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While we moved frequently growing up, we never strayed too far from the bridge, and the beach. My mother loved the water. Beach combing and bonfires were a mainstay for us. She was a born storyteller, and entertained me throughout my childhood with fabulous tales of gods, demons, heroes, and mermaids. My favorite story was always the bridge, which she told every time we went to the beach. She always pointed across the water to India, and my tiny hand always pointed with hers. Explaining how noble Rama needed to cross the waters to rescue his darling Sita held here in Lanka, she told of clever Hanuman, who knew he must build a mighty bridge for Rama's army to cross without offending Varuna, the ocean god who rode a markara. 

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"But Ravana, an evil rakshasa responsible for Sita's kidnapping," she told me, "was determined to prevent Rama's crossing, and mustered his minions to tear apart the fledgling bridge, under the guidance of Suvannamaccha, his mermaid daughter. Just as each day's progress was finished on the bridge, each night the rocks were ripped from their moorings and allowed to sink to the bottom of the ocean."

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I listened eagerly each time, as this was nearing my favorite part of the story. The part where my name came from.

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"Hanuman discovered Suvannamaccha wrestling a giant boulder three times her size down the bank of the bridge. 'This is my saboteur?!' he asked in a voice filled with surprise. The rock slipped out of her hands landed on her tail, pinning her in place, and she was unable to flee. Guilty and stuck, she glared at him and he burst out laughing. He refused to help her until she agreed to have dinner with him that night, and they were inseparable right up until the bridge was done. Then he left, and nine months later Macchanu was born."

 

Much later in her life, she told how my father was a construction foreman in Lanka back then, and she was one of those liberal, protester, free-spirit types. I suppose she settled down quite a bit when I was born, as I don't remember any long, angry talks about the government or big corporations as a child. They met one day when he discovered her trying to pour sugar in the fuel tank of his bulldozer at the site of the Grand Rama IV skyscraper. If I were in his position, I would have been angry. He laughed and took her dancing. Nine months later I was born and he was long gone. She named me Macchanu and we moved to India, in Rameswaram, and we lived on the other side of the bridge. I grew up, went to university, and became a save-the-planet person myself in time. I settled down enough to teach ecology at a local college. I eventually realized that whether god, ecology, or the judgement of their peers, humans just behave better towards each other, and the environment, when they believe that consequences are real.

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In the market one day as an adult, I saw a man, and I knew it was my father. There was something about his stance, his carriage, how he angled his head when speaking… All of these caught my attention, and he noticed. He looked shocked, and we stared at each other for what felt like eternity. He was me, my eyes, my hair, and my jawline, just ever so slightly different and older. Then he vanished. I knew it was him, and I searched the market, but he was gone. It was my mother's birthday, and I was buying flowers to put at the cemetery. Was he there for me? For her? Did he even know about me? I don't know, but I watch for him still without realizing it sometimes. Part of me knows he’s out there, and part of me wonders if I’ll ever meet him properly. 

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I take my wife and children to the beach in Lanka now, and together we point out across Rama's bridge. I tell them of Suvannamaccha, Hanuman, Varuna, and Rama, and they are young enough to still believe, for now. Perhaps I believe as well. Should my children choose to pass their stories along to their children, I want the bridge to be there for them too. 

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Author’s note

Suvannamaccha, mermaid daughter of Ravana, attempted to sabotage Hanuman’s efforts to build the bridge in the Ramayana. Hanuman, wily devil that he is, instead of growing angry chose to seduce her. He moved along after the bridge was finished, and she had a child named Macchanu. Many years later, Macchanu (who was half monkey and half merman due to his mixed heritage) observes his father on a battlefield and both realize who the other is. Similarities to this modern rendition include Suvannamaccha (Macchanu's mother) sabotaging work that Hanuman is employed to complete, their passionate and brief affair, and a child born, unbeknownst to the father. While the childhood of Macchanu is never explicitly stated, I imagine him to have enjoyed a full life and an enormous surprise meeting his father for the first time. There is currently a Grand Rama IX skyscraper in construction in Thailand today, but I chose to create an earlier version of the building to fit with the fictional chronology of this story, as it seemed appropriate that a modern day Hanuman could be working on a grand, magnificent structure bearing Rama's name. Finally, Hanuman is believed by many to still live on today, and the idea that the cycle could repeat itself in modern times was quite appealing. 

 

Bibliography

Macchanu, Suvannamaccha, Hanuman - Wikipedia

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Image Source: Pinterest

              Hanuman and Suvannamacha