Chapter Twenty-Eight

I stepped off the forest path.

I moved slowly in the morning incalescence on legs that, since the fever had lifted, were not yet my own. I sought respite from daylight blaze in the dapple of dense trees. I sought reprieve from dust in the sweet humus of hot-season-deciduous.

The forest was not quiet. It bustled with the beat of butterflies, the hum of hornets, the mischief of monkeys. The listless canopy flared with golden woodpecker and emerald parakeet. The deeply furrowed bark glistened with fierce jewels of iridescent beetle.

And then - a sudden, combustive caw of crows. An eruption of onyx feather, ebony claw.

I stopped.

No avian air. No simian chatter. No vespine bumble.

Between the tall, straight trunks of saal, I caught a flash of red. A flash of bright red running that prompted in me a sudden premonition.

“Nepali Uncle, aaiye!” a child’s voice cried. It was Aarti, panting with effort. “Please come, Uncle! Mataji is calling your name. She says it’s time!”

“Time for what, choti behen?” I asked my anxious “little sister”. Even as I said the words, my heart quickened with inexplicable anticipation.

“You must come now, Uncle,” she insisted, ignoring my question. “For Mataji!”

Such was her urgency that I tried to lift her into my arms, but found myself too weak. Instead, Aarti grasped my hand and together we hurried into the trees.

***

The hut was quiet.

Poojita and Dipika were standing still, stick-doll abandoned to the wood pile, their mother squatting beside the charpai on which Bindra lay.

“He’s here,” Sushmita whispered, as though in secret.

I bowed low to let Bindra place slow, bandaged hands upon my head in ahashis. She raised her face to smell my hair.

“What is it, Ama?” I asked, breathing heavily.

“So many days without you,” she sighed, “without my good, brave boy.”

“You know, I had a dream, Ama,” I revealed with a chuckle. “A dream of you that made me well. And here I am! All better! Here to stay!”

She rocked her head and smiled, watery eyes held firm on me. She touched her heart and then my chest, and mouthed, “Kalike kring hring hung svaha Aung.”

My smile faltered.

“So many days without you,” she repeated. “So many days without my good, brave boy.”

Bindra stretched out a hand to stroke my face.

A sudden, threatening rasp and she was straining to draw in air. Her thin arms slumped to the charpai.

I looked to Sushmita, who shook her head.

“What has happened, Ama?” I asked. “Are you sick?”

“Not sick,” she replied. “Just tired.”

My heart began to pound, but before I could attempt a clumsy protestation, she simply stated:

“No medicine. No doctor. No tears.”

Bindra looked up to Sushmita and the three girls who had joined us at the charpai.

“No one but my loving daughters. And my good, kind boy,” she smiled far into my eyes.

“But what can I do?” I choked, struggling to contain a surge that threatened to break into the open.

“You know the antyakarma rites?” she asked. “The drawing of the yantra? The Mantra of Severance?”

“The jhankri taught me long ago,” I confided, “but I’ve never used them.”

Bindra sighed, as though in relief.

“Then trust his teaching,” she advised me. “My good, brave boy, it is now time to trust yourself.”

***

Bindra’s eyes were closed.

Sushmita had lit the fire to boil tulsi tea for the washing and was already mixing the turmeric paste in careful preparation. Aarti had taken her sisters to search out hibiscus flowers. I had begun to cut the notches of tintirilok, the worlds of Dharti and Patal, into a length of wood that would symbolise Akash.

I looked up to linger on the serene smile of the woman who lay quietly beside me and recalled the jhankri teaching that as old age diminishes our senses, brings us frailty of body and mind, the quality of consciousness we have developed in our lives is ultimately exposed. “This is why some approach their end with peace,” he had explained, “whilst others are consumed by ‘demons’ of their own making.”

Bindra stirred.

“You are with me?” she asked, her voice weak, but calm.

“I’m here, Ama,” I assured her, dropping the stick and knife to place my hands gently on her arm.

“You’ll feed the crows?” she pressed.

“Of course,” I promised, “before every meal for ten days. But they’ll have to stay hungry for a long while yet . . .”

She looked into my eyes.

“You mustn’t fear,” she smiled. “This person, this Bindra, is but a fleeting knot that must unravel. The wisdom of my life’s experience must now be shared with bird and tree, earth and sky ...”

Her breath was growing increasingly slow and shallow.

“No need to talk,” I tried to impress. But she was not yet ready.

“Everything in a constant state of ordered flux,” she continued, “yet nothing lost from the whole. No star, no leaf. No bird, no child. No thought, no action. All is Shiva. All is Durga. All is Kali Ma ...”

Her eyes flickered. Her voice faltered.

I lifted a clay bowl and moistened her lips with more warm water.

“Please, no grief for me,” she entreated in a momentary return of strength. “For death, like life, is extraordinary!”

“Yes, Ama,” I stuttered through struggling tears.

“This world of ours is not bleak, nor futile. It is not hopeless, my good, kind, loving boy,” she smiled in broad, bright recollection.

“For life - like love, like sky - is limitless.”

“Quiet now, Ama,” I wanted to say.

But Bindra was shining.

***

The hut was silent.

When the three girls returned, their hands were full of scarlet blooms. They laid them respectfully amongst the ready pots of sidur, tulsi tea and turmeric paste.

“Shall we sing you to sleep, Mataji?” asked Aarti brightly, as she joined me beside the charpai.

But Bindra was no longer able to reply. She had already gone too far away. To a snow-topped mountain and a friendly she-goat. To a Shakti Tree and an iskus vine. To a loving Kailash and laughing children.

Sushmita looked at me and nodded gently. It was time to offer a farewell that, many years before, I had been twice denied.

I bowed my head as Sushmita sprinkled me with titepati-steeped water.

She lit the hearth, over which I stepped before passing my hands through the flames. At a nod from her mother, Aarti lifted a spiny twig towards me and I pricked my fingers. As custom demanded, the line between the living and the dead had been defined with fire and thorn.

I turned to the charpai and placed my hands to my heart. I bowed and waited as though to receive one last ahashis.

I repeated quiet bijas of purification and dedication.

I laid along Bindra’s breastbone the notched stick that marked the three worlds, as children’s voices softly, slowly sang the song that always took her home.

“Resam phiriri, resam phiriri udera jauki darama bhanjyang, resam phiriri . . .” - “Little bee who likes to fly, little bee who likes to fly, go and rest at the top of the hill, little bee who likes to fly ...”

I walked around the bed three times, moving my hands into dedicated mudras. I took the clean cloth on which I had drawn the yantra and laid it tenderly across Bindra’s face. I lifted a corner and whispered into her left ear. Again, I circled the bed three times, then lifted the opposite corner to repeat the Mantra of Severance into her right.

I paused to raise the cloth one last time, to look into her face.

Peaceful. Smiling. Willing.

As I instinctively pressed my mouth to hers in gratitude and love, Bindra passed to me her final breath.

As the children sang.

As the saal bugs swarmed.

As the gathered crows ascended.