The Faith of Ashish (9 page)

Stars shown in a black sky by the time Boban Joseph stopped the bullock cart on the road beside the path that led to the laborers' huts. He said nothing, and Mammen Samuel Varghese also stared ahead in stony silence, so Virat and Latha climbed out of the cart. Latha put Ashish on his father's back, and, with smiles on their faces, they walked to their new home.

"It is not wise to be outside the settlement in the dark," Anup called out as they passed by his hut. "Wild animals lurk beside the path. Not four days ago, a tiger got one of the master's goats."

"We brought our son back," Virat said.

Sethu hurried to the door to see. "Such a fine boy you have."

"Tomorrow, you stay with your son," Anup said to Latha. "One day to get him settled is not too much to ask."

Virat and Latha started to walk on, but Anup called them back. "Your food ration," he said as he handed them two sweet potatoes.

"What are these?" Virat said. "This is not food. This is feed for animals. We need rice."

Anup shook his head. "What Brahma has written, we must follow. The big man eats rice and butter every day. We work the fields and bring in a good harvest, but all we get is a potato. Brahma has written one kind of fate for us and another kind of fate for them. That is the way it is. No one can change it."

Virat took the potatoes, but under his breath he murmured, "That tiger eats better than we do!"

When Mammen Samuel Varghese reached his house, he immediately bellowed for Babu to bring him his wooden desk and leather-bound book of business accounts. He settled himself stiff and straight on the floor and thumbed through the accounting book until he found his latest entry: Virat. Mammen Samuel dipped his pen in the inkwell and—in his tight, cramped script—printed a new notation beside the name:
Injured son treated at English Mission Medical Clinic.
Journeyed to deposit the boy; journeyed to bring him back. Fresh
sari, mundu, chaddar
for the journey.
He crossed out the amount of Virat's debt and doubled it. For several minutes Mammen Samuel sat and considered. Then he dipped his pen into the inkwell a second time, crossed out his changes, and doubled the debt again.

Y
ou will go to the fields today," Anup said to Latha. Every trace of friendliness had vanished from his face. "The master commands it. Do not ask again."

"Only a few more days with my son," Latha pleaded. "Give me that and I will make no further request."

"You will go this morning and you will not ask again. Master's son will be watching for you. If you are not there, I do not want to tell you the punishments that will rain down on you and your family."

"But Ashish—"

"Little Girl will look in on him."

"Little Girl! But she is no older than he! What can she do?"

"This is how it is. Come quickly, now. The laborers are ready to leave." Anup turned his back and walked away.

Brahmin Keshavan, dressed in his most impressively embroidered
mundu,
walked the road to Mammen Samuel Varghese's home. The sacred thread of his caste, always over his left shoulder, glistened golden against the freshly oiled skin of his upper body. He did not pause at the entry steps to call out a greeting, but walked right up to Mammen Samuel's veranda. Mammen Samuel, bathed and oiled and smelling of sandalwood, sat crossed-legged on the most exquisite of his many fine carpets. Hand-carried all the way from Kashmir, he had chosen it for this day for the simple reason that its intricate patterns and vibrant colors proclaimed its lavish cost.

Mammen Samuel nodded to the Brahmin and said, "You honor me with your visit. Please sit beside me."

The landowner said these kind words, but he did not stand up to greet the revered Brahmin. Keshavan chose to ignore the slight. Brahmin Keshavan folded his long, thin legs and settled himself across from Mammen Samuel in the shade of the fragrant jasmine vine. He was older than his host, but not by a great deal. At forty-one and forty-nine, both men were considered advanced in years. Yet while the Brahmin's hair displayed a generous splash of gray, his skin remained smooth and light—the skin of youth—or perhaps simply of one who has never had to work in the sun or wind.

"Babu!" Mammen Samuel called to his Sudra servant. "Bring us tea. Quickly, now!"

Brahmin Keshavan pulled his own cup out from the pure white folds of his
mundu.
He need not say a word, for this gesture alone proclaimed:
You and yours are not pure enough for such a one as
I
.

Mammen Samuel understood the insult. He smiled and nodded, but inside he seethed.

"May the gods smile on your harvest," Brahmin Keshavan said.

Mammen Samuel waited until Babu laid out the tea, then he answered, "The fields are rich and full, praise be to the one true God in heaven."

"You have a great crowd of workers," said the Brahmin. "They number in the many hundreds, do they not?"

Mammen Samuel shrugged. "Only enough to bring in the harvest and plant the rice paddies, and no more. The exact number, I do not know. I don't worry myself about such trivialities."

Both men knew that wasn't true. Mammen Samuel had every name of every bonded laborer carefully recorded in his leather-bound book, and each one was numbered—every man, every woman, and every child. He knew perfectly well that he had exactly five hundred forty-one slaves, and what was more, Brahmin Keshavan knew that Mammen Samuel knew it.

"My house is the first house in the Brahmin section of the village," Brahmin Keshavan stated.

Of course, Mammen Samuel knew exactly where the great Brahmin lived. Not that he had ever been invited inside his house. The few times in this life he'd had occasion to search out the Brahmin, he had been kept waiting outside for Keshavan to come out to him. But certainly Mammen Samuel knew where he lived.

"In my childhood days in this village, the Brahmin section had never been trodden by the polluted feet of a pariah," Keshavan continued. "Not a single Brahmin defiled his hands with labor of any sort. Untouchables did all the dirty work— but they did it far away from our street. Anything necessary to our comfort or welfare, Sudras carried in and out."

Mammen Samuel sipped his tea. He was not at all pleased with the direction of the conversation.

"Today, everything is different. Today our entire village is polluted. Potters and carpenters and scavengers and Sudras— all of them live together, and directly outside our village gates too. All of them work together in
your
fields. Unclean meateaters live just across the field from the Brahmin section of the village."

Mammen Samuel's jaw clenched.

"Why, not so many days ago a
chamar
walked the full length of our road on his way to your house. It happened to be the very same
chamar
whose son dared to defile our water. And now you have both that
chamar
and his son living right here, on your land. It is not right!"

Mammen Samuel lifted his tea cup to his lips and slurped with a vengeance.

"Stay inside the hut on your sleeping mat," Latha had told Ashish as she left for the fields. "Lie down and sleep all day. Sleep and get well."

But Ashish felt well already. He could take a deep breath and feel only a little pain. Most of all, he wished he could pull the tight bandages off his body. Ashish sat up stiffly and took out the red wooden top the pale English lady had slipped him when he left the clinic, and he tried to spin it the way she taught him. But it wouldn't spin on the dirt floor.

That's when he noticed the girl peeking through the doorway.

"Who are you?" Ashish demanded.

"Little Girl. I brought you milk to drink."

Little Girl came in and set a clay cup down beside him.

"My
amma
left me
chapatis
to eat," Ashish said. "Do you want one?"

"I have to look out for my little sister, Baby," Little Girl said. "She always finds trouble."

"Look what I have," Ashish bragged as he held out the red top. "If you come back to play with me, I'll show you how it works."

"I am not a man without power," Brahmin Keshavan stated. "Spiritual power, most certainly. That is obvious. But my family also has impressive political alliances upon which I can call at will."

"I, too, have an impressive family," Mammen Samuel said. He sat up tall and assumed his most arrogant tone. "In addition, I am endowed with the power that comes from intelligence, and also that which comes from hard work. My great herds of cows and water buffalo, and the many men I control with a single word, are ample proof of that."

Babu stepped in, bearing plates of sliced cucumbers and guavas, and a stalk of fingersized deep red bananas. These he laid out between the two men. In the center of the presentation he set a golden bowl of cashew nuts.

"A village must have someone who can collect the prayers. "Brahmin Keshavan's dark eye's flashed. His words were clipped and brittle.

Mammen Samuel reached for a guava and slurped it from its skin. "A village must also have someone who collects money." He reached for the golden bowl and scooped out a handful of cashew nuts. "Else wise, who would support you while you pour out your endless flood of words?"

Brahmin Keshavan made a great show of sipping the last of his tea. Mammen Samuel offered to pour him more, but Keshavan waved him off.

"I am a tolerant and peaceable man," said the Brahmin. "The low castes are banned from public markets, yet I make it my habit to leave fruit out for them. Untouchables such as your
chamar
pollute anyone who dares to look upon them. I could have had that one of yours put to death for the abominations he has already poured out on this village, yet I willingly spoke to him, and in a most civil manner too."

Mammen Samuel tore a banana from the stalk. Expertly he ripped off the peel and popped the sweet fruit into his mouth. "Life cannot go on without the Untouchables," he said through his full mouth. "You know that as well as I."

"Yes, yes. That is precisely what I say."

"You mean to say, abiding the mixture of castes is a sacrifice we must make for our comfort and prosperity?" Brahmin Keshavan asked.

"In that case, the resulting prosperity must rightly be shared with me."

Mammen Samuel swallowed the banana. Dropping all pretense of a friendly visit, he shoved the fruit plates aside and glared at the Brahmin. "You dare to demand payment from me? You, who do nothing day and night but sit at your doorway and pass judgment on all who pass by? I most certainly shall not share my prosperity with you! No, not one rupee!"

"To collect a tithe is my right and my privilege," Brahmin Keshavan stated. "Did I not call out a blessing on your harvest?"

"Not one rupee!"

Sitting on his sleeping mat by himself had quickly become boring and tiresome to Ashish. He wished Little Girl would come back to play with him. He finally managed to get a bit of a spin from the top, but even that wasn't any fun when no one watched and admired his success. So he did exactly what his mother told him not to do; he went outside to explore this new settlement.

So many huts all crowded together, yet so few people! A couple of young girls struggled to tote a large bucket of water, but they paid Ashish no mind. Several other children scurried about searching for twigs and small branches which they threw into a pile. Gathering wood for cooking fires— Ashish knew that job quite well, although he didn't see many twigs or branches lying about.

Although Ashish often ran and played for hours on end, after only a short exploration of the settlement around his own hut, he felt weak and weary and ready for his sleeping mat. He looked at the hut beside him. Was that one his? No, it couldn't be this close. Maybe the next one? Or the next? To Ashish's dismay, every hut looked like his hut. He crept to the doorway of one after the other and peeked inside, but each time the pots lined up against the wall were not his mother's pots. And not one of those huts had a rack for drying animal skins propped up against the far wall.

Panic seized Ashish. He ran through the winding paths, searching frantically for something familiar. But weariness overtook him. He staggered and stumbled, then he tripped and fell flat. He wanted to scramble to his feet and hurry on, but he could not. What if he never found his
amma
and
appa?
His eyes filled with tears. He didn't know anyone in this settlement, and no one knew him. What would he do? A sob escaped his lips and tears ran down his cheeks.