It is just like the others on the hillside. Ram shivers under the statue’s glare. The sooner he gets out of here, the better.
He searches in the bowls of cracked washbasins, avoids the lid of a Western-style toilet, and rummages through an entire crate full of light-socket receptacles.
No money.
He picks through bundles of old rags and cloth, moves cans of paint stacked like a child’s blocks, sides marked in dry cascades of scarlet, orange, black, green.
No money.
The barrel of what he thought were sticks the night before is actually an assortment of reinforcing steel rods of various lengths, ends mangled and oddly bent.
But no money.
He opens countless paper bags to find them half-full of mortar and concrete mix.
Still no money.
He checks a box of bangles, finds they are all worthless: broken, bent, and mashed together so that they can never be worn again.
And his money isn’t hiding here either.
He dives deeper under the tarp, growing more frustrated and careless as he shoves things around, raising so great a racket that he can’t hear Nek approaching.
“Hey!”
Ram freezes. He is hemmed inside the tarp. The junk is piled up so high on the sides and at the back that the only way out is through the front where the man stands.
“What are you doing here?” Nek seems taller up close. A little younger than Ram realized at first.
Ram fakes left but then dashes right, a move he’s used a hundred times before when playing tag. But the man who is not so old is also not so slow. His hand closes around Ram’s forearm and yanks him back. “Not so fast!”
Ram tries to shake loose, but the man’s grip is strong. “You stole my money!” Ram shouts.
Nek’s features, sharpened by shock and anger, soften in confusion. “What?”
“My money!” Ram takes another half a step forward and another half a step sideways. “It landed by your bicycle and then you put some of it at the shrine, but I want it back. All of it.”
“Your . . .” Understanding breaks like a sunrise. “And I thought the goddess had seen fit to bless with me with a windfall. . . .”
Emboldened by the fact that Nek has not tried to cuff him or shoo him away, Ram holds out a filthy hand. “Give it back.”
Nek lowers a gleaming metal tiffin box to the dirt. “I don’t have it.”
“Yes, you do! I saw you with it! I saw you bring it here last night. Give it over!”
Nek digs into his pocket and pulls out Ram’s bundle. “I don’t have it,” he says, breaking the knot and unfolding the cloth, “because I’ve already spent it.”
Ram can only stare. There is nothing there but the crumbs from the roti and his best gilli stick.
The money is gone. All of it.
It would have lasted Ram a month. This fool Nek has squandered it in a day?
“Get it back!” Ram demands.
“I bought a third-class train ticket. I could not return it even if I wanted to.”
A train ticket! Ram is furious and jealous all at once. Why hadn’t he ever bought a train ticket? He never dreamed he had enough money for such a treasure.
Ram’s fury builds. He glares at the stupid statue with its stupid eyes and thinks about all its stupid brothers arrayed on the slope deeper in the jungle. And he remembers something Singh said . . . something about art, how valuable it is. If people are foolish enough to buy paintings, surely this statue has to be worth something.
“Then give me one of your statues!” Ram snaps his finger. “I’ll sell it and we’ll be even.”
The force of Nek’s answer is stunning. “Impossible!”
“You have dozens!” Ram shouts back. “I’ve seen them—”
“You’ve seen them.” Nek’s storm drops to a whisper. And Ram realizes that he has spooked the man somehow.
“You have plenty to spare. One should do it—”
Nek holds up a hand. “No!” He pinches the gilli stick from the cloth and holds it up. “I’ll play you for it.”
Ram’s mouth hangs open in shock. Play him for it? He’s impressed that the man even knows what the stick is for, but he guesses he was a boy once too. Maybe he played gilli with friends—the way it was meant to be done—scoring runs while the gilli is in play. But that’s not what Nek is proposing now.
Nek speaks quickly. “If I beat you, you leave my statues alone. And you go away.”
“But what about when I beat you?”
“You won’t,” Nek says simply.
Now Ram almost doesn’t even care what the stakes are. He just wants to beat this man like he beats all those kids in the park. “I will. And then you’ll have to give me two of the statues to sell.”
Nek makes a face. “They’re probably not worth anything, anyway.”
Ram is unconvinced. Trying to make something seem worthless is the surest way to keep someone from stealing it, he guesses. He crosses his arms.
Nek shrugs. “Fine.” he says. “One hit each. Farthest hit wins.”
Ram snatches the stick from Nek’s hand. “Fine.” He’s a little worried that he might lose his lucky gilli in this undergrowth. But he didn’t hit with it last time and that turned out terribly. He needs the luck it brings, so he’ll spend hours looking for it later if he must.
Just outside the clearing, he finds a stout branch the length of his forearm. He peels a scrap of bark that clings to it like an old scab. It will serve fine as the danda to bat with. He doesn’t need anything special to teach this goat-eyed thief a lesson.
“You want to pick your own bat?”
Nek waves him off. “Just hit.”
Ram is wondering how much he can get for one of the statues. Maybe Singh will buy it.
Ram places the gilli on the ground at the far end of the clearing. He lines up the shot, eyeing the path leading back to the road. He glances up at Nek.
“Get on with it,” Nek says.
Ram taps the end of the branch gently on the ground just in front of the gilli stick. Then he quickly lifts and lowers the bat so it strikes down on the front end of the gilli, sending it spinning up into the air. As it climbs and reaches Ram’s hips, he cocks back, swings parallel to the ground, and smacks the gilli, sending it sailing. It flies the few meters over the clearing and lands in the trodden path beyond.
Ram paces off the distance. Certainly not his best, but it should be plenty far. He places a stone on the spot the gilli fell and trots back over to Nek to surrender the tools.
“One hit,” Ram reminds him, eager to get this over with.
Nek does not respond. He lines up the gilli where Ram started. He doesn’t hesitate—doesn’t even take a warm-up swing—before he brings the branch down, flips up the gilli, and then swings sidearmed, connecting with a satisfying crack of wood on wood.
Ram is dumbstruck as the gilli soars over the rock he placed as a marker.
Oye.
Nek collects the gilli and hands it back to Ram. “Go,” Nek says simply. Not unkindly, just without surprise or ceremony. Ram still can’t believe what has happened.
“But . . . how?” Ram manages.
“I didn’t have many friends when I was your age either,” Nek says. “I taught myself to hit.”
His money. All of it! Gone! How could he have lost?
There has to be something he can do. “Two out of three?” Ram tries not to sound desperate.
Nek’s gaze is as steady as that of his soldiers. “A bargain is a bargain.”
“But that was all my money,” Ram says, still disbelieving.
Nek softens a little. “I’d give it back if I had it to give.”
Ram can’t leave empty-handed. “You really have nothing?”
Nek shakes his head. “That ticket was dear. I won’t have money again until Saturday. Now, go, I have work to do. Something you should consider instead of gambling. Work may be slower, but there is honor in it.”
Ram looks
around. He’s not opposed to work. He works for Singh when he can. But there aren’t many jobs for boys like him. Unless . . .
“Your work here? Or work at the factory?”
“Both. And double now, thanks to the mess you’ve made.” Nek kicks at a rat’s nest of electrical wire.
“Then let me help,” Ram says. “I can do jobs for you. You can pay me back a little at a time—”
“I have very little to spare.”
Nek hasn’t said no. Ram takes a step forward. “A few paisa a week. I’ll tidy up, or”—he gestures at the statue, searching for the words—“or whatever you need me to do to help with those.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You just said I should work instead of gamble. Didn’t you mean it?”
“I didn’t mean work for me!” But the man is thinking it over, Ram can tell. Just like when someone is considering taking a wager with him in the park. They maybe know they shouldn’t, but they can’t help themselves all the same. “It would take weeks to earn it back.”
He still hasn’t said no.
“I am a good worker.”
Nek scratches the stubble at his neck. “On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Tell no one about this place. Or me.”
“Why not?”
Nek’s eyes flash. “Do you want the job or not?”
“Yes, Uncle ji,” Ram says. “And I won’t tell. I have no one to tell anyway.”
Nek lifts a shoulder, but he is wary. Still, a deal is a deal, Ram decides. It isn’t what he came for, but at least it isn’t nothing.
“I suppose you’ll want to be fed, too.” Nek sinks to his knees and opens the tiffin.
Ram hadn’t dared to hope, but wouldn’t dream of refusing.
Nek portions out a few spoonfuls of cooked rice and chickpea curry into the lid of the tiffin. “I should warn you that I am a terrible cook.”
Ram takes it. “Thank you, Sri Nek.”
Panic animates Nek’s face. “How do you know my name?”
“Yesterday. The man at the factory called you that. And last night when you were talking to the statue, you called yourself that.”
His eyes narrow. “You were here.”
Ram squats down to eat. “My name is Ram.”
Nek tilts his head to one side. “Figures.”
“There was a prince named Rama in your story,” Ram says. “He was the favorite, wasn’t he?”
Nek doesn’t answer.
“What happened to them next?”
Nek stops, a pinch of rice and curry frozen halfway to his mouth. “No one ever told you about Rama and Lakshmana?”
Ram feels a pang of shame. Why doesn’t he know these stories? It seems all of India does except himself. Daya knows about them, he is sure, though he’s been too embarrassed to ask her. Maybe they teach the stories in school. Or maybe her parents told them to her. He imagines the girl used to tell them to him. Maybe that’s why they seem familiar?
He considers lying, acting like he’s heard the stories so Nek won’t think he’s ignorant. But to his surprise, he realizes he wants to know the rest of the story more than he wants his pride. So he shakes his head no.
Nek looks at Ram with an expression so sad that Ram has to look away.
“What?” Ram says finally. “They’re just stories.”
Nek’s voice is quiet. “Stories are never just stories. Especially not this one. Rama’s story is the story of all of India. It is the story of good triumphing over evil. It is every story ever told wrapped into one. It is a million stories and a single story all at once. It has woven itself into every part of India. Our faith. Our history. Our holidays. Our culture. Our art.”
Ram doesn’t quite follow what Nek means, but he wants to. “Is that why we have parades about it? The holidays?”
“Yes,” Nek says. “Dussehra first, with the pageants and the parades and the giant statues and the bonfires.”
“Dussehra is now and Diwali is later,” Ram says with confidence. He does know this much at least, even if no one has ever taken the time to explain it to him. He knows that soon enough people will clean up and set out lights and colorful rangoli will appear in the doorways—dyed grains and pulses arranged in intricate patterns. But if the stories are as much a part of India as Nek says they are, maybe they are part of Ram, too? “But what do Dussehra and Diwali have to do with the story?”
“Dussehra celebrates an important moment from the middle of the story, Diwali the ending.”
“Are there parties for the beginning, too?”
“No,” Nek says simply. “Endings are always more important.”
Ram scratches the back of his neck. “But why? Why all this for a story? Do people believe it really happened?”
A breeze skitters along the treetops. The banyan’s upper branches squeak against one another. Nek twists to look up at the spot the sound comes from. It is a long time before he speaks again. “Every religion—Hinduism included—tells stories. The Muslims have stories. The Christians. The Buddhists. I like many of their stories, too.”
“But you don’t believe in it? In Rama’s, I mean?”
Nek looks offended. “Of course I do. But that isn’t the point. The point is that stories are the way we see the truth. Even the made-up ones. Sometimes especially the made-up ones.”
“So which one is it?” Ram asks, growing frustrated. “Real or made up?”
“Both,” Nek says.
Ram looks at the Lakshmana statue. How many times has this story been right in front of him and he hasn’t known what he was looking at? And he realizes that no matter which parts are real and which are not, he wants to hear it all.
“So will you tell me, Uncle ji?”
“Why should I?” Nek sounds annoyed. “Our bargain didn’t include me telling you the Ramayana.”
“You said yourself everybody should know it. If you believe that, you’ll tell me.”
Ram glimpses what he thinks might be a smile as Nek sips from a dented canteen. “I suppose you won’t leave me alone unless I do. Where did I leave off? Ah, so the king’s wives ate some magic kheer and then four princes—”
“No, no,” Ram says around a mouthful of food. “You already did that part. The holy man had already come to take Rama and the other one”—he points at the statue Nek had been working on last night—“on an adventure.”
“Already that far along?” Nek tilts his head sideways.
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh. Don’t interrupt me again.”
Ram wouldn’t dare.
The holy man, Rama, and Lakshmana walked for many days. As they traveled, Lakshmana and Rama hunted game and gathered fruit for their meals. When they rested, the holy man taught them special prayers and verses from the scriptures that increased their strength and courage. Soon the adventure and the holy man’s instruction had molded two strong princes into powerful warriors.
One evening they camped beneath a stately banyan tree in the middle of a clearing. The green canopy spanned wide and perfectly round. The tree’s many trunks roped together, like the pillars of a great temple.
“You know about the banyan trees, yes?” the holy man asked.
Rama answered, “I know that they are sacred. I know that the roots grow up and down the tree, connecting heaven, earth, and the underworld.”
“The spirits can travel those roots,” the holy man said, “passing between the realms. But this tree is many times the size that it was when last I came here to pray.”
“Why?” Lakshmana asked.
The holy man placed a hand on one of the twisting roots. “This is the place I told you about. Many, many souls have died here. Tomorrow you will face the demon. It is said that this demon is impossible to kill, but at the least, try to protect me as I say the prayers at sunrise.”
Lakshmana sprang to his feet. “Why wait! Rama and I can slay the demon now!”
“The demon cannot live in so holy a place. S
he fears the tree and spirits and the darkness. But when I begin my prayers, she will fly here to devour me.”
Rama laid a hand on the hilt of his dagger. “Lakshmana and I will be ready, guru. We will remember all you have taught us.”
The next morning, when the horizon began to glow pink, the holy man knelt beneath the tree and began to pray.
His words rose up like music, joining the gentle chorus of the jungle’s waking sounds. The princes found the steady rhythm of the prayer pulling them into the holy man’s trance.
“Careful, brother,” Rama warned. “Stand ready.”
Then a great thrashing shook the trees in the forest beyond, and a moaning howl drowned out the sound of the prayers. In a moment, a giant demon—red eyes rolling in deep sockets, snaggly teeth bared—charged into the clearing. The holy man did not move or even open his eyes. The demon leveled its twisting horns and charged at the holy man, not seeing Rama and Lakshmana standing by.
Lakshmana drew his saber; Rama nocked an arrow in his bow and let it fly. The demon’s cry pitched higher as the arrow found its mark in the left eye. It then saw Rama standing there, and it bellowed even louder in rage. It charged Rama, tugging the arrow from its eye and casting it aside. Rama readied another arrow, pulled back his bowstring, and took a steadying breath.
But he never had to loose the arrow. Suddenly the demon faltered, threw back its head, and stared at the sky. Once again the sound of the holy man’s words filled the clearing.
Then, with a great crash like a falling tree, the demon toppled. As it fell, Lakshmana stood atop the monster’s back, wiping clean his sword.
Rama and Lakshmana clasped each other’s forearms and gave thanks for their victory. Then the demon’s body began to smolder. Fire seemed to grow from within the body of the beast itself. Rama and Lakshmana gaped as scale and horn and claw and fang burned into a tiny pile of white ash.
They were still staring when the holy man finished his prayers and rose. He scattered the ash with his dusty foot and then strode across the clearing. “Come.”
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