Savor the moment before it's too late
By Dr. Joy Dworkin

Associate Professor of English

"God!" "Devil!" The men were pointing at a dirt mound. I didn't recognize them, but they had motioned to me so emphatically from across the street, waving their arms with excitement; it would have been rude to refuse whatever they wanted to offer me.

One man spoke a little English. "It is god there. Snake!" The half dozen or so men were all smiling, awaiting my response. I was impressed, and a bit confused. "A snake lives there?" I asked. "Yes, yes. Goddess." The dirt pile was about four feet tall, with a few irregular openings scattered across its surface from which a creature could emerge at any moment? In fact, I was initially more amazed to be standing beside the home of what I assumed had to be a very large snake than I was to consider the identity of snake and goddess. We had recently visited a village just outside Hyderabad where the tiny temples that housed goddess shrines were decorated with images of snakes. I knew the image of the snake was one possible symbol of the goddess. But this was no

symbol. And there was no shrine or temple here.

The men were beaming. They wanted so much for me to understand the significance of their discovery, but our discussion couldn't move beyond the basic information: snake, goddess, home. I thanked them. Broad smiles all around. They wanted me to take their picture, standing by the hill of dirt. I obliged, then began my walk to the University of Hyderabad campus - regretting, as I did a number of times during my six weeks in India, that I hadn't taken the trouble to learn some Telugu (the regional language) or at least some Hindi.

But before long, more information was conveyed - though mostly not through language. Soon, what had begun as a pile of dirt became widely recognized as a sacred space. A canopy of dried grasses was built to mark it as such; tree trunks and posts were painted with white and red stripes, as was the wall behind the canopy; the snake-nest itself was covered with saffron and vermilion powders and garlands of jasmine flowers; a brass bell was strung from the canopy; and a woman sat to the side of the mound, selling coconuts. Within a couple weeks, on a religious festival day, a lively party took place at the site, complete with a processional of four drummers and a crowd of some 30 or 40 merrymakers - men and children laughing and dancing, the more stately women bringing puja (sacred offerings) in metal bowls balanced on their heads.

This transformation, the speed and naturalness with which a community recognized and celebrated its divinity HERE and NOW, did amaze me, continues to amaze me.

In India, such transformations are snakes: emerging to reveal what was hidden, linking two realms in a miracle of manifestation.