The Green Room & Devi Collection

by Nag Mani

  “Shut up, you woman!” Razzak hissed.

  “Don’t you see you fools,” Laila rose from her seat, her voice stronger now, “the Devi has claimed her!”

  Zeba gasped. Razzak stared at her wife with murderous eyes. Zeenat kept whimpering and gasping, but every pair of eyes were on her mother.

  “Laila, what are you saying?” Aditi broke the silence. “They will get to a hospital and…”

  “You know very well, Madam, what I am saying! I had warned you, Madam! I HAD WARNED YOU!”

  Aditi shook her head in disbelief. Razzak was about to say something when they heard hurried footsteps up the stairs. Manoj came in first, his umbrella leaving a trail of water behind. He still had the air of importance with him, but when his eyes fell on Zeenat, he froze at his place. Bhagvati walked in next and gasped, backed against a wall and slithered to the floor, her mouth wide open.

  All of a sudden, Zeenat started screaming in pain. Aditi felt her insides melt. Razzak made for the door. Zeba broke down. She fell to her knees and started crying. A woman rushed to her – and in that moment, a lightning struck. Aditi caught a glimpse of a shadow in the empty corner Zeenat had pointed at. And right then, in that very moment, Zeenat stopped screaming. Razzak tried to rush out, but she was holding the door, not letting him move.

  She tilted her head back and looked at Zeba, her eyes yellow now, her skin black with patches of white, “You are next!”

  Then her eyes closed and her limbs collapsed.

  *

  The morning was cold and humid. Dark clouds still hung silently above the village, threatening rain at slightest provocation. Aditi sat on the steps to the backyard, looking at nothing in particular. She hadn’t been able to sleep. After Zeenat had fainted, Razzak and his brothers had taken her across the river to Forbesganj. There was nothing Aditi could do other than watch Laila beat her chest and howl. No matter what the other women said, Laila knew no doctor could save her daughter. “Take her to the temple, you fools! Take her there. Ask forgiveness! Ask for mercy!” It took three women to keep her from running to the temple herself.

  The tomato seeds Aditi had planted had now grown into small plants. On a square bed next to it, bright green pea climbers with broad beautiful leaves were struggling their way up thin bamboo sticks. Bhagvati was still with Laila. Aditi had returned somewhere three in the morning when other women insisted that she changed into dry clothes and slept for the night. As it was, she had suddenly begun to feel lethargic. For the first time, Manoj was not sticking to his schedule. He was still in his bed, wide awake, as villagers began to collect outside their houses, waiting for the men to return. The bank was open, but no one was in need of loan or money. The generator was up and running. The guard was not sleeping on the charpoy under the tree, but kept his eyes on the road that came from the river.

  The stories were true. Something had irked the Devi and she had claimed a life. Or someone… Aditi scolded herself for thinking like uneducated villagers. There had to be an explanation, a medical condition that explained it all… Her eyes fell on the closed room. The window was open. Darkness swirled out from inside. Was it too much of a coincidence?

  In a corner of the backyard, concealed by the coop, was a line of rose stems rising from the soil. Most of them were brown and dead, except one. She had retrieved the broken stems soon after Laila had left and planted them. There was still hope that they might grow roots. But then came Salman to build the coop and she had to hide them again. She replanted and looked after them day and night, hoping against hope that they would survive. Then one day, she noticed something red sprouting above the mark of a broken twig. And that something red had grown into a tiny branch with delicate red leaves and soft thorns. One had survived. A red rose was growing in her campus – something the village and the powers that resided in it didn’t approve of.

  But there was something else she had done that they disapproved of…

  The men returned in the afternoon, bringing along a drizzle and a body wrapped in a dirty, tattered sari. The crowd parted to give them way, some ran for shelter in nearby houses, some joined the progression; Razzak was in the rear, walking as if his legs had turned into lead. His brothers carried the body inside, while he slumped to the ground and began to cry, unwary of the rain and the eyes and the whispers.

  It was the general commotion that alerted Aditi. She hurried to the veranda to find several men under the shelter of her roof. She saw Razzak crying. Laila was right. The doctors couldn’t save her daughter. Aditi ran inside to put on her slippers and just as she was about to step out, Manoj emerged from the bedroom, “Don’t,” he said, himself going to the veranda to see the plight of their neighbours, “give them some time to mourn.”

  Aditi stayed there, in the veranda, as the rain intensified, listening to the growing sounds of people crying and wailing, watching the crowd disperse. On the other side of the puddle infected main brick-road, under the meagre protection of a thin tree, she saw a handsome boy in a school uniform. He stood there frozen in time, getting wet, as the world moved on. He was crying silently, oblivious to others, and the one he was crying for.

  When Bhagvati returned in the evening, she was nothing but hysterical. “That poor girl! What evil resides in the world? Her body. Black. Already smelling…” She went to the backyard to have a bath. Water had collected in the right half of the backward, around the closed room, and was slowly inching towards the hand-pump. She stomped into the water and began searching for clogged outlets at the base of the wall.

  Aditi could not hold herself any longer. With a heavy heart and a lump in her throat, she went to Razzak’s house. Though it was still raining, quite a few people were sitting outside, consoling the thin, frail man who wouldn’t go inside. A boy was standing with an umbrella over their heads and he said something and all the men turned to look at her. She quickened her pace and went inside. There, in the hall on the first floor, surrounded by crying women was a body covered in a sari. There was nothing to be seen, except the tip of a black finger and stands of hair flowing out. The body had already begun to rot. A terrible stench filled the hall. She knelt down beside it and gently lifted the cloth over the face. What she saw was swollen black lips and cheeks. The eyes were open but the eyeballs had rolled all the way up.

  Aditi covered the face and turned away. She tried to stand, but her knees were wobbling. She suddenly felt weak… very weak. “Oh! Oh! Look out!” someone shouted. The world began to darken. She saw Zeba and Zoya hugging each other in one corner of the room, unattended, as everyone mourned their sister. The ground shook and Aditi fell flat on her face. “These city women… so weak,” someone whispered.

  There was a window in the hall that opened towards the forest, right behind the girls. The hall went dark and the last thing Aditi saw was a man’s face behind the window.

  He was staring unblinkingly at Zeba.

  CHAPTER 13

  AN INNOCENT WISH

  It was the sound of someone sipping tea that made her open her eyes. Two women were sitting on her bed with a cup in their hands. Bhagvati was by her side, massaging her palm with warm mustard oil. “There now,” she whispered and patted her forearm, “how are you feeling?”

  How was she feeling?

  She was weak. But more than that there was something else that was gnawing at her core. Was it fear? She managed a feeble smile. The women finished their tea. “I will go to Laila, all right, my son?” Bhagvati said as the women prepared to leave. “She needs us. Arvind is sitting right in the veranda. If you need anything, just ask him to call me.”

  Aditi heard men talking in the veranda. There were at least half a dozen of them, her husband included. And from the sound of it, they kept coming and going, talking solemnly about the death of the young girl.

  Night fell. And with it came the racket of thousands of insects. The clouds had taken a break to muster their strength, making everyone aware of their presence every now and then. Aditi counted the ticks of the
clock.

  Was it a coincidence? She wanted to tell herself no. She the Literate One. She who became Not-So-Literate when she did what the village didn’t approve of. But how could she not do it? Not cling on to the faintest ray of hope… the slightest chance of bringing order to the chaos her life was in? Not at least give it a try when they said that the Devi granted wishes, even if it meant paying a price…

  Arvind had not come to change the battery that morning, and she had beaten Bachcha that night, the night of Amavasya. But in the afternoon, she had been free. Bhagvati had gone to visit her sister. Manoj was in the bank. Aditi had told the three sisters not to come. And then she had gone to the temple. She had walked initially, carrying a packet of incense-sticks and a match-box in a wicker basket, until an auto-rickshaw filled with straw and hay in the back happened to cross her. She told the driver she wanted to go to the temple – the new Kali temple he had assumed and the new Kali temple was where he had dropped her. She went inside and prayed to the goddess. Having done that, she quietly made her way to the old temple.

  She had to admit she was nervous. She knew she was being a fool to believe that the Devi would actually grant her wish. Or the fact that she was actually going to ask for something. Dark clouds had covered the sun by the time she walked in through the arched gates. The temple was quiet. Still. No one had seen her yet, and she wanted to keep it that way. She stopped at the steps for a moment to look around, then to look inside the shrine.

  Nothing. Just darkness. She sat down, crossed her legs and folded her hands. Something seemed to have crept inside the empty shrine. She had an unsettling feeling about it, as if someone was watching her. She leaned forward to have a better look.

  No. Still nothing.

  Just as she closed her eyes, she caught a glimpse of a face hovering inside.

  She jerked her eyes open.

  Again, nothing.

  The rain came all of a sudden and disturbed the silence. She closed her eyes again and prayed. She wanted a child, that was what she said. She didn’t know what the price would be. She was uncertain. What could it be? Heads of five goats? Eleven? She could sacrifice eleven goats if the first child was a boy. She was sure Manoj couldn’t agree with her more. Or leave it. Twenty-one goats and free meals to twenty-one Brahmins for twenty-one days. She was still not sure. She hoped that the Devi would understand. That, being the first child, she was willing to pay a good price. That she was an amateur in these things and did not mean to offend the Devi by any means.

  She ignored the movements that began to grow around her, unaware of the featureless face that had reappeared in the shrine. Ignored the smell of blood. Then came the sensation of someone breathing over her shoulders. The coldness of the breath froze her heart. She tried to move, to open her eyes, but couldn’t. Something was pressing upon her.

  Then all of a sudden, the weight lifted. She jumped up. Her heart seemed to beat again, emanating warm blood with each pulse.

  Someone was on the other side of the shrine. She could feel it. Sense the heaviness it carried. She didn’t dare to go around. She wanted to run, run away, anywhere, but away from that cursed temple. But damn this rain! Her muscles tensed as she saw two men on the road, hurrying somewhere. Just as one of them turned to look, she slid towards a pillar. The man froze. Next moment he was screaming and running as if death was at his heels. His partner didn’t waste time looking back. He tried to run, but slipped and fell, and began to scream. He crawled on the wet mud for a few yards in his desperation to get away, before regaining his balance and making a dash behind his partner.

  Aditi spun around to see what had frightened them. Nothing. The temple was as silent and intimidating as it had always been. Then it struck her – it was her – she, a woman half hidden behind a pillar in the ruins of the infamous temple. She shook her head and waited on the steps for the rain to lighten, standing in full view for everyone to see. If anyone did see her, she didn’t want to appear as if she was hiding. And of course, she didn’t want the villagers to believe that the Devi had returned, in flesh and blood.

  The rain intensified. Her mind began to drift. She imagined her neck being locked in that wooden plank. What could have been the view from there? The shrine? With an idol blessing her, its hand raised. The cemented surface? Which would soon be covered with her blood. The crowd? How much pain would she feel? And what if the blade didn’t cut her neck in one blow? What if it had to be hacked again and again? Would she see, even if for a fraction of second, her own severed body hanging limply over the plank? See her blood flowing down the drain?

  She was still staring at the platform when the men walked in through the gates. Manish, the Mukhiya’s youngest son, was leading them, holding a black umbrella over his head. Two more men with umbrellas followed him and behind them, drenched to skin, were the two men she had seen earlier. Aditi stood up, pulling her aanchal tighter over her blouse. “Not the place of my choice to enjoy the weather, Ma’am!” Manish said as he approached her. The other men stayed back.

  “Certainly not my choice either! I was stuck in the rain.” She hoped against hope that he would not ask what she was doing there.

  “That did come unannounced, didn’t it? Those two there,” he pointed backwards, “they thought they had seen a ghost. One of them was almost dead by the time he reached us. Someone had seen you coming here. That was how my father knew it was you, and that was why he told me to personally come here and bring you home.”

  Aditi let her eyes linger on his face for a while, observing his sharp features and unruly hair. He wasn’t tall and bulky like his father. Rather short, but smart. “Thank you. But I just want to go home right now. My husband would be returning. As it is, I have wasted enough time here…”

  “Do come along. I will get you an auto back at my house. There is no point waiting here.”

  Aditi nodded. For an awkward moment they just looked at each other. What was the point of waiting all along when she had to get wet walking to his house? Then it hit him. He turned around. The men didn’t need to be told. One of them came forward and handed her his umbrella. The two men, who Aditi now assumed were farmers returning home, murmured apologies and mocked their own stupidity. They had almost reached the back-gate of the Mukhiya’s campus when Manish eventually asked, “By the way, what were you doing there? It’s not safe you know, going there alone. It’s a deserted place, you understand what I mean? We could have sent some women to accompany you.”

  “I just happened to visit the Kali temple,” Aditi replied immediately, “and then I thought why not come here as well. Pay my respect. One quick business, that was all. But then came along this rain…”

  Manish nodded his approval. The others exchanged looks, but remained quiet.

  Was it a coincidence that a life was taken after she had asked for a life?

  *

  Zeenat’s body was buried amid rains and tears. When the men had gone out carrying her body, Aditi opened the outhouse and shouted at the well. She only wanted a child, an innocent request by any standard, but never had she imagined the price to be the life of someone else. She didn’t know why she was shouting. She somehow felt guilty even though she knew she had nothing to do with the death. Or maybe…

  Her strength that seemed to have drained away never returned. Aditi sat in her room all day long, lethargic and feverish. Bhagvati knew something was wrong. She brought Aditi her meals and made her bed. She even massaged her feet with warm mustard oil with chunks of garlic. Aditi watched the events in her neighbour’s house unfold through the window. The Mukhiya visited on the second day of the burial, the day when the sky was covered with growling clouds and winds roared through the farms. That night, a rain came down as if venting out all the anger it had acquired through ages. Aditi lay awake in her bed, watching the stained ceiling, hoping it would hold. The following morning, she found the backyard inundated. Water had crept till the first step of the veranda. The first thought that came to her mind was how she was goi
ng to relieve herself in that chaos. The toilet was built relatively higher, but not high enough. Its floor was submerged under water. So was the platform around the hand-pump. She cursed Manoj for bringing her to that damned village, and then for everything…

  The second thought was that of her plants. Her tiny peas and her little tomatoes. She needed to unclog the outlets as soon as possible. She lifted her sari, tied it around her knees and stepped into the water. The third thought hit her after a couple of strides. The chickens!

  Maybe it wasn’t the first thought because she could not see the coop when she came out. But now that she was in the backyard, emanating waves with each step, the coop revealed itself an inch or two under the undulating water. She saw something colourful and feathery floating just below the top mesh. Further away, a beak was stuck in the steel wires, probably trying to breathe the last of air as the water level rose. The water receded for a moment and she saw a puffed, closed eye. Then it was hidden again.

  All this for showing pity and not killing them the day Arvind brought them. What a waste! It was eventually Bhagvati who cleared the outlets, threw the dead chickens over the wall and brought tea for Aditi in her bed. “The cat can finally feast,” she said.

  “What is happening here?” asked Aditi as a fresh session of wailing erupted from the neighbouring house.

  Bhagvati lit a pair of incense-sticks and watched the flames dance on the tips. She had taken to muttering prayers with a diya lit in front of the gods ever since Zeenat had died. She would carry the diya to all the rooms, holding it in one hand and gently pushing the air around the flame with the other. She thought it would cleanse the house of evil. “What has happened has happened,” she replied in a hushed voice. “Let’s not talk about it...”

  Like talking about it could have irked the Devi again. But what had angered her in the first place? What had been that taunting that she had killed an innocent child? Was it indeed the price for the wish? Aditi waited for Bhagvati to return from her ritual of cleansing the house. Cleanse the house from what? The Devi who roamed the house humming a song? The Devi who killed innocent children when she was angry? The Devi who…