The Selector of Souls (56 page)

Damini steals a sidelong glance—Sister Anu looks determined to do just as she says.

She sighs. “Men, women—all of us have lost our true honour because we think our sons are gold. I tried to indulge my son and son-in-law so they would look after me in old age. I forgave my son the first time he attacked a house of worship, and that made him more bold. I was so afraid my son-in-law would send me away or tell
people Leela’s baby girl was mine, I did bad things. If you promise not to tell the SDM, Sister-ji, I promise to find a way to heal men and women here.”

Sister Anu tilts her head, agreeing.

“But,” says Damini. “I can’t just tell people of Gurkot straight out. We are mountain people—we don’t trust the straight way.”

T
HREE WEEKS AFTER THE FIRE
, S
ISTER
A
NU IS BACK
in the office of the sub-district magistrate, summoned to be informed that a more powerful god, the district magistrate, has issued a stay order on the operations of Bread of Healing, pending a government inquiry. The court, unlike the SDM, and perhaps with a little help from Amanjit Singh’s close friendship with the State of Himachal’s chief minister, has decided “such” things do happen in the SDM’s district. And that charges of rioting, intent to hurt, trespass and “outraging the morals of a woman” can all be upheld against Suresh. Inquiries can go on for years. The SDM cites the most famous—the gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, both inquiries in progress since 1984, the Babri Masjid inquiry in progress since 1992. While the investigation continues, he wags his finger at Anu, “I assured Aman-saab that I will warn you, you Christians better not retaliate. You tell your Christians to be like your Jesus. Explain to them that these young men were misguided. They knew not what they did.”

Sister Anu replies, “Those men knew exactly what they did. Since we have no chapel and no priest, I can’t give our congregation the sermon you want.”

“Ah yes, you can’t preach. So backward state of affairs. Throughout
India, women can preach—only you Christian women can’t. My wife, she is constantly preaching. I don’t listen, but I say she can do it.”

“It would help Christians believe justice is being done if you arrested more than one man. It took more than one man to bring the petrol from Jalawaaz, and someone other than Suresh set the monkey’s tail on fire.”

“Only two more witnesses have come forward, so we arrested several bachelors. Now maybe others will speak.”

“Why bachelors?”

“Because this is what happens when men have no sex.”

“You’re saying their brains stop working if they don’t get sex?”

“Semen builds up, Sister-ji. As a nurse you should be knowing this.”

It’s fruitless to argue with the SDM. But at least there will be an inquiry.

“You know this Suresh,” the SDM says, “was a social worker and a teacher.”

Sister Anu nods.

“He worked for the Bajrang Dal. Excellent Hindus. Little fanactical, but verrry good-intentioned. Inter-related to RSS.”

“No I didn’t know that.” Sister Anu grips the table, lightheaded at the implications. The banana and oatmeal she ate for breakfast churn in her stomach.

“We’ve learned the several names of Suresh’s boss in Shimla. We have learned the name of his New Delhi leader. He even gave us his license plate number.”

A bad feeling comes over Sister Anu. “Who is it?”

“A big saab.” He reaches for a toothpick holder, slides a toothpick between his fingers, and picks between his teeth.

“His name?”

He gives an exaggerated sigh, and glances at his Timex. “Why you need to know his name?”

“Why are you protecting it?”

“He has a good family—Kohlis.”

“It’s Vikas Kohli, right?”

His expression changes to interest. “You know Vikas-saab?” A shade of wariness in his tone. “How do you know him?” The wariness has changed to arch insinuation.

The SDM already assumed Father Pashan was Anu’s lover, to fit his views on Christian women and nuns. He’s now leaping to the same conclusion about Vikas. What would he think of the truth?

“I have met Vikas-saab,” she says carefully. “His wife and I are friends.”

“Then you can understand the problem I am in.”

“What problem?”

“Aman-ji told me he will bring charges in a criminal case. He’s accusing Vikas-saab of conspiracy, property damage. He says his lady-wife saw Vikas-ji giving Suresh a large sum of cash in the chai-stall, right there in Gurkot. He says Vikas-ji told his lady-wife that it was a donation, but she is sure it was a bribe. So this is why Aman-ji is alleging involvement in instigating people to riot.”

“And?”

“This is one case Aman-ji cannot win. Too much difficult. You see, Vikas Kohli was nowhere near here—he denies any connection.”

“But why is that your problem?” says Sister Anu. “Let the case take its course.”

“It’s that way only. Aman-ji is my friend, and your friend Vikas Kohli is now my friend. The district magistrate is not here, the district commissioner is in Shimla. Only I am here to save the good names of Amanjit Singh and Vikas Kohli. Both are continuously applying pressure, very much pressure.”

“And do you find this pressure tempting?”

He looks surprised, then hurt, then wounded. “How could you think so, Sister?”

D
AMINI WEARS HER THICK BROWN SHAWL FOR THE
climb to Lord Golunath’s temple. There are no forgiveness chairs under its conical dome, but everything is alive and when she reaches up and strikes the bell, vibrations echo as if joining a celestial song. The pujari, who was dedicated to the god of justice at thirteen, emerges. His eyes are narrowed against the sunset, his voice firmed by twenty years of chanting at marriages, puja ceremonies and death rites. He is the pandit who refused to officiate at Chunilal’s funeral, but the hair on his oiled chest ripples with his muscles today, when no danger is present. Despite the cold, he wears only a white cotton dhoti. He sinks into a slingback chair outside the shrine and nods encouragingly.

Damini sinks to her haunches before him and keeps her gaze on the scuffed toes of her boots as she skims the surface of the story, ending with that part of her problems that he can understand: Suresh is in jail. “Why did this happen?” she clasps her arms around her shins. “Always I thought I could rely on my son in my old age.”

“It is plain: you looked at another woman’s misfortunes and thought they could never happen to you.”

Yes, she had thought that Mem-saab’s misfortunes could never befall her. How did the pujari know? She had thought her Suresh a
more dutiful son, a more brotherly brother, a more spiritual man than Aman. How did the pujari know?

Some holy men hear the past you carry with you
.

The pujari’s scent is comforting—sandalwood incense and cannabis. But the beedi he lights is tobacco. Damini takes one from the knotted end of her sari and lights up too.

“No” she says, eventually. “It was my fault. I let my son believe he could do no wrong. I let him believe women exist to do his bidding.”

“He was misguided by many, not only you.”

“The swami who misguided him is free, the saab who misguided Suresh is free, the men of Gurkot who protested with Suresh are free. Only my Suresh is locked up.”

“Those people are not locked up,” the pujari says, sucking on his beedi, “but they cannot be free till they escape samsara. Who can be free till he never takes birth again?” He blows hot air and smoke into her eyes. “And you, ji? I have not seen you here before.”

“I mostly go to the gurdwara.” She twirls Mem-saab’s steel kara about her wrist.

“But today you are needing something from Lord Golunath?”

“Oh, no need, ji—I don’t need,” Damini says immediately. But she does need. If she goes to jail like Suresh, there will be no one left to help Leela. She lifts her chin. “You please tell Lord Golunath, he should come down from his mountain, come out of his temple, and just see, just look: what is happening in his village.”

The pujari suggests ceremonies of varying lengths and complexity—he too has to make a living. The least expensive is a jagar, an awakening for those who believe they are awake. Damini says, “Maybe a jagar.”

“Don’t think it’s easy,” says the pujari. “The ojha must travel into the spirit world to supplicate Lord Golunath to wake. He doesn’t do it often, or for just anyone.”

“Tell him it is for Damini who gave him madhupatra to sweeten his wife’s tea and make her kinder.”

“I will. But you must understand: when Lord Golunath awakens, or when he awakens us, who can say what can happen?”

“Will he punish those who have done wrong?” says Damini faintly.

“He has many ways to bring about justice, most of them unseen.”

“Then is there danger?”

“The same as always, behen,” he says, calling her sister. “Whenever you open a gateway to the unseen world, other spirits also can enter.”

“As in a time of birthing,” says Damini.

“Yes.”

Damini stubs her beedi beneath her boot heel. She reaches into her bodice, retrieves a pair of gold flower-shaped earrings, the same that Mem-saab gave her.

The pujari rolls them in his palm. He looks away at the snow-clad mountains and shakes his head. “Mountains,” he says, “cannot be brought together. Only people can.”

Her donation is insufficient. Damini takes a folded khaki envelope from between her breasts. She counts out three hundred rupees more. The three hundred rupees her Piara Singh died for, the bribe that tore his heart open. “Whatever comes,” she says, placing the rupees in the pujari’s outstretched hand.

“
Jai Golunath!
”

Beginning at dawn the next day, women call the ojha’s message uphill from one house to the next. He will invoke Lord Golunath at Tubelight’s home midway down the mountain, so that some will have to climb for the jagar, others will have to descend. Lord Golunath will speak to everyone. Even outcastes, even if it will embarrass the upper-castes to sit cross-legged beside them. Bajantris set out, carrying their drums and instruments to Gurkot, walking from two villages away.

Soon after morning tea, Damini lets herself in at the nun’s house. Sister Anu is lying on her back on a yoga mat on the terrace in setu
bandhasana pose. Shoulders, palms and feet flat on the floor, pelvis lifted like a small bridge. “Where is Sister Bethany?” asks Damini.

Sister Anu lowers her hips and sits up. “Already at school. Actually not at the school—it’s padlocked until the stay order is lifted. She’s holding classes in a tent on the clearing. I will go and help her later, but I’m leaving for Shimla in a few days time. We still don’t know when the clinic can reopen. The bishop says he can’t send another priest to Gurkot after what just happened. Aman-ji says he will turn Bread of Healing over to an NGO.”

“What will you do when the enjiyo comes?”

“I don’t know yet. I want to be where I’m needed.”

Damini delivers the ojha’s message, telling her that she is needed at the jagar ceremony. “Come tomorrow,” she says, “and see me keep my promise.”

“I will,” says Sister Anu, wiping her face with a towel. “Though there’s not enough time for me to get permission from my superiors. We don’t have such awakenings in our Church, you see. Even when I was Hindu … city Hindus don’t observe such ceremonies.”

“Muslims don’t either. It’s we who have the need.” Damini picks a book off the table beside the wicker chair, wipes it with a corner of her sari, opens it. It’s in English. “What is this?”

“A story book.”

“About maharajas.”

“No, just ordinary people. A woman.”

“Who could be interested?”

“Another woman can be. A man can be.”

“Why?”

Sister Anu rubs the towel over her neck. “To compare to her own life. Or compare to his own.” She rises.

No one I know has a story like mine, so who would be interested in reading my story?

Damini takes her leave of Sister Anu and continues to the Big House.

She enters via the kitchen. Khansama ushers her into the receiving room, and disappears behind a screen. He’ll be listening to every word.

Amanjit Singh is sitting at Sardar-saab’s desk in a straight-backed chair, writing in a leather-bound notebook. A beautiful young Mem-saab smiles up at him from a silver-framed photo. Sardar-saab, in a rose-coloured turban gazes steadily from his gilt-edged frame on the wall above the desk. Kiran reclines on a sofa beneath the central skylight. Today she wears a peach cotton kaftaan, no makeup, no sunglasses. The baby girl in the rocker beside her looks up at Damini with shiny brown eyes.

“She is well, na?”

Kiran tilts her chin—yes.

“What is her name?” Damini holds Kiran’s gaze, demanding respect as an elder.

“Angad,” says Kiran. “Angad Kaur.”

Amanjit Singh looks up, “Are you here for the money? I sent the cheque for thirty-five thousand, but Leela sent it back.”

“No,” says Damini. “I’m not here for money.”