The Hope of Shridula (2 page)

At midday, Boban Joseph pushed his way through the crowd of women unloading their head loads of grain and called out to Ashish, "Old man!" (
Old man,
he said, even though he was himself almost ten years older than Ashish!) "I do not see your daughter at work in the fields today. Where is she?"

Ashish turned his back to the landlord and untied another bundle. Paying Boban Joseph no mind, he separated the sheaves of grain. Long ago he had outlived his fear of the master.

"That girl of yours is nothing!" Boban Joseph spat at Ashish's back. "Nothing but a worthless, disgusting Untouchable."

With an expert hand, Ashish tossed three sheaves of wheat into the already-overflowing storage shed, then swung around and grabbed up the next one.

"A comely Untouchable, however," Boban Joseph added. "In a dark and dirty sort of way. Yet there are those who like such girls." Ashish's eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. The landlord laughed out loud, scornful and mocking.

Ashish stopped his work and straightened his painfully stiff back. The wheat sheaf slipped from his hands. Stepping back, he turned around to look the landowner full in the face. "The pale English lady is but one day's walk from here," Ashish said. "She has not forgotten me. Most certainly, she has not forgotten your father, or anyone in your family."

The smirk disappeared from the landlord's lips.

Always, wherever Shridula went, Boban Joseph's hungry eyes followed her. At one time, he had tried to force her to come up to the big house and work in his garden. There, from dawn to dusk, she would be always in his sight. Even more, she would be away from her father's protection. But Ashish would not allow it. And although he was but a lowly Untouchable, and although Boban Joseph was his owner, Ashish prevailed because of his well-worn threat of the pale English lady.

It infuriated Boban Joseph. What did he care about that worn-out old foreign woman? That an Untouchable slave— the son of runaways, no less—should get his way was an outrage. Ashish
belonged
to him! And so did the girl. But Boban Joseph's father had warned him not to press Ashish. "The British," Mammen Samuel had said darkly. "Stay away from anything that touches on their affairs."

Boban Joseph hissed to Ashish, "The time will come, Untouchable. The time will come."

As a child, Ashish always dreaded the hot season, not for the discomfort alone, but because the heat took away the refuge of his family's hut. He found it almost impossible to spend any time inside because the interior so quickly grew stifling. One might as well step into the cooking fire pit and sit down on simmering stones. In those days, no
neem
tree stretched out above the hut with shelter in its branches. His entire life, Ashish had longed for a place of refuge. For a safe haven. For a shady protection from the world.

The
neem
tree took root and grew quickly.

It had been early morning when Zia bore Ashish their first son. She tied the baby to her back and went to work in the fields the same as she did every other day. The child had grown big enough to run through the dirt and dribble water from a bowl onto the little tree by the time Zia bore their second son. When that one grew big enough to tag along after his brother and help water the tree's roots, Zia had their third boy. By the time he was of a size to scamper about in the dirt with his brothers, the
neem
tree reached high enough to provide a bit of shade from the sun for all of them.

At night, Ashish spread two sleeping mats outside under the spreading branches, one for him and one for Zia. The three little boys curled up around them, and the entire family slept soundly and securely.

The life-giving tree; that's what Indians called a
neem.
And that's what it was, too, because each part of the tree nurtured life and brought health to the family fortunate enough to live under the protection of its shade. The bark, the twigs, the blossoms, the leaves—every part of the tree enhanced life. Even the bitter fruit could be boiled into a healing medicine.

Most certainly it was a life-giving tree—except for the one time Ashish needed it most.

2

May 1946

w
ho is Devi?" Shridula asked.

Ashish almost dropped the sleeping mats he had gathered up in his arms. He shot a quick glance at Zia. An earthenware bowl slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground.

"Tell me about Devi," Shridula pressed. "Is she one of us?" Meaning,
Is she also an Untouchable?

Slowly, deliberately, Ashish stacked the sleeping mats in the corner, one on top of the other. He stooped down and straightened the stack, then straightened it all over again. "Yes, she is one of us," he finally said. "She
was."

Shridula stared at her father. It seemed as though a mask had suddenly fallen over his face. The most familiar man in her life, and she hardly recognized him. In that moment he looked so old, so terribly tired.

"Who spoke to you of Devi?" Ashish took great care to keep his question casual, as though it had no real import.

"Sometimes Master Landlord calls me by that name."

Zia caught her breath and her eyes filled with tears. She turned toward the shadows and pulled her
pallu—
the loose end of her dingy sari—over her head.

But Shridula wouldn't give up. Turning to her mother, she asked, "Who was she,
Amma?"

Zia heaved a sigh of weary resignation. "Devi was my sister. My beautiful big sister. She was the one who set my parents free."

Devi.

With a nervous jerk of her hand, Zia stroked at the worn spots on her sari and smoothed the frayed cloth out over her bony frame. She was a competent woman, hardworking and kind. Toil and sorrow and years had taken their toll on her, but even before all that, no one would have called her pretty. Pleasant looking, yes, with her melancholy oval face, dark skin, and thick black hair. But not pretty like her older sister.

While Zia's parents had not considered her worthy of any name at all, they had bestowed an especially lucky one on Devi. Her name meant
goddess.
In many ways, Devi had been fortunate . . . for an Untouchable. Like her younger sister, she was hardworking and kind, but she had also been blessed with grace and beauty and pale skin. And she was loved.

"Tell me about Devi," Shridula pleaded.

Zia wiped her face with her
pallu
and sighed deeply. "The old landlord—Master's father—he gave her to Master Boban Joseph."

Devi did not measure up to the standards old Master Landlord had intended for his eldest son, Zia explained. Everyone knew that. Village gossips had already woven together tales of the lavish wedding the landlord would have for his son, and the sumptuous feast to which the entire village would certainly be invited. A bride had been selected many years earlier, chosen from a family of wealth and prestige. However, in keeping with Indian custom, young Boban Joseph had never seen or spoken to her.

"But he did not want the rich girl," Zia said. "He did not want the great wedding party."

"How do you know all this?" Shridula asked.

"Devi worked in the garden outside the landowner's house and she heard their arguments," Zia said. "Of course, she repeated everything to us."

Of course. Shridula knew all about the gossip that ran incessantly through the settlement.

"Young Master was stubborn and angry, but the landlord refused to give up on his lavish wedding arrangements," Ashish explained. "Because I was a servant of Saji Stephen, the master's younger son, I was ordered to help prepare the elephant for the groom's march. Young Master Boban Joseph said he would not ride the elephant, but the landlord said, 'A son does not go against his father.' "

Yet Boban Joseph did go against his father. He refused to have anything to do with the marriage his father arranged.

"He wanted only the Untouchable girl who worked in the garden," Zia said. "He would have no one but my sister Devi."

Landlord Mammen Samuel held the entire village under his fist, but he could not control his own willful son. So, although it brought untold humiliation and shame to his family, and though it cost him an enormous amount of money, Mammen Samuel returned the bride's dowry. He also presented costly gifts of apology to everyone in her family. He had to, in order to persuade them to agree to cancel the wedding. To quiet the vicious gossip that was spreading so quickly and to regain his honor, he forgave Devi's parents their debt in exchange for her father's thumbprint on an agreement renouncing Devi as his daughter. Her father gave his mark without hesitation. That very night her parents left the settlement.

"My sister could not stop weeping when the landlord's servants took her away," Zia told Shridula. "She was just a child, you see, younger than you are now."

Shridula shook her head. "I do not understand,
Amma.
You are still here. Why did you not go away with your parents?"

Zia would not look her daughter in the face. "My little sister, Baby, and I were not part of their agreement," she murmured. "Though we were still very small, we were sent to work in the fields in my parents' place. I never saw my mother and father again. I never saw Devi again, either."

Shridula, her face hard, declared, "I would not have stayed behind."

"It was not our choice. We could only—"

"If I could not go with them, I would have left by myself. I would not have stayed with the landlord!"

"Do not be so quick to speak, Daughter," Ashish said. "It is easy to imagine strength and bravery when none is required of you."

Shridula had always been a curious child. With her, Ashish never found it a simple matter to tell a tale. He couldn't get through a story without her endless interruptions of, "But why,
Appa?
Why?"

Ashish did his best to answer his daughter's questions . . . in his own way. He told her . . . some things. He explained . . . what he must. Which is why Shridula knew so little.

"So you hate the landlord because of Devi?" the girl asked. "I don't understand. He owned her. Was it not his right to do with her as he wished?"

Ashish closed his eyes. His head bobbed back and forth, in the manner peculiar to his people. "I must tell you of your brothers," he said.

"Veer, our first boy, always laughed. Although still quite young when the overseer sent him to the fields, he changed from a happy child to a joyful water boy." Ashish smiled at the memory of the tiny lad who never walked but always ran, back and forth, on his short, brown legs, eager to hurry water to thirsty laborers. "Aravind, our second boy, spent his days looking after Jeevak, the smallest. Together those two little ones collected twigs and branches to trade to neighbors for vegetables and special things to eat. Aravind proved to be an especially good trader. What amazing things he would carry home to your mother for her cook pot!"

Ashish smiled in spite of himself.

"But then the dreaded smallpox sickness struck in the next village. The old landlord was so terrified he would not allow anyone in or out of the settlement. Not until the pox hit his own house."

Shridula pushed in close to her father and looked up into his dark eyes. "Did it strike the landlord,
Appa?"

Ashish looked helplessly to Zia, but she had already turned away.

"Well, did it?" Shridula pressed.

"Yes. It struck the old landlord, Mammen Samuel," Ashish said. "They sent for me because the smallpox goddess had already kissed me. They knew she would not reach out to me again."

Shridula reached up and ran her hand over the deep scars that pitted her father's weathered face.

"When I came to him, the old landlord lay stretched out on his bed, screaming in pain. His body burned with fever. The young one, Master Boban Joseph, asked me, 'Is this the pox?' But how was I to know? I was smaller than little Jeevak when it struck me. Even so, the young landlord locked me in the room with his father and ordered me to care for him. I did his bidding because I had no choice."

"Until he got well?"

"Three days. That's how long I stayed locked in that room. When the landlord's body was cool again, and he sat up and asked for
idli
cakes and
sambar
to eat, I laughed with happiness because I thought that surely he was well. But then I saw the rash on his face and I knew. Soon that rash would turn into blisters, and the blisters into open, running ulcers."

"What did you do?"

"I called for the young master to fetch the herbalist. I pounded on the locked door and begged him to get a healing charm for his father from the holy man. But he did not. Young Master called back through the door for me to stretch his father out straight and make him comfortable, which is what I did. Then Young Master opened the door just wide enough for me to squeeze out."

"He let you go home?"

"He told me to forget I ever saw his father. I said, 'No, no! Your father will die!' But Young Master Boban Joseph slammed the door shut behind me. 'Everyone dies,' he said. 'This is the old man's karma.' And he locked the door with his father inside."

Shridula looked from her stricken father to her weeping mother. She longed to ask,
Why do you care? What did that cruel man matter to you?
But it was not the time for such questions.

"I hurried away, but I saw Devi working in the garden," Ashish said. "She had a small child tied to her back. Young Landlord's son, she told me. I lifted the baby from her and carried him while Devi broke off sunflowers for me to bring home to your mother."

Zia shook her head, as though she still found the story hard to believe.

"When I neared our hut, young Veer came running to meet me and jumped up in my arms. Little Aravind was right behind him, so I lifted him onto my shoulders. As we got closer to our hut, tiny Jeevak toddled over and I scooped him up and carried him, too."

"You hate the young landlord because he locked his father in the room and left him to die?" Shridula asked.

Ashish raised his calloused hand to wipe his face, but his hand shook so badly he dropped it back into his lap.

"No," he said in a voice choked with tears. "Because seven days after I returned home, the pox struck Devi's baby. Devi did what she could for him, but she got the pox, too. They died together, locked in the barn where they slept."

"Oh," Shridula gasped. "Poor, poor Devi!"

But Ashish wasn't finished. "The next day, our young Veer, his body damp with fever, cried over a terrible pain in his head. Soon little Aravind lay beside him, crying with his brother. They left this life together on the sleeping mat."

"But how could that happen?" Shridula demanded. "Did the pox strike you a second time,
Appa?"

"No. But I carried it to Devi and her baby, then I took it home to my sons. We sold everything we owned to buy special sacrifices to lay before the goddess of the pox—coconut and cashews and pineapple and guavas. We begged the goddess to have mercy and not take our tiny Jeevak, too. But she had already lifted her hand against us and we could not change her mind."

"Oh!" Shridula breathed.

"With his father gone to his next life, Boban Joseph became the new landlord. He sent Sudra servants to lock us inside our hut and burn it down. They warned us to die bravely because it was our karma."

Ashish spat out those last words like bitter fruit from the
neem
tree.

"But in the end, the Sudras took pity on us. They busied themselves behind the hut while we ran away into the forest and hid. The pox never did spread in the village. When Boban Joseph no longer feared it, he turned all his efforts to making himself the new landlord. We returned to our hut and went back to work in the fields."

In the silence that followed, Shridula looked from her father to her mother, then back to her father again. "The landlord was wrong about your karma," the girl said. "Here you are . . . both of you."

Always the positive one, Shridula. Always the one to light up the darkness with a glow of hope.

"Our sons are no more," said Zia, "but we have you. We have our Shridula—our blessing. You are our karma."