coughed and cleared his throat, reminding Chuyia of the people behind her. She looked back. The sloping afternoon sunlight filled the cramped space beneath the awning, showing up every detail of the sickroom. Mindful of Hira Lal, she swung her legs clear over him and leaned back against the wooden post to observe what was going on.
Covered by the blue sheet, Hira Lal lay motionless, his eyes closed, his head and shoulders cradled in the folds of Somnath’s body. His hair stood up in a brittle tangle, and the oil that had earlier groomed it appeared to have evaporated.
Sitting cross-legged beside him, Hira Lal’s mother was applying a wet cloth to his forehead. The stout glass bangles on her wrists tinkled. Every short while she gently raised his head and held a small bowl of water to his lips. Hira Lal could barely sip it. She tenderly wiped the sheen of sweat off his face; her sari had slipped from her head and lay unheeded like a cowl around her neck.
Somnath’s crumpled dhoti and shirt, and the stubble on his cheeks, made her usually tidy father look like a scruffy labourer. As he wiped his face with the red-checkered scarf around his neck, Chuyia noticed for the first time that his mustache and the hair on his temples had turned grey. For most of the time Somnath’s eyes remained closed in prayer. There were deep new lines on his forehead, and it was almost as if the muscles of his face were sagging with the weight of his worries.
The varied forest greens intensified, and, as the sun set, the birds began to twitter. Chuyia watched the day wane. And as the fields, forest and river were muted by the glow of twilight, the bullock-cart arrived at the bank of the Ganges River. The blue-grey waters, dappled by the shadows from overhanging trees, lapped at the shore in tiny ripples. A boatman was waiting for them. The men awkwardly lifted Hira Lal and placed him in a shallow, flat-bottomed boat moored to the shore.
“My trunk,” Chuyia cried, looking at her father in alarm.
“Where can we put it, bitya?” Somnath said. The boat was filled to capacity. “The cart-driver will take it home,” he comforted her.
The boatman pushed his small craft into the river before climbing in, and they all shared the crowded space with Hira Lal’s dying body.
There was no room for Hira Lal to stretch out, and he lay propped up on his mother’s body, his knees folded to one side. She held on to the boat, and with her free hand steadied her son’s head lolling on her chest. The boatman rowed his craft gently, with a single oar, lifting it from one side of the boat to the other to paddle it past eddies and steer it into the central flow of the water.
Chuyia stared across the river as she journeyed into the unknown. She was excited by the unaccustomed sights and, with a child’s boundless curiosity, eager to find out what new adventure lay ahead. The beginnings of a town emerged on the other side of the river, and Hira Lal’s mother looked at Somnath.
Somnath nodded. “It’s Rawalpur: we’re almost there.”
As the boat picked up speed midstream, small temples with unadorned steeples and domes came into view. The rays of the setting sun burnished the water with gold and ignited the domes. An elongated structure with a paved terrace in front stretched between two temples. Almost at once another came into view, then another, and another, in quick succession. Row upon row of stone steps came all the way down the terraces to the river. Fires shaped like enormous candle flames dotted the terraces at irregular intervals.
“Baba, look at the fires,” Chuyia exclaimed excitedly.
“Those are the ghats,” Somnath explained, “where the husks of our earthly bodies are burnt and our souls are consigned to rebirth.”
The river turned into a wide ribbon of indigo as dusk faded into night. The fires were blinking and glowing through the trees like large fireflies. The shallow craft seemed to drift across the tranquil waters, and, as Hira Lal’s fever-racked heart finally gave out, the boat slowly approached the steps to the ghats.
Night enveloped the ghats and brought an eerie beauty to the simple rhythm of its configurations. The glistening steps rose from the river to make a border for the earth-platforms, and the adobe walls behind the platforms maintained the symmetry. The numerous ghats, self-contained and yet contiguous, were bathed in a reddish glow from the fires and the earth tones of the natural materials infused the red with gold.
Chuyia was almost carelessly disposed of to one side on the top stairs, and quickly forgotten, as the adults made the arrangements for Hira Lal’s funeral. Just before leaving, Somnath gave Chuyia his scarf. Exhausted from her journey, confused and frightened at finding herself alone in these strange surroundings, she tucked the scarf under her cheek and almost instantly escaped into sleep on the cold stone steps.
Late in the night, Somnath came looking for her and sat down next to his sleeping daughter, exhausted. He gazed at her as if he wanted to fix her form forever in his memory. Every line in his weary face reflected his grief at her untimely widowhood and the parting that loomed ahead of them like a curse. Finally, giving way to the pain that seemed to have squeezed his heart into something wrung-out and dry, he lay his head on the stone and began to weep, releasing his anguish in half-stifled sobs that racked his body.
After a while, Somnath wiped his face and, composing himself, placed a hand on Chuyia’s shoulder. Shaking it gently, bending over her, he said, “Bitya, bitya,” to rouse the slumbering child.
Chuyia slowly awakened and, pleased to have her father close to her, smiled contentedly. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, smudging the kohl that still lined them. The soot left hollow shadows that gave her an unbearably forlorn look.
Somnath didn’t know how to begin. Groping for words, his voice infinitely kind, he asked, “Bitya, do you remember getting married?”
The question was of no great moment to the child, and Chuyia shook her head from side to side. “No,” she said in her clear voice.
“Your husband is dead,” said Somnath. “You are a widow now.”
“For how long, Baba?” Chuyia asked.
Somnath looked away, unable to meet her gaze. He could not answer her.
Chuyia was untroubled by her father’s pronouncement, having no concept of the impact of those words on her life; so long as he was with her, talking to her so gently, her world was secure.
Hira Lal’s mother, Somnath and Chuyia made their way toward the cremation grounds. Hira Lal’s body had been prepared for the last rites in one of the warren of rooms behind the adobe façade of the ghat. Pallbearers were chanting “Ram Naam Satya Hai,” “Lord Ram thy name is truth,” in the still of the night. Funeral pyres lined the top of the ghat platforms, their fires making sinister shapes on the walls. Ash-smeared sadhus sat in groups, taking deep drags from their clay ganja-pipes. Funeral attendants, the doms, busily fetched firewood from the storage rooms behind the walls and piled it for the cremations, while near the pyres grieving relatives anointed their dead with holy water from the river.
Chuyia watched as two men entered the ghat, carrying Hira Lal’s body on a bier. His body was wrapped in a white cloth, but his face was exposed. With a child’s curiosity, she studied her dead husband. His eyes were closed, and lit by the fires his face appeared to have acquired a ruddy glow; in a sudden flash of memory Chuyia saw him decked out as a groom, and thought, That was my wedding day.
The funeral pyre was built on a stone platform with steps leading up to it. The bier was first placed diagonally with Hira Lal’s head on the platform and his feet touching the ground below. Then his body was hoisted atop the wooden funeral pyre.
Suddenly, her mother-in-law loomed over Chuyia, and, before Chuyia had time to react, she jerked the mangal-sutra off her neck and the beads scattered on the ground. She grasped Chuyia’s hand and, using a brick, violently smashed the red glass bangles that hung from her wrist. Then, methodically, with no more concern for the girl than if she were an inanimate object, she took the other hand and with the brick smashed the bangles on her other wrist. Chuyia, struck speechless, looked