Water: A Novel (Bapsi Sidwha) Read online

Had she expected some consideration from Madhumati? Some sort of healing shelter in which to lick her wounds before she could decide what to do? Despite knowing her as well as she did, she stupidly had. Kalyani stood in the alley, staring into the dark. Nothing had changed. And yet everything had. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She was like an animal caught in a snare.

  Madhumati kept stuffing food into her mouth. When she turned to the window again, Kalyani was gone.

  Kalyani knew she had no choice: there was only one avenue open to her. Cast out in the streets she would die, but to live without Narayan and return to a life of forced prostitution would be a worse kind of death. Her very existence would cast a shadow on Narayan’s life and blight it.

  Kalyani dragged herself listlessly through the dark alleys to the ghats. There was hardly anyone about, only a few ghostly shadows like herself. She went down the steep stone stairs and stood on the last step, where the river lapped gently at its edge. The funeral pyres burned steadily behind her. Kalyani carefully folded the extra sari she had been carrying with her and set it down on a dry slab. She took one step into the shallow water at the river’s edge and then sat down on the last stair. The cool water seeped through her sari, but her body was so cold that it felt warm against her skin. She removed a brown cloth-band from her wrist, and set it gently on top of the folded sari. Kalyani rose and walked slowly into the river until the water came up to her knees. She bent to splash her face with the sacred water that flowed from Shiva’s head, and smoothed it over her face and hair. She clasped her hands in prayer for a moment. Then she calmly walked into the river until her short hair floated in an inky stain on the water.

  Ma Ganga had claimed her daughter.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was a loud, persistent knocking on the heavy wooden door of the ashram. Shakuntala, awakened from a fitful sleep, slowly shuffled toward the door in the faint light at the edge of dawn. She drew back the small panel in the top of the door and peered out.

  Narayan stood on the other side. He was unshaven, his kurta and dhoti rumpled, but his eyes were calm. A suitcase stood at his feet.

  Narayan saw Shakuntala’s pale, staring face in the opening and said simply, “I’ve come for Kalyani.”

  Shakuntala’s stricken features filled with sorrow and sympathy. She would have to find the words to tell Narayan that he was too late.

  THE DAY OF KALYANI’S CREMATION was like any other sultry day. The dawn clouds had been dispersed by the sun that was already quite high. Narayan stood against a brick wall that ran along the ghat, unable to take his eyes away from Kalyani’s pyre. After a while, he walked down the steps to join Shakuntala and Chuyia, who sat close together lower down the ghat. Her small white sari covering her from head to toe, Chuyia gnawed on her knuckles, fretful and restless, wiping her nose on her sari and every short while brushing tears that welled up in her eyes when she realized she would never see her friend again. Narayan sat down next to them quietly and stared off across the river. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, as if he didn’t want his vision sharpened on this day; the reality of what had happened, the blaze of the consuming pyre, were all too vividly lodged in his heart.

  Shakuntala turned her head to look at Narayan. He wore a long, pale blue shirt over a white dhoti. His feet were bare. The boyish contours of his face had acquired a discernible hardness that made him appear older than his twenty-two years. Why should he not have changed after what had happened? She sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking at him. He could feel her sad eyes on him, and he was comforted by her presence. He did not feel the need to speak. In an attempt to draw him out and to offer consolation, Shakuntala, after a while, said, “The Holy Texts tell us that all this is maya, an illusion.”

  “Kalyani’s death is no illusion,” Narayan said, the peremptory tone and his gruff voice expressing some of the anger coiled within him.

  Shakuntala was shocked by Narayan’s explicit denigration of the Holy Books. She moved closer to him. “Narayan, no matter what happens, you must not lose faith,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder and thinking of how much comfort those words uttered by Sadananda had given her.

  Narayan did not look at her. “Why is your faith so strong?” he challenged.

  Shakuntala was stunned by the question, disturbed by the cynicism that laced his voice. “I don’t know,” was her honest reply.

  Chuyia stood up and listlessly wandered off. Shakuntala watched her go, a worried frown creasing her forehead. Narayan noticed the direction of her gaze, and his features softened. The hubbub of an ordinary day on the river continued all around them. A body wrapped in white and tied to the litter at the ankles and neck lay on the steps next to them, the heels barely clearing the water. Behind them, the funeral pyres burned in anemic heaps, their lustre overpowered by the greater fire of the sun. A little way off, a man was getting his head shaved on the ghat steps. Life continued in the face of death.

  “There must be a reason for it. Why are we sent here?” Shakuntala said, continuing her train of thought as she spoke to Narayan, still trying to grasp for some meaning in the futile loss of Kalyani’s young life that might offer them both consolation.

  “One less mouth to feed, four saris, one bed to let—somewhere a corner saved for another widow. There is no other reason. Disguised as religion, it’s just about money.”

  His severe assessment had the ring of truth; Shakuntala was surprised that she thought so. Narayan stood up to leave, pausing for a moment to stare at Kalyani’s pyre. His gait, as he climbed up the steps, was weary, his tread heavy. As he dissolved into the crowd, Shakuntala wondered at the meaning of Kalyani’s life, at the unfairness that had stamped its short span—at the promise of happiness that had fallen into her lap like a ripe fruit she could never partake of.

  LATER THAT DAY, MADHUMATI sat on her bed leaning against the wall, her short legs stretched out in front like loaves of dough beneath her sari. She picked at her ear with a wooden matchstick, grimacing at the wax she excavated. Gulabi leaned forward, pressed up against the window bars, stuffing the small aperture with her gaudy colours.

  Chuyia, having been summoned by Madhumati, stood uneasily in the doorway.

  Madhumati assumed an impish air of childish animation, and began laying the groundwork for her new plan to finance the ashram and her addictions. “I always keep my promises,” she stated, turning to Gulabi for confirmation. “Don’t I?”

  Gulabi nodded her head obligingly. “Everyone knows you do,” she concurred, removing the dirt from under her nails with a matchstick.

  Turning to Chuyia, Madhumati continued in the same playful vein, “But she doesn’t even want to go home. Right?”

  Chuyia, wanting desperately to believe that Madhumati truly would send her home, but full of misgiving, said in a small voice, “I want to go home.”

  “Alright then, Gulabi will take you,” Madhumati said with a flick of her hand, as if what she promised were of no great moment and could easily be conjured up.

  Chuyia, whose wishes had been so consistently thwarted that she had stopped thinking of home, looked at her, clearly puzzled. “You know where my house is?”

  “She does,” Madhumati said, flicking her thumb at Gulabi. “Gulabi knows everything. But if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to,” she said, simpering coyly. “After all, I’m also like your mother, aren’t I?” Madhumati batted her eyelids and directed a smile of such saccharine sweetness at Chuyia that it set even Gulabi’s teeth on edge.

  Like her mother? Chuyia was appalled at the idea. She nervously fingered the sari edge that was biting into her shoulder. After a moment she ventured tentatively, “Can I take Kaalu?”

  Madhumati’s face lit up in a bright munificent smile by way of answer and at the same time she gave Gulabi a knowing look. Gulabi raised her eyes from her grimy nails and looked at Chuyia. Chuyia was staring at her expectantly. Gulabi’s lips stretched in a toothy, betel nut-stained smile. “Come, I’ll take you,�
�� she said, with an indifferent toss of her elaborately coifed head.

  While Madhumati and Gulabi were talking to Chuyia at the ashram, Shakuntala was saying her final goodbyes to Kalyani. She sat on her heels at the river’s edge and released Kalyani’s ashes, using her hands as paddles to maneuver them away from the shore. They floated away in a red-glazed pot covered with a green cloth.

  Sadananda stood behind Shakuntala, his eyes shut and hands clasped, offering prayers for Kalyani’s soul in a sonorous chant. “O Spirit of the Dead! Carry with you only the good karmas! Seek a new body! And a life of glory!” He turned to Shakuntala. “Holy water. . . .”

  Shakuntala appeared not to hear him. Even after the pot sailed away, Shakuntala stayed crouched, her empty arms turned outwards and stretched towards the disappearing ashes. The bottom of her sari was getting wet from the puddles on the step, but she didn’t notice.

  The priest gently urged Shakuntala to get up and follow him. Her ability to respond seemed to have slowed. After a while, she stood up and they started the walk to Tulsi Ghat. The bottle palms swayed gently in the breeze. A group of muscle-bound wrestlers, oil gleaming on their bare skin, chanted as they marched past the pair.

  All at once the calm of the late afternoon was broken by a young man rushing through the crowded ghats, distributing pamphlets and shouting, “The British have let Gandhiji out of jail! He’s free!” He thrust a pamphlet at Shakuntala and she took it. “His train will stop here on his way from Allahabad,” he shouted, as if directing the message at the woman and the priest. The young man continued yelling the news of Gandhi’s arrival down the length of the ghats, too excited to have any qualms about disrupting the prayers of the pious.

  Sadananda’s mouth twisted into a sad, wry smile. “Gandhi is one of the few people in the world who listens to the voice of his conscience.”

  “But what if our conscience conflicts with our faith?” asked Shakuntala, finally articulating the question that had been tormenting her all day.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sun had set, and in its picturesque afterglow Gulabi steered the boat to the private dock of Seth Bhupindernath’s mansion in Hajipur, on the outskirts of Rawalpur. She helped Chuyia out of the boat and, holding her by her hand, led her up the tall flight of steps to the mansion looming above them. Chuyia stopped short of the entryway. Still out of breath from her climb, she gaped at the bulky structure. Up close, it looked decayed and menacing: the kind of palace that locked up princesses in dungeons. “Whose house is this?” she asked Gulabi, nervously twisting the edge of her sari.

  “This is Kalyani’s friend’s house. You can play here for a while. Then I’ll take you home,” said Gulabi glibly.

  Gulabi’s facile tone of voice alarmed Chuyia as much as the ugly mansion. She stubbornly refused to move. “No,” she told Gulabi. “I don’t want to play here.”

  “Huh? Don’t you want sweets and fried bread?” said Gulabi.

  “Where is Kalyani’s friend? Tell her to come out.” Chuyia said, balking at the thought of entering this forbidding house.

  “Upstairs, in the house,” said Gulabi, casually shrugging her shoulders. “Don’t you want to eat laddoos and cake?”

  Chuyia considered this. It was getting late and she was hungry. Her face brightened at the prospect of savouring these forbidden treats.

  “Let’s go,” Gulabi said, firmly taking her by the hand and leading her to that same back verandah that Kalyani had reluctantly traversed so many times. They passed the mildewing, flaking pillars in the neglected rear of the mansion, and walked through a flock of hens pecking at crumbs on the floor. Chuyia, succumbing to the lure of this new adventure, looked around her curiously, her spirits still buoyed in anticipation of the promised sweets to come. Somewhere inside the dark house, a clock chimed. They arrived at the metal service staircase. Chuyia followed Gulabi unhesitatingly up the spiral stairs.

  Gulabi stepped through a lace-curtained doorway, gently pushing Chuyia ahead of her. She gave a slight nod to a shadowy figure ensconced in an elaborate, four-poster bed. Shaking her hand free of Chuyia’s tightening grip, she quickly exited and shut the door behind her. Chuyia was suddenly alone. Her eyes darted to the panels of the tall door through which Gulabi had just disappeared. Her small heart pounding, she turned fearfully toward the room. As she tugged at her sari, she became aware of the music coming from the large, ear-shaped horn of a gramophone. Where was Kalyani’s friend? The room was dark, filled with heavy mahogany furniture. The walls were painted blue. There was a reddish glow to the room; it came from a red glass lamp that stood on a table next to the bed. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Chuyia could just make out the shape of a man leaning back against the cushions, drink in hand, puffing on a hookah. His face was obscured by the canopy of mosquito netting, which hung over the bed. He didn’t speak, so she introduced herself.

  “My name is Chuyia. I’ve come to play.”

  IT WAS NIGHT IN THE ashram courtyard. Snehlata lit incense at the stone altar on which a pradip already burned. Grim-faced and troubled, she knelt before it to pray. Shakuntala came into the courtyard, calling for Chuyia. The elderly widow gave her a tentative, sidelong look, but did not say anything, as Shakuntala rushed past her to look into the widows’ room and the kitchen; she finally ran up the stairs to the barsati. Finding no trace of the girl, she came back down to the courtyard and confronted the woman directly. “Have you seen Chuyia?”

  Too afraid and wretched to reveal the truth of Chuyia’s whereabouts, the widow remained ominously quiet. When Shakuntala stepped closer, she turned her stern, lantern-like face to her and told her, “Ask Madhu-didi.”

  A stab of fear shivered through Shakuntala. She raced to Madhumati’s room. Madhumati lay in a deep stupor, her face slack, a circle of drool on her pillow. The sounds of dogs barking in the distance and of crickets chirping filtered in through the closed window.

  Shakuntala shook Madhumati’s shoulder and demanded, “Where’s Chuyia? Have you seen Chuyia?” Her voice was hoarse with fear.

  Madhumati did not respond. Shakuntala shook her slack body harder.

  “What?” Madhumati slurred the word, barely able to move her heavy lids.

  “Have you seen Chuyia?” shouted Shakuntala, growing more frantic by the second.

  Madhumati’s eyes snapped open. She gave Shakuntala a dreamy smile of recognition and fell back asleep.

  Her lips drawn back in an angry snarl, Shakuntala placed both her hands firmly on Madhumati’s ears and shook her head hard enough to make her teeth rattle. “Have you seen Chuyia!” she screamed, desperation making her voice crack.

  Madhumati opened her drugged eyes with difficulty. They were bloodshot, and the pupils were dilated. “I’ve sent her.” Her speech was slurred, and the words dribbling from her mouth ended on a note of finality that chilled her heart.

  Shakuntala wouldn’t stop shaking her. “Where did you send her? Where did you send her? OPEN YOUR EYES! WHERE DID YOU SEND HER!” she shrieked.

  Unable to struggle out of her stupor, Madhumati started to whimper in fear. “With Gulabi,” she mumbled. “Gulabi has . . .”

  Shakuntala slapped Madhumati hard across the face. The old woman’s head shook from the force of the blow, but she didn’t awaken. Clamping her clenched fist to her mouth, Shakuntala fled from the room.

  Shakuntala ran blindly through the dark gullies. The distant roar of chants came at her in waves from Tulsi Ghat. Although she could not make out the words, she knew what they were. Once she arrived at the ghats the words, rising from a thousand throats, resounded all around her. “Ram Nam Satya Hai—Ram, Thy Name is Truth,” chanted the mourners, heightening her sense of urgency, and she rushed down the steps to the river. Shakuntala awoke one boatman after another, pleading desperately with each in turn to take her up the river to Hajipur. None of the exhausted men were willing to go. Their long shifts over, they were done for the day.

  Suddenly, Shakuntala spotted a boat with an od
d splash of colour bobbing in it. As the boat moved toward the bank, the colours, in the flicker of lights from the ghat, became more vivid. Who but Gulabi would dress in blues and reds so flamboyant? Shakuntala ran along the embankment, keeping abreast of the boat. Gulabi’s belly protruded beneath her short blouse and hung over her scarlet sari as she rowed toward the bank with long, powerful strokes. Shakuntala could just make out a small, crumpled form lying in a heap in the front of the boat. She shouted incoherently at Gulabi. Gulabi, who never lacked the instinct of self-preservation, quickly took in the situation. Shakuntala’s rage was palpable. Like a mother bear whose cub is endangered, she was quite liable to bound into the boat and thrash the life out of her. Before the boat could come to a stop, Gulabi leaped onto the embankment and, grunting in fear, fled flat-footed past Shakuntala.

  Shakuntala stepped into the boat. She knelt down beside Chuyia’s curled body and, speaking softly, lifted the little girl’s chin with the tips of her fingers to look into her eyes. “Open your eyes, Chuyia,” Shakuntala pleaded. “Try . . . Try to open them.” Chuyia’s eyebrows twitched and, as her head fell back, white moons showed beneath the fringe of her lashes. Shakuntala grew rigid with fear and fury. Chuyia had been drugged. What had the beast done to a drugged child? Shakuntala struggled to pick up the inert body and, with great difficulty, hauled Chuyia onto the embankment. For a long while, she sat on the ghat steps, holding Chuyia close to her heart and rocking her gently. She drifted in and out of sleep with the child in her arms, and when she half-awakened to a clamour of temple bells, she guessed it must be well past midnight.

  Dawn was breaking across the river, and the Ganga was already dotted with people bathing and worshipping in the shallows. The city too was awakening to the monotonous chant of priests and the ringing of bells in hundreds of temples. A few fishing boats were out, and the customary shallow skiffs were intermittently lined up along the ghats, waiting on mourners scattered around the funeral pyres. Shakuntala sat on the steps, cradling Chuyia in her arms. Chuyia’s pallor was frightening, and she appeared to be gravely ill. Shakuntala did not know what to do. Whom could she turn to for help?