The Selector of Souls

  Aman looks puzzled. Kiran becomes very interested in a photo of Lord Ganesh just above eye level.

  Leela says, “All of us women do our dharma, regardless of consequences to our karma.”

  “Any other paaps?” Lord Golunath seems anxious to be gone—maybe because the ojha is gasping and his eyes rolling back. “Large ones?”

  “I took women to the Jalawaaz clinic for ultra-soons, and if they were having baby girls, I would help them clean the babies out,” says Damini. “I said the machine would now be the selector of souls.”

  “If they were having baby boys, did you help them have those baby boys cleaned out?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s true, you forgot justice! Yet you call for me to give you justice? Tell me, what punya have you done?”

  “Many meritorious deeds, from healing and teaching, to saving a child. But still I have many injustices to be ashamed of. My son broke down a mosque and burned a church,” says Damini.

  “Your son’s karma is his own. He will find it difficult to balance such deeds in this life. But you can’t help him, because you are not your son.”

  “But I am. Lord Krishna said in the Gita that if Lord Arjun killed, he didn’t really kill anyone. He said all forms return to the formless. He said we are all one, we only think we are different.”

  “Huh!” says Lord Golunath. “After death, not now.”

  “Not now?”

  “If you were all one, with no separation, you would have known what your son intended. But as it is, you couldn’t have stopped him. Because you see, right now, you have one body, he has one body. That’s two bodies—yes?”

  “Yes,” says Damini.

  “Then you can’t be your son while alive, only if you’re dead. Are you dead?”

  “No, but my son says all Hindus are one,” says Damini. “And he says all Christians are one, and he says all Sikhs are one, and all Muslims are one. He says if one Christian does a crime, all Christians are guilty. He says if one Sikh does a crime, all Sikhs are guilty. He says if one Muslim does a crime, all Muslims are guilty.”

  “Ask him if he would like to stay in jail till he atones for every crime committed by all nine hundred and seventy million Hindus in the world. I can do that for him.”

  “No, no!” says Damini.

  The possessed ojha is slumping as if about to pass from this world.

  “Then you stop saying sorry for your son’s deeds, and for anyone else’s as well. Stop saying sorry for living. Live the life you have been given, and continue to do punya. Many good deeds and donations will be required to overcome what you did.”

  But Damini’s outstretched arms implore Lord Golunath not to leave, “Golunath-ji, I cannot afford to donate more to your temple. And while some say it’s unjust to clean out girls from the women, some of us say it is best for the family. So what is our dharma?”

  “Do dharma with compassion,” says Lord Golunath. “Think of the possible effects of your actions. Try and shape the future for better.”

  The ojha falls back, closes his eyes, and groans.

  “Some say the future will be better if girls are cleaned out, some say the future will be better if they are not. How can we know?”

  The ojha opens his eyes wide, as if he’s seeing terrifying images.

  “Whose future?” says Lord Golunath.

  “Ours,” says Damini.

  “Don’t you love your children equally?”

  “We do love, of course we love,” everyone nods and mutters.

  “Not for what they do for you or will do for you, but as brahman formed in flesh,” says Lord Golunath’s voice.

  The ojha claps his hands and trembles visibly. He writhes and twists and rolls from his waist. He runs his fingers through the rice, then over his hair.

  “Of course, of course,” the men nod at each other for reinforcement.

  “Then why are you only cleaning out girls, not boys?” says Lord Golunath.

  “Why should we clean out boys?” shouts a man from the back of the room. “That would be like taking a gift and flinging it down a well.”

  “If you worship me,” the ojha booms in Lord Golunath’s voice, “you must love each child, no matter which I send.”

  “Hah!” comes a shout from Supari’s husband. “Then don’t send us girls, don’t send us cripples.” He half-rises from his squat in excitement. “It’s your fault if you send them—we can’t love them. We’re not gods, we’re just men.”

  “Haan!” a great sigh of agreement passes through the men. “Golunath-ji, one girl, maybe two. But you’re sending us too many girl children. It is unfair.”

  “Why?”

  “We can’t use girl children.”

  “But you do. They work, they earn. See this woman is living with her daughter.”

  “Visiting,” says Damini, faintly.

  “She made her daughter; why should she not live with her?” says the possessed ojha. “I send you both boys and girls to teach you to be fair, not only to provide for you in old age. I send them so you learn to be parents, and become good ancestors. Use? What use is the beauty of the sun or the moon or the grandeur of the Himalayas?”

  “Girls cost more,” says a voice from the men’s side of the room.

  “Do you make your sons work as hard?”

  “No, ji, no!”

  “Without girls, there would be no women, and without women you would not be born, and without women’s shakti, you cannot survive. When a man can’t farm, a woman steps in to do his work for him, but if a woman can’t work, can you do her work? If your mother or wife or daughter falls sick, I see only one or two of you who can cook.”

  “I can make daal,” says Mohan.

  Every head on the men’s side of the room swivels toward him.

  “Only daal,” Mohan says.

  “The rest of you—if you have to go into the cookroom even for a minute you say, ‘Too much smoke!’ None of you can clean a baby’s bottom, none of you can wash a chai glass.”

  “Yes, yes—this is very true,” a few men agree.

  One shouts, “Then what? These are women’s dharma. And they do it so much better than we can.”

  The god says, “Anything you don’t like doing, you call women’s dharma.”

  Damini asks, “What is a woman’s dharma if her husband refuses to name his girl child?”

  “Her dharma is to protect her child,” says the god. “Leela should have named her child herself. And if the child needed two names, Leela could have given her family name.”

  “Hein!?” the men shout. “What are we hearing?”

  “Yes, hear this. A woman’s family’s name is just as good as a man’s. If any man refuses to give his daughter his name, let a mother’s name protect the child. Leela has shakti like you, all she needed was himmat. You, Damini, could have given her that courage. Instead of killing her creation, you could have changed the world for the better. Men have been telling you women how for lifetimes. Why didn’t you, a woman, help even one woman ask why and, why not?”

  A hush descends on the room. The ojha is still trembling. Tubelight’s husband rises and places the first rupee offering on the rice, as if to say, This jagar is over.

  But Damini still has questions, “What can a woman do if her son, her own creation, tears down mosques, churches or gurdwaras?” she says, a desperate edge in her voice. “Must a woman please her family, no matter what their expectations?”

  The ojha’s voice gains energy to embrace all, “Arey-oh, men of Gurkot! You have all forgotten women’s shakti. You women as well. Re-dedicate yourself to Anamika Devi! Your goddess has the answers. She can show you the way to lightness, she can give you himmat. You cannot feel fear and courage in the same instant. Respect and embrace the goddess. Don’t hide her in a cave! Bring her into your hearts!”

  Men squat-walk forward, palms pressed together. Each man folds his hands and looks ardently at the ojha. The ojha marks each of their foreheads with a te
eka, the blessing of Lord Golunath. Women hold out their sons, the ojha applies the ceremonial vermilion mark on the child’s forehead.

  Damini’s third eye seems to have split the space between her brows.

  Matki stares silently at the ojha, patting her son to sleep. Chimta is plaiting her daughter’s hair. Tubelight’s knitting needles flash in the lantern light. Supari’s daughter is looking at her mother for guidance, Supari’s eyes are fixed on her husband across the room.

  The women can see what Damini sees. The men won’t change. They’ll receive teekas as marks of the god’s favour and go home. After you get a teeka you don’t get sick, whether you change your behavior or not. It’s like an injection, which must be why injections are also called teekas.

  Men’s voices join in praise, “Jai Golunath-ji” but they don’t say “Jai Anamika-ji,” as well. The ojha’s words have perished as soon as spoken. They chant as if stricken with sincerity. Oh, they are adept deceivers of the god, of all gods. Some are touching their foreheads to the ground, bottoms in the air before the presence of Lord Golunath, but any pair of ears can hear their unspoken thoughts and desires: that man in the corner is thinking of his pear tree. The one beside him is looking forward to his nightly beedi and swig of rum. They’ll go home and beat their wives or children to feel more like men.

  Someone must bring stree-shakti to a world pulsing with the energy of men. Someone must summon the right energy to bridge the gulf between human and divine.

  Who can?

  I can—I am electricity. I may be husbandless, I may be past childbearing, but I am still the rod that connects the living to jee. I was born to serve as the channel where divine ener-jee breaks through.

  What was the incantation her mother-in-law spoke all those years ago? The mantra was a code established in advance, a call only the goddess can answer. What if Damini misremembers it? What if the goddess gives far more than Damini wishes? She could die as Piara Singh did—heart cracking open, unable to contain the divine force of the universe.

  Come, Anamika Devi. Damini fine-tunes her ear to hear subtle vibrations. She breathes the mantra, talking to the goddess as to herself. Come, goddess of the unborn, you who name the nameless—come!

  ANU

  SISTER ANU’S BEEN SITTING CROSS-LEGGED NOW FOR over an hour, listening as Damini confesses, the horror of the deed overcoming her again. But confession cleanses, whatever form it takes.

  Damini is talking to the ojha, and to Lord Golunath. There’s no test to know if the ojha is speaking or Lord Golunath. Which is the human, which the divine?

  Everyone seems to believe and know Lord Golunath is here. Have I become so Catholic I can’t feel the presence of god in any other form but Christ?

  Anyone in this room could report Damini to the SDM—who, she notes, has not been invited.

  They won’t, because there’s enough guilt here to fill the jails of Jalawaaz and Shimla for several years.

  Sister Anu will have to confess her presence at this ceremony to some new priest who probably won’t understand. Bishop Tutu, orchestrating Truth and Reconciliation trials in South Africa at present, would endorse this event. But neither truth nor pretence will bring back the real victim. That child, that poor infant girl. What does it do for Leela, who may have struggled to forget her baby girl and now may have to begin the journey of mourning again?

  Sister Anu’s sit-bones hurt. Her salwar is ruched up on her shins. She should have worn socks. Damini said a jagar begins when it begins and will end when it ends. “Anything important should be done slowly,” she said.

  She is sitting between Damini and Leela, leaning back against the wall beneath the room’s single window. Ostensibly so as to be close to her shoulder bag on the windowsill, but really to be near a source of air. This small room smelled of whitewash paint before thirty or forty steamy bodies crowded in.

  On the men’s side of the room, Amanjit Singh’s bright lime turban stands out among the worn white turbans and dhotis of the farmers. He’s sitting cross-legged as in the gurdwara, his gold watch shining on his wrist. Kiran has taken her seat as far away from Sister Anu as possible, and does not glance in her direction. She wears her usual expression of bored sophistication, as if doing everyone a favour by her presence. Did Damini’s confession crack Kiran’s cocoon of certainty?

  God and goddess photos make a collage across each wall—just out of reach of a small girl sitting in her father’s lap. A toddler crawls from his mother’s embrace and stands shakily before the two musicians. The drumsticks of the nagara keep pace with Sister Anu’s heartbeat—a mesmerizing rhythm. The second musician plucks at the single string of an ektara as he sings.

  Not Sanskrit. Not Hindi. It’s Pahari, the language of the mountain peoples. The ojha looks spent. Lord Golunath appears to have departed, now.

  Beside her, Damini begins to sway to the music, hands making mudras, gestures like an actress in an old movie. Her shoulder moves. An elbow pokes into Sister Anu’s arm.

  Damini’s head rolls from side to side. She crosses her arms over her breasts. Is Damini having a seizure? Sister Anu glances at Leela. Leela is watching her writhing mother with interest but no hint of panic. And apparently Damini is not in pain.

  DAMINI

  THE DRUMMING GROWS FASTER, LOUDER.

  Damini’s bones shift, her spine tingles and curves into the shape of a sitting cobra. One shoulder is rising, rolling back, then the other. She sways, nods, rocks back and forth and moans. Men’s faces blur. Will the goddess answer her call?

  Blood and spirit open to rhythm. The air vibrates with the billion vibrations that are rising within Damini. An electrifying charge fills the air, and a billion interconnections seem to happen. Damini can see past, present and future at once, as if watching a TV. She can smell them too, along with the spoor of every body in the room.

  She is sitting, then standing. Mental and material energies merge. She is splitting.

  Is this dying? Her self flows out. No, it’s that split state she knew in pregnancy, a shifting inside of herself to make way for another, one who watches unseen.

  The energy of reeti, commitments and connections revolves around her. She draws it in, takes in spirit, offers herself as the vortex of maximum energy, energy that impels her to speak. Faltering, strange sounds she does not recognize as her own.

  First syllables, then words, then phrases—not her own, not her voice, not her speech, but a lost language from a time before time.

  Damini’s arms flail. She is shaking, trembling. She does not recognize the voices, but senses sound, intent and a white heat rising from her womb to energize all matter from the very smallest particle to the whole.

  Who is it, who comes?

  Blood beats at her temples, beats to the drumbeat all around, making connections for which as yet there are no names. The unseen is not asleep or simple, but demonically active. Familiar asuras snap inside her … demons with long fangs. Now outside, frothing. They seem to rake her flesh with blood-tipped talons. Unexplored angers, angers swallowed and digested along with every fear she’s ever given herself is incarnated in these hungry ghosts. And they in her. They have lived within Damini from the time Damini was first taught she didn’t matter. They have sucked in every need Damini ever suppressed, every want that became Don’t Want, every word she ever believed insignificant, every insult received. They swirl up from karma she has not expiated and orbit the room. They roar as they devour the present and the past. They command her breath, speak with her mouth, gesture with her arms. They will touch her future if she gives them power.

  She opens herself to stree-shakti, and the asuras of fear subside.

  She is receiving a new language now. Not an outer language like English, but a human, inner feeling-sense rising from beyon-sense, from all the knowing she already has. Its gestures are familiar, like that language she spoke with Mem-saab, which had no high and low, no he or she.

  One voice is more insistent, struggling up from all the
others. Someone laden with gifts is present, someone from a time of abundance. Her head is full and empty, all at once. She feels a great clarity and openness. Thinking, thought, any ideas she brought into this roomful of expectant people fly from her and recede as she allows her body to enact what she witnessed only once before.

  Where does the voice come from? From a distance and from nearby. From above, from below ground. From air moving into a pair of ears, opening eyes, opening mouth, mouth so tightly closed.

  Beings appear and move through her mind, move fast, too fast. One feels stronger than the rest—its shakti wants to utter itself through her. She’s losing her grip on the present. The voice springs from no place ever known, till there’s only this moment, ever expanding, ever collapsing and she is the rod bringing it, birthing the voice.

  Damini feels a familiar wetness between her legs, and stands. Blood—she is bleeding from the cowrie-shaped place that no longer bleeds! This blood is Anamika Devi’s, as she comes through that gateway to the world.

  Damini points a finger at the cluster of men in the opposite corner. She clears her throat with a sound somewhere between a growl and a grumble. She’s seeing the men, seeing them and the unseen at once. Who taught her to do this? No one. She is seeing visions in her head. And she is saying those visions, doing them.

  Is she dying? If she dies now, is it natural or unnatural? By her own choice or by accident? If by accident, will she walk temporarily in the prêt-lok with Mem-saab, or become a sad ghost forever, like her mother?

  She is becoming small, very small, like a speck swept away on a reed broom. She is swept away … she is amazed and delighted to be swept away. She encloses another being with glee, as she once enclosed Piara Singh, as she once enclosed her children. And delight is trance, and trance is between dreams and reality, between sanity and madness, between illusion and delusion. In trance, fantasy and truth are indistinguishable. In trance, seen and unseen come together. In trance, the strange and familiar collide and new forms come into being. If she were some other woman, some other medium, Anamika might speak differently, but in trance, Damini opens to infinite possibility, no longer steward of tradition but selector of traditions to expand the soul. Here the nameless can be given form, born equally from Damini’s ignorance and understanding. In trance, Damini sees—then describes, does, and sings what she sees. What comes through her will answer a question, fill a gap in creation, and encourage more questions. Because trance is the ongoing euphoria of mind and body in tune with a spirit, the spirit, Anamika Devi’s spirit. Damini is trembling, trembling but speaking—what is she saying?