8900, 9400, 10400, 10900, I counted the Rupees under my breath. It wasn’t enough. There was nothing else to sell in the house. I had been trying to get a job the past five months, ever since the factory shut down, but there was no more work available in Varanasi. Not even the most menial task.
I counted my money again. It was still not enough. The heat of the sun pounded down relentlessly where I squatted. My envious eyes followed a pair of Dulit workers shifting through raw rubbish looking for things to clean and resell. I turned away, ashamed at myself for even considering approaching the ‘untouchables’ and asking them to let me shift through their rubbish.
There was nothing else for me to do that day but to go back home. I climbed the narrow stairwell up to my tiny flat reluctantly. My daughter, who had just come back from school, opened the door for me with a cheery smile. My heart almost broke. My couch was gone, so I sat on the floor where it once stood. Soon, my Dewi appeared again with a glass of lukewarm tea in her hands. That was when I realized that our serving tray was sold too.
“How was your day, Papa?” she asked.
“It was good, child. I talked with some people and they tell me they will have job openings soon.” I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her the truth. She was my princess because she grew up believing I was king. If I make her think any less of me, it would lessen her own worth too, a thought I could not bear.
She smiled, happy and trusting like any child of her age. And being filial, she went directly to the altar and offered the last of her candies as a thank offering. I turned my face away in an attempt to hide the tears pooling in my eyes. Thankfully my beautiful child was not there long, for soon she was back in the kitchen with my wife.
Not long after, a voice called from the open doorway. It was Muthu, my landlord. I got up, a little baffled by his visit. The man searched the interior of the flat. Always he came searching, and when his eyes find my daughter, they would stop searching and follow her. I could see that he was disappointed today.
I said, “I have already paid you this month’s rent last week.”
“I have not come for the rent. But for a different reason.” I bowed my head to hide the spreading panic on my face. He continued, “I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand on behalf of my son.”
My head snapped up. “But your son…,” I started to say, yet could not find the will to finish the sentence.
“He is a half-wit, it is true. But he is also a man and he needs a wife.”
I knew in an instant that he meant to have my Dewi for himself. The marriage to his intellectually challenged son was only a front. I said, “I am honored that you should consider Dewi as your daughter-in-law, but she is still young and, as you can see, I cannot afford to pay for her dowry.”
He smiled benignly, and I could tell from the way he shifted his feet one to the other that he expected me to invite him into the house. I, on the other hand, pretended not to notice. Finally he said, “That is only a small matter. In fact, I pity your family, and I wish to do the good thing. If your daughter marries my son then I will have all the excuse in the world to help you.”
“Oh I do not deserve this. I do not deserve this,” I said with a pain in my chest.
“Come, Radha,” he said and patted my back, “You are a good, intelligent man. And I hear your daughter does well in school. Any child she bears will be filial and clever, like her. I lose nothing even if she were to join my son without dowry. In fact I will pay for their wedding.” A pause. “Think about it. Don’t make yourself get tied down by traditions.”
The moment he left, I prostrated myself before the altar of Kali, the Goddess of Change, and wept. I begged the beloved Goddess to help me as a woman, a wife and a mother. I knew that the union between my daughter and Muthu’s son would be twisted and wrong by any standard, either conservative or modern. Even when my daughter and wife tried to comfort me, I would not be comforted, and when they asked me my troubles, I would not speak. I wept until night fell, until my family went to bed. There was no comfort left for my soul.
I did not know how or when, but I fell asleep. When I woke, the flat was covered in a thick layer of dust. I went to the single bedroom and found my wife and daughter shriveled and dried, like Egyptian mummies without their wrappings.
I looked out the window and saw only dead things covering the street below. I ran out to the balcony and shouted and screamed. A woman’s voice whispered, “I have taken all your troubles away. Why do you still weep?”
I fell on my knees and covered my face, terrified to even sense the presence of the Goddess. Yet through this cloud of terror, I managed to find my voice and said, “But I love them. I love my family.”
“Love is debilitating. It enslaves you. It keeps you tied down to the toils of the world and it makes you feel the sorrows of others. Behold.” I looked up and saw, through the iron railings, a golden road lined on either side with flowers and fruit laden trees. “Behold,” she said, “I have opened the way for you. Leave all these dead things and walk the holy path.”
A strange yearning filled me, yet another part made me turn my face back into the flat. A hot wind began to blow into my face and the dust to swirl around me. When I opened my eyes again, everything was back to normal.
I walked back into the flat, dazed. My wife stood before the bedroom door with one arm holding my daughter back, as though to shield her from harm. I told my wife about Muthu’s proposal and about the dream. She changed to the only sari she had left, and we took our daughter to the temple where we prayed on our knees until the sun began to set in the horizon.
As a novice priest started to light lamps to fight the encroaching darkness the perfume of jasmines and coconut candies reached me. I looked up and saw a tall aged man with broad shoulders climbed up the steps and placed his offering of flowers and sweets before the Goddess. I could not take my eyes away because about him was an aura of perfect destiny.
Then he turned and walked down the steps. A Brahmin, I started and quickly averted my gaze. Something inside, however, compelled me to look up again just as he was passing us.
Maybe it was my red swollen eyes, maybe it was my gaunt expression of hunger and desperation, but something made him stop and ask, “Is all well, my brother?”
I choked. A Brahmin called me brother. Had the world turned upside down since I woke. He was still there, waiting for a respond, so I said, “All is not well.”
He looked at my family, then back to me. “You don’t appear to be beggars.”
“We are not, sir, but we may soon be.”
He turned his face back to the altar then back down to me again and asked, “How can you help me?”
I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I am a trained mechanic, sir. But I am also healthy and strong enough to do menial work. I will gratefully and thankfully accept any work you can offer me.”
He looked at me thoughtfully, while I held my breath. Finally he asked, “Can you read and write?”
“Yes, sir. I have a certificate from Secondary School. I am also good in Mathematics, and I have a certificate from the Vocational Institute.”
He nodded with the delight of a child. “Excellent,” he said, “I am thinking of starting an adult school for the Untouchables.”
My face fell and he saw it. Immediately, for no apparent reason, a wave of shame and remorse washed over me. I prostrated myself on the ground before his feet, and in that instant, he raised me to my feet, to his level. With shame welling in my eyes, I said, “Forgive me. How could I ever have considered myself better? I will be more than happy to teach anyone you wish me to.”
“We are all born to either suffer or to be the one to ease the suffering. But when we die, we all become dust.”
I stared at him, astounded. Then I wept openly. He put his hand on my shoulder and we walked out the temple grounds, down a golden street lined on either side with fragrant flowers and fruit laden trees, with my family following behind.
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