How a centuries-old children’s game preserved the hidden trauma of Sati

The rhythmic chant of a children's game, 'Udkushi Mudkushi Lava,' played in a sunlit schoolyard in Assam, unexpectedly transported the author back 60 years to a humid, shadowed room in India. There, her grandmother, Ji Ama, would lead the same game with a group of toddlers, her knuckles tapping against their small hands in a familiar, rhythmic pattern.

What began as a seemingly innocent childhood pastime evolved into a profound realization for the author. The game, played on a cool indoor floor with the grandmother forming a fist and tapping each child's knuckles, was not merely a source of amusement. It was, in fact, a 150-year-old séance, a coded ledger of the horrific Sati ritual her grandmother had witnessed as a four-year-old child in the mid-1800s.

Born into a world where Sati rituals, the burning of a widow with her dead husband, were conducted behind shuttered windows and bolted doors, the grandmother's childhood curiosity led her to peek through the cracks. What she saw was not a divine transition, but a macabre preparation that she translated into the language of a nursery rhyme. The innocence of the game evaporated as the author, through the lens of this childhood witness, began to understand the visceral meaning behind the words.

The rhyme's phrases, such as 'Udkushi Mudkushi,' are interpreted as the uncomfortable, cramped feeling of being trapped in a stifling room under lockdown, reflecting the restlessness of a child witness. 'Lava' (the grain) and 'Soon' (the gold) are seen as coded references to the parched rice scattered over the widow and the heavy gold associated with the ritual, transforming a playful chant into a chilling testament to a hidden historical trauma.