Part 20 (1/2)

Jamie continues on his way towards the police station, walking briskly because this time he has proof of the crime he intends to report. Something pokes his hand. It's the boy's wire contraption. Mud clings to it. Jamie stares hard at it and a thought strikes him like lightning: the boy had run onto the highway because of Jamie; a woman is dead because of the way Jamie has been acting and feeling since coming to India.

For a moment, Jamie cannot move, truth seeping into him like unrealized pain.

And then he walks.

He walks till he reaches the police station. A constable is sitting in a khaki uniform in front of an old tattered register.

*I'm here to report a crime,' Jamie says to him.

The constable lifts his pen and brings it down on the paper, *Against whom?'

Jamie licks his dry lips and clears his throat, before replying, *I want to report a crime against myself.'

It's a crime to be rich, Anita thinks as she clips on her diamond earrings. Guruji has told her that wealth is like a wounded dog: it concentrates only on its own slow death. Or did he say that about America? Or India? It's a bad sign when she can't remember Guruji's words.

She's been feeling bold since waking up, and it's making her uneasy. Knowing that in this mood she will not be able to sit still in the back of the car, she dismisses the driver and drives her silver-grey Mercedes to the ashram herself.

On the way she sends Guruji a text message asking him the purpose of her life. Each time she asks him this he gives her a different reply, saying there is no one answer for certain questions. This time he replies: *Your purpose is to be true to what lies inside you.' He's always telling her to look deep within herself, to journey from the outside to the centre, like a Mandala painting. She tries this and finds nothing.

She reaches the ashram gate, where the watchman gives her a salaam, and after parking in her reserved spot she walks to the school. Mata is waiting for her. She looks ruffled today, her tightly arranged face thrown into disarray.

*Is everything okay?' Anita asks Mata.

*Someone has stolen a resident's bag, Mrs Kotak. I'm investigating the matter,' Mata says in the severe voice that runs the ashram.

Anita says, *What has the world come to?' It is a line that she finds suitable for every situation.

They walk along the brick school buildings where scores of the surrounding village's children pile into wall-less cla.s.srooms. She knows they're here because of her very generous donations, but this doesn't make her proud.

She stops at cla.s.s two and asks Mata, *How's Ramesh?'

Mata's face relaxes as she smiles at her. Anita knows Mata thinks that she shows concern for Ramesh because he's deaf and she's childless. She s.h.i.+fts uncomfortably on her feet as Mata says, *He is the same; same grade for the last three years though his Reading Comprehension has improved.'

This gives Anita an excuse to look more closely at Ramesh. She wants to memorize him because she doesn't know him. The mole on his upper lip has grown a little darker. He's tanned from the summer heat, like his father, and he seems thinner, though he's always been thin, like her. When she worries about his weight, Guruji a.s.sures her that the ashram feeds him well every day. When she weakens, wanting to cook for him, feed him with her own hands, Guruji tells her to stay away for both their sakes.

Mata continues talking. *You won't believe it but the resident whose bag was stolen accused Ramesh of stealing it. I had to have Ramesh's house searched while he was in school. His mother went hysterical. Obviously there was nothing.' No wonder Ramesh seems listless today, not paying attention to the teacher, playing with something on the ground. *It's so sad but the resident thought Ramesh did it because he's poor.'

*Poor?' Anita says venomously. *He is not poor.'

Mata looks at her surprised.

Anita takes a deep breath and changes the topic. *How is his work around the ashram?'

*He wants to do kitchen duty though I've told him repeatedly that he's too young. He says he loves the sight of boiling rice and rolling pins.'

What a wonderful moment this is, Anita thinks, when she's stumbled upon something in common with her son. Cooking is her pa.s.sion, which she stopped after her husband Udit told her it didn't suit her stature. All of a sudden, she understands Guruji's text message this morning: be true to what's inside you. There's only one thing that's touched her from the inside-her son-and while he is true to her in his unwitting likeness to her, she isn't true to him.

Fifteen years ago, she desired two things: money and perfection. Newly married, she pushed Udit hard to make money, to become his boss's boss, to buy the Merc, and their big apartment with its retinue of servants. In less than six years she had more than she needed. But she wasn't able to have a baby. The enormity of leading an imperfect life hit her. She ran to Guruji, who her new rich friends said came into their life and cleaned it up.

He told her on their first meeting, *Life is a sum of equals, Anita. Everyone gets an equal share in the end. The more you have, the more you want, the more you have to lose. The less you have, the less you want, the less you have to lose. That's why the happiest people I've met are the poorest.'

These words changed the route of Anita's desires. She began to notice the tight smiles on her friends' faces, the limitless greed of her neighbours, the endlessness of Udit's ambition. She tried to simplify their life but Udit had worked too hard to give it up; he had become her, wanting perfection, wanting it all. All she wanted then was a baby. Happily, after her fourth round of IVF, she became pregnant, but forty weeks later, while Udit was at a s.h.i.+pping conference in Greece, she gave birth to a baby boy who was deaf. He wasn't perfect. Anita knew this had happened because of the sum of equals; Udit and she already had too much, a perfect child was not theirs for grabs. Udit screamed, *Get rid of that shaitan's child, dump it in the garbage before I get home.'

*Never kill G.o.d's creation,' Guruji said. He told her to bring the boy and a thick wad of notes to the ashram, and handed over both to the ashram's sweeper. After that day, as the fee for her guilt and gratefulness, Anita kept the ashram's coffers full. She heard from Guruji that the sweeper looked after the baby-whom she named Ramesh-as her own son. As Ramesh grew, so did Anita's visits to the ashram.

*Why are you making my son sweep and dust?' she would ask Guruji.

*A grain of seed or a rock, both sink in the water. Doing menial work does not demean a child; just as buying him a PlayStation does not make him greater.' Thus, like all parents, Anita learnt about humility through her child.

*Mrs Kotak?' she hears Mata say. *Shall we go over the new vocational training programme?'

*Of course,' Anita replies with forced enthusiasm. She takes a last look at Ramesh and follows Mata to her office.

*I am so sorry,' Mata says when they reach her office. *I think I've left the programme papers in Olga's office. Would you mind if we sit in her office today?'

*Not at all,' Anita replies. She likes Olga who's been in the ashram for six months now, a true bhakt of Guruji. They go to the seva office where the door is shut. Mata walks in without knocking. Olga is inside the room, with one hand inside an orange duffel bag and the other holding a wad of notes. Anita doesn't realize something is amiss until she hears Olga mutter a curse and Mata say, *Call the police.'

*Police? For what?' Anita asks.

*Remember the stolen bag I was telling you about? Well, we've found the thief.'

*Are you sure?' Anita says, finding it difficult to believe that Olga could do such a thing. She also realizes that this is not a situation Mata is experienced in handling. *Maybe we should ask Guruji first?'

*He may be sleeping. It is early morning in America,' Mata says. Anita still calls him, knowing he never rejects her calls.

Guruji tells them: Karma is fairer than human justice. A greater punishment will await Olga in the outside world. Let her go.

After they send Olga away, Anita bids goodbye to Mata, telling her that she'll be back tomorrow to finish the vocational programme planning.

On the way to her car, she mulls over Guruji's words. Karma has banished her to a life of guilt and unhappiness. Since Ramesh's birth she's felt as though bits of her skin have shrivelled and peeled off, leaving patches of raw flesh so painful that she's never been whole again.

*Resolve your discontent in this life or it will follow you exponentially to your other lives,' Guruji tells her on the phone, as she gets into her car.

*How do I do that?'

*You will unconsciously invite your penance when you're ready for it. There will be signs in the clouds, in leaves, in people, but I warn you, grab that chance when you see it or it will never come again.'

Anita hangs up the phone, unable to imagine what her sign for penance will be. She looks outside her car window at the pa.s.sing fields and shrubs, the sky, but there are no signs. Suddenly her eyes fall on a chicken perched on top of a tree. There is no one around so she can't fathom how the chicken got ten feet off the ground. Something about the chicken's bizarre situation, its startled presence, makes her laugh. It's been years since she's laughed so completely and relief rises in her. Maybe this is my sign, she thinks, but what am I supposed to do with it?

That's when she sees Ramesh ahead of her car, running across the double-lane highway with a truck heading straight towards him. She hears the wild honking of the driver, which her son can't, and a white man screaming on her side of the road. In his hand is the wire cycle that Anita had given Ramesh eight years ago, a send-off for the journey he was about to begin.

A curtain lifts on Anita's day and she can see clearly again.

This is the chance Guruji spoke about-if she misses it, it will haunt her in all her lives.