The Hope of Shridula (7 page)

"An Untouchable," Saji Stephen corrected. "He is an Untouchable."

Rajeev Nathan splayed out his fingers and pressed his palm flat on his plate. Faster than the eye could follow, he drew his fingers together and raised his hand to his mouth. "The Mahatma calls them Harijans," he said. "Children of God."

"The Mahatma did not see the father of that one crawling down this road to beg our father for money." Boban Joseph gestured toward Ashish. "I did. He had a broom tied to his back to brush away his filthy footprints, a cup over his mouth to protect us from his polluted breath, and a drum to warn us of his disgusting presence. I saw him and I can tell you, that Untouchable was no child of any god."

Ashish sat perfectly still. Even when a fly landed on his forehead and walked down over his nose and to his mouth, he never so much as blinked his eyes.

"Those were the days when grandfather lived," Rajeev Nathan said. "Mahatma Gandhi promises a new day for a new India."

"Promises, promises, always promises." Saji Stephen scowled. "But in the end, nothing ever changes."

Rajeev Nathan lifted his head in an assumed air of superiority. "Look at my family, Father. I am from a Christian heritage, my wife is Muslim, and we live successfully in peaceful harmony in a land of Hindus. Already I am achieving the first fruits of the Mahatma's promise of change. Gandhiji. Dear teacher Gandhi."

"Do you think yourself superior to your uncle?" Boban Joseph demanded. "I am the one with wealth, and I am the one with power. And in case you did not notice, Nephew, I am the one who owns the house you live in and the land that supports you."

"And you are the one who acts a fool whenever a young girl happens by," Saji Stephen said dryly.

"Would you have me be more like you, then?" Boban Joseph shot back. "An overgrown child, too irresponsible for anyone to respect?"

Rajeev Nathan grabbed up a large bite of rice and curry in his
chapati.
With his mouth full he said, "For four years now, ever since I first heard of the Quit India call of Mohandas Gandhi—the demand that the British immediately with draw from our country—my eyes have been fixed on the great man."

Who could this wonderful man be?
Ashish wondered.
Surely he must be even more powerful than the landowner.

"He is not unlike me," Rajeev Nathan said. "A Hindu of high caste, deeply influenced by Christian ideas, yet fully Indian."

Boban Joseph laughed out loud.

"Your Mahatma cannot even keep himself out of prison," Saji Stephen sneered.

"Through his practice of civil disobedience, Gandhiji will lead India to independence," Rajeev Nathan stated with a note of disdain. "And when he does, I shall be standing by his side."

Boban Joseph pushed the bowl aside and cleared his throat, but he did not speak.

"Live in peace, then," Saji Stephen scoffed. "Find your success. Just do not cause an uproar in my house."

Boban Joseph cast a scathing glare at his brother. "My house!" he declared. "This is
my
house! Do not forget it."

All through the hottest part of the day, Ashish sat in his spot in the dirt beside the veranda.

"Go to the barn to wait for your daughter," Saji Stephen suggested. But Ashish kept his eyes on the ground and refused to move.

In the afternoon, Brahmin Rama walked up the road. But with Ashish sitting in the dirt, he stopped well away and called out, "Boban! Boban Varghese!"

Ashish looked back. At first, he saw only the white
mundu
tied high under the slight man's ribs. But then he saw the sacred thread, emblem of exalted caste status, that hung over the Brahmin's left shoulder, across his body and under his right arm. Quickly Ashish scrambled to his knees and pressed his forehead to the dirt.

The Brahmin ignored him. Once again, he called, "Boban Varghese! Come and speak with me!"

"Yes, yes," Boban Joseph called back as he made his way out to the veranda. "What do you want?"

"I wish to talk over a matter of great concern." Brahmin Rama glanced at Ashish, who still bowed with his face to the ground. The Brahmin's eyes hardened. "But a piece of trash lies at your doorway."

"You! Untouchable!" Boban Joseph ordered. "Wait in the barn."

"Please, Master," Ashish said without moving. "Your brother agreed that I should stay near my daughter."

Boban Joseph shrugged. "She has already been in my house too long. I am tired of the both of you!" With a great show of impatience, he called for his servant to bring Shridula around to the garden. "Wait for her there," he told Ashish, "then take her away from my house."

"Now I shall have to suffer the time and trouble of bathing myself in a ritually purifying bath, and all because you do not have the decency of a proper outcaste," Brahmin Rama complained. "I must say, Landlord, it appalls me that you should allow one so polluted to lie across the threshold of your house."

Yet the Brahmin's dismay didn't stop him from stepping up to the veranda—from the far side, away from where Ashish had sat.

When he had settled himself, Brahmin Rama informed the landlord, "Your nephew is stirring up trouble."

"Rajeev Nathan is young. He dreams and he talks."

"He can dream all he wants," the Brahmin said, "but his never-ending talk must stop. Children of God! Which god is that, I ask you? It matters not what Mohandas Gandhi says. Untouchables are polluted and cursed by all the gods. To tell them otherwise is folly. It is begging for trouble."

"Come, come," Boban Joseph said, a glint of mischief flashing in his eye. "Surely a man with such vast powers as yours, one who can tell the future and call down curses on his enemies, need not fear the boastings of one foolish young man."

The Brahmin, his lips pursed tight, adjusted his wire rimmed spectacles. "This is not a matter for levity. Your nephew Rajeev stirs up trouble by claiming that change is on the horizon."

"Perhaps he is right."

"Perhaps he is," said the Brahmin. "But it will take something far deeper than foolishly spread words to change the karma that controls our lives."

"Why, then, do you fear his words?"

"I fear the ones to whom Rajeev speaks," said Brahmin Rama. "It is bad enough that your nephew talks of strikes and resistance and riots and home rule to the people. But now he goes to the English with his words. That, my dear sir, is nothing short of madness!"

"It is you who are mad!" Boban Joseph shot back. "My nephew has no contact with the English."

"Can it be that you know so little of what happens under your own roof?" the Brahmin countered. "Rajeev wants the British and their mission medical clinic gone. All of them: the new doctor and his wife, and the old woman who has reigned over the clinic for forty years. And what's more, he intends to bring it to pass."

"I do not believe any of it," Boban Joseph said.

"Believe it or not, his plans are already in motion."

7

June 1946

F
aster! Dinkar called to a clutch of women who had fallen behind. The line filed in from the roadside, each woman balancing an enormous load of chopped grass on her head.

"Why must you command this of us?" Ashish demanded of the overseer. "We have had no rest since the end of harvest. Now is the time we should be planting rice, yet you pile more work on us!"

"It is not for me to decide," Dinkar answered. "Master Landlord insists that we have everything ready for his new dairy before the rains come. Shelters for all his valuable new cows, he says, and stronger fences around their grazing fields."

"No!" Ashish insisted. "It is too much to ask!"

"You are not the master," Dinkar said dryly. "It is not for me to say, and it is not for you, either."

But even as he said it, Dinkar was well aware that Ashish wasn't the only one complaining. Unrest had begun to spread throughout the settlement.

A young man with an old man's face grumbled as he struggled to fell a tree. "We work and work until we can hardly stand on our feet, and for what? To make the rich landlord richer still!"

"We owe the landlord a debt, but we do not owe him our lives!" seethed the young man's friend Jinraj. Despite the deep, bleeding scratches that crisscrossed his hands and arms, Jinraj pulled up another thorn bramble from the road and piled it on top of the barrier that surrounded the new dairy's field. "We do not owe him the flesh from our bodies, either!"

Finally, Dinkar, his head bowed low in humility and fear, had no choice but to carry word of the workers' anger to the landlord.

Boban Joseph listened impatiently. "Have you lost all control over the laborers?" he demanded. "Do they not understand that I own them?"

"Please, Master Landlord," Dinkar pleaded. "It is too much for them. Your father would have—"

"I am not my father! Nor do I need your advice on how to work my laborers. I know perfectly well how to deal with them."

Hunger.

"From this day forth, rice allotments will be based on productivity," Boban Joseph ordered. "Workers who work fast and hard will receive a fair share. Those who fall behind will feel the harsh pangs of hunger."

Fear.

"Make them see that the work is for their own good. Consider Bengal, up in the north of India. So many workers have starved in that horrible famine that it is impossible to count the dead. Thousands upon thousands, and all because the laborers refused to work hard and prepare for the inevitable." Boban Joseph glared at the overseer. "You go back to the workers and tell them they can do the work assigned to them, or they can prepare to wrap up the bodies of their children for the fire. After that, they will wrap up their women, too, and then they will dig their own graves."

Terrified, Dinkar ran back down the road. He didn't hear Boban Joseph's laughter. Nor did he see Saji Stephen step out from behind his brother and challenge him:

"We only just heard about that horrible famine in Bengal on the radio, and it had nothing to do with the efforts of laborers," said Saji Stephen. "But, of course, you know that."

"Of course I know that," Boban Joseph answered with another chuckle. "But a tragedy is not a complete tragedy if a wise man can use it for his benefit."

The next morning, Dinkar passed the landlord's words on to the laborers. "I can do no more," he said. "I am but a laborer, the same as you."

But young Hari, Jyoti's oldest son, would not let the overseer off so easily. "I am the man of my family. I should be paid the same as any other man!" he insisted.

Dinkar inspected the boy with a critical eye—skinny arms and bony legs, narrow shoulders. "When you can do the work of a man, then you can demand the pay of a man."

"Give me a man's job, and I will prove to you that I can do it."

Dinkar hesitated.

"I can help you get Master Landlord's work finished," Hari insisted. "You need more willing backs if you are to meet his demands."

The overseer glanced from the boy to his mother, who sighed in resignation. She was equally skinny and wan. "Wild elephants and boars trample the far field," Dinkar said. "The young men up ahead are heading out to drive them away. Go with Jinraj and see what you can do."

Hari leaped forward and ran after the young men.

"He didn't even take a stick with him." Dinkar scowled. "Ashish! Run and fetch that boy back before he is trampled to death." As Ashish rushed after Hari, Dinkar muttered, "That scrawny boy is no man!"

Ashish had already finished his evening meal and settled himself to rest under his
neem
tree, and his wife and daughter sat beside the dying cook fire with their dishes of spiced rice when Jyoti and her boys finally dragged themselves in from the fields.

"Cook over our fire tonight," Zia called to Jyoti, her voice gentle. "It is already hot. And do not bother to go to the well. I have enough water to fill your pot."

Ashish watched, but he said nothing.

Jyoti bowed her gratitude and hurried to her hut to get her own cooking pot.

While Jyoti waited next to the cooking fire for the water to heat, she unwrapped a new packet of rice and poured a portion of it into the pot.

"Your carved wood necklace," Zia cried. "It is gone!"

Jyoti's hand jerked to her neck. Gently she caressed the place where the necklace had fit so perfectly against her skin.

"Oh." Understanding passed over Zia's face. "The landlord?"

Jyoti's dark eyes filled with tears.

"But it was your grandmother's wedding gift to you!"

"My grandmother would understand," Jyoti whispered.

The scavenger woman's two skinny boys hunkered down in the shadows, watching impatiently as their mother stirred the bubbling pot.

Ashish also watched, but in silence from his place under the
neem
tree. It made sense to him that Jyoti would trade the necklace for food. Even though it had grown to be a part of her, it made perfect sense.

"Shridula," Zia called in a voice of false lightness. "Pull off a generous handful of greens from the garden and bring them here." To Jyoti she said, "They will add color to your meal and strength to your sons' bones."

Ashish shook his head.
A few pieces of vegetables won't help those scrawny boys!
he wanted to say. But he kept his mouth closed.

With the dawn, Arun, a wiry man who limped on a twisted foot, squinted toward the rising sun and announced to Ashish, "Today the sun will be hot."

Mist lay over the flooded fields where trenches from the river had been opened onto the harvested fields. Every man not building fences or cow shelters was at work with a plow pulled by a water buffalo. Either he churned up the mud or he worked mounds of manure into the ground. Hari had no plow. He worked alone on his knees, mixing up the stinking muck with his hands.

"Look at that disgusting scavenger boy," the wiry man said to Ashish. "He is exactly where he belongs, on his hands and knees in the filthy mess!"

But he's doing a man's job,
Ashish thought. What he said was, "Yes, Arun, the hot season is most certainly upon us."

Teams with harrows followed the plows to flatten the soggy ground and level it for planting. After so many years working behind a water buffalo, Ashish was a master with the harrow.

On the other side of the field, Zia worked alongside her daughter, tending the rice seedlings in flat baskets, carefully covering them with straw.

"They tell us our forefathers were dirty and ate pigs and cows, and that is why we are unclean," a woman with a loud voice stated. "Maybe that is true and maybe it is not. I do not know. But we are clean now. We do not eat cows or pigs. And yet the high caste still says we are unclean."

"I do not eat cows or pigs because I don't have any cows or pigs to eat," the woman with three teeth said. "Give me some meat and just watch me eat it!"

"
Amma,"
Shridula whispered. "Look at Jyoti. What is she doing? Did she lose something?"

Zia peered over in the direction of Shridula's gaze. Actually, Jyoti didn't exactly look as though she were searching for anything. She looked more like she was watching for something, out toward the fields. Expecting someone, perhaps.

"I do not know," Zia said to Shridula.

"Maybe she is going to hide some of the seedlings in her
sari."

"Why would she do that? She cannot eat seedlings."

"Or maybe—"

"Maybe we should mind our own business," Zia said firmly. "What Jyoti does is her own affair. If we slow down in our work, it is our rice pot that will go wanting."

As the white disc of the sun turned to pale yellow and sank toward the far field, the women mopped at their perspiring faces and turned back toward the settlement, eager to gather wood and water and light their evening cooking fires. As the edges of the mountain faded to gray, the exhausted men unyoked the water buffalo and headed to the well to pour water over their mud-splattered bodies. As the setting sun flooded the valley with its amber light, young Hari rose from the stinking muck and made his way to the edge of the paddy. He sprinted across the road and forced his way through the fence to the field adjacent to the storage sheds. Like a shadow, he slipped along the far side of the darkened path. Under a sky that had already given up the last of its color, he shinnied his scrawny body up the side of the shed and eased down through the narrow opening at the top.