The Faith of Ashish (28 page)

The rice plants reached as high as Virat's waist. Their deep green color had begun to change to golden yellow, and the stalks to bend under the weight of the heavy rice heads. It was a precarious time for the rice. Fortunately, the monsoon season had already started to draw to a close. Even so, dark clouds gathered during the night and rain poured down so hard that no one could go to the fields to work in the morning.

"No one except you, Virat," Anup said. "Someone has to guard the growing rice in the paddy. You will do it today and throughout the night."

"I will stay in the field with you," Latha told her husband. Virat argued, but he could not dissuade her.

All day the rain poured down. At first, Virat and Latha walked back and forth through the rice paddy. Hour after hour after hour. When Virat found a high spot, they sat down, but as the rain continued to pour, the water rose and flooded over that spot, too. So they walked again, and continued to walk for most of the rest of the day. As night came and exhaustion overtook them, they sank down together in the muddy field, propped against each other back-to-back, and fell into a restless sleep.

Virat opened his eyes to see a star-studded sky. "Are you awake?" he whispered.

"Yes," Latha said.

"The rain stopped."

"Yes."

They sat together in the soggy paddy, watching the stars and breathing the fresh, clean air.

"You are a good wife," Virat said. "Thank you for that."

"You are a good husband," said Latha.

"I was a bad boy in my last life," Ashish said as he spun Krishna's wooden top across the courtyard. "I wish I hadn't been."

"What did you do bad?" Krishna asked.

"I don't know. Do you know what you did that was bad?"

"No," Krishna said. He spun the top back to Ashish. "But I don't want to do it ever again."

"Me too."

Krishna grabbed the top and held onto it. "You know that song you like Miss Abigail to sing to you? The
Jesus Loves Me
song?"

Ashish wobbled his head "yes."

"One part says: 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."

"How can he love me when I'm bad?"

"I don't know, but he does," Krishna said. "That's a very good thing about Jesus."

In the morning, when the workers came out to the field again, Anup told Virat and Latha to go back to their hut. "You don't have to work today," he said.

When Latha entered the hut to get the small pot to fill with water, she gasped out loud. "Virat!" she called. "Come and look!"

Stacked along one wall was an entire set of new earthenware pots. Cooking pots and small pots and bowls. Even two large water pots.

"Where did they come from?" Latha asked. "Do you think the landlord is playing a trick on us?"

Virat picked up one of the water jars and ran his hand across it to inspect the quality of the workmanship. Fine, but not perfect. He turned it over and examined the patterns on the sides, then the markings on the bottom.

"Did Ranjun make it?"

"It is his marking," Virat said. "but it's not his work. These have to be from his sons. A gift from Ravi and Jinil."

"No, not from Ranjun's sons," Latha said. "They have to be a gift to us from Pooni's sons."

That day Virat and Latha filled their stomachs on rice and coconut and mangos.

"Where did you get such wonderful food?" Latha asked— but only after she had finished eating.

"The gods gave it to me," Virat said.

"You took the sacrifice food from the
puja?"

"Look at us," Virat said. "All our good deeds have not appeased the gods' anger. Why should we starve trying to make them happy?"

Latha thought for a minute. "Let's go back and see what else is there," she said. "We will need something to eat tomorrow too."

T
he rains passed, leaving the earth clean and fresh, and the days pleasantly cool. In the paddies, the tall rice ripened to a rich golden brown and drooped heavy with maturing heads. A time of peaceful serenity and refreshment before the approaching harvest. A time to hope for better days to come.

Not for Virat, though. And not for Latha.

"What do you think?" Latha whispered to her husband in the quiet of their hut. "Will we ever see our son again?"

Virat had no answer for her.

One evening, they came back from the fields and found two of their new earthenware pots standing in the middle of the dirt floor. One was filled with rice, the other with wheat.When Devi passed by on her way home from the master's garden that evening, she left an armload of vegetables at their door.

"I got used to being hungry," Virat said. "But I do prefer a full stomach."

One day, Jebar fell over and died in the field. His distraught wife lay on her sleeping mat, turned her face to the wall, and refused to be comforted. After five days, she also died. While everyone worked in the fields, Anup rolled up the old couple's sleeping mats and left them in Virat's hut.

When Latha went to the well for water, or took her grain to the grinding stone, the women no longer paid her any special mind. They had found more interesting things to gossip about.

"Time passes," Anup said to Virat. "Things are again the way they used to be."

But, of course, they were not. They were not at all the way they used to be.

One warm afternoon, when Boban Joseph came to test the ripeness of the rice, Saji Stephen crept away from his play yard and followed after his big brother. When Boban Joseph caught sight of Saji Stephen behind him, Boban Joseph ordered, "Go home right now! You know you are not allowed to be out here in the rice paddies."

Saji Stephen turned and ran. But as soon as Boban Joseph went back to his work, the little boy defiantly whispered to himself, "I will play in the paddies if I want to!" and scrambled into the high growth to hide.

The rice wasn't yet ready for harvest, so Boban Joseph told Anup to let the workers go back to their huts. "Tell them to rest. Soon their work days will be long and hard." But then Boban Joseph pointed to Virat. "Not him, though. He will be watchman in the field today and all night tonight."

After everyone else had left, as he searched for a place to settle down, Virat heard a rustling sound among the rice stalks. He jumped to attention and grabbed his knife from its sheath. For several moments all was still. Suddenly, the rustling started again, but closer now. Not a thief, for a thief would be stealthy and careful. A thief would quickly chop a swath from the edge of the crop and run. No, it must be a wild animal.

As Virat crouched down into a defensive pose, Saji Stephen stood up and stomped his way through the growth that came all the way up to his chest.

Virat stared at the spoiled, troublesome child of his tormentor, and his face hardened. Saji Stephen pulled off a handful of rice and tossed it into the air. Virat crept closer, gripping his knife tightly. The boy jumped up and down, trampling the rice into the ground—the very rice Latha had hunkered down in mud to plant—and Virat shook with fury. Slowly, silently, he crept closer to the boy.

Suddenly, Saji Stephen stopped. For a moment he stood perfectly still before his voice rose in a terrified shriek. Although Virat had moved in close, the boy still didn't see him. Saji Stephen's shriek melted into a shrill wail.

Virat shook his head. What was the matter with the stupid boy? Then he saw it. A huge cobra, hood flared wide, swayed back and forth in front of the child. It had its serpent eyes fixed directly on Saji Stephen.

Justice from the Lord Shiva. The gods had sent the cobra to avenge Ashish—to make things fair and set a wrong to right. A serpent to destroy the evil son of the oppressor who took away Virat's own blessing.

But all this lasted for only for a second. Virat leapt up and snatched Saji Stephen away from the cobra's reach. The terrifi ed boy's wails turned to great heaving sobs as he clutched at Virat.

"You should not be here," Virat said to the child. "Come, I will take you to your home."

All the way across the fields and up the path, Saji Stephen clung to Virat. When they reached the edge of the garden, Virat pried the child's hands from him and said, "Go to your mother. You are safe now."

As Saji Stephen ran for the safety of his veranda, Virat turned around and walked back to guard the rice paddy.

Nothing that happened in the village stayed a secret for long. Always, someone saw or heard, and always that someone told someone else who told another someone else who told someone else again, and soon the entire village buzzed with the gossip.

"You are certain the
chamar
saved you from the cobra?" Mammen Samuel asked his son. "Could it perhaps have been someone else?"

"Yes, the
chamar,"
Saji Stephen answered.

"The one whose teeth stick out and who wears the faded yellow
chaddar
wrapped around his head?"

"Yes, yes!"

"The father of Ashish? Are you certain it was him?"

"Yes,
Appa,
I told you, yes!"

Mammen Samuel sent the boy to his mother. He swiped at his sweat-soaked face with his sleeve and sat down on his veranda, cross-legged on his fine Persian carpet. He had much to ponder. Slowly he rubbed his anxious, aching brow. The sun sank low and set, the sky grew dark and stars glimmered overhead, yet Mammen Samuel's spirit grew increasingly troubled.

"You are distressed."

Mammen Samuel looked up to see Brahmin Keshavan standing at the edge of his veranda. Mammen Samuel heaved a sigh of resignation and waved him in.

Brahmin Keshavan sat down on the other side of the Persian carpet. "You took away the
chamar's
son and he gave your son back to you. Is that not so?"

Mammen Samuel said nothing.

"That is a problem only to a Christian," the Brahmin pointed out. "Not only do you believe you must return good for good, but you believe you must return good for evil. Of course, that is not possible. You acted out your
dharma
and he acted out his. Nothing less and nothing more."

"Do not annoy me with your gibberish!" Mammen Samuel said with an irritated wave of his hand. "I am in no mood to listen to it."

"Perhaps I understand the situation better than you because I know what you do not know."

Mammen Samuel looked up cautiously. Brahmin Keshavan could be most shrewd and tricky.

"The son of Virat the
chamar,
the one they call Blessing—he is not dead."

"What?" Mammen Samuel demanded.

"No. He lives on to mock you."

Brahmin Keshavan's face remained flat and expressionless, the same as always, yet Mammen Samuel caught the slightest trace of a mocking smile.

"How do you know this?" Mammen Samuel demanded.

"Stinginess in my home village has forced me to take my services to distant villages," Brahmin Keshavan said. "One day's journey to the east, I said blessings at a wedding and poured
ghee
into the wedding fire. I stayed two nights before I started my journey back home. That's when I saw the boy."

"You
saw
him?" Mammen Samuel demanded. "And you can be certain it was the same boy?"

"Absolutely certain. He is right now in the care of the missionaries at the English Mission Medical Clinic."

Mammen Samuel's eyes narrowed. "Why are you telling this to me?"

"The English gave out medicines as they condemned my holy
mantras
and blessed amulets, yet I sat quietly by and did nothing. They preached a foreign religion to gullible and polluted people, yet I held my tongue. But now they dare to teach Untouchables to read and write. Such an action is strictly forbidden, yet they do it in front of my face. The boy who fouled our water is learning to read . . . in English!"

"You
saw
this?" Mammen Samuel demanded.

"With my own two eyes," Brahmin Keshavan said. "And you know the same truth I know, Mammen Varghese: unless so great a transgression draws a harsh penalty, men will never keep to their castes."

Mammen Samuel, his eyes set and his jaw clenched, sat in stony silence.

"
Karma
guided the Untouchable
chamar
to save the life of your son, and
karma
saved the life of the
chamar's
son from your fury. You owe the Untouchable not one thing. Nothing."

"
Karma, karma, karma!"
Mammen Samuel growled. "You think that's the answer to everything. But it is nothing more than a Hindu excuse to protect everyone from having to accept responsibility for their actions."

"I should think one such as you would rejoice to have such an excuse," Brahmin Keshavan said. "For without it, you must bear a greater weight of responsibility than any of us."

Rage simmered in Mammen Samuel's eyes. The Brahmin stood up and carefully smoothed his
mundu.
"It is you who must decide your actions. But I warn you—weigh your alternatives carefully and consider the consequences of each one. For each path does have consequences."

Although Hindus seldom spoke of heaven or hell, Mammen Samuel Varghese—since he was Christian—knew for certain that both existed. Brahmin Keshavan would say that nothing could truly be considered real except this present world and the World Spirit. He would say it is up to every person to work to perfect each incarnation as he evolved through the wheel of time. That when one finally attains perfection—as he most certainly would soon—a person's soul would be absorbed into the World Sprit and become as one with it.

That night Mammen Samuel tossed on his bed and sighed. Such a weary religion! How many gods did they have, anyway? When he asked this question of the Brahmin, Keshavan simply answered, "To try to count them would be more difficult than to count the stars in the sky."

Mammen Samuel did not close his eyes all night. With the first light of dawn, he got up from his bed and bellowed for Babu. "I want my cart made ready immediately. And I want Boban Joseph sitting on the bench, ready to travel! Not the bullock cart, either. I want the horse!"