Song of Kali

Chapter Six

"I am a poor person of Sudra caste. I am one of eleven sons of Jagdisvaran Bibhuti Muktanandaji who was with Gandhiji on his Walk to the Sea.

"My home is in the village of Anguda which is near Durgalapur which is along the rail line connecting Calcutta and Jamshedpur. It is a poor village, and no one from the outside has taken any interest in it except for the time when a tiger ate two of the sons of Subhoranjan Venkateswarani and a man came from a newspaper in Bhubaneshwar to ask Subhoranjan Venkateswarani how he felt about this. I do not remember this well, as it occured during the war — which was some fifteen years before I was born.

"Our family has not always been poor. My grandfather, S. Mokeshi Muktanandaji, once loaned money to the village moneylender. By the time I was born, the eighth of eleven sons, we had long since borrowed back my grandfather's money and much more. To pay off some of the interest on his debts, my father was forced to sell the richest six acres of his land — those closest to the village. That left fifteen acres, spread over many miles, to be divided among the eleven us. One cannot raise cane for two bullocks on that small a share of land.

"The problem was made a small bit better when my older brother Marmadeshwar went off to do his patriotic duty in 1971 and was promptly killed by the Pakistanis. Still, the prospects for the rest of us were not good.

"Then my father had an idea. For eight years I had gone halftime to the Christian Agricultural Academy in Durgalpur. The school was sponsored by the very rich Mr. Debee of the Bengal Cattle Insemination Centre. It was a small school. We had few books and only two teachers, one of whom was slowly going mad from syphilis.

"Nonetheless, I was the only member of my father's family ever to have gone to school, and he decided that I would go off to university. He planned for me to become a doctor or — even better — a merchant, and bring much money to the family. This also solved the problem of my share of land. It was obvious to my father that a doctor or wealthy merchant would have no need for a small plot of poor farmland.

"I, myself, had mixed feelings about this idea. I had never been more than eight miles from Anguda. I had never ridden in a train or automobile. I could read very simple books and write basic sentences in Bengali, but I knew no English or Hindi and only enough Sanskrit to recite a few lines of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

"In short, I was not sure that I was ready to become a doctor.

"My father borrowed more money — in my name, this time — from the village money-lender. My teacher, in his madness, wrote a recommendation for admission to Calcutta University and directed it to his old instructor there. Even Mr. Debee, who in his pre-Christian days had sworn to Gandhiji that he would humbly work for our villages and have his ashes spread on the main path of Anguda, wrote a note to the University requesting their kindness in admitting a poor, ignorant, low-caste peasant child to their honored halls of learning.

"Last year there was an opening. I paid most of my borrowed money as baksheesh to my teacher and to Mr. Debee's secretary, and then I left my home for the great city. How terrified I was!

"I will not describe my reactions to all of the wonders of Calcutta. Suffice it to say that every hour brought marvelous revelations. I was soon downcast, however. My meager funds barely paid the first semester's tuition and left not enough money for the expensive dormitories or student hostels near the University. I spent my first week in the city sleeping under the bushes in the Maidan, but the monsoon rains and two beatings by the police convinced me to seek a room.

"My four classes were somewhat of a disappointment. There were more than four hundred students in my Introduction to National History class. I could not afford the textbook and was rarely close enough to hear the lecturer, who mumbled and, in any case, spoke only in English, which I could not understand. I therefore spent my days hunting for lodging and wishing I were home in Anguda. Even by eating only one meal of rice and chapatis a day, I knew that I would be out of money within a few weeks. If I was lucky enough to find a room to rent, I would starve that much sooner.

"Then I answered an ad for a roommate in the Student Forum and everything changed. The room was six miles from the university on the seventh floor of a building which housed mostly refugees from Bangladesh and Burma. The student who wished to rent half of the room was a junior — a brilliant man several years older than I who was then studying pharmacy science but who wished to someday be a great author, or, failing that, a nuclear physicist. His name was Sanjay, and from the first time I saw him standing there amidst piles of his papers and unwashed clothing, I knew somehow that my life would never again be the same.

"He wanted two hundred rupees a month for my half of the room. My face must have shown my despair. At that time I had less than one hundred rupess to my name. I realized that I had made the two-hour walk for nothing. I asked if I could sit down. The soles of my feet were in great pain from the beating with lathi sticks I had received a few nights earlier. I later discovered that the policemen had broken the arches of my feet.

"Upon hearing this, Sanjay immediately took pity on me. He became furious when I told him of the beatings and the size of the bribes demanded by the University dormitory wardens. Sanjay's moods, as I was soon to learn, were like monsoon storms. One minute he could be calm, contemplative, as still as a statue, and the next he would fly off in a rage against some social injustice and put his fist through the rotting wallboards or kick some Burmese child down the back staircase.

"Sanjay was a member of both the Maoist Student Coalition and the Communist Party India. The fact that these two factions despised each other and frequently came to blows did not seem to bother him. He described his parents as "decadent capitalist parasites" who owned a small pharmaceutical company in Bombay and who sent him money each month. His parents at first had sent him out of the country to study, but when he returned to "renew contacts with the revolutionary struggle in my own country," he further offended them by choosing the brawling, plebeian Calcutta University in which to pursue his degree rather than a more prestigious college in Bombay or Delhi.

"After telling me these things about himself and listening to my own story, Sanjay promptly changed the rent request to five rupees a month and offered to loan me the money for the first two months. I confess that I wept with joy.

"During the following weeks, Sanjay showed me how to survive in Calcutta. In the morning, before sunrise, we rode to the center of the city with the Scheduled Class truck drivers who transported dead animals to the renderers. It was Sanjay who taught me that in a great city such as Calcutta, caste distinctions meant nothing and would soon disappear when the imminent revolution arrived. I agreed with Sanjay's points, but my upbringing still made it impossible for me to share a bus seat with a stranger or accept a piece of fried dough from a vendor without instinctively wondering what the caste of the man was. Nonetheless, Sanjay showed me how to ride the trains for free, where to be shaved by a street-corner barber who owed my friend favors, and how to squeeze into the cinema for free during the intermission of the nightly three-hour film.

"During this time I quit attending classes at the university, and my grades rose from four 'F's' to three 'B's' and and 'A.' Sanjay had educated me as to how to buy old papers and tests from upperclass students. To do this, I was forced to borrow another three hundred rupees from my roommate, but he did not mind.

"At first Sanjay took me to both the MMSC and CPI party meetings, but the endless potlitical orations and aimless internal bickerings served only to put me to sleep, and after a while he no longer insisted that I accompany him. Much more to my liking were the rare times when we went to the Lakshmi Hotel Nightclub to see the women dance in their underwear. Such a thing was almost unthinkable to a devout Hindu such as myself, but I confess I found it terribly exciting. Sanjay called it "bourgeois decadence" and explained that it was our duty to witness the sickening corruption which the revolution was destined to replace. In all, we went five times to witness the decadence, and each time Sanjay loaned me the princely sum of fifty rupees.

"We had been roommates for three months before Sanjay told me of his association with the goondas and Kapalikas. I had suspected that Sanjay was in some way involved with the goondas, but I knew nothing of the Kapalikas.

"Even I knew that for several years gangs of Asian thugees and Calcutta's own goondas had run entire sections of the city. They charged fees to the various refugees for entry and squatting rights; they controlled the flow of drugs to and through the city; and they murdered anyone who interfered with their traditional management of protection, smuggling, and crime in the city. Sanjay told me that even the pathetic slum-dwellers who paddled out from the chawls each evening to steal the blue and red navigation lights from the river for some purpose of their own paid a commission to the goondas. This commission was tripled after a goondas-chartered freighter — bound for Singapore with a cargo of opium and smugglers' gold — ran aground in the Hooghly because of missing channel lights. Sanjay said that it had taken most of the ship's profits to bribe the police and port authorities to pull it off the mud and let it proceed.

"At this time last year, of course, the country was going through the last stages of the Emergency. Newspapers were censored, the prisons bulged with political prisoners who had irritated Mrs. Gandhi, and it was rumored that young men in the South were being sterilized for riding trains without proper tickets. Calcutta, however, was in the middle of its own emergency. Refugees over the past decade had raised the population of the city beyond counting. Some guessed ten million. Some said fifteen. By the time I moved in with Sanjay, the city had gone through six governments in four months. Eventually, of course, the CPI assumed control out of sheer default, but even they have brought few solutions. The real masters of the city were not to be seen.

"Even today the Calcutta police will not enter major sections of the city. Last year they had tried daytime patrols in twos and threes, but after the goondas returned a few of these patrols in portions of seven and eight, the Commissioner refused to let his men go into those areas without the protection of soldiers. Our Indian Army announced that it had better things to do.

"Sanjay admitted that he had become associated with the Calcutta goondas through his pharmaceutical connections. But, he said, by the end of his first year at University, he had widened his role to include collection of protection money from many of his classmates and a runner's job as liaison between the goondas and the Beggarmasters' Union on the north side of the city. Neither of these tasks paid Sanjay very much, but they gave him considerable status. It was Sanjay who carried the order to the Union to temporarily reduce the number of child kidnappings when the Times of India began one of its seasonal and short-lived editorial outrages at the practice. Later, when the Times turned its moralizing eye to dowry murders, it was Sanjay who relayed permission to the Beggarmasters to replenish their depleted stock by increasing the kidnappings and mutilations.

"It was through the Beggarmasters that Sanjay received his chance to join the Kapalikas. The Kapalika Society was older than the Goonda Brotherhood, older even than the city.

"They worship Kali, of course. For many years they worshiped openly at the Kalighat Temple, but their custom of sacrificing a boy child each Friday of the month caused the British to ban the Society in 1831. They went underground and thrived. The nationalist struggle through the last century brought many to seek to join them. But their initiation price was high — as Sanjay and I were soon to learn.

"For months, Sanjay had tried to make contact with them. For months he had been put off. Then, in the autumn of last year, they offered him his chance. Sanjay and I were fast friends by then. We had taken the Brotherhood Oath together and I had done my small share by running a few messages to various people and once I made a collection run when Sanjay was ill.

"It surprised me when Sanjay offered to let me join the Kapalikas with him. It surprised and frightened me. My village had a temple to Durga, the Goddess Mother, so even so fierce an aspect and incarnation of her as Kali was familiar to me. Yet I hesitated. Durga was maternal and Kali was reputed to be wanton. Durga was modest in her representations while Kali was naked — not nude, but brazenly naked — wearing only the darkness as her cloak. The darkness and a necklace of human skulls. To worship Kali beyond her holiday was to follow the Vamachara — the perverse left-handed Tantra. I remember once as a child an older cousin was showing around a printed card showing a woman, a goddess, in obscene coitus with two men. My uncle found us looking at it, took the card, and struck my cousin in the face. The next day an old Brahmin was brought in to lecture us on the danger of such Tantric nonsense. He called it 'the error of the five M's' — madya, mamsa, matsya, mudra, maithun. These, of course, were the Pancha Makaras which the Kapalikas might well demand — alcohol, meat, fish, hand gestures, and coitus. To be truthful, coitus was much on my mind those days, but to first experience it as part of a worship service was a truly frightening thought.

"But I owed Sanjay much. Indeed, I began to realize that I might never be able to pay the debt I owed him. So I accompanied him on his first meeting with the Kapalikas.

"They met us in the evening in the empty marketplace near the Kalighat. I do not know what I expected — my image of Kapalikas grew out of the stories told to frighten unruly children — but the two men who waited there for us fit none of my imaginings and apprehensions. They were dressed like businessmen — one even carried a briefcase — and both were soft-spoken, refined in manner and dress, and courteous to both of us despite class and caste differences.

"The ceremonies in progress were most dignified. It was the day of the new moon in celebration of Durga, and the head of an ox was on the iron spike before Kali's idol. Blood still dripped into the marble basin beneath it.

"As someone who had worshiped Durga faithfully since infancy, I had no trouble joining in the Kali/Durga litany. The few changes were easily learned, although several times I mistakenly invoked Parvati/Durga rather than Kali/Durga. The two gentlemen smiled. Only one passage was so substantially different that I had to learn it anew:

"Then large clay effigies were carried through the Kalighat in procession. Each was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice. Some were statues of Kali in her aspect of Chandi, The Terrible One; or as Chinnamasta, the 'she who is beheaded' of the ten Mahavidyas when Kali decapitated herself so as to drink of her own blood.

"We followed the procession outside and down to the banks of the Hooghly River, through which, of course, the waters of the Holy Ganges flow. There the idols were cast into the water in the sure faith that they would rise again. We chanted with the crowd:

"I was moved to tears. The ceremony was so much more grand and beautiful than the simple village offerings in Anguda. The two gentlemen approved. So, evidently, did the Kalighat jagrata, for we were invited to a true meeting of the Kapalikas on the first day of next month's full moon."

Krishna paused in his translation. His voice was growing slightly hoarse. "Do you have any questions as of yet, Mr. Luczak?"

"No," I said. "Go on."

"Sanjay was very agitated all that month. I realized that he did not have the religious upbringing which I had been so fortunate to receive. Like all members of the Communist Party India, Sanjay had to deal with political beliefs which were at war with his deeper heritage as a Hindu. You must understand that to us religion is no more an abstract 'belief requiring an 'act of faith' than is the process of breathing. Indeed, it would be easier to will one's heart to stop beating than to will away one's perspective as a Hindu. To be a Hindu, especially in Bengal, is to accept all things as aspects of divinity and never to artificially separate the sacred from the profane. Sanjay shared this knowledge, but the thin layer of Western thought which had been grafted over his Indian soul refused to accept it.

"Once during that month, I asked him why he had bothered to seek membership with the Kapalikas if he could not truly worship the goddess. He grew angry at me then, and called me several names. He even threatened to raise my rent or call due his notes. Then, perhaps remembering our Brotherhood Oath and seeing the sorrow written on my face, he apologized.

"'Power,' he said, 'Power is the reason I have sought this, Jayaprakesh. For some time I have know that the Kapalikas hold power far out of proportion to their numbers. The goondas fear nothing . . . nothing but the Kapalikas. The thugees, as stupid and violent as they are, will not oppose someone known to be a Kapalika. The common people hate the Kapalikas or pretend the society no longer exists, but it is a hatred born of envy. They fear the very name Kapalika.'

"'Perhaps respect is the better word,' I said.

"'No,' said Sanjay, 'the word is fear.'

"On the first night of the new moon following the feast of Durga, on the first night of the celebration of Kali, a man in black met us in the abandoned marketplace to take us to the meeting of the Kapalika Society. On the way we passed down the Street of the Clay Idols, and hundreds of aspects of Kali — straw bones piercing their unfinished clay flesh — watched us as we passed.

"The temple was in a large warehouse. The river flowed beneath part of it, just as it had at the Kalighat. We could hear its constant whispering throughout the ceremony which followed.

"It was a gentle twilight outside, but very dark once we were in the warehouse. The temple was a building within a building. Candles showed the way. A few snakes moved freely across the cool floor, but it was too dark for me to tell if they were cobras, vipers, or less worrisome serpents. I thought it a melodramatic touch.

"The idol of Kali was smaller than the one in the Kalighat — but also gaunter, darker, sharper of eye, and altogether more terrible. In the dim and trembling light, the mouth seemed now to open wider, now to close slightly into a cruel smile. The statue was freshly painted. Her breasts were tipped with red nipples, her groin was dark, and her tongue was bright crimson. The long teeth were very, very white in the gloom, and the narrow eyes watched as we moved closer.

"There were two other visible differences. First, the corpse upon which this idol danced was real. We could smell it as soon as we entered the temple proper. The stink mingled with the heavy scent of incense. The cadaver was that of a man — white of flesh, bones visible under the parchment flesh, its form molded into the attitudes of death with a sculptor's skill. One eye was open slightly.

"I was not totally surprised by the presence of a body. Tradition had it that Kapalikas wore necklaces of skulls, and raped and sacrificed a virgin before each ceremony. Only a few days earlier Sanjay had joked that I might well be the chosen virgin. But now, in the darkness of the warehouse temple, with the smell of corruption in our nostrils, I was glad enough that there was no sign of such a tradition being honored.

"The second difference in the statue was less noticeable and somehow more frightening. Kali continued to raise her four arms in fury; dangling from one hand the noose, from another the skullstaff, and from on high the sword. But her fourth hand was empty. Where there should have been the effigy of a severed head, there was only empty air. The idol's fingers grasped at nothing. I felt my heart begin to pound, and one glance at Sanjay told me that he too was holding back his terror. The smell of our sweat mixed with the holy odors of incense and dead flesh.

"The Kapalikas entered. They wore no robes or special garments. Most wore the simple white dhoti so common in rural areas. All were men. It was too dark to make out any Brahman castemarks, but I assumed there were several priests there. In all, they numbered about fifty. The black-garbed man who had led us to the warehouse blended back into the shadows which filled most of the temple, and I had no doubt that there were more unseen forms there.

"There were six other initiates besides Sanjay and myself. I recognized none of them. We made a trembling half-circle in front of the idol. The Kapalikas moved in behind us and began to sing. My useless tongue barely could form responses and they were always a second late. Sanjay gave up trying to join in the litany and held a thin smile through the entire worship service. Only the whiteness of his lips gave away his tension. Both of us kept returning our glances to the empty hand of Kali.

"The song was from my childhood. I associated its sentimental lyrics with sunlight on temple stone, the promise of holiday feasts, and the scent of scattered flower petals. Now, as I sang it in the night with the smell of carrion meat filling the moist air, the words took on a different meaning:

"The service ended abruptly. There was no procession. One of the Kapalikas stepped onto the low dais below the idol. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I thought I recognized the man. He was an important figure in Calcutta. He would have to be important if I could know his face after only a few months in the city.

"The priest spoke softly. His voice was almost lost against the sound of the river. He spoke of the sacred society of the Kapalikas. Many are called, he intoned, but few are chosen. Our time of initiation, he said, would cover a period of three years. I gasped as he said this, but Sanjay merely nodded. I realized then that Sanjay had known more of what the initiation entailed than he had shared with me.

"'You will be asked to do many things to prove your worth and faith in Kali,' the priest said gently. 'You may leave now, but once you have begun on the Path, you may not turn back.'

"There was a silence then. I looked at the other initiates. No one moved. I would have left then . . . I would have left . . . if Sanjay had not stayed where he was, unmoving, lips pulled tight in a bloodless smile. My own legs felt too heavy to move. My ribs ached from the thudding of my heart. I could hardly breathe. But I did not leave.

"'Very well,' said the priest of Kali. 'You will be asked to fulfill two duties before we meet again tomorrow midnight. The first you may complete now.' So saying, the priest removed a small dagger from beneath the folds of his dhoti. I heard the slight intake of Sanjay's breath at the same instant as mine. All eight of us stood more erect, alert, alarmed. But the Kapalika only smiled and turned the blade across the soft flesh of his palm. The narrow line of blood swelled up slowly and looked black in the candlelight. The priest replaced the knife and then lifted what looked like several blades of grass from the clenched fist of the corpse under the idol's foot. One of these blades of grass he held up to the light. Then he turned his injured hand palm downward above it. The sound of the blood slowly dripping on the stone floor was clearly audible. One end of the three-inch stalk of grass was splashed with a few of these crimson tears. Immediately, another of the Kapalikas came out of the darkness, lifted all of the blades of grass, turned his back to us, and approached the idol.

"When he moved away, the slender stalks were only just visible, protruding from the clenched fist of the goddess Kali. There was no way of telling which one of the identical stalks had been marked with the priest's blood.

"'You may come forward,' said the priest. He pointed to Sanjay. 'Approach the goddess. Receive your gift from the jagrata.'

"To Sanjay's credit, he hesitated for only the smallest fraction of a second. He stepped forward. The goddess seemed to grow taller as Sanjay paused under the outstretched arm. Just as Sanjay reached upward there arose a hideous smell as if some bubble of decomposing gas had chosen that second to emanate from the trammeled corpse.

"Sanjay reached up, plucked a straw, and immediately covered it with his palms. It was not until he returned to our circle that he opened his cupped hands and looked at the blade of grass. It was unmarked.

"An overweight man at the far end of the line was pointed to next. His legs were shaking visibly as he approached the goddess. Instinctively, he hid the quickly grasped stalk, just as Sanjay had done; just as we all were to do. Then he held up the virgin blade of grass. Relief was written into every fold of his fat face.

"So it went with the third man, who could not stifle a soft gasp as he peered into his cupped hands and saw the clean stalk there. So it went with the fourth man who let out an involuntary sob as he reached for the fourth blade. The eyes of the goddess stared downward. The red tongue seemed inches longer than it had been when we arrived. The fourth stalk was clean.

"I was the fifth man chosen. I seemed to be watching myself from a great distance as I approached the goddess. It was impossible not to look into her face before reaching upward. The noose dangled. The empty eye sockets stared from the khatvanga. The sword was made of steel and looked razor-sharp. A gurgle seemed to rise from the twisted corpse as I stood there. It must have been only the river flowing directly under our feet.

"The goddess's cold stone fingers were reluctant to release the stalk of grass I had chosen. I thought that I felt her grip tighten as I tugged. The blade came free then, and without thinking I clapped my hands over it. Even I had not seen the surface of it in the poor light. I remember a great exhilaration coming over me as I returned to the circle. I felt a strange disappointment when I lifted my hand, turned the slender blade in my fingers, and found no mark. I threw back my head and stared directly into the goddess's eyes. Her smile seemed wider now, the long teeth whiter.

"The sixth man was younger than me, little more than a boy. However, he strode manfully to the jagrata and chose his blade of grass with no hint of hesitation. Upon returning to the circle, he held it up quickly, and immediately the red stain was visible to all of us. A final drop actually fell to the dark floor.

"We held our breath then, expecting . . . what? Nothing happened. The priest pointed, and the seventh man claimed his barren blade of grass. The last man lifted the last blade from the goddess's grip. We stood in the circle, silent, expectant, waiting for what seemed many moments, wondering what the boy was thinking, wondering what would come next. Why doesn't he run? Then the thought passed through my mind that although I was sure that the boy had somehow become the anointed of Kali, what if this meant that he was the only one exempted from some fate rather than chosen for it? Many are called, few are chosen the priest had said in what I had taken as a deliberate parody of the tiresome prattle of the Christian missionaries who wandered the plazas near the Maidan. But what if it meant that the boy was the only one to be smiled upon by this jagrata and approved for initiation into the Kapalikas? Disappointment mixed with relief in my confused swirl of thoughts and apprehensions.

"The priest returned to the dais. 'You first duty is fulfilled,' he said quietly. 'Your second must be completed by the time you return tomorrow midnight. Go now to hear the command of Kali, bride of Siva.'

"Two men in black came forward and beckoned. We followed them to the far side of the warehouse temple to a wall that opened onto small alcoves covered by black curtains. The Kapalikas gestured like ushers at a wedding, assigning each of us a cubicle and then moving on a few paces to show the next man his place. Sanjay entered his black alcove and I unconsciously held back a second as the dark man before me beckoned.

"The cubicle was tiny and, as far as I could tell in the almost total darkness, empty of furniture or ornamentation on the three stone walls. The black-garbed man whispered 'Kneel' and closed the heavy curtain. The last bit of light was gone. I knelt.

"It was deathly quiet. Not even the sound of the river intruded on the hot silence. I decided to put the poundings of my heart to work and had counted twenty-seven pulse beats when a voice whispered directly in my ear.

"It was a woman's voice. Or rather, it was a soft, sexless voice. I jumped up then and threw out my hands but no one was there.

"'You shall bring me an offering,' the voice had whispered.

"I got back down on my knees, trembling, waiting for another sound or for something to touch me. A second later the curtain was pushed aside and I rose and left the alcove.

"We had already formed the half-circle of initiates before the idol when I realized that only seven of us were there. Good, I thought. He ran. Then Sanjay touched my arm and nodded toward the goddess. The naked corpse she danced upon was younger, fresher. And headless.

"Her fourth hand was no longer empty. The burden she dangled by the hair swayed slightly. The expression on its young face was one of mild surprise. The dripping made a soft, starting-of-rainfall sound on the floor.

"I had heard no outcry.

"'Kali, Kali, balo bhai,' we sang. 'Kali bai aré gaté nai.'

"The Kapalikas filed out. A man in black led us to a door in the darkness. In the anteroom we put on our sandals and left the building. Sanjay and I found our way through the maze of alleys to Strand Road. There we hailed a rickshaw and returned to our room. It was very late.

"'What did she mean?' I asked when both of the lanterns were lit and we were in our charpoys and under the blankets. 'What kind of offering?'

"'Idiot,' said Sanjay. He was trembling as fiercely as I was. His string bed shook. 'We have to bring her a body by tomorrow midnight. A human body. A dead body.'"