The woman continued to pray. She was oblivious to all that was going on around her. Families came in, or single individuals. They prayed, they offered poojas; the priest chanted the Sanskrit slokas. The sharp sounds of the coconuts being cracked interrupted my thoughts. The fragrance of burning camphor, the smoke of incense drifted, clouding the air. People came and went but the woman remained before the Kali statue. People went round from statue to statue as if on a pilgrimage.

As I was preparing to go home she came up to where I was standing. She looked at me as if she wanted to say something.

‘Why do you come to this kovil?’ I asked her. ‘To which gods do you pray?’ I asked her this question because I knew she was a Sinhalese woman, a Buddhist.

‘Mahathmaya, I come here because the gods here are powerful. I pray to Skanda, I pray to Kali. They will help me to overcome my problems and protect me from my enemies. Kali will also help me destroy those who harm me.’ She began to talk about herself and her family. ‘I need the help of the gods. What can I do by myself? I am surrounded by evil forces, I live in fear. There are people, my very own people, who are waiting to take everything that belongs to me. Yes, my own children, my sons, my sons-in-law, my grandchildren.’

Her voice began to grow more heated. Faint beads of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Her eyes had an anxious, worried expression. ‘My daughters have gone away to the Middle East to earn money, leaving their children behind for me to look after. I am the slave. I have to serve everybody. I have to do all the work. I do the marketing, I cook and look after my grandchildren. My children expect me to do everything for them because I am their mother and they, in turn, do nothing for me. They don’t respect me or obey me. My sons do not support me. All of them are living off me.’

The coconut cracked, parted into two perfect halves in the hands of the Brahmin priest. Milky white kernel appeared. After the pooja the flesh of the coconut would be fragrant with fruit, flowers, leaves and streaked with crimson kumkumum.

‘Mahathmaya,’ the woman continued, talking to me as if no one else existed, talking as if this were an interlude before she returned to her dialogue with Kali. ‘My daughters have gone away to earn money, but this money has ruined our family life. They use this money to make a slave of me. If they hadn’t gone to earn all this money, my daughters would have carried on with their duties and responsibilities here. I have brought up eight children of my own, did anyone help me? Did I leave them in anyone’s care? I nursed them, I fed them, I cared for them..