Aditya

(Ah kei coolie monkey ya monkey ben)

June 1992, Uttar Pradesh, India.

In the early morning, a pale blue mist hung over the Ganges in Varanasi. The water temperature was twenty-three degrees.

Day had not fully broken, but the stone steps of Dashashwamedh Ghat were already crowded with people.

The air was heavy with moisture that crept ashore along the surface of the Ganges, condensing into a fine layer of droplets on the stone steps.

The Ganges was a grayish blue. Wilted garlands, half-burned candle stubs, a few sodden, rotting banana leaves, and some grayish-white cremation ashes floated near the bank, half-submerged.

Along this stretch of the Ganges in Varanasi, the riverside steps were divided by caste. Dashashwamedh Ghat was the largest, frequented by all sorts of people, but people of different castes stood in different places.

The steps a little upstream were reserved for Brahmins, with clearer water and fewer people. The steps downstream were used by Shudras and Dalits, where the water was murkier and more things floated in it.

There were many people at Dashashwamedh Ghat, but where the different castes stood in the water still followed particular rules.

Those wearing sacred threads stood waist-deep; those without them stood knee-deep. Those lower still could only stand at the water's edge and cup water in their hands to pour over themselves, not daring to venture deeper for fear of "defiling" the holy water.

Aditya Mishra stood on the ghat's highest stone step. A sacred thread hung around his neck-three cotton strands twisted together, running diagonally from his left shoulder to the right side of his waist. The cotton was old and had turned gray.

The sacred thread marked him as a Brahmin. Aditya had worn it since childhood and could not take it off even to bathe. He held a small brass pot.

When he had returned from the University of Lucknow the previous summer, he had still expected to stay a few months before going back to his studies.

His grandfather's letter had said, "Someone has to take over the family business. Your studies can wait." Yet even now, this summer, his grandfather had never mentioned letting him return to school. Instead, he had begun having him look through the Mishra family's account books.

The previous night, his mother, Sushila, had told him, "Fetch me some holy water from the Ganges tomorrow." So he had come here with the brass pot.

Wiping the statue of God Shiva with Ganges water every morning was a custom the Mishra family had passed down for who knew how many generations.

People were scrubbing clothes on the steps downstream. Soapy water flowed through cracks in the stone into the river, spreading a thin layer of fine white foam. Several women were doing the washing, their saris draped over their heads, their bare feet in the water.

Their caste was obvious at a glance: no sacred threads, callused hands, and an open-legged squat, unlike high-caste women, who would keep their knees pressed tightly together.

To them, the Ganges water was not holy water. It was water for washing clothes. The same water looked different in the eyes of different castes.

Aditya walked down. The soles of his feet could feel the slight stickiness of the stone: grease and crushed petals left behind by the previous night's worshippers, softened by the night dew. Stepping on them felt like stepping on a thin layer of mud.

He passed a Brahmin priest in saffron clothing, sitting cross-legged on the stone steps with a copper tray and offerings before him. The priest glanced at Aditya, swept his gaze over the sacred thread around his neck, and nodded.

Aditya crouched at the water's edge. He bent over and immersed the brass pot. As its mouth slipped beneath the surface, bubbles gurgled up, and the pot soon filled.

A thick layer of dark green moss covered the edge of the stone step. He gripped the rim of the pot and lifted it, and his foot suddenly slipped.

His knee struck the edge of the step, and he pitched forward. The brass pot flew from his hand and sank into the river.

Aditya tried to brace his hands against the steps and climb up, but his fingers found nothing but slick moss, sliding off whenever he pressed down.

Water flooded his mouth, rank and greasy, and his lungs began to burn. He tried to breathe, but all he drew in was water.

The current carried him toward the middle of the river. This stretch of the Ganges looked calm, but the currents beneath its surface could sweep a person away. He reached for the steps. His fingers touched the edge, but at that distance he could get no purchase.

The murky river water blocked the light. He saw his own hands clawing wildly before him. Then he heard people shouting on the bank, their voices filtered by the water into a dull buzzing.

"Someone fell in!"

"Whose family?"

"The water's too murky. I can't see."

"Get them out first!"

It was quieter in the water than on the bank. The voices from shore grew farther away and more muffled. Aditya sank, his ears filled with water, and the world became a dull hum.

At that very instant, his struggling hands stirred up a cloud of sediment at the bottom of the Ganges. As the cloud dispersed, a corner of something yellow emerged beneath the silt.

A sheet of paper. The paper was yellow, covered in ornate English lettering, its ink faded to pale brown. But the words and seal in the middle were still clear.

"Permanent Settlement"-a line of smaller print beneath read "Regulation of 1793," followed by a stamp blurred from soaking.

But the letters spelling "Zamindar" were still recognizable. Zamindar, the Permanent Settlement. A land deed issued by the British East India Company to a landowning family in Uttar Pradesh.

There was another line on the paper, neither Hindi nor English, but Chinese, looking as though it had been written only yesterday.

"Report on India's Economic Development."

He saw that line. Then his consciousness sank, like a stone falling into water.

The shouting on the bank grew more chaotic.

Amir, the garland seller, pushed his boat off the bank into the water. He took it out at this hour every day, throwing the wilted garlands left unsold the day before into the river, then rowing upstream to collect fresh stock.

He planted his bamboo pole against the riverbed. The boat rocked twice, pushing through the petal-covered surface.

Amir saw a whitish shape rise in the middle of the river. As it surfaced, he could make out hair, black hair plastered to a gray-white face. The mouth hung open and took in half a mouthful of water without a cry.

Amir extended the bamboo pole. Its tip had been sharpened, and, afraid of injuring the person, he reversed it and tried to hook him with the thick end. It took two attempts to catch his clothes.

He dragged him back. The boat tilted, letting in some water. He reached out and pulled his arm, turning his upper body over until his face pointed upward. Yellow water streamed from his mouth, spilling all over the boat's floorboards.

Amir lifted the man's eyelids. His eyes were still moving.

"He's still alive!" Amir shouted toward the bank.

The people on the steps gathered around. Some ran down, some shouted, "Does anyone know him?" and others shouted, "Get him up here first!"

An old man in a saffron loincloth walked down to the water's edge and bent over to look at the person in the boat.

"It's young master Aditya."

"The Mishra family's eldest grandson."

Several people came forward to lift him, only to stop with their hands halfway out.

The man lying sprawled in the boat was a Brahmin.

Among those gathered were a leatherworker, a cotton grower, and a vegetable seller. The leatherworker touched cowhide, the cotton grower touched soil, and the vegetable seller touched vegetable leaves. Their hands could not touch a Brahmin's body.

This was the rule, there from birth, and no one dared break it. Touching him meant defilement, defiling the sacred thread. If someone of high caste came into contact with the "aura" of a lower caste, he could not enter a temple for three days and had to purify himself again.

The leatherworker withdrew his hands fastest, pulling them back almost the instant he recognized the face and retreating behind the crowd. The vegetable seller was slower. His hands stopped in midair. He looked at the calluses on his palms and drew them back.

In the end, Amir took over. He was a Kayastha, a writing caste, counted as high caste, and could touch a Brahmin.

He crouched, pulled over a piece of dry cloth, and wrapped Aditya's soaking lower body securely. The wet loincloth clung to his body and could not be allowed to show. He was preserving a Brahmin's dignity.

An elderly woman brought a bowl of Ganges water, dipped her fingertips into it, and flicked it three times onto Aditya's forehead, muttering a few words too quickly for anyone to make out. This was a folk method for calling back a drowning victim's soul.

As Aditya choked up his first mouthful of water, an image flashed through his mind:

"A desk in Lujiazui, a stretch of glass curtain wall, several rows of computer monitors, a chart of the rupee-to-dollar exchange rate, red and green numbers flickering rapidly. And a takeout delivery that had just arrived."