Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories (22 page)

~

The monkey's clinginess reminds me of Mark, who I'd met on some Monday morning on my way to work. We were standing next to each other in the subway when I noticed him staring at me. I looked back but he diverted his gaze. It was only after we had crossed from Fulton station to Grand Central that he asked, ‘Excuse me, miss. Are you from India?'

I replied curtly, ‘Why do you ask?'

He blushed before saying, ‘It's just that the pendant you're wearing is beautiful. I read somewhere that a trident symbolizes the Indian god Shiva and protects the one who wears it.'

Already taken in by his British accent, deep-set blue eyes and medical books, I tilted my head to the left and smiled. Knowing he could now see my dimples, I added flirtatiously, ‘Really? I never knew that.' My mother had given this pendant to me on her deathbed, when her brain had already become delirious. I hadn't had the time to ask her what it signified.

Mark opened a door to me that my father should have; but my father was too busy living the American dream: he bought a four-bedroom house and promptly left my mother and me to marry a twice-divorced middle-aged American woman, his colleague at the accounting firm. As a divorcee—considered a ‘failure' among her Indian peers—my mother developed an unwillingness to go back to India or to stay in touch with her fellow countrymen. So we moved into a rented studio apartment. She took to silence and eventually cancer, while I, at twelve, took to raising myself.

Mark's father, on the other hand, was Indo-nostalgic, having served in pre-independence India as a British soldier. Mark had grown up hearing endless stories of ivory, peacocks and saffron. In spite of being far removed from anything Indian, I was a culmination of fantasy and romanticism to Mark.

In his clipped voice, Mark would read aloud Rabindranath Tagore's poems to me and sing Bollywood songs. He'd sign off each email with a Gandhi quote. He'd harp on about the benefits of Ayurveda, celebrate Diwali and cook chicken tikka masala. For thirteen months I used him to fill my unsteady glass of identity, drop-by-minuscule-drop, till I was full.

‘You deserve to be taken care of, Rani. Marry me?' he asked one day.

If he hadn't called me Rani, hadn't clung to me, I may have said yes.

‘I'm twenty-eight, Mark. I can take care of myself.'

It was time to end things.

I had just started looking for my own apartment when I found out that I was almost two months pregnant. I couldn't believe it at first. I cursed Mark and myself for not being more careful. And I was horrified at the thought of being a mother; after all I didn't even have any benchmarks for good parenting. But once the idea settled in, an unexpected maternal desire gripped me. I realized that I wanted to keep the baby.

So I stayed put with Mark, consumed by my own indecision, while he remained, as always, oblivious to my state of mind; mulling over Indian names for our baby.

‘Manya,' he exclaimed loudly one morning, a month later, in our Brooklyn apartment. ‘Manya is what we'll call our baby girl.'

I was cooing softly to our baby, who was now closer to my heart than anyone else.

‘What if it's a boy?'

‘It will not be. I deserve another Rani in my life.'

~

It's been four hours since we arrived in the hotel room. I am tending to my feet, which are swollen, probably due to the long trip, and also smell of cow dung. Mark—in his excitement—has gone out to investigate if there's a way to meet the sati lady.

He comes back soon enough; his blonde hair is damp with sweat, and his clothes reek of woodsmoke. His pale skin is scarlet from excitement. I have never seen him so happy.

‘Are you all right, Rani?' he asks me. ‘Get you something?'

I look at Mark. ‘Did you find out anything about the sati lady?'

‘You mean Samara Devi?'

‘Devi?'

‘She is considered holy now so we must call her Samara
Devi
.' Mark strokes the underside of my chin—a gesture reserved for when he's trying to please me—and adds, ‘Don't forget that, Rani. We don't want to get into trouble here.'

I remember reading an article about Samara being marketed as an ideal Hindu wife and, since she was to attain salvation, the villagers of Palkhot had mythologized her as a Devi. In fact, Palkhot's gram panchayat had orchestrated a media campaign that would shame even the most glitzy public relations executives. After all, other villages had their own attractions: a man with the world's longest ear hair or a man who was married to an elephant; and some had wells with water that could cure impotency. Unknown Palkhot had nothing, until Samara. So the panchayat called a national TV station with a tip-off about the sati; within a few hours the whole country knew. The police and legal authorities were bribed; subsequently human rights activists and protesters were kept out of the village. The sati was postponed indefinitely so Palkhot could get the maximum mileage out of it.

The media came to Palkhot in droves, trying to glean any fact about Samara in exchange for money and a promise of headline coverage; one publication even wanted to sponsor the construction of a temple in her name. Seeing this interest, the panchayat was orchestrating a media auction for an exclusive interview with Samara, even as she was kept in an unknown location.

But no one knew why Samara was doing this.

A prominent newspaper wrote that Samara was being coerced into performing sati; an award-winning journalist broadcast that Samara was doing it of her own free will; a magazine wrote that she was doing it out of love, which was immediately ruled out by a tabloid stating that Samara had had an ‘arranged marriage'. This I'd read in other reports as well: Samara's mama had selected a groom for her, and they were married two weeks later. After ten days, her husband drowned in the Ganga.

There had been no love.

I look at Mark as he starts, barely able to contain himself, ‘I had to donate a lot of rupees to the local temple, but the priest gave me some killer information that you can use for your report.'

He tells me that Samara Devi's mother was a conservative Brahmin widow whose husband had died a few months after Samara was born. Ostracized by the villagers, the widow had spent the last twenty-two years inside her house, not stepping out even to buy vegetables. She didn't touch anyone again, not even her own daughter, saying that she did not want to contaminate others with her bad luck.

After Samara's husband died and his family threw her out, her mother refused to take her back. Samara was out on the streets, penniless and starving. It was then that her mother gave her shelter, on the condition that she perform sati, which would at least give both mother and daughter some stature in society. Samara apparently had no choice but to agree.

I understand Samara's compliance: she does not want to become her mother.

Mark goes on: ‘The odd bit is that Samara Devi isn't crying or protesting her own death, as one would expect. Instead, she keeps chanting, “She will save me!” No one can understand this. According to custom, if she is saved from the sati, she will remain revered as a goddess, but the villagers will lose face in front of the world. That's probably why the elders are holding her captive.'

I catch a whiff of fennel seeds on Mark's breath as he adds, ‘There is some bad news though. The sati is going to take place the day after tomorrow. Apparently, the husband's body has almost fully rotted, raising a hellish stink, so the panchayat had to fix a date for the cremation.'

Mark has done a good job. But the tantalized look on his face reminds me that he is living out his Indian dream: Palkhot and sati—like me—are part of a fantasy to him.

I say sarcastically, ‘So you didn't get an interview with Samara then?'

His face crumbles.

~

Early the next morning, having slept very little on a mattress as hard as bone, I decide that it is time to take matters into my own hands. Only a day is left before the sati and if I lose this job, my baby and I could become entirely dependent on Mark.

I approach the man sitting behind the hotel's reception desk. Behind him is a giant picture of a guru I can't identify. An oversized marigold garland covers the picture almost entirely, leaving room only for the guru's face, which beams mysteriously through fumes of sandalwood incense.

I ask the man, ‘How can I arrange an interview with Samara?'—he flinches—‘Devi?'

He answers with only a large smile—the largest I've ever seen—revealing crooked yellow teeth. On his forehead is splotched a thick vertical line of red powder.

I put a five-hundred-rupee note on the wooden desktop.

He turns his head left and right, looks over my head, behind my shoulders and stops at my left breast. He whispers to it, ‘Madam, I tell you secret that no one know. You go looking for Thakur. First, you get Thakur blessing and then interview.'

Wishing I could turn his mercurial eyeballs upwards, I ask, ‘Who is Thakur and why will I need someone's blessings to get an interview?'

The hotelier smiles at me sympathetically and crushes a small black housefly with his pink plastic swatter.

I slap down another note.

‘Thakur is mother of village. She is hundred year old, like mountain. She talk to wind and read mind. If she give blessing then maybe you allow to talk to Samara Devi. She never give blessing though. Too difficult, madam.'

I take out another note.

‘But you so lovely, so kind. She may give you blessing. I show you her.'

Saying this, he puckers his thick black lips and makes a clucking sound. An emaciated boy appears, followed, coincidentally, by a slumberous Mark. The hotelier points to me and then to the neighbouring mountain. He says something I can't grasp. The boy pauses. Then he gives a solemn nod, grabs my left arm and motions with his tiny free hand that we must get going. I have no other way of interviewing Samara, so I go along, intrigued by the personage of Thakur. Mark joins us.

For almost an hour, we walk through a part of the village where business has spilled noisily onto the street. The place teems with activity and is loudest at its epicentre, where chants from holy mouths mingle with curses from traders. Unshaven barbers dip razor blades into froth-filled plastic mugs, while goras sit determinedly on three-legged wooden stools, watching who they are becoming in broken mirrors. Small steel pins tunnel in and out of the ears of sadhus with matted hair. A rosycheeked hawker carrying a cane basket calls out to people to buy garnet-hued mulberries. Smells of dried frangipani and roasted peanuts drift through the marketplace. A smattering of tiny shops crane forward on dicey bamboo shafts. They seem to be deciding between flapping their cloth roofs and taking flight, and finishing the weightier task of selling overdressed idols and drippy sweetmeats.

It finally hits me: I am in my ancestral country for the first time. I want to be a good guest and refuse nothing that the country has to offer. I watch the small buildings, the landscape, animals and humans: touching, pushing, bumping, grinding and pounding for attention. There's a cow on the road and a flash of a parakeet's green wings. Although this is all new, it still feels like something I've always known.

There's a rhythm to this chaos, which stays with me like a stubborn tune, buzzing in my ears. It stops only when we start to climb up a hill, and then, as if daunted by higher scales, it breathlessly passes the baton to silence. All is still. My breath, strained but quiet, leaves me to mingle with the fog.

The boy stops in front of a small green tent that is surrounded by majestic deodar trees holding up wisps of cotton clouds. There are two logs in front of the tent. Perched on them are several locals. They regard us in silence, without surprise, as if anticipating our arrival. What their tongues don't pronounce, their eyes do; Mark and I inch closer together. I turn around to see if the boy can indicate what we have to do next. He is gone.

A young, petite woman wearing a rough woollen shawl peeps out of the tent. She looks directly at me, as if she knew exactly where I would be standing. With one finger she motions for me to come forward. Mark and I start walking towards her. Only then does she notice Mark, and shakes her head. I stop as he looks at me: I'll have to leave him outside.

Inside the tent I am blinded by absolute darkness. I stumble around till the soft light of a delicate earthen lamp grants me vision. The young woman is no longer there, but I discern a shadowy figure seated at the centre of the tent. I take a step closer to it. In front of me appears the oldest human being I've ever seen. Her face—hosting a thousand wrinkles like the bark of a birch tree—hovers above her burnt sienna robe. Sagging skin folds over her eyes, like window shutters. Her features are all indiscernible, save for a protruding chin. The only sign of vitality in her is a five-foot-long braid—white and thick—each inch reflecting a year of asceticism. This has to be Thakur.

Like vanity that finds a mirror without invitation, I sit opposite her. She remains in deep meditation: the kind of state where she hasn't quietened down for the world but the world has quietened for her.

I don't dare break that silence. In a place where even time has forgotten its duty, who am I to execute mine?

I continue to sit in a vacuum until I hear a voice—cavernous and deep—speak in English, ‘Don't worry, Katha. You are in a safe place now.'

I am too stunned to respond, not sure if she has spoken, for the voice seems to come from every direction. Thakur opens her eyes and looks at me. I see her pupils swirling in age-gifted wisdom. I can trust her.

‘How do you know my name?' I ask, slowly. I have shortened my real name, Katha, to Kate.

She smiles, toothless and infinite, and says, ‘We were expecting you a day earlier.'

‘I think you are mistaking me for someone else.'

‘See it as it suits you, Katha. For the world is just an illusion, a creation of our weak minds.'