In the Convent of Little Flowers

by Indu Sundaresan

  Morning mist hangs gracefully over Pathra, swallowing the small village in its white folds, swirling between the leaves of the many-armed banyan in the center square. The streets leading in, rutted by bullock carts, are empty. In a few hours, the square will be noisy with life: village elders sitting in choice spots under the banyan, pedantic with endless cups of chai; women gossiping on their way to the vegetable market; urchins chasing stray dogs with a reckless wickedness that comes only in childhood.

  Generations have thus used the old banyan, the village square, the vegetable market—why, even ancestors of the pariah dogs. Now, though, there is the added blare of film songs on the chai shop radio. Yet this is an outward change. Inside, in the people, the village lives in many ways like it did hundreds of years ago.

  And that is why Ram is here.

  On this cold December morning, as the sun struggles to burn away the mist and announces the arrival of a new day, the square is silent. A cock crows valiantly in the distance, sounding surprised at the lateness of the hour. Within the houses, wives and daughters awake to sweep doorsteps and light chulas that will burn well into the night. Later these women will join the throng in the market, shopping bags hung on arms strong from hard work. In the grandfather’s house, however, there is no such simple peace for the two men in the inner courtyard.

  The man in the chair has seen many years; his hair is whitened by the hand of time, his skin creased by sorrow, and love, and hatred through the years, each stamping its signature. The other, in normal times, is impudent with impassioned eyes and a shock of brilliant black hair. Apart in their thoughts, the younger still has the look of the older; his mother was bred of the man in the chair, and she has given to the boy the fire in his eyes, and the chin that stands firm even against his grandfather.

  The old man moves finally, his hand striking a match against the grainy wood of his chair. As the match flares in the damp morning air, Ram looks up, lifting a defeated face. His hair falls in an uncombed mass over his forehead. His clothes are crumpled—the suit stained, the previously white shirt no longer a recognizable color, the tie long discarded. Mud cakes his once-shiny shoes, creeping up the cuffs of his trousers in tendrils of brown.

  The journey from the city to Pathra was long. He had caught the last train in just enough time. From the station, there was the bone-jolting bus ride with a driver who sped on the hillside roads aided by a bottle of local arrack. Finally, both the old bus and its drunken driver had broken down, leaving the passengers stranded in the cold, dark, raining night. Anger was impossible—this, the passengers clucked to themselves, lifting out their baskets of mangoes, and chickens, and sleeping children, was karma after all. Ram let himself out of the bus, swung his satchel and camera over his shoulder, bent his head to the rain, and trudged the last weary kilometers to Pathra. Once there, he noiselessly came into this house.

  They received him in silence; his grandmother with frightened eyes and an unsmiling face, his grandfather with a mere grunt before leading him to the courtyard. That was a half hour ago. The cup of tea at his grandfather’s elbow— none was offered to Ram—has long cooled with an accusing skin of cream. Now they look at each other with the circling awareness of animals in the wild, waiting for a voice to break the silence.

  Finally, the old man speaks, and out of his mouth comes the age-old vernacular of the village. This matter is too significant for the use of mere English, which both men speak fluently. “Why did you come, Ram? You should have stayed away.”

  All through the journey Ram has formulated questions and answers with angry words. But when he speaks, he cannot raise his voice against his grandfather, and he replies in the same language, “I could not, Nana. How can anyone stay away from what is to happen here this evening?”

  His grandfather glowers. He takes a long drag from his hand-rolled beedi and spits out his pre-breakfast paan on the dirt floor of the courtyard, leaving a red streak in the mud.

  Outside the house, in the main square of the village, the men are gathering with their logs of wood. This is why the letter brings Ram here. He cannot see the men, but now, with the mist still swirling around the courtyard, he hears them. Or, rather, he hears the definitive thud of one log bouncing off another as the men stack them. Somewhere along these hills lies a partially denuded forest that has given its trees so that here in Pathra a human life can be taken.

  Ram shivers, wrapping arms around his thin chest, his damp clothes clammy against his skin. His resolve is now tougher. He is here because he could not stay away, and he is here because he wants an answer from his grandfather.

  Ram does nothing in small measures, loves no one in little bits and pieces, speaks his mind as the thoughts come, unedited and raw. But now he is made dumb by a hand he does not recognize. In the cold morning light he stands before a grandfather suddenly turned into a stranger. This man has held him on his knee and talked for long hours. From his words, from his voice, have grown the kings and gods adorning the walls of Hindu mythology, painted real by Nana’s belief and Ram’s imagination. From him has even come Ram’s name. It is the name of a god exiled by his own father at the behest of a wicked stepmother. It is the name of a god who keeps his faith in that very father—why, even his stepmother—to return triumphant at the end of his exile and claim his kingdom. And thus has Nana taught Ram to believe implicitly in his elders. And that bright-eyed child, Ram, nestled against an aging shoulder, listening to the comfortable rumble in the rheumatic chest, learned to love this man, learned, or so he thought, to know this man. Today, both that knowledge and those beliefs are shaken. Ram cannot have as much faith as the god whose name he bears.

  Last year when Ram came to visit Nana, he spent warm days talking with him, seated leaning against the verandah pillars, watching Nana’s face glow as he recounted tales of Ram’s childhood. Today, Nana seems suddenly older, his hair whiter, the grooves on his face more pronounced; and in his eyes burns a fervor of righteousness Ram wants to wipe away.

  “Your mother was too lenient with you, wretch,” the grandfather grates out. “She let you have your way too often. You have to learn that one cannot always have one’s way.”

  Ram flushes. He shifts his weight from one foot to another, wishing his grandfather will bid him sit. It will be unthinkable to do so without Nana’s permission. There are some borders Ram can never cross; he has been taught too well. He fills his lungs with a deep cold breath and asks, “Do you condone what is to happen here tonight, Nana?”

  As soon as he asks the question he shuts his eyes tight, willing his grandfather to give him the answer he wants, hoping yet not daring to hope for that answer. Nothing matters at this moment, not the mud caking his shoes, nor the damp misting his hair. The cold, the discomfort, have all gone away, awaiting only his Nana’s response.

  “It is the will of God.”

  Ram opens his eyes and stares at his grandfather, whose head is bent to the ground.

  “God’s will?” he cries, the answer tearing inside him, one border crossed already with that raised voice. “What god wills you to condemn a twelve-year-old child to her death for something she is not responsible for?”

  “Enough!” the old man roars, veins standing out on his scraggly neck. “It is not your place to question a custom that has been passed on from generation to generation for over two thousand years. Who are you, with your Westernized customs and morals, living in the city with no contact with the village, to question our way of life?”

  “It is against the law, Nana. You know that, the villagers know that. And why is it no one else has heard of the Sati? What are you all afraid of? If the police find out, the entire village will be arrested. By keeping quiet about it, all of you—yes, even you—are conspiring to murder a child.”

  Ram stops abruptly, sensing he has said too much. There is a brief moment, a brief pang when he wishes the words could be taken back, swallowed deep within himself; when he wishes he is that child on this man’s knee again, trusting
and trusted. But it is too late now. Tied as he is by blood and love to this man, he has to speak.

  How could the Sati be right? Some customs were always wrong, however old they were, and this was something he had taught Ram. How could it be right for a widow to go to her husband’s funeral pyre to immolate herself alive, to go with him where he went even after death? It is too bizarre even to be contemplated. This is a story from history, a past to be forgotten, not relived under the bright, harsh gaze of the twenty-first century. This is a story from his myth/history–filled Amar Chitra Katha comics, where women jumped off scaffolding into huge bonfires upon their husbands’ deaths to avoid capture by invaders. But this is to happen here today; there are no invaders, no marauders, no claimants upon the woman’s—little girl’s—reputation. Just a vicious need to connect with the past, with a willing scapegoat.

  Ram shifts his weight from one foot to another. His legs ache for the release of rest but his mind will not let him do so yet. He is here in Pathra in quest of a story that fascinates him as a journalist, that horrifies him because it is going to happen with the unconscious blessing of his grandfather.

  The dead man in question has died a natural death at the age of sixty-three, and less than a year ago he married the twelve-year-old daughter of a peasant. That in itself is illegal, but shrouded in the safety of an ancient village where people talk little of these things lest their way of life disappear to the will of an incomprehensible urban god, all things are made legal. Now the child, barely into puberty, barely even a woman, is to die in the fire of her husband’s funeral pyre just to uphold her family’s honor and their prestige. Not to mention, and this is rarely mentioned but mostly taken for granted, the few thousand rupees the old man paid for his child bride.

  Ram would never have heard of this but for one incident. The village code, extending strictly even to minor things, was broken by a woman who all her life followed the rules society laid down for her in rigid lines. All her life, until now. When she opened the door for him this morning, in her eyes he had seen fear but also, in that grim glance, defiance.

  The news comes to him through his grandmother, a few lines penned in the greatest hurry. It catches him by surprise. Ram has never seen her write or read. He has never heard an opinion from her unless it was delivered to a woman in the family, or to him when he was very young and so not yet a man. Nani has always followed the rules. Yet there was the childish scrawl on the scrap of paper tucked into an old envelope. The previous address on top was scratched out and topped with his own. Inside she has not asked him to come—she rarely asks for things—but has simply said, Beta, there will be a Sati here in two days, the child is only twelve, her husband, whose body lies on a block of ice in his home awaiting the cremation, is the man we talked of when you were last here.

  For two hours Ram sits at his desk at the India Times, phones ringing on other reporters’ desks around him, fans whirring on the whitewashed ceiling. Weighted sheets of paper flutter to the rhythm of the fans. The letter lay spread under his palms. Nani wants him to come, that much he knows for sure. But why? Is it the journalist she wants or the grandson?

  So Ram rushes to the village, hoping the Sati will not take place and yet, in a sense, understanding that it will. As he trudges the last kilometers to Pathra in the rain, Ram knows he will never talk to the woman with gentle eyes who sent him the letter, that she will never admit to it. But as she opens the door, he sees in her spine the strength his mother has, not just from her father who shows it more obviously, but also from her mother who quietly speaks when it is time to be heard.

  “This is not murder,” says the grandfather, his voice shaking with rage. He cuts into Ram’s thoughts with that voice. “She chose the Sati.”

  “She chose the Sati?” Ram is incredulous. “She is twelve years old. What does she know about the Sati, or, for that matter, anything at all? She is a child, Nana. A baby. A brainwashed little child.”

  “You can do nothing about the Sati.”

  “Oh, yes, I can,” Ram replies, speaking first always, thinking later. Then he stops. Could he? All through the long night, while the scenery passed by him in flashes of shadows and light, he thought hard about his decision to come to Pathra. His first instinct as a journalist had been to pick up his camera and race to the railway station. Then, running for the train, on the train, on the bus, on foot in the dark night, he had worried about his intent, his responsibility. Should he simply inform the police and let the Sati be stopped? Or should he report the incident, after the fact, in a detached manner? Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a little voice told him that this Sati could be stopped, but there would be others, in other villages. Until this one took place, until it was reported in all its horror to the country, people would not choose to condemn it. Ram knows too that the mere suggestion of a tragedy is never as powerful as the fact of it.

  “Nana,” he says, subdued, “tell me, do you condone it? If you do, when you die, would you want Nani to be put in the same situation? Would you want her to be burned alive on your pyre?”

  The old man’s eyes stray to the other end of the courtyard, where his wife of fifty years is pounding wheat. As the sun, struggling through the mist, sends amber fingers into the yard, chaff swirls around her in golden motes. As if sensing his gaze she looks up from her work and smiles. Both men see that smile, and in that instant, Ram realizes his grandfather knows who has brought him here. Nani has not spoken to Nana of what she has done, but he has known … and said nothing to her.

  “The matter was decided by the village elders and the girl was told about it. To become Sati is a great honor, it is the mark of a woman’s respect for her husband.” The old man speaks slowly, resistance ebbing from his aged body. “It is not a decision of which I approve. I know”—he waves away Ram’s unsaid words—“I am a member of the panchayat, but I did not vote on the matter. I suppose by my silence I assented. But what kind of a life will she have as a widow? With no money, no one to support her?”

  “She will at least have a life,” Ram says quietly. “That is more valuable than honor, and prestige, and reputation.”

  “Yes.” The old man rolls another beedi and lights it carefully, cupping his hands around the flame. “But a mere life is not enough … it is hollow, meaningless, without honor.”

  “You can say no, Nana.”

  The grandfather shakes his head. “There are things you do not understand. This child is a widow, marked with sin because of it. She can never marry again. She will have to shave her head, throw off her jewelry, cast away her glass bangles, never wear flowers. She cannot laugh out loud, or argue, or play. Her very presence is a blight to her family. She can go nowhere, be part of nothing—no weddings, no celebrations, she will be considered an ill omen.”

  “This is unfair. Stupid. Ridiculous. No one lives like this anymore, Nana. Does her life not have any value at all? Do her parents not love her? Do they prefer to see her die, and thus, this horrible death?” Ram knows all these rules for Hindu widows, but they are so archaic, so senseless. “Do you believe this to be her fate if she lives beyond her husband?”

  And again, there is that silence, until the old man raises his gaze to his grandson’s and holds it steadily. “Yes. This is her fate. She cannot change it. This is what she was born to do. If she were my child … I might have done differently. But I cannot, will not fight against her parents’ decisions. You must accept this, Ram. There are some things we must not battle. Know this, learn from this. This child will die, so that others do not have to.”

  “How is this even fair, Nana?”

  “What will you do about this, Ram?” his grandfather asks. “Will you rage against it? Or will you do something? Write about this. Tell the world; break the silence that hangs over this village. Do what your grandmother wants you to do.” He slants his head toward the other end of the courtyard where his wife has stopped pounding the wheat and listens instead to his voice.

  Ram sits down on th
e dirt floor, another border crossed unbidden, and leans his back against his grandfather’s chair. This is what he has wanted—to know that his grandfather is a man with a heart. And this, he realizes, is what Nani wants too. Even after fifty years she will not ask this question of her husband—she uses her grandson to do so. Ram turns his face away for a moment as his eyes fill. The pain in his chest subsides as though a familiar hand soothes it away, and then comes back again, this time for that child who waits in the village to become a martyr.

  Then he turns again to look up at his grandfather and follows the older man’s gaze to the woman at the other end of the courtyard. Her pestle thumps against the stone mortar gently, but beneath her strong hands the wheat crinkles and crumbles into powder. In this most important matter, she has molded them both, perhaps she has always done so, and perhaps they—husband and grandson—are who she wants them to be.

  Ram turns away again. This will be a small item tucked into the second page of the newspaper, but its importance will grow as time goes by. He will have to get it to the editor as soon as possible. The nearest phone is at the village dry-goods merchant, but Ram will not go there. Instead he will walk the five kilometers to the next village, so that anyone who overhears his conversation, albeit in English, will pay small attention. Or so he hopes anyway. He will return to the city unseen. He has to. His Nana and Nani live in this village.

  As the mist finally lifts and the sun bathes the courtyard in its golden embrace, Nana’s hand steals slowly to stroke Ram’s head.