Rebel Queen (10 page)

“She doesn’t get angry?”

“Perhaps. But she values my honesty.”

“And humility,” I offered.

“Yes.” She sat on the bed, and I tried to look as elegant as she did while doing something as simple as taking a seat. “Honesty is an extremely important quality to the rani. Pay attention to what she wears,” she said. Then she lowered her voice, as if what she was about to say was a secret. “Most days, her only jewelry is a plain pearl necklace and pearl earrings.”

“What must she think of your jewelry, then?”

Kahini sat back to get a better look at me. “Only the rani shows her humility in her dress.
We
are expected to show it in our actions. If you noticed, the women in the rani’s room were all dressed in silk saris.” She glanced at my traveling chest, made from old wood and tarnished silver buckles. “You packed a few yourself, certainly?”

I owned nothing made from silk. Just two new kurtas and the best juti my father could afford. “No.”

“Oh.” Then with forced cheer, she added, “I’m sure the other guards will let you borrow a few things until you purchase better clothes.”

A knot formed in my stomach as I thought of how much silk would cost. “But how is silk evidence of humility?”

“It isn’t. But we can’t go around the palace looking like we belong in a village market, can we? The rani is allowed to look humble because she is the rani. We are merely her servants.” There was an edge in her voice as she said this. Then she stood and said, “And now I will show you the maidan.”

I followed her out the door into an open courtyard. A multitude of flowers poured like brightly colored waterfalls from the urns, and a fountain splashed musically beneath the sun. But I didn’t allow myself to be distracted. I was focused, like a point of intense light, on whatever Kahini was about to tell me. We turned down a narrow lane, and the people who passed us pressed their palms together in a respectful gesture of namaste. Most of them Kahini ignored.

“Tomorrow,” she said as we walked, “you’ll be asked to watch us practice. It would be a great mistake to look too confident when you’re asked to join us. Remember—in all things, humility.”

“How does a person look humble while practicing archery?”

“By not immediately accepting the offer to join us. And when Sundari-ji insists, telling her you are too unskilled to accompany us.”

I was thankful that Kahini had offered to accompany me on this tour; I doubted the other women would have taken the time to give such advice. “Will the raja be there as well?”

“Gangadhar-ji?” she said, using his real name. “No. He’ll be at
his theater.” Then we stopped when we reached a large grassy field, at which point Kahini announced, “The maidan.”

It was a wide, open space bordered on one side by a flagstone courtyard and on the other by barracks that housed, I’d learn later, the raja’s soldiers. This was where I would prove my fitness as a member of the Durga Dal, change my destiny, and change Anuja’s life for the better.

“Seen enough?” Kahini asked. “It’s about to rain.”

I looked up. The blue sky was indeed vanishing behind a blanket of clouds. It seemed impossible that just a few hours ago I’d been standing in Father’s courtyard. And yet my journey still wasn’t over: I had to meet the rani.

I followed Kahini on the short walk between the maidan and the Panch Mahal. When we reached the courtyard and Kahini paused to straighten her dupatta, I stared at the stones beneath our feet. They were the soft color of sanded teak. In my village there was no floor so exquisite; not even in our temple to Shiva.

As soon as we returned to the queen’s room, Sundari announced that the rani was too ill to be escorted to the Durbar Hall that day. Kahini gave me a pointed look, then retired to one of the cushions around the fountain. After Sundari left the room, I was on my own. Still standing, I watched as four of the women played pachisi. Two more were playing a game of chess. A pretty girl of nineteen or twenty with an oval face and a fair complexion motioned for me to sit next to her in the corner. “It was all new to me when I arrived here as well,” she said.

“You aren’t from Jhansi?”

“Kahini didn’t tell you?” She looked surprised. “I thought that would be the first thing she’d reveal. I’m a Dalit from a village even smaller than yours. My name’s Jhalkari.”

You may remember how I told you that people are divided into
four groups by birth: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Well, at the very bottom of those castes—so low they’re never even mentioned—are the Dalits, or Untouchables. A Dalit is born to perform jobs that are spiritually unclean: anything from washing toilets to preparing the dead. You might go your entire life without ever speaking to someone from this caste. So to be sitting on the same cushion as one—even to be speaking to one—well, no one in Barwa Sagar would have believed it. I found myself holding my breath, in case the air she breathed was being tainted.

I know this must sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me now. But understand that this is how it has been for thousands of years, from the time the
Purusha suktas
were written and the concept of castes were laid out. All sorts of superstitions revolve around Dalits: they can turn your milk sour with a look, to touch one is the same as touching filth, and to speak to them is an act that might displease the gods. A person doesn’t become a Dalit: they are born one as a punishment for a great misdeed they have committed in a previous life. It is all a part of samsara—the karmic wheel that never stops.

You have heard, no doubt, of the famous Lao Tzu, who lived fifteen hundred years ago in our neighboring kingdom of China. He said: “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” Because most Hindus believe this is true, you can see why they also think that Dalits deserve their desperate situations. Their past actions have shaped their characters, which now shape their current destinies.

Of course, some people believe this is nonsense. The Rani of Jhansi was one of them. When I came to know her, I learned that she thought dividing society into differing castes was the same as
dividing a tree into different parts and pretending that the leaf is better than the trunk. How can the leaf exist without the trunk, or the other way around? “Certainly, there is karma,” I once heard her say, “and Lao Tzu was right. But our punishments for bad acts in previous lives are created internally, not externally. We punish ourselves with bad choices.”

At the time I was sitting with Jhalkari, however, I had never heard of Lao Tzu, much less talked of spiritual matters with the rani. I was simply stunned that no one else in the queen’s room seemed appalled that Jhalkari and I were sharing the same cushion.

“I’m the first Dalit you’ve ever spoken to,” Jhalkari said.

“Yes,” I said truthfully. “But I did very little speaking to anyone, so that’s not so unusual.”

Nothing bad was happening. We were talking, just as you would talk to anyone else.

“Some of the women here,” she said loudly, “aren’t comfortable being close to me, even though I could be the rani’s sister, we look so similar. I bathe in the same water, I eat the same food, I sleep in a similar bed. But because I was born of Dalit parents, I must somehow be tainted.”

I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know then whether or not this was true, so I kept my silence. Jhalkari could see how uncomfortable she was making me, so she changed the subject.

“While the rani is sleeping, we are free to relax,” she told me. “Listen to music.”

I could hear someone playing the veena outside, but I felt too tense to enjoy the sound.

Soon, Sundari reappeared with a woman dressed in a green Chanderi sari that fell in thick folds across her waist. Aside from a simple pearl necklace and a small diamond ring, she wore no
other jewels. But I knew she was our queen because she bore such a striking resemblance to Jhalkari. Their features were nearly identical, from their perfectly oval faces to their bow-shaped lips, and long, straight noses. It was astonishing: a Dalit and a queen looked enough alike to be sisters.

I rose immediately, and the others did the same. When the rani approached us, I followed Jhalkari’s example by pressing my hands together in a respectful gesture of namaste.

“Sita Bhosale of Barwa Sagar,” she said. “Look at me. Never be afraid to look your rani in the face. I’m not a goddess.”

I did as I was instructed, then waited for her to say something.

“Sundari was right. She’s an excellent reader of faces, and she told me that yours was very guarded. You don’t give up your secrets easily, do you?”

Once again, she waited for me to say something. I kept my silence.

The rani chuckled. “Has anyone introduced you to the other women?”

“Your Highness. I have met Sundari, Kahini, and Jhalkari.”

The rani clapped her hands and the women I hadn’t named fell into a half circle around us. “This is Moti.”

The woman who had collected Kahini earlier nodded.

“This is Heera.” With the thick, beautiful braids.

“This is Priyala.” I tried to think of some detail to remember her by, but nothing came to mind. Perhaps that she was thin?

“Kashi.” She had a sweet and innocent smile.

“Mandar.” Who looked like a man.

“And Rajasi.” With the face of a horse.

I folded my hands once more in namaste. “It is an honor to be here.”

Rajasi gave Kahini a meaningful look, and I wondered if I had already made some mistake.

“We are going to the Mahalakshmi Temple now to feed the poor,” the rani said. “Find something more suitable to wear when we go tomorrow; I’m sure one of these women will let you borrow something if you have nothing in silk.”

Several women nodded. One of them was Jhalkari.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I suppose you are tired from your journey today, Sita?”

“Only a little.”

“Then join us.”

I wasn’t asked to bring any of the weapons I saw the other women carrying beneath the belts of their angarkhas. But there was a dagger tucked into a thin sheath beneath my tunic. I would be able to do my duty if someone was foolish enough to attack our pregnant rani along the way.

S
undari and Kahini walked ahead of the queen, while Heera and Priyala walked on each side of her. I took a place at her back. Servants had appeared to shield us from the rain falling in thick gray sheets outside. But even with their umbrellas, the hems of my pants became mud-soaked the moment we filed out the door. As I looked to see what other women were doing, Moti fell into step beside me.

“Wait until we get to the temple,” she said. “The rani’s cooks prepare the best imerti for the poor. You’ll never have tasted anything like them.”

“What are imerti?”

Moti’s big eyes grew even bigger. “You’ve never had imerti?” She
turned to Jhalkari, who was walking next to her. Neither of them seemed to notice how wet the legs of their pants had become. “You ate imerti in your village, didn’t you?”

Any time someone was uneducated about something, they obviously turned to Jhalkari for help. Because if Jhalkari had done it—an ignorant Dalit girl from an ignorant village—well then, everyone must have.

“Outside of Jhansi, women are in purdah.” Jhalkari’s voice sounded thin. “There aren’t many occasions to eat imerti when your world is confined to the walls of your house.”

Moti slowed her pace to match mine. “So you never went outside?” she asked me.

“A few times. But only in a palanquin.”

“Then this must be absolutely overwhelming.”

“Which part?” Jhalkari answered for me. “The torrential rain or the beautiful sites?” As Jhalkari said this, we crossed in front of the elephants’ stables. The mahouts were sweeping out the stalls and piling dung into giant heaps, which they would probably burn once the rain was finished. I tried not to laugh, but Jhalkari met my gaze, and I couldn’t help it.

“Sita understood what I meant,” Moti said. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes. I had a very small life, but I was able to make it much bigger with books.”

If you have ever met someone who rarely reads, then you will understand the blank look Moti gave me. For nonreaders, life is simply what they touch and see, not what they feel when they open the pages of a play and are transported to the Forest of Arden or Illyria. Where the world is full of a thousand colors for those who love books, I suspect it is simply black and gray to everyone else. A tree is a tree to them; it is never a magical doorway to another world populated with beings that don’t exist here.

We crossed an avenue filled with shops selling coffee and tea, and a pair of English women passed by us. Their umbrellas were prettier than any I’d ever seen, and their skin was as thin and pale as moonlight.

“Foreigners,” Moti said when she saw the direction of my gaze.

I wanted to stare after them, but suddenly—several steps from a stall selling holy necklaces made from mango beads—we were at the Temple of Mahalakshmi. It stood on the shore of a Mahalakshmi Lake, surrounded by peepal trees that provided a nearly perfect cover from the rain. The servants lowered their umbrellas, and we left our wet juti on the marble steps.