looked at a puffed-up welt on his upper arm with alarm.
“Oh, Baba, I have a mosquito bite!”
Shamol glanced out of the corner of his eye and suppressed a smile. “Don’t worry, mia, you won’t get elephantiasis.”
“How do you know, Baba?” Biren cried. He scratched the bite gingerly. It made the itch worse. His leg was also beginning to feel unusually heavy.
“Because elephantiasis is a rare disease. That is not to say it cannot happen to us. After all, it takes but a small misfortune, the size of a mosquito bite, to change someone’s life, doesn’t it? You must remember to be compassionate, mia, and to try to help others less fortunate than yourself.”
“Like poor Charudi, who lives under the banyan tree?”
“Yes, like Charudi. Remind me to buy some bananas for her at the market. We can stop by the temple and see her on our way home.”
* * *
While Father was getting the hilsa fish weighed and cleaned, Biren wandered over to the chicken man’s stall to check on his favorite rooster. Week after week, the black rooster never got sold. The chicken man said it was a special-occasion bird, too big and too expensive for most people to afford. Biren was secretly thankful, because he had grown rather attached to the rooster. He admired the bird as it strutted around its wire cage cocky and bright eyed. It had shiny blue-black feathers and a bright red comb and wattles—the exact same shade of vermillion his mother wore in the part of her hair.
But today the rooster’s cage was empty. In the next cage, six miserable hens with soiled feathers were crammed together looking half-dead.
“What happened to the black rooster?” Biren cried, pointing to the empty cage.
The chicken man made a chop-chop gesture with the edge of his palm. “Sold!” He waggled his toes and grinned widely with paan-stained teeth. “Goddess Laxmi smiled on me today. Tilok, the tea shop man, purchased the rooster to celebrate the birth of his twin boys.”
Biren’s eyes wandered over to the pile of shiny blue-black feathers and freshly gutted entrails cast to one side. A mangy pariah dog slunk around trying to take a lick. He suddenly felt nauseated.
“I have to go,” he said hastily, and ran back to his father.
* * *
Shamol flipped through his notebook. “I think we have everything,” he said. “Let me see—fish, vegetables, joss sticks, areca nut and betel leaves for your grandmother, soap nut and shikakai for your mother.” He looked up. “Is the flower man here? Oh, there he is. Let’s buy a fresh jasmine garland for your mother. She’ll like that.”
“And bananas for Charudi?” Biren reminded him.
“Oh, that’s right, bananas for Charudi,” said Shamol. “Also, there is something else I know I am forgetting.”
“Your umbrella, Baba,” Biren reminded him. He looked toward the umbrella man’s stall, but it was empty. “The man is not there.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Shamol, picking up his bags, “we’ll get the umbrella next week. Hopefully it won’t rain before then.”
* * *
They made their way out of the fish market and walked toward the temple. Shamol carried both jute bags to balance the weight on either side. Leafy mustard greens and bottle gourds protruded over the top of one. There was fish in the other. Biren walked beside him carrying a bunch of bananas and a large brown coconut.
Charudi—whose full name was Charulata—lived under the banyan tree by the river just outside the village temple. A hollow inside the banyan tree trunk served as her storage compartment. Here she kept a small brass pot and books wrapped in a red cotton towel. Charulata shared the tree with a family of monkeys. The monkeys seemed to have accepted her as one of their own because they never tampered with her belongings and left her in peace. They didn’t afford the same respect to the temple devotees, however. Monkeys ran off with slippers, snatched fruits out of hands, gnashed their teeth and made babies howl. The animals were a nuisance but enjoyed the sanctity of the temple, thanks to Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god.
As Shamol and Biren neared the temple, they saw Charulata sitting under the tree, gazing out at the river and fingering her prayer beads. She was a tiny bright-eyed woman who wore a piece of white cloth, darned and patched in several places, but clean. Her hair, cropped close to her head, was a snowy fizz. Destitute since her teenage years, Charulata had taught herself to read and write Sanskrit, a language far more difficult than Bengali.
“She is even more learned than the temple priest,” Shamol once remarked. He had great admiration for Charulata. “She has studied all the great scriptures but the poor woman can never enter the temple.”
“Why cannot she enter the temple?” asked Biren, puzzled.
“Because Charulata is a widow, mia, and Hindu widows are not allowed inside holy places. It is a cruel and meaningless custom of our society since ancient times. The poor woman is banned for no fault of her own. But Charulata does not need to go to any temple because she knows that God is hidden in every human soul.”
Charulata looked up and saw them. She motioned them over with a smile and lifted her hand to caress Biren’s cheek. The skin on her fingers was rough but her touch was tender.
“This boy gets more handsome every day,” she said softly.
Biren gave her the bananas.
“Bless you, dear child,” she said. “Wait, I also have something for you.” She turned around and, reaching inside the tree hollow, pulled out a flat object wrapped in newspaper. She handed it to Biren.
“What is it?” he asked curiously, setting the coconut down to accept it. He turned the packet over in his hands.
“A gift.” Charulata looked at him with shining eyes. “Open it and you will see. I made it specially for you.”
“How is your cough, Charulata?” Shamol asked, setting down his heavy bags. He took out a white handkerchief to mop his brow.
“Much better, much better,” chirped Charulata. “My nephew, you know the one in Dhaka Medical College, gave me a herbal tonic. But more important he gave me a book of the Brahma sutras. I don’t know if it was the book or the medicine that cured me.”
“Baba, look!” cried Biren. He held up a slim oblong-shaped palm bark with beautiful patterning in white. He turned to Charulata, incredulous. “Did you make this?” The paisley designs were painted with delicate strokes and closely woven together like the border of an embroidered sari.
“Why, yes.” Charulata laughed.
“But how?” asked Biren wonderingly. He fingered the bumpy pattern.
Charulata dismissed it with a wave. “Oh, it’s just a design painted with a duck feather, some rice flour and gum arabic. You can use it as a bookmark if you like. Do you like it, mia?”
“It’s beautiful,” said Biren reverentially. “Very, very beautiful. I will use
