UNIT 9 Meet the family

Text 9A

A day in the life of the goddess Taleju

This is an account of a day in the life of an unusual 15-year-old girl called
Chanira, who is worshipped as a goddess in Nepal.
I wake around 6, but my duties as a kumari – a living incarnation of
the Hindu goddess Taleju – don’t start until later. I wear red robes to
bed, but I change into more elaborate ones with gold embroidery for
daytime and I put on my jewellery. My father always does my make-up
for me. He is an artist and my mother is a housewife, and I have two
younger brothers, aged 13 and 10. I live with my family in Lalitpur in
Kathmandu. I have been a kumari for as long as I can remember.
At 8 we do puja, a religious ritual that must be performed every
day. I sit on my throne in my puja room and my mother will bring
offerings of fruit and rice on special metal platters. She burns incense,
lights butter lamps and recites mantras. When I am in the puja room I
am the goddess Taleju. Nobody is allowed to speak to me and I must
not talk. Perhaps it’s because of this that even outside the puja room I
am very uncomfortable speaking to people, apart from my family.
Puja usually takes half an hour, and after that I have my
breakfast of chiya and roti. Then I do my homework. I have been
working hard this year because I had to take my school leaving
exam in the spring. Now I’m doing my equivalent to A-levels.
After my homework we sit down to our main meal, which we have
before midday. It’s always dahl, curry and rice. At 12 I go back to the
puja room, and between then and 1 p.m. I receive devotees. I bless
them with a tikka (a spot of red dust) on the forehead. They bring
fruit, rice or coconut, bow down before me and say ‘Namaste’. People
might think it feels odd to sit on a throne and give blessings, but it
doesn’t to me because it’s what I have always done. I was six when I
became a kumari. My mother says she knew from the moment I was
born that I was unique. She says I looked very knowing.
The priests decide who becomes a kumari, and make the choice
based on a girl’s age, horoscope and physical attributes.
At 1 p.m. my lessons start. I have three teachers who come to
the house. My brothers go to the local school, but I am not allowed
to leave the house, except on one of the 19 annual festival days.
Then, as Taleju, I am carried through the streets in a palanquin to
be present at all the ceremonies. I cannot talk to anyone; I can only
watch the rites in the temple.
I never think about going outside. I think if I were to sneak out
to buy sweets or anything like that, I should feel sick – it’s not how
a kumari behaves. If I did something a goddess should not do, who
knows what impact it could have on the Nepali people?

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 1

 UNIT 9 Meet the family

When another local girl takes over from me as kumari, I’d like to
go on to college and study accountancy. I believe that if you study
hard, you can do anything in life.
My lessons finish at 7, and at 8 we have our evening meal,
which is the same as the morning’s. I am allowed to eat with my
family, but my food has to be prepared separately, in special dishes
that have to be ritually cleaned.
In the evening I watch television or go on the computer – I have
a Hotmail account – and hang out with my brothers. So I suppose
that for an hour or so I’m a normal teenager. But because of my
duties I have always been too busy to play, so I don’t have any of
my own friends.
I can’t really begin to imagine what my life will be like when I
am able to go outside with my brothers and to college. Right now
I am just living from day to day, and because I’m always with my
family, whom I love, I enjoy that. I go to bed at 10, in my own
room, which has a small wooden bed. I never dream.

palanquin a covered chair carried on poles on the shoulders of four bearers

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 2