The Hope of Shridula (18 page)

Rama pulled together a few twigs and, after some effort, managed to start a cooking fire. He took flour and oil out of his pack and kneaded it into dough, which he fried as cakes in his own skillet. He had no choice. It was the only way he could be certain his food was completely pure.

"Your Shridula," the woman with a scar over her eye called out as she passed by Ashish's hut. "She is coming down the road."

"Shridula is on her way," Dinkar announced.

"She is almost here!" Jyoti called out.

Ashish hurried out to the path to meet his daughter. Zia waited for them, stirring up spiced rice, and laughing out loud as she stirred.

Brahmin Rama didn't count how many days he walked, how many lean-to shelters he threw together, how many
chapati
cakes he fried in his skillet, how much rice he cooked over outdoor fires. But one night, after he started yet another fire for yet another evening meal, a traveling holy man sat down close to him and called out a greeting. Brahmin Rama nodded in reply.

"Where are you going?" the holy man asked.

"To Benares," Rama said. "To the Golden Temple beside the holy Ganges. I am on a pilgrimage."

"To walk all that way and back again will take you most of a year," the holy man said.

Brahmin Rama stared in disbelief. Could it truly be so far? Rama passed half of his evening's rice to the holy man, then he moved over closer. The two talked long into the night. The next morning, Brahmin Rama wrapped his belongings up in the white
chaddar
and turned his steps toward Cochin.

"You will suffer enough once you arrive in Benares," the holy man called after him. "It will not add to your sins to arrive in a railroad car."

"
Appa! Amma!
Do you know what is about to happen?" Shridula asked. "Have you heard?"

"Sit, Daughter," Ashish said. "Catch your breath. Then you can tell us the news from the village."

Clusters of men squeezed in close. They pretended to talk to one another, but everyone knew they were actually listening to what Shridula had to say. Women deserted their cook fires and edged over, too. The children simply pushed their way through to the front.

"The British are going to end their rule in India," Shridula said.

"They will leave the land?" Dinkar exclaimed. "Are you certain?"

"Everyone at the landlord's house says so."

"What does that mean for us?" a man called out.

"I do not know," Shridula said.

"Will we still be the landlord's slaves?" asked another.

"I do not know. I have not heard that."

"What of the Communists?" Jyoti called out. "What of my Hari?"

"I do not know."

"What will happen to the village?" demanded the young man with an old man's face.

"I do not know," Shridula insisted. "I do not know!"

Brahmin Rama jostled his way through the crowds of pilgrims that thronged
Panch-kos,
the road that circled around Benares. His father had always talked of walking this road, though he never did. It was the great ambition of every true Hindu. Brahmins surrounded Rama on every side, and holy men, too. Of course there were also the beggars who swarmed after them. And lepers. Lepers everywhere. Their fingers and toes gone, they reached out to Rama with stubs of hands.

Someone pulling a cart with a man inside pushed up against Rama. The Brahmin tried to step aside, but a skinny man staggered up on the other side, his old mother clinging to his back. So many sick heading for the holy waters of the Ganges. Or perhaps just to this road. For it was believed that anyone who should die on
Panch-kos
would immediately be admitted to Shiva's heaven.

Clanging cymbals punctuated a wild clamor of voices. Brahmin Rama knew what that meant; a temple up ahead. People clogged the road, their shouts deafening him. Rama tried to pull back, but the crowd forced him forward. When he caught sight of a small alley, he lunged for it.

Immediately Rama regretted his impulsive move. The alley was dark and narrow. If he stood in the middle and reached out with both arms, he could touch walls on each side at the same time. Where it led, he had no idea. He must force himself back into the flood of people.

Then the Brahmin looked up. Towering before him, its gilded domes glistening in the sun's rays, was the Golden Temple. Brahmin Rama folded his hands in prayer and raised them toward heaven.

Rama joined the worshippers who crowded through the alley, and he moved toward the entrance. On the temple's threshold, he fell down and lay prostrate. Then, rising with some difficulty and pushing past the myriad of tramping feet, he scooped up water from a dirty puddle and splashed it over his forehead, his eyes, his lips. He raised the last holy drops to his tongue and swallowed them.

Shridula hunkered down small on the dirt floor of Ashish's stifling hut. "I want to come home," she begged.

"Is the landlord cruel to you?" Zia asked her.

"No, but I want to be with you."

Ashish touched his daughter's arm. "He is the landlord, and we—"

"I know what we are!" Shridula snapped. "Untouchables! And I know the landlord owns us. Everyone tells me it cannot be helped. Everyone tells me it is my
karma.
I do not want to hear it anymore!"

Ashish pulled his hand back and said nothing.

"You say you do not believe in
karma,"
Shridula said to Ashish.

"No," he said.

"Then why does everything bad happen to us?"

Ashish took Shridula's hand in his. "It does not, Daughter," he said. "Some bad happens and some good happens. We miss having you here . . . but you are not far away. We have very little rice . . . but you have so much that you share with us. We do not know what will happen . . ."

" . . . but we can hope," Shridula finished.

Brahmin Rama wove his way through countless women seated beside the road, all calling out promises of good luck for the price of a garland of marigolds. A holy man in front of Rama—long-bearded and wild-haired, with the white ash mark of Vishnu on his forehead—tossed a coin to a wrinkled old woman. He chose a garland from her basket and hung it around his neck. Rama stepped up behind him and did the same. Just beyond the woman, Rama stepped aside, knelt down in a line with other Brahmins and, like them, leaned forward. A Brahmin-approved barber moved along the row and shaved each head. When he finished shaving Rama, the Brahmin raised his folded hands and recited a mantra. He handed the barber an entire
rupee,
and left still more righteous than he had come.

No longer was the road open or the air fresh. Huddled wooden buildings, weathered and sun-brittled, lined the last stretch before the road reached the bank of the holy river. Brahmin Rama wrinkled his nose against the dank smells of sweat and grime and bodies crowded too close together.

The sun beat hot on Rama's shaved head as he stepped down the wooden bathing-steps to the Ganges River. Mud, mud, and more mud. Even the steps seemed to be made of mud. A cloud of flies billowed up and swarmed over him. Brahmin Rama swatted at them as he stepped down into the flowing grime.