The Brahmin in Debt

It was as though a string had snapped in Aditya's brain, memories colliding with memories.

After a while, Aditya opened his eyes.

The sky was grayish white, gradually brightening.

He saw a face directly above him, a man's face, with dark skin and large eyes. The man was saying something, but he could not understand much of it.

Then he turned his head, choked, and spat out a mouthful of yellowish water.

Someone nearby said, "He's awake."

"His eyes moved."

"Carry him home first."

People hauled him up, draping one of his arms over one person's shoulder and the other over someone else's.

"India? Aditya Mishra? ???"

Waves of dizziness washed over him, and Aditya closed his eyes.

As they passed the leatherworker, the man lowered his head and took two steps back, making way for the people supporting him. As he stepped aside, he kept his eyes on the ground, never looking at Aditya's face.

People of lower castes could not look those of higher castes directly in the eyes. That was the rule.

Supported by the others, Aditya was taken down an alley.

The election posters were still on the alley walls, the man in round-rimmed glasses from the Indian National Congress smiling.

Date: May 1991

Three or four breakfast stalls stood at the mouth of the alley. White steam rose from a stall selling fried dough balls (golgappa), where a man in an old shirt tossed hollow balls into a wok of hot oil. With a sizzle, oil splashed out. Beside it was a roasted-peanut stall, its iron pan turning over a charcoal stove as peanut shells split with a crackle and pop.

The stallholders were all of lower castes. Seeing people supporting a Brahmin as they approached, they all stopped what they were doing and lowered their heads, only raising them after the group had passed.

After leaving the alley, they still had to cross a shantytown inhabited by lower castes to reach the Mishra Family home.

Along the road stood houses with mud walls and thatched roofs. Children squatted in the doorways, all barefoot and dressed in old, heavily patched clothes.

An old man sat on a stone outside his door, shelling chickpeas. Seeing several people supporting a Brahmin in a dhoti as they passed, he lowered his head and waited until they were gone before continuing.

Farther on, a sacred cow lay at the foot of a wall. The brass bell around its neck rang whenever it swayed, and beside it was a heap of sacred droppings.

These people supported Aditya as they took him through the shantytown.

Someone behind him murmured something. This time, he vaguely understood it; it sounded like, "Whose child fell into the water?"

Aditya's head lolled to one side, his eyes half closed. He saw the low shacks, the children squatting in doorways, and the old men lowering their heads to make way.

These people were different from Aditya, because Aditya wore a sacred thread.

The Mishra family's old house stood north of the river ghat, a sizable property and one of the few brick houses nearby.

A mango tree and a tamarind tree grew in the courtyard, with half-dried mango leaves scattered on the ground.

Aditya was laid on a rope bed in the main room. The bed creaked; its hemp ropes had loosened, sagging into a hollow as soon as he lay down.

Aditya's mother, Sushila, ran out of the kitchen, white flour dusting her apron.

She saw her son's face-ashen, his lips purple, with strands of waterweed and tiny pink petals caught in his hair.

"Ah!"

She cried out.

His grandfather, Patil Mishra, sat on a low stool in the main room. He was seventy-eight and wore a white dhoti.

A sacred thread also crossed his chest, somewhat thicker than Aditya's, its ends already fraying.

A bowl of warm water stood before Patil Mishra. He tipped his chin toward Aditya's mother, and she brought the warm water over and handed it to Aditya.

Aditya sat up and took the bowl, his hands trembling a little. The earthenware bowl knocked against his teeth, and water spilled onto the front of his clothes.

"Cough, cough!"

He took two sips and choked. The water tasted awful, but it was a little better than Ganges water.

"Take it slowly," Patil said, leaning forward on his low stool as he watched Aditya.

"Now that you've spat out the water, you'll be all right."

Sushila brought another bowl of water, this time ginger tea that had been boiled.

Aditya took the bowl and drank two mouthfuls.

"Change out of those wet clothes first," Patil said.

Susila turned to fetch clothes. She rummaged through the cupboard for a new dhoti, set it at the corner of the bed, then withdrew, pulling the door shut behind her.

Patil came over and handed it to Aditya, then turned his back, only turning around again once Aditya had finished changing.

The wet dhoti he had taken off was draped over the foot of the bed. Patil glanced at it; Ganges water and scraps of waterweed clung to the cloth. He picked it up and put it outside the door.

Lower-caste people could not casually touch a Brahmin's discarded dirty clothes; those had to be washed by someone specifically assigned to the task. A Shudra woman did their family's washing for fifteen rupees a month. Patil told a servant to put the clothes on the stone block by the entrance, waiting for her to collect them tomorrow.

The kerosene lamp's light flickered on the wall. Having changed his clothes, Aditya sat on the rope bed in a daze.

His mother brought in a bowl of hot lentil soup and two flatbreads, setting them on the small table.

"You must be hungry. Have something to eat first," she said.

Aditya picked up a flatbread and bit into it, sucking in a breath at the heat. Steam from the lentil soup washed over his face, pulling him back from "the India development assessment report on the screen" into this room.

"Aditya, come over when you've finished eating. I have something to discuss with you."

His grandfather Patil walked toward the central hall, his voice drifting back.

After eating, Aditya went out and sat opposite him. His grandfather pushed a ledger in front of him.

"After your father passed away, your uncle managed the accounts for five years. My old eyes are too dim to see clearly anymore. These are the accounts for those five years."

Aditya opened the ledger.

The first page was for 1987. He had been thirteen that year, when his father died in the sugar mill's sugarcane press. The entry in the ledger read "funeral expenses."

He turned the pages. Late land-tax penalties: twelve thousand. Losses from the sugar mill forcing down prices: forty thousand. A high-interest loan to repair the broken press: sixty thousand, principal and interest included.

Someone had mixed old stock into the seeds, costing an extra twenty thousand. The laborers' wages were in arrears, and compensation had to be added when they were paid at the end of the year. There were also assorted transportation, storage, and palm-greasing expenses.

Every entry bore Madan's name. His uncle's handwriting was hurried and scrawled, with many figures crossed out and revised.

In five years, the Mishra family had gone from "a modest surplus" to "a towering mountain of debt."

Aditya turned to the last page. The total read: outstanding debt, three hundred and ninety-seven thousand. Added to the older debts from before that, it came to nearly four hundred thousand.

The largest sum was owed to Patel, a moneylender in the neighboring village: two hundred thousand in principal, at twenty-four percent annual interest. They also owed payments for agricultural supplies to the county cooperative and advances for pressing to the sugar mill.

A note was tucked into the ledger's last page.

"I've let you all down. Don't look for me. I'm going to Gorakhpur to find an opportunity, and I won't return unless I do."

Madan had already been gone for six months. Occasionally, a letter arrived saying he was working as a bookkeeper for someone in Gorakhpur.

Aditya closed the ledger. His father was dead, his uncle had run away, his grandfather was seventy-eight, and the family had nothing left except two hundred and eighty mu of land and an ancestral bronze statue of Shiva.

Aditya's expression soured. Everyone else gets a starting package of perks when they're reborn. Why is mine so miserable? Starting out in debt-how could a Brahmin family have it this bad? What happened to being a cut above everyone else?

His grandfather sat opposite him, watching him, and sighed.

"If you want to return to Lucknow and continue your studies, go. Finish your education and find a job in the city. You don't have to take on this mess."

"There are still two hundred mu of land, so it isn't that miserable. But this interest is far too high. They were probably tricked into taking out high-interest loans. No wonder they couldn't make ends meet."

Aditya thought for a moment and pulled the ledger toward him. In his previous life, he had been a financial analyst studying India's economy. Even with a sky-collapsing start, he had strong confidence that he could handle all this.

"I'm not going back to school. I want to give this a try," Aditya said. He certainly did not want to go through university again, much less an India university.

"Your grandfather can still hold on. Don't force yourself," Patil said, walking to the doorway with his cane, his back to Aditya.

Aditya stood, walked over to his grandfather, and said, "I'm an adult now. I can do it."

His grandfather turned to look at him, then slowly walked back into the room. With solemn care, he brought out the statue of God Shiva and placed it on the table.

Patil sat down beside the table and said to Aditya:

"From today onward, the Mishra family is in your hands."