Tilo As A Trickster Quotes

How I lifted my arm, so heavy in its loose-lapped skin and felt the scream taking shape like a dark hole in my chest … The trembling in my knees as I pushed myself up, the pain that jabbed the twisted bones of my hands (TMS 59).
The magicality of her transformation is a sharp contrast to the realism of everyday world and Tilo, thus, personifies the trait of changing self of an emblematic trickster. Her changing self takes place when she readies herself to the First Mother’s queries who asks her, “Are you ready to give up your young bodies, to take on age and ugliness and unending service?” (TMS 40). Tilo’s transformation not only conceals her physicality but also alters her identity as she starts her journey as Bhagyavati, transits to Nayantara,

By imbibing archetypal trickster traits, Tilo turns out to be a culture hero in the text. She suffers and undergoes penance to put aside others from sufferings. Like a true trickster, she breaks all the rules of the magical spices. She touches others though it is prohibited for Mistresses of Spices. Tilo affirms: “It is not allowed for Mistresses to touch those who come to us” (TMS 6). Then she looks at herself in a mirror too and thus breaks another rule as she remembers that: “(for mirrors are forbidden to Mistresses)” (TMS 5). Finally, she commits the most forbidden sin for a Mistress, that is, to fall in love with a “mortal man” (TMS 43). But Tilo is happy as “For one to be happy, another must take upon herself the suffering” (TMS 298). She

By surviving through a fatal earthquake, a circumstance which is quite similar to her first encounter with the fire of Shamapti, Tilo wakes up with a new body. She is amazed as she witnesses,
Against my fingers the flesh is not prune-dry, nor the hair thinned to balding. The breasts sag a little, the waist is not slim, but this is not a body quenched of all its fragrance … This is not a body in youth’s first roseglow, but not one in age’s last unflowering either (TMS 304).
Here, the transformation of Tilo is both physical and spiritual. Now, Tilo is rechristened as Maya and as per Raven, the name ‘Maya’ binds the two ancient cultures, Indian and Native American. In Hinduism, the meaning of Maya is “illusion, spell, enchantment, the power that keeps this imperfect world going day after day” (TMS 317) where as in Native American culture, “Maya” or the “Mayan” is a very ancient civilization known for its power of the occult, mystery, and magic. Hence, the name ‘Maya’ becomes a bridge between the two ancient