(The Lakshmi Plot Pt 6)
59
Bhim followed the shaman downstairs to inspect the tiger tracks.
“Uncle was here, Baba,” Bhim said.
“Shh,” chided the shaman in his brusque manner, gesturing for Bhim to be quiet.
Both of them knelt while the shaman traced the impression with his index finger.
“ A new beast has come,” Bhim suddenly realised that, for the old baba, a pug mark was like a fingerprint, or perhaps there was some other meaning that only the shaman could divine. Now he squatted, testing the air like a wild dog and then got up to climb the temple rungs. Bhim followed dutifully behind him.
60
They bowed. He hunched over withdrawing himself, arms shrouding his head like wings; soon the shaman jerked upright shaking his head wildly from side to side. His eyes glared and his grunts shifted back and forth across male and female registers as an entity spoke through him. Instead, he reached across and gripped the young man’s head with his hand, thumb pressing hard into the centre of the forehead. Something passed into Bhim. He was eased onto his side, convulsing as if having had a massive electrical shock. The shaman sat back and closed his eyes auditing what was going on.
61
Where before Bhim had journeyed down Daksin Ray’s path of blood and death inhabiting the body of hunter or the hunted, he now became the tiger’s rider, the controlling goddess force who grabbed hold of soft neck fur and willed the beast above the estuarine Sundarbans. Instinctual power held in check by intelligence could fly down to see deep into the heart of tree, animal, bird or ant and speak with its spirit. Now Bhim perceived the forests and human settlements as pores on the body of one vast living organism, each a microscopic mouth expressing the same truth of coexistence.
62
Bhim wondered how the survivors from his old village community were coping with the aftermath of the cyclonic storm surge. Through speed of thought the flying tiger travelled and saw the rescue helicopters, the army barges, the vehicles bringing in supplies. Trying to stay alive, survivors massed before the back of every truck and sides of boats, or retrieved stray parachutes with ration packs from waterlogged fields of dead crops. It wasn’t enough. Crowds clambered over each other like mud crabs competing in a bucket. They pulled back the top climber into the claw pit. Yes, desperation succeeded and created savagery.
63
The tiger’s amber eye showed Bhim that humanity was no less bestial under the skin. Life spoke through the spiky pores of mangrove suckers and retributive cycles where nature was forced to right the balances drowning hundreds of thousands. It was hard to travel with that electrical current coursing up the spine and frothing over from the mouth. Bhim felt the sensation of being a bubble in a bloodstream and he might drown at any moment. The shaman’s power igniting Bhim’s own ability began to wain and the young man’s focus also blurred. Soon, both were gasping awake like landed fish.
64
Devika greeted her husband and Baba when they returned. She passed each a cup from the morning’s milking and served the left over catfish from a pandanus leaf. She was feeling the lack of starch in their meagre diet and longed for a handful of rice with her own fish piece that she took after the men slumped on their mats. Yet, she was grateful to her husband and Lakshmi whose worship she did twice daily. It made her mourn the loss of Meera Devi, her mother-in-law, whose company she pictured while swirling communal hands in the rice pot.
65
Bhim was woken by a vigour shake of the shaman’s hand. Again, he was dream-travelling into the jungle.
“Here,” the old man said, and passed him a white mask. It looked like the face of a ghost. There were empty sockets for eyes to see through and a crudely painted watermelon smile. He ran his finger over the rough-moulded face made from papier-mache. Flipping it over he could see the raw newsprint inside and that excited him. He remembered those week visits to Sitapur on market day and bringing a paper to read to the women at home.
66
One strip of the glued paper was readable. The headline said: Nanobots Crawling under your Skin. The lead sentence followed: “Imagine an army of robot spiders doing surgery on your eye, fixing a faulty value in your heart, or patching up blown out brain tissue.” How strange and unbelievable especially sitting in this hut where real spiders and scorpions climbed the railing at night. Even stranger was the thought of wearing this story close to his face. Then the shaman pulled out another. Made of rubber, it bore a comic caricature of with a moustache and learing smile.
“Put in on,” he said.
67
Surprising the shaman stretched the elastic and wore the mask on the back of his head. His was standard issue for licensed honey gatherers and wood cutters. Devika laughed. The shaman wasn’t impressed, stared back and addressed Bhim.
“If Uncle come for you, it will be from behind.” With that he gripped the young man at the nape of his neck. “Like this.” Then he explained, “But if he sees a face, he won’t attack. They come from behind.”
This new strategy has been thought up recently by a psychology student in Kolkata at the university, and strangely, had been working.
68
“Come. Put on your mask.”
Bhim hooked the band on his forehead. Again, Devika couldn’t help giggling. Grown men putting masks on backwards. She was beginning to even doubt the reality of tigers.
The shaman passed another mask to Bhim. “Tell her not to leave the hut without it.” The young man was also irritated no. She was not showing respect and spoke harshly. “You heard, woman. Put it on.”
She picked it up with picqued reluctance
“It is time,” the shaman said and climbed down.
They followed the trail to the boat.
“Get in. I will paddle,” the shaman said.
69
The double man travelled up the creek between their island and the one opposite. So far Bhim had not come this way. But he was glad to be away from the tension at the hut. He saw a rainbow krait skimming poisonously in the water, and two mudskippers with locked jaws fighting over a female. They threw the net and trawled, picking up two cracks and a panga. The shaman poled for a long time. Bhim wanted to ask where they were going, but knew better. Sure enough, the shaman veered to the right and slid into a new mud beach.