The Selector of Souls

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  “No, from Delhi.” The license plate was for the car rally.

  “New Delhi? I lived many years in New Delhi,” says his interviewer, obviously delighted by the coincidence. He touches his medallion. “And I am devotee, like you.”

  “Haan—yes.” Vikas wouldn’t call himself a devotee, exactly. Not like his mother.

  “I used to listen to Swami-ji’s lectures every day, every day in Delhi.” The round-faced man abandons the formality of English for Hindi.

  “Buy his CDs,” says Vikas, unable to resist an opportunity to sell. “VVIPs are listening to Swami-ji now. BJP politicians, RSS and VHP members, Bajrang Dal.”

  “Ah—BJP, RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal.” The man raises his chai-glass to the Hindutva family of nationalist organizations.

  Vikas follows suit. The saffron organizations are his bread and butter.

  “Jai Bharat-Mata!” says the man, hailing the goddess of the motherland, invented by nationalists during the freedom struggle. Vikas gives himself a mental pat on the back for effective advertising, flashes a raffish grin, and introduces himself. The man follows suit. His name is Suresh Singh Chauhan, a fellow kshatriya.

  Suresh points to the newspaper cutting beside Vikas. “You are reading?”

  “About the Christian church.” Vikas points vaguely uphill. “Came here to see it with my own eyes.”

  “It’s for sweepers. Though they call themselves Christians.” He winks a long-lashed eye.

  Turns out Suresh is a teacher in Jalawaaz. With connections. By the time Vikas has finished two orders of parathas and availed himself of a fingerbowl, he and Suresh are the best of friends. Suresh is, Vikas tells him, the hope of all Hindus everywhere. He assures Suresh he will recommend him for a job as local campaign manager for the BJP. And maybe he will pull strings in New Delhi so Suresh can return there eventually. But meanwhile, there is a side job—no qualifications required, only love of the motherland.

  “Of course, ji—just say what I can do.”

  “My company, Kohlisons Media needs a reporter,” says Vikas looking down at his spotless hands. “To report about this Father Pashan and his school and clinic. You know what these Christians do, don’t you?” A pause for effect. “They hoodwink villagers. They mix Aspirin in water and call it holy water. Then they give it to sick Hindus and these poor Hindus feel better and convert.”

  “Achcha?” says the younger man.

  “They give jobs to dalits, fill their stomachs and the dalits become rice-Christians. An unmarried girl gave birth to their Jesus, so they have no shame if one of their girls gives birth without marriage—if you don’t believe me, watch Baywatch—it happens all the time. And no one is stopping them from stealing Hindu babies and converting them.”

  “No one?” says the younger man.

  Vikas wags his head slowly, wisely. “You can do your part—tell us whatever you learn.” He offers leaflets, money for whatever permission clearances and no-objection certificates may be required. He points to the photo again, “Oh, and about this Sister Anu. The padri is sleeping with her, you know.” He shakes his head sorrowfully, “Such bad bad things going on.”

  “All because of Gandhi and Nehru. What they did for Muslims and Christians!”

  “Good that they aren’t here to protect them anymore,” says Vikas. He glances around the chai-stall. The chai-wallah looks on impassively from behind the counter.

  A kerchiefed woman with honey-brown skin enters and asks for a single-use packet of washing powder. Vikas notes the brand—Rin. And that Suresh’s gaze doesn’t follow the packet, but the contours and sway of the woman. It takes a woman’s curves to sell anything. This one is too low on the totem pole for Vikas, but her oval face and those fierce eyes would certainly feed a city-dweller’s nostalgia for rural authenticity. The woman can feel their gaze. She turns, and at the sight of Suresh, her eyes flash and then dull. She turns back to the counter, snatches her change and the washing powder and almost scuttles out, keeping her gaze averted.

  So the man can inspire fear. Very useful.

  Now it’s time for earnest money to change hands, with promises of more to come. Then Suresh makes several namastes to his new friend and employer and descends the chai-stall stairs to the road.

  He’s probably wondering at his unbelievable bhagya in meeting a man like me.

  Just then, Vikas sees someone he never expected to see again in this life.

  Kiran removes her sunglasses, tosses her hair back, smooths her dupatta over the rim of her bosom. She surveys the jars of rusks, biscuits and Hajmola sweets. “No film?”

  “I will order it, ji,” says the chai-wallah. “It will arrive next week, no problem.”

  Anu and his recent humiliation are wiped from Vikas’s mind. Time rolls back eleven years.

  Those breasts. He still remembers those breasts.

  Kiran turns. What a bombshell of a woman!

  Not as young, hasn’t aged well.

  Vikas says her name as a question. Kiran glances at him, stops, and stares.

  “Vikas Kohli,” he says, in a drawing-room voice, as he gets up. Why does the sight of her make him feel guilty? She should feel guilty, or at least embarrassed for her parents, who had not wanted their daughter to marry “out.”

  Kiran’s gaze darts around the chai-stall as if someone could be watching.

  He points. “You’re still using the camera I gave you.” He laughs as if it is funny that her Nikon FA single lens has lasted longer than their relationship.

  Fuckwit! You’re acting like that callow kid you used to be.

  Trying to impress her, boastfully promising marriage and more. More things than he could ever deliver.

  Kiran seems poised to flee. “It’s a good camera,” she says. “I’ve become quite expert with it.”

  The gift once brought down her guard. That she kept it all these years shows she’s been yearning for him. “Bring tea!” Vikas orders the chai-wallah. “Please sit,” he says to Kiran and draws up a chair, facing the few stairs to the road.

  “My husband—” Kiran begins. But she does sit down, coal-black hair falling past her hips like a veil. She tucks her hair behind her ear on the side nearest him, so he can see her profile along with a side view of the breasts.

  “That Mercedes outside—yours, I assume?”

  He nods, speechless from the breasts.

  “Very smart.”

  Now she’s telling him about her husband, Amanjit Singh, his factories, his money. Bugger even drives a BMW. Pride in her voice, as if his accomplishments are her own. She mentions a daughter, a little older than Chetna.

  He finds his voice, orders more parathas, though he doesn’t need any.

  She’s really bragging now, telling him how kind her husband is. So charitable, he’s renovated an old chapel, opened a Hindi-medium school and a free clinic for the people in Gurkot.

  “Who’s running it?” says Vikas.

  “Catholics. They sent in their priest and two nuns.”

  “Letting Christians use his land is stupid. They’ll squat. Never let it go.”

  “One policeman who didn’t stand by or disarm Sikh men or lead the mobs to kill during the ’84 riots was a Christian, Maxwell Pereira. He saved our main gurdwara from the mob; Aman wanted to do something for Christians in return.” She stops. “Sorry. But you did ask. Now tell-tell about you?”

  Vikas opens his mouth to tell her all about himself, but a round face pops up at his elbow. Suresh again—would Vikas like to make a donation to the Jalawaaz School for Tribals, where he teaches?

  Vikas rises, takes Suresh aside and stuffs a pair of blue rupee notes into his hand. “You never met me,” he says.

  Suresh wags his head, “Yes, sir!”

  Vikas turns back to Kiran, who is shrinking back into the shadows. “That’s our old amma’s son,” she says.

  “Don’t worry. I gave him a thousand—he can take it as a donation.”

  “That was a bribe.” She starts to rise fr
om her seat.

  “Wha-at? Don’t break a bangle, yar. Bribes are just like value-added tax. Besides, for what? We’re just having tea. Not even holding hands.”

  “I shouldn’t, Vikas.”

  “These days, married women sleep with former boyfriends after they’ve produced a few kids.”

  “Women in Delhi maybe,” says Kiran, “In Gurkot, people talk.”

  He reaches to take her hand, and she backs away. “At least have a bite with me,” he says. “For old times sake. I just ordered …”

  She sits down at the edge of her seat. “I’m pregnant,” she says, as if that makes her impregnable.

  “What a pity,” says Vikas. He would find it repugnant to sleep with a pregnant woman.

  “No, it’s not a pity—I’m having a boy.”

  “A little Sikh boy with a bun on his head, then a turban,” says Vikas in mocking tones.

  “Eventually, I hope so,” says Kiran.

  They are silent. Too many wounds to hope for honesty.

  Another order of parathas and daal arrives.

  “So is the Mercedes new?”

  “Yes. The top goes down. Want to come for a spin?”

  She shakes her head. After a moment she says, “Vikkoo, it would never have worked.”

  “Yes it could have,” he replies ever so reasonably. “What’s so bad about reverting to Hinduism?”

  “What do you mean, ‘reverting’? I wouldn’t know how to be a Hindu, any more than a Christian would know how to ‘revert’ to Judaism. And you wouldn’t have let me remain a Sikh.”

  “Well, of course not.” Vikas reaches for a paratha and some daal.

  “And would you have become a Sikh to marry me?”

  “Can you imagine me with long hair?” he stuffs a piece of paratha in his mouth to stop giggling.

  “Many Sikh men are not orthodox and have short hair,” says Kiran. “Anyway, are you happy? I have often wondered.”

  “Of course,” says Vikas. How do you say, My wife is divorcing me for mental and physical cruelty, has converted to Christianity, become a nun, and tried to knife me about an hour ago? He would like to relax into Kiran’s body, but that was another man’s dream. That other man is dreamed away, and Vikas now lives the life he has created.

  Soon—too soon—Kiran rises, takes up her handbag. He escorts her the few feet to the stairs of the chai-stall, watches her climb into a top-of-the-line BMW 740iL sedan and drive away.

  Kiran knew him when he didn’t feel every man was competition, and every pair of ears or eyeballs was an audience. She knew him before each blow he struck made him feel larger. If Kiran had married him, he might still like himself.

  Evidence of parallel and alternative universes.

  Look for the void at the edge of your own, that’s where you’ll find it.

  Back in the bubble of comfort that is the Benz.

  How could he have even considered marrying her? Too tall, hasn’t produced a son all these years. Every Sikh woman is told she’s a princess, every one of them takes the last name Kaur, meaning princess—no wonder they’re spoiled. Nothing but trouble.

  And Anu was going to stick him with a knife? She has no idea, no idea what he can do to her and her bloody priest.

  And Kiran … She used to look so cute when she told him she was his equal, because her Guru Nanak wrote that women are equal to men. But as a wife? She would have tried to put her name on his property—in fact, put all his possessions in her name.

  Say what you will about Anu, she was a Hindu and never asked for much.

  But Kiran—Sikh women are insatiable.

  Up close, both seemed to decay into the familiar. Next time, the parents better find him a young Hindu woman with Kiran’s looks and the warmth, kindness and gentleness that once attracted him to Anu.

  The Merc fills with Kumar Sanu’s voice singing “Chura ke Dil Mera,” moaning for his stolen heart. Vikas sings along, tearing up. He drives between the two rows of shops that are Jalawaaz, windows rolled up, air conditioner on.

  Stares caress him as they caress his car. These poor buggers can’t see through his tinted windows, but they get that he’s a VIP even if Anu doesn’t. Unlike Anu, these ragged villagers get what’s cool and what’s not. She needs a lesson.

  All he has to do is play his new fixer, Suresh. Suresh can do a lot of damage, all untraceable.

  Kill European-style, from a distance. Make it easy, amusing. Blame it on the system.

  And Anu’s conversion is grounds for divorce. Vikas’ll have her served with divorce papers. Let her spend the next few years defending herself. See how she likes that. He can speed it up by noting he never signed a marriage registration, and when it’s final, his entanglement with her will be broken.

  He pulls the newspaper clipping from his pocket—evidence, now.

  April 1996

  ANU

  VIKAS’S EYES SEEM TO FOLLOW SISTER ANU FOR DAYS. His face disturbs her dreams, waking her, chilled and sweating. She hides kitchen knives between the cushions on the divan, behind the plants, beneath books on the coffee table, rising at the slightest rattle to confirm they are still there. Fear sidles in, even as she wills it away. With Samuel’s help, Sister Anu has the front door to the nun’s residence reinforced.

  Her lawyer writes to inform her that Vikas has filed a writ petition for divorce on the basis of conversion to another religion. She’ll defend Anu, but a divorce for conversion can come through sooner than for mental and physical cruelty. Activists, Mrs. Nadkarni says, are working very hard to change this state of affairs.

  But, three weeks later, when Damini ushers Goldina into her examination room as the first patient of the day and asks if “that man” has been back, Sister Anu says no. And realizes she isn’t starting at every passing car and shadow anymore.

  Damini nods sagely, “Mohan is a very good sekurti guard.”

  Her grandson has been proudly keeping watch on the veranda every day, as careful of Sister Anu and Sister Bethany as if they were his elder sisters. Morning and evening, Sister Anu and her flute-blowing bodyguard walk the winding roads. Mohan runs ahead, nimbly climbing clefts and crevices for berries, making her laugh by scooting uphill for a few seconds and returning with red bottlebrush flowers sticking out of his ears. Yesterday he brought an injured fox along with a stuffed toy monkey to the clinic; Dr. Gupta set the fox’s leg and kindly bandaged the red monkey’s tail. Last Sunday, Mohan recited the Our Father and sang “Make me a Channel of Your Peace” … though it was obvious he understood neither.

  After her day’s work, Sister Anu has begun teaching Mohan to cook so he can help his grandmother and sister. He made a daal so lava-hot, it made them forswear chilies for Lent. And a slushy rice whose uncooked grains gave Anu a stomach ache. This new project has helped Anu persuade herself Vikas won’t be back. The belief, even if misplaced, is better than living in fear. If she can’t be free of danger, she can at least be free of fear.

  Other women have greater fears—for instance, right now, in the examination room, Goldina is telling her she’s worried that because Aman-ji is installing toilets in place of thunderboxes in the Big House, it will mean less work for her.

  “God always finds work for us to do,” says Sister Anu.

  “Yes, but I can’t work for free, like you—na, ji, na! I won’t do that.”

  “The clinic is free for you all,” says Sister Anu, “but Dr. Gupta and I do get paid.”

  Not much. But more than a community worker like Damini, now changing bed linen in the women’s ward next door. Anu thinks of her savings for Chetna’s wedding. Not much at all. She rubs her hands together, then places her palms very gently on Goldina’s stomach. Her touch calms and reassures; and she does feel slight movements.

  “If a baby is coming,” says Goldina, “it’s all because of Dr. Gupta and you. I asked, but he wouldn’t give me a single pill, though I have five children already.”

  “Everyone’s life is important, even the unborn.”


  “Ha, what do the unborn feel?”

  “We’re Catholic,” Sister Anu murmurs. And Catholic nuns must believe life begins at conception, even if her nursing school textbooks say the fetus emits brain waves at eight weeks. She still feels guilty for mentioning to Goldina that most chemist shops carry Ovral pills. But even if Goldina bought them, she would need someone to read and translate the instructions from English.

  “Dr. Gupta isn’t,” says Goldina. “He’s Hindu—brahmin—vegetarian. Doesn’t eat onions or garlic. I told him, ‘I’m on my way to a cricket eleven if you don’t stop me having children,’ but …” she wags her head ruefully and pats her stomach.

  Sister Anu inserts the eartips of her stethoscope in her ears. Like Dr. Gupta, she can advocate abstinence when advising men, but not to a woman like Goldina who seems to have little say in her sex life. And having used contraception herself, Anu prefers silence. “There’s always the rhythm method,” Father Pashan has said. But Vatican roulette requires a husband’s cooperation; she can’t recommend it.

  Sister Anu doesn’t stock condoms or Pills in the dispensary but answers “No” whenever women ask if they will become too weak to work if they take the Pill, relying on her own experience. And when women ask if they must believe in the power of the Pill for it to work, she tells them no, as well. But there she stops so as to keep the clinic Catholic.

  She listens, palpating Goldina’s stomach gently. Without an ultrasound machine, her hands must “see” into Goldina’s womb and divine the baby’s position. She guesses Goldina is about four months along. “Good news,” she says, and is unprepared for the liquid shimmer that wells in Goldina’s eyes, the tremble in her lips. Goldina raises herself on her elbows, wipes her cheeks.

  Sister Anu waits. “What’s the matter?” she says gently.

  “Nothing, nothing. I’m happy.”

  “Goldina—such a pretty name,” she says.

  Goldina relaxes a little. She lies down again, wipes her eyes with the corner of her sari.

  More composed after a while, she says, “I named myself. When I was a little girl, I met a Christian woman, Goldina. She gave me leftovers to take home for my family. I promised myself, if ever I have leftovers, I want to be generous like her. I call myself Goldina so it will always remind me.”