Part 16 (2/2)

*You already do.' She reaches across and pats my stomach. *As you feel life inside you, I feel life outside me.'

*I'm sorry, but I'm ... I can't understand what you're saying,' I hear myself stutter. Thakur's words are cryptic and unnerving, yet it feels like I've been waiting all my life to hear them.

She becomes silent.

Calm down, I say to myself, stay focused. I take a deep breath and find my voice. *I came to discuss Samara ... Devi. I would really like to meet her and, maybe, interview her. I understand it's difficult but I need to talk to her once, just one time.'

*That could happen. Tell me-how do you feel about her sati?'

No one has asked me this question before. I look deep into Thakur's eyes and say, *Well, this story will save my career. But on a personal level, this whole thing is appalling. It's wrong for her to have to do this just because she's helpless. If I get to meet her, I may just talk her out of this. She has options. There are many shelters that'll take her, even in the USA. She doesn't have to do this.'

*I am happy to hear that. I told Samara when she came to me after her husband's death that you would come here to save her ... or destroy her.'

I hear this with surprise-it makes no sense-but Thakur has said it so prosaically that I mull it over before replying, *That is a little unbelievable. You see, I don't know Samara. I've never met her or even seen her. I know nothing of her.'

*Don't you?'

*Well, I know some things about her. She's obviously had a tough life. She had no father figure. Her mother was only there for name's sake. She had to fend for herself all her life. Then, she got into a relations.h.i.+p she was probably not ready for. And now this; she has to make a tough choice against her will.'

*You understand Samara very well. After all, your life is similar to hers. Nothing is complete without its shadow, is it, Katha?'

She pauses. I don't know how to reply.

She says, *When you see Samara, all you have to say is no. If you say it like you mean it then what you see in your mind will not be conceived, but you will be free. Life will no longer just happen to you.'

*I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying.'

She ignores me and continues, *If you say yes, then Samara will jump into the pyre and you will have what you want.' She looks pointedly at my stomach.

I become angry. *Are you suggesting that I'll have my baby only if Samara jumps into the fire? How are the two things related? It makes no sense. In fact, I don't even know Samara. How am I supposed to tell her what to do?'

*We all control each other's destiny. We all-'

*Then, why don't you save her?'

*My destiny is to direct others, not to become them.' Her voice remains clear and calm.

*Okay, then why doesn't Samara save herself by refusing to do the sati?'

*You know she has nowhere to go; no one to turn to but you. You are the chosen one.'

*Why am I the chosen one?'

*It could be coincidence or fate or karma. Maybe, you would be her, if you weren't you.'

*Please,' I laugh derisively. *I'm not foolish enough to kill myself for a man.' My mind immediately goes to the time my mother had found me unconscious, overdosed on sleeping pills. It was a few weeks after my father had left us. I wanted to pre-empt my mother's thoughts so she would not be forced to act on them.

Thakur says softly, *Who are we to pa.s.s judgement on what it's like to live outside our understanding?'

Does she know? My back stiffens and, for the first time, I wish Mark was next to me to divert Thakur's attention.

*We must stop Samara from this unnatural ghastly death,' I mumble weakly.

*Only you can, Katha. However, if you choose not to, remember that we are all born of pain and unto that we will go.'

*I'm not going to pretend that I understand what you're saying. All I know is that you are unwilling to help me get an interview with Samara.'

She doesn't respond.

I get up angrily. *In that case, I think it's best I leave.'

*Things happen, Katha, no matter how you choose to feel about them.'

Thakur's serenity is striking; it's as if she thinks that emotions-the crux of human life-are irrelevant and wasteful.

She doesn't try to stop me as I'm leaving, but I hear her say, *Remember, Katha, let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.'

I stomp out of the tent, sweating.

Mark almost pounces on me. *So, did we get an interview?'

The next morning Mark and I head towards the sati site. We leave at first light hoping to somehow run into Samara, only to be intercepted by the largest gathering of people we've ever seen. There are young men carrying aged mothers on their backs, old men bent over shaky sticks, proud teenagers twirling moustaches that are wider than their faces. I spot ha.s.sled media folk, in their city clothes of jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts. People appear from every direction, like the arils of a pomegranate that has burst open.

Thick dust rises from the laterite ground, forming a dome and enveloping the crowd in partners.h.i.+p with the early morning fog. There are tannoys placed along the path from which a voice alternately sings prayers and screeches instructions. Cops are strutting around in their tall caps fitted with peac.o.c.k feathers, using bamboo sticks on widows swathed in white cotton saris, and withering glares for waif-like children.

Mark leads me closer to the cremation ground, next to the wooden barricades. There's nothing more to do, so we wait.

I'm glad for the wait because I can mull over Thakur's words. In the morning light my meeting with her seems unreal and unlikely. After all, why would I-a stranger to this land-care to save Samara? Yet, Thakur's words are like a spotlight s.h.i.+ning turn by turn on my disarrayed feelings, the choices I've made, the relations.h.i.+ps I've fostered and the life I've let happen to me. Has she given me a gift-to absolve myself from my bad decisions? Or has she shown me a curse-where whatever I decide ends a life?

It's well into the afternoon when a pair of bullocks come into the clearing, solemnly carting two priests. The holy men sing a few hymns, clank a few bells and draw circles in the air with lit copper lamps. The crowd chants: Hare Krishna! Krishna! Krishna!

Now that the site is fumigated by those closest to G.o.d, the funeral procession begins. Four young men lug a wooden stretcher on which lies a dead body wrapped in white cloth and covered with roses, jasmine and marigold. The carriers are crooning: *Ram Naam Satya Hai!' Had I not heard this whispered solicitously by my aunt when we'd trudged with my mother's wilted body to the incinerator? This must be the dead husband.

The men circle the unlit funeral pyre three times and then place the body on it, with the feet facing southwards. The crowd becomes quiet with the kind of awe and expectancy that only death inspires. The silence comes in time for us to hear the trumpeting of a conch. And then people are pus.h.i.+ng and straining against each other: Samara is here!

Four strong men, wearing cotton loincloths, arrive shouldering a plain wooden palanquin. Somewhere behind its stiff white curtains is Samara. Less than a month ago she was probably sitting in such a palanquin, a new bride on the cusp of her new life, I think sadly. Dancing women in colourful skirts and tops follow this sombre procession. The crowd lets out an audible gasp; women are not allowed to be part of funeral rituals. But, the women dance with such abandonment that soon everyone is cheering for them.

I watch the bearers place the palanquin near the funeral pyre.

The husband's last rites are performed. His corpse is covered with wood, puffed rice, incense and ghee. The chief mourner-who I hear is the husband's elder brother-circles the pyre thrice, a clay pot on his left shoulder, a log of firewood behind him, and the body to his left. At each turn around the pyre, another man uses a knife to make a slit in the pot, letting water out, symbolizing life leaving the corpse. At the end of three turns, the chief mourner drops the pot. Then, without turning to face the body, he lights the pyre and leaves the cremation grounds. The others follow.

All eyes now turn to the palanquin.

Delicate hennaed feet emerge from its wooden frame. And then she rises, like the sun in its most dazzling morning. A heavily embroidered red silk sari, bedecked with glittering jewels, covers her body. Her chocolate skin glows against the hue of the fire and her hair caresses her oval, chinless face. Like me, she has the face of a ferret, but, unlike me, her small beady eyes are lined splendidly with kohl, her flat nose sparkles with a tiny diamond stud and her thin lips quiver in a way that is almost erotic.

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