The Hope of Shridula (17 page)

Falak didn't answer.

"What is wrong?" Jyoti demanded.

"Hari is gone."

Jyoti stared at her son. "What do you mean
gone?"

Falak still didn't answer.

"Never mind," Jyoti said. "He will be back directly. Maybe he took a quick trip to the woods."

Falak's eyes filled with tears. Jyoti grabbed him by the arms and demanded, "Where did he go? You know something! What do you know?"

Tears ran down Falak's face. "He joined the Communist fighters,
Amma.
Hari is not coming back."

20

November 1946

S
hhh . . ." Glory Anna cautioned. She moved out of the room and edged around the corner toward the open veranda door. When no one looked her way, she glanced back and beckoned for Shridula to join her.

" . . . because its treasury is all but empty." Rajeev speaking. "No mandate in England, not after the war. And the British know we Indians will not support them any longer."

"So what will they do?" Nihal Amos. Glory Anna couldn't see him, but she knew his voice.

"End British rule in India, of course." Rajeev again, strong and cocky. "They have no other choice. The decision has already been made!"

Shridula gasped.

"Shhhh!" Glory Anna grabbed Shridula's arm and dragged her away from the veranda door.

What Shridula and Glory Anna heard from around the veranda corner, every person passing along the road heard as well. And what one person heard, he quickly passed along to two other people, and those two to six more. "Did you get the news? It came from a most reliable source. British rule of India is coming to an end!"

Soon the entire village buzzed with the gossip.

Brahmin Rama started his morning the same way he started every morning: he worshipped Brahman, the great World-Spirit, by reciting the Vedas. After that he worshipped his ancestors by partaking of ritual water drinks, and then he worshipped the gods and goddesses by pouring
ghee
on the sacred fire. He worshipped all living things by scattering grain on the threshold of his house for the benefit of animals, birds, and roaming spirits. Yet even he heard the talk. So after he completed his morning rituals, he settled himself perfectly still before an idol. He sat with legs crossed and eyes fixed straight ahead. With his hands resting on his knees, palms up, he recited still more mantras—punctuating his words with ritual gestures.

Independence. What would it mean?

After his prayers, Brahmin Rama stopped by the kitchen and told his servant, "Cook
chapatis
for me and pack a few supplies. Tomorrow I shall leave on a spiritual journey."

Shridula, careful to keep her eyes averted, gathered the courage to ask Glory Anna the question that had plagued her for so many days: "If the British end their rule of India, will you still live here?"

"I do not know what will happen to any of us," Glory Anna said. "Maybe everything will be different. Maybe it will be the end."

"Maybe it will be the beginning," Shridula suggested.

Glory Anna stared at her.

"What I meant, of course, is it may be the beginning for you," Shridula hastened to say. "I am what I am. I know that."

In order to get an early start, Brahmin Rama started his morning rituals long before dawn. He dressed in a simple cotton
mundu,
slipped sandals on his feet, and picked up a light pack tied together in a white
chaddar.

When the Brahmin passed by the landlord's house, Saji Stephen looked up from his veranda. "Where are you going?" he called.

"To Benares, the sacred city," Rama called back. "To walk the
Panch-kos
road and wash in the holy Ganges. To make sacrifices and say prayers at the Golden Temple."

"For us all?"

"For us all."

Moving past the landlord's house, Brahmin Rama picked up his pace. He held his head high, puffed out his skinny chest, and acted as though he truly was prepared for whatever might be ahead.

"I am waiting for you to brush my hair, Shridula!" Glory Anna sighed in exasperation. "What is the matter with you?"

Shridula took the brush and pulled it through Glory Anna's thick hair. "My
amma
and
appa,"
she said. "Everything in the world will change and they do not even know anything about it."

"Of course they do," Glory Anna said. "Everyone knows."

"Not in the laborers' settlement," Shridula said. "I do not think so."

Glory Anna's hair shined as Shridula pulled the brush through it, stroke after stroke after stroke.

"Maybe you should go see them," Glory Anna said.

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Great mountain peaks of the Western Ghats shadowed the midlands of Malabar where rolling hills and sloping valleys pushed their way clear through to the sea. Brahmin Rama marveled at just how vast landlord Varghese's holdings were.

Two different times, drivers of bullock carts stopped to offer the Brahmin a ride. But since Rama could not be certain of the drivers' castes, and since he was unwilling to risk pollution, he thanked each one kindly and declined.

In the late afternoon, a brown
chital
sprang across his path. Brahmin Rama stopped and smiled at the sound of the graceful animal's high-pitched coo. Had he not lived his life con- fined to the village, the Brahmin might have known that cry was the spotted deer's warning that a tiger lurked nearby. But since he didn't know, Brahmin Rama stood in the road and smiled in blissful ignorance after the fleeing animal.

As he passed by a small village, Brahmin Rama spotted a man sitting beside the road, his twig-thin legs bent and twisted. "Alms," the man called, reaching out his shaky hand. Rama undid the strings of his purse and pulled out two
annas.
Without slowing his pace, he tossed them toward the man.

This way I show my reverence,
he thought.
When I get to Benares, the gods will look upon me with special favor because of my kindness.

It was the Brahmins' way. Even beggars served to enhance their standing as the revered highest caste.

Jesus loves me when I'm good, When I do the things I should.

Jesus loves me when I'm bad, Though it makes him very sad.

"What are you singing?" Zia asked her husband.

"The pale English lady used to sing that song to me when I was very little," Ashish said. "I have not thought about it for so long."

"Those are English words? What do they mean?"

"It is about the Jesus God," Ashish said. "He loves me even if I am not good enough. That is what the Holy Book teaches."

"I do not think that can be right," Zia said. "If there was a real God, and if he truly did love us, he would not have turned his back on us."

Brahmin Rama, who steadfastly refused to begin his daily prayers before he performed his morning ritual bath, stood up from his first night of sleeping in the wild and blinked around him in a confusion that bordered on panic. How was he to bathe himself?

Like most high caste Indians, Rama suffered from an absolute terror of pollution. It was this very matter, in fact, that so disgusted him about Englishmen. In their health clinics, they insisted on abiding by every minute health rule ever designed by man, claiming they only desired to protect themselves from all forms of contamination. Yet they turned up their aristocratic noses at the Indian's daily cleansing. They preferred their own weekly bath in a tub of water contaminated by their own dirty bodies. Furthermore, they washed their faces in basins that had been spat in and gargled over. Absolutely disgusting!