The Faith of Ashish (11 page)

"Little Girl!" Sethu scolded. "Baby will not stop her fussing and the noise exhausts me. Tend to her!"

Little Girl, near tears herself, swatted at her little sister. But all this did was set Baby to wailing. Fortunately, Devi returned from working in the landlord's garden just in time to see the difficulty. She tossed her armload of fresh spinach to her younger sister Lidya, who already busied herself at the cook fire, and rushed to pick up Baby. Balancing the little one on her own young-girl hip, she cooed and soothed the fussy child.

"Make yourself useful, Little Girl," Sethu ordered. "Take some of those greens over to share with Ashish's family. And take along an extra measure of rice too."

Little Girl scooped up a handful of spinach and the small bag of rice and ran off with glee.

The rest of the green leaves, Lidya tore into pieces and dropped into the earthenware pot over the fire where sweet potatoes and chilies already bubbled. She pulled two fistfuls of wheat flour from the flour sack and mixed in enough water to form it into a workable dough.

"The landlord's little boy rode into the courtyard on the back of an elephant today," Lidya told Devi.

"Saji Stephen? I don't like him."

"Hush that talk!" Sethu warned. "He is a beautiful boy."

"Everyone gives him whatever he wants," Devi said. "If they don't, he cries and yells until he gets his way."

"He is a clean, pure boy. The gods smile on him."

"If he is here, the tiger can't get us," Lidya said. "Can it,
Amma?"

Sethu took the ball of dough from Lidya and patted it into thin cakes. "The landlord will protect us," she said in the voice that meant "say no more." One by one, she laid the cakes over the fire to toast.

"Did the tiger
eat
the water boy?" Ashish asked his father. Lath a hadn't wanted Virat to tell him about the tiger attack, but with it being on the tongue of everyone in the settlement, Virat insisted.

"Probably," Virat said.

"But why?"

"Because that's what hungry tigers do."

"Was the boy bad?" Ashish asked.

Virat grunted and gave no answer.

Questions and questions and more questions. That's how it had always been with Ashish. It used to be that his
appa
would take time to answer every one of his questions— patiently, calmly, with clear, easy words. And when he tired of answering, Virat would hug Ashish and tell him what a bright boy he was.

But Ashish's
appa
didn't answer his questions that way anymore. Now Virat's responses were vague, often impatient. Sometimes he didn't bother to reply at all.

Ashish wanted to ask his father if he were as bad as the boy who had been eaten by the tiger. He wanted to ask if he were as bad as Little Girl, cursed to be born both an Untouchable
and
a girl. But he knew his father would not be happy to answer those questions. Most likely, his father would pretend not to hear.

So Ashish lay down on the sleeping mat inside the hut, where the tiger couldn't reach him, and dreamed of the hungry tiger carrying the water boy away in his mouth, as though he were a goat or a chicken or a doll made of rags.

A
curse is what it is!" Mammen Samuel Varghese exclaimed." He dares call himself a holy man, yet if he doesn't get his money, he conjures up an evil spirit and pronounces a curse on me!"

Parmar Ruth Varghese rushed into the room where her husband fumed and paced. "Whatever are you going on about?" she asked as she nervously smoothed the folds of her scarlet silk
sari.

Though the wife of the great landowner seldom left her house or veranda, her sumptuous garments, each with a dazzling border of gold threads, bore witness to her husband's wealth. Even more, Parmar Ruth wore her wealth—gold bangles on her arms and ankles, gold rings on her toes and in her nose and ears. Her earrings were so large and heavy, in fact, that the pierced holes in her ears stretched large enough for her to put the tip of her finger through.

"That accursed Brahmin Keshavan Namboodri!" Mammen Samuel seethed at the sound of his name.

"What happened, Husband?" Parmar Ruth asked. "Did the Brahmin do you an injustice?"

Mammen Samuel opened his mouth to air further complaint, but he immediately thought better of it. "It is not a matter of concern for a woman. I shall take care of it myself."

He turned away shouting, "Babu! Call for my son! Call for Boban Joseph!"

With Boban Joseph by his side, Mammen Samuel walked the short way down the road to the Brahmin settlement. Mammen Samuel's Kshatriya caste, though one level lower than the most revered caste of Brahmin, still carried the honor of pure and high-born. Both father and son could freely enter the Brahmin section of the village without threat of causing defilement.

"One day, you will have to deal with this haughty family of Brahmins," Mammen Samuel told his son. "Your grandfather struggled with them, and it cost him his life. I am wiser than he was. Learn from me to stand firm against them."

Even so, Mammen Samuel refused to allow Boban Joseph to accompany him all the way to Brahmin Keshavan's house. Halfway between the road and the first house, as they passed the huge mango tree that marked the entrance to the Brahmin section of the village, he told his son, "Wait here for me."

"Keshavan Namboodri!" Mammen Samuel stood outside the walled-in front entrance to the house and called. "Brahmin Keshavan, I must talk with you!"

"What do you want?" a woman's voice answered from behind the wall.

"I wish to speak with Brahmin Keshavan. It is a matter of great importance."

"He is not available to you at this early hour."

Mammen Samuel grimaced and rumbled an irritated grunt. Of course! The Brahmin's ridiculous ceremonies. Every day, Keshavan spent the entire morning, from dawn until the sun came close to its zenith, bathing and grooming himself and tending to his gods with prayers and
mantras.

"Tell him Mammen Samuel Varghese waits to see him."

No one invited Mammen Samuel inside. Still, he was in no mood to leave, either, so he walked around the house to the veranda in back. The back door into the house had been left slightly ajar and Mammen Samuel could see Brahmin Keshavan inside. He sat perfectly still before an idol, his legs crossed, and stared straight ahead. Hands resting on knees, palms up, he punctuated his words with ritual gestures. The Brahmin did not see Mammen Samuel, though, so the landlord sighed impatiently and sat down to wait for him to finish his morning duties.

Boban Joseph made a face and kicked at a rock on the road. Stand and wait, stand and wait. Always, stand and wait. He kicked the rock again, and it rolled farther toward the Brahmin's house. Once more Boban Joseph kicked it, then again and again.

"Did you see the tiger?" asked a timid voice.

Boban Joseph looked over to see the Brahmin's scrawny son Rama watching him with shy eyes.

Boban Joseph hesitated, but only for a minute. "Yes. Yes, of course, I saw the tiger! Huge and vicious, with glowing yellow eyes . . . Evil eyes, and huge teeth, too!"

Rama shuddered. "How terrifying!"

"I wasn't afraid," Boban Joseph boasted. "Why should I be? I have a knife and I know how to use it."

As Rama's eyes grew wider and wider, Boban Joseph's chest puffed out with pride.

When two hours had passed and still no one called for him, Mammen Samuel rose to his feet and bellowed, "Keshavan Namboodri!" He made no attempt to hide his growing fury. "I have come to talk with you, Brahmin Keshavan. Not to your servant or some other person in your family, but to you!"

This time no one answered, not even a servant. Mammen Samuel had little choice but to continue to wait. He paced the length of the veranda, from the pungent pepper vines across to the fragrant jasmine blossoms, then back again. Back and forth he paced, back and forth, but still Brahmin Keshavan did not come.

Clattering tins echoed through from the kitchen, and the aroma of chutney with leeks, and curried potatoes, filled the air. Mammen Samuel, who relished eating meat, would never be tolerated in the Brahmin's house, let alone invited to share his table. But he knew, as everyone did, that every single thing in the Brahmin's kitchen was prepared in adherence with strictly observed Brahmin caste rules. Each food stayed in its place so that nothing touched the wrong thing. Only Brahmin hands were allowed to prepare food for Brahmin mouths. The food might be dropped into the dirt or nibbled by rats or covered with flies, but it must never be touched by lower caste hands. Nor did any left hand touch the food, only right hands. Left hands were unclean.

As Mammen Samuel considered how he might force his way into the house and confront Keshavan, the Brahmin at last stepped out onto the veranda. Without waiting for a greeting, Mammen Samuel stated through clenched teeth, "Keshavan Namboodri, I have come to demand that you remove your curse from my harvest!"

Neither curiosity nor anger passed over the Brahmin's serenely passive face. "But it was I who blessed your harvest," he reminded the landlord.

"What you did was conjure up a man-eating tiger and set it to prey on my laborers!"

"Tigers are wild animals," the Brahmin said. "They roam where they will."

"You purposely disrupted my harvest, and now you insult me with great disrespect!" Mammen Samuel's face flushed scarlet with rage. "For over two hours, you have kept me waiting in the hot sun. No one offered me so much as a drop of water to refresh myself!"

"To bring in your harvest is your duty," the Brahmin said." It is my duty to perform my daily sacrifices. I do not ask you to stop your harvest and talk to me at a time of my choosing, and I do not intend to stop my duties to talk to you whenever you decide to stand outside my door and yell my name.""Your duties? You have no duties!"

"You are wrong. Every morning, I worship Brahma, the World-Spirit, by reciting the
Vedas.
I worship the ancestors by partaking of ritual water drinks. I worship the gods by pouring
ghee
on the sacred fire. I worship all living things by scattering grain on the threshold of my house for the benefit of animals, birds, and spirits. Only then do I worship men by showing hospitality to such a one as yourself."

"Hospitality!" Mammen Samuel sputtered. "After all the time you kept me waiting on your veranda, hot and without refreshment, you dare use the word
hospitality?"

Brahmin Keshavan, his face placid, didn't bother to respond. Nor did he make any move to seat himself. He simplystood and gazed at Mammen Samuel with expressionless eyes and an unreadable face.

"What of the tiger?" Mammen Samuel demanded.

"What of it?"

"Is it an evil spirit?"

"The world is filled with spirits, both good and evil," the Brahmin said.

Mammen Samuel sputtered in exasperation.

"You are right about my spiritual powers," Brahmin Keshavan said. "Most certainly they are great enough to destroy any king or would-be king should he attempt to infringe on my rights as Brahmin priest. But I need not conjure up a tiger to do that."

"Pshaw!" Mammen Samuel spat. "You may present yourself to others as some sort of a god, but I know that you are nothing but a man! You are only a man like me."

"No, not like you," said Brahmin Keshavan. "You are a selfish, stingy man. You lavish money on yourself and your family, but you have not one rupee to charitably give to those around you."

"You mean, I have not one rupee to give to you! For my workers, it is I who allow them to live. I am like their father who makes it possible for them to eat. Even now, while preoccupied with the disruption of the harvest, I took care to distribute more rice to them. I am the one who permits them to survive. I am good to my laborers, and they love me for it."

Boban Joseph, his own tangle of hair wrapped up in a linen turban, pointed to Rama's freshly shaved head. "Is that for punishment or worship?"

"Not for punishment," Rama said. "I just attained the level of
Brahmacarin,
so I guess you would say it is for worship."

Boban Joseph considered for a moment. "Is it true that you never have to work?"

"Not like you do," Rama said. "Not in the fields. Not with my hands at all. But I do work. To attain
Brahmacarin
was very difficult. It required great discipline, harsh training, and much study."

"You are naught but a student!" Boban Joseph sneered. "That's not real work. What real work do you do?"

"I rise before dawn to honor my father as my
guru.
I spend much time reciting my devotions, and after that I attend to the gods in houses of people who are too old or too sick to do it themselves. The rest of the day I must study for my future spiritual work."

Boban Joseph scoffed. "Not one bit of that is real work!" "To study the
Veda
is my
dharma.
And that is the highest work of all," Rama said a bit defensively. He quickly added, "After my initiation I will be twice-born. Then I shall wear the sacred thread of the Brahmins."

Again, Boban Joseph sneered. "I could be twice-born, too, if my family was Hindu. But I would rather work and be a rich man like my father."

"Even if you were Hindu, you couldn't be like me," Rama argued. "When I am twice-born and invested with my sacred thread, my third eye will be opened. I will see through my eye of wisdom. Then I will have the spiritual powers of my father."