Mulligan was in saffron. A yolk addressing a sea of
boiled eggs. His white beard and hair were long, but combed and
groomed. A saffron Santa with votive ash on his forehead. Baby
Kochamma couldn‟t believe it. It was the only thing he ever sent
her that she hadn‟t kept She was offended by the fact that he had
actually, eventually, renounced his vows, but not for her. For other
vows. It was like welcoming someone with open arms, only to
have him walk straight past into someone else‟s.
Father Mulligan‟s death did not alter the text of the entries in
Baby Kochamma‟s diary, simply because as far as she was
concerned it did not alter his availability. If anything, she
possessed him in death in a way that she never had while he was
alive. At least her memory of him was hers. Wholly hers.
Savagely, fiercely, hers. Not to be shared with Faith, far less with
competing co-nuns, and co-sadhus or whatever it was they called
themselves. Co-swamis.
His rejection of her in life (gentle and compassionate though
it was) was neutralized by death. In her memory of him, he
embraced her. Just her. In the way a man embraces a woman. Once
he was dead, Baby Kochamma stripped Father Mulligan of his
ridiculous saffron robes and re-clothed him in the Coca-Cola
cassock she so loved. (Her senses feasted, between changes, on
that lean, concave, Christlike body.) She snatched away his
begging bowl, pedicured his horny Hindu soles and gave him back
his comfortable sandals. She re-converted him into the
high-stepping camel that came to lunch on Thursdays.
And every night, night after night, year after year, in diary
after diary after diary, she wrote: I love you I love you .