The Faith of Ashish (3 page)

Only March, yet the day that had started out mild had grown increasingly hot. Little Ashish had crossed over the bridge into the Sudra's land. Why he would do such a thing, no one could imagine. Certainly he had never set foot in the high caste area of the village before. It could be that he became confused and lost his way. Or perhaps he simply determined to find his
appa.
But this much was certain: Ashish crossed over the bridge on a day that had turned unexpectedly hot.

One other thing was certain, too: At some point the little one had seen the village well and the community cup alongside it. Just a well like any other, except that it sat on the high caste side of the bridge. But the sun seared and the child grew thirsty, so he had stood on his tiptoes, reached for the cup, and he had taken a drink from it.

So normal a response. So innocent an action. But so dangerous for one of his caste.

"Your son desecrated their well," Ranjun called after Virat." Of course they grabbed up sticks and beat him! Your boy should have learned the proper ways from you. This is your fault, Virat!"

Virat
had
taught his son. "Do not cross over into the high caste section of the village," he had warned, not one time but many. He had pointed to the rough-hewn bridge and explained to his son the great danger he would invite should he dare to so much as tread on the road next to it. Caste code, Virat said, and caste code
must
be observed.

And yet, Virat had not specifically forbidden Ashish to drink from that specific cup that stood beside that specific well on the other side of the bridge. That such a possibility might happen never occurred to him.

One time when Ashish walked with his father in the sweltering month of July, when nothing was left of the green-scum pond but mud, the child had complained of thirst. Spying the river, tiny Ashish had begged, "There,
Appa!
Please, we can drink there."

"Never dip your hands in that water!" Virat had scolded.

"You must never drink from their water. Not ever!"

"Why?" Ashish had asked.

"Because we are unclean."

"Why?" the child had persisted.

"Because we displeased the gods. In our past lives, we committed terrible evil."

"I don't remember being bad," Ashish said.

"Neither do I, but it must be so, for
karma
made us what we are. If we drink the water or eat the food of the high castes—of the pure ones—we pass our pollution on to them. We make them dirty before the gods the same as we are dirty, and the gods will be angry with us all over again."

Virat had said nothing more.

"
Appa?"
Ashish had asked. "Why did the gods put so much water in the river if they didn't want thirsty people to drink it?"

Questions, questions, and more questions. It was enough to weary a father.

But Virat should have taken the time to answer his son's questions. Oh, why didn't he sit with his Ashish and explain? Before it was too late?

When Virat had finally found his little son lying in a heap beside the well, he picked up the battered child and carried him home in his arms. He tried to awaken the boy, and when he could not, Latha tried. When Ashish still would not open his eyes, Virat ran in search of the herbalist. Latha built up the cooking fire and put rice on to boil, then frantically ran from market stall to market stall in search of appropriate offerings to accompany the rice sacrifice for the village god—sweetmeats, fruit, coconut, flowers.

Neither the herbalist nor vendors would wait for their pay. Virat had no money, so even as their son struggled for breath, Latha pulled the glass and clay bangles from her wrists and handed them over.

As soon as little Ashish uttered a whimper, the healer forced him to drink first one herbal medicine and then another. Virat traded their earthenware storage pot for an amulet to slip over the child's head, and the healer chanted one
mantra
after another. But despite all their efforts, the little one seemed to linger between life and death.

The bruises that marred Ashish's small body darkened from red to purple to black, and his little face puffed up with welts. His breath came in short, agonizing gasps.

"If he cannot breathe, he will not live!" Latha moaned.

So Latha sold her two most prized possessions—beautiful painted pots, one for rice and one for curry, wedding gifts from her family. Virat unwound the
chaddar
he wore as a turban around his head and wrapped his son in the long cotton scarf. He picked the child up, and, with his wife beside him, carried the boy all the way to the medical hut in the next village. An Indian man met them at the door and took their money.

"Unwrap him," the man instructed.

Tenderly, Virat pulled his
chaddar
back to reveal his beaten son. The man looked at the limp child. He prodded him and put his ear to Ashish's chest to better hear the child gasp for breath.

"Take your son home," the man had said. "Most likely, he will die before morning."

Nothing more. Ashish was not even allowed inside the medical hut. "No, no! Unclean!" the man at the door said. He wrinkled his nose to emphasize his disgust. "Untouchable and unclean!"

Evenings, with his day's work behind him, it was Virat's habit to seek out a sliver of shade and settle down to rest. Ashish, surrounded by the other children of the mud hut settlement, would run past him and call out, "Look,
Appa!
Look at me!"

Virat adjusted the tin cup over his mouth and picked up his pace.

This evening he would not be watching the children. But what did it matter? If his own son could not run and play, why should he care to watch the others?

D
rink the milk, my little one," Latha pleaded as she pressed a cup to Ashish's swollen lips. "Please? It will bring life to you. A few sips?"

But Ashish turned his head away.

Latha had traded her day's measure of rice to the milkmaid for that cup of milk. The rice mattered not in the least to her. How could she eat with her son lying in such a state?

"Eeeeeeeeeee . . . "

A piercing squeal, and from the very piglet she had promised Virat she would sacrifice to the village god. The longer Latha delayed the offering, the angrier the god would be. But how could she go up to the shrine and leave her little boy alone?

Any other family would simply call for a grandmother or an auntie to come and sit with an ill child, but Latha had no family in the village—none in all of Malabar, besides her husband and son. Everyone else lived far away beyond the hills in the village she and Virat had fled.

Latha leaned over her child and repeated the familiar refrain: "You are Ashish. You are a blessing. Always and forever, remember who you are."

When the little one failed to show the slightest response, she added in a desperate whisper: "Do not leave me, Ash ish. Please, please, do not go!"

The door scraped open and Latha exclaimed, "Virat! You are back so soon?"

"No, no. It's only me," said her friend Pooni as she let herself in.

Of course, Pooni was always welcome in Latha's house. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she was as one of the family.

"Oh, Pooni, I'm glad you are here," Latha cried. "I promised Virat I would make a sacrifice for his journey and say prayers for our Ashish, but I dared not leave the boy alone in such a state. Can you stay with him so I can do my duty before the village god before it is too late?"

Pooni lowered her eyes. "Perhaps it is already too late. Surely the gods and goddesses are most displeased with you, Latha. "

Instinctively, Latha reached her hand up and covered the left side of her face—the ugly, accursed side—and bristled. "I do what I am supposed to do! Every year, I go to the sacred tree and lay out my sacrifices."

"Yet your
karma
continues to speak, does it not? Only one of the six babies born to you still lives. And even this one . . . well, look at him." Pooni pointed to the pitted scars on Ashish's swollen face.

"The goddess brought the pox to my child!" Latha snapped." You said so yourself. You said I must not complain, and so I did not."

In truth, when Ashish fell ill with the dreaded disease, Latha had been too terrified to complain. Virat had run to fetch the healer who came with herbs and potions and prepared a bed of neem leaves for the tiny child who had only just begun to toddle. The healer made a drink of cheese, molasses, bananas, and milk to offer to the smallpox goddess, but he also gave some of it to little Ashish to drink.

"My son lived to be well and strong," Latha reminded her friend. "The same cannot be said for many others stricken with the pox, but my Blessing did live to be well and strong. He will grow up to wear his scars proudly. Everyone who sees him will know he was touched by the goddess of the pox."

Ashish tossed fitfully and cried out in his sleep. Pooni bent over him, but her words were to Latha.

"Life ends at the land of the gods. Everyone wants to go there, but only the good and pure succeed in their journey." Latha clenched her lips.

Pooni turned to Latha and grasped hold of her hands. "If you made an error . . . " she implored. "If you sinned . . . Oh, Latha, I am so afraid for you!"

Pooni, a sharp and angular woman, moved with jerks and twitches. Not at all like Latha. In many ways, Latha was an attractive woman—graceful and rounded, with a fine sparkle to her face. Latha walked proudly and she spoke her mind, though in a pleasing way. No doubt her superior breeding had brought it all about. For she was of a higher
jati—
social strata—than Pooni. Much higher than Virat. An outcaste, yes. Untouchable, most certainly. But of a higher
jati
than anyone else in the settlement of mud huts, including Pooni's haughty husband Ranjun.

"Perhaps you have not heard," Pooni said in an ominous voice. "Ranjun told me this morning that Brahmin Keshavan pronounced a curse on your house."

Latha pulled her hands away from Pooni's grip. She clutched at the tattered edge of her faded blue and yellow
sari
and tucked it under so that the frayed edges wouldn't show. Even at a time like this, even with no one around but scrawny Pooni, Latha's instinct urged her to conceal her poverty.

"I must make my sacrifice," Latha said. "On my way back I will cut branches from the neem tree by the road, and we can take turns fanning Ashish. The cooling breeze will comfort him, and healing air will fly to him from the divine tree."

Pooni grasped Latha by the shoulder, but immediately let go. Latha's skin was smooth as
ghee—
boiled butter fine enough to enrich the table of a Brahmin. That's what Virat had told Latha the first time he touched her, when his hand brushed against her arm immediately after their wedding ceremony. Her good side still faced him, though, so he had not yet really seen her.

"Sow trouble and reap a harvest of disaster," Pooni intoned in that ominous way of hers.

Latha pulled away from her friend, but she said nothing." Your
jati
is higher than your husband's. You are of greater value than he is!" There. Pooni had said it. "That is not natural, Latha. It is going against the hair—like combing your tresses the wrong way."

"Virat is a good husband," Latha said, a scathing tone touching her voice. "He does not raise his hand to me. Never once has he done that."

Pooni flinched. But still she would not let the matter drop." A cruel husband may not be pleasant, but it is natural. A husband who is lower than his wife is not natural. And it is not right."

Latha glared at the woman she called "friend." At the woman whose young daughter had already been pledged to marry Ashish as soon as the two reached puberty.

"Ranjun says you have an evil spirit," Pooni said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He says that is why your other children did not live. Ranjun says that is why this terrible thing happened to your Ashish."

Latha, her eyes flashing, demanded, "Who is your Ranjun to speak of evil or of good?"

"If Ashish dies, my husband will not allow you near me," Pooni said. "He says he will not permit your shadow to pass over our house ever again."

Latha's face hardened. "For the sake of my husband and son, I will go to the shrine under the spirit tree and make my sacrifice, for I am too low born to enter a proper temple. I ask you, if I am a Hindu, why can I not go into a Hindu temple to pray for my family? What is the great fault that traps me as too high for my husband and too low for the gods?"

"That is how it has been forever," Pooni said. "You cannot change it, Latha. And neither can I."