The villagers told me about the great battle many times as I learned to speak the Marathi language. They took me to the historic sites where the concealments and confrontations had occurred. They walked me through re-enactments of the event, the younger men often competing for the honour of playing Raju's part. No less important, in the telling of the tale, were the stories of the young men who'd fought beside them. The fate of each one-learned from Prabaker on his visits to the village-was recalled and told to me as part of the great saga. And through all of the stories and discussions, there was a special affection and pride for Rukhmabai Kharre. They loved and admired her for the galvanising role she'd played with her funeral speech-the first and last time she'd ever assumed a public position in the village. They acknowledged her courage, and they respected her strength of will. Above all, they celebrated her return to them, through the struggle with the dacoits, from grief and despair to the strong, shrewd, laughing woman she'd always been. In that poor and simple village, no-one doubted or forgot that its treasures were its people.
And it was all there, in her lovely face. The lines, high on her cheeks, were the dams she used to keep the tears in her eyes.
Unspoken, unanswerable questions parted her full, red lips, whenever she was alone, or absorbed in her work. Determination stiffened the defiant thrust of her cleft chin. And her forehead was always slightly creased in the centre, between the brows, as if she was grasping, in those soft folds of skin, the monstrous and pitiable understanding that no happiness exists without its woe, no wealth without its cost, and no life without its full measure, sooner or later, of sorrowing and death.
My relationship with Rukhmabai was established on the first morning. I'd slept well on the rope bed outside Kishan's house- so well, in fact, that I was still snoring loudly when Rukhmabai drove her milking buffalo into the space, just after dawn. One of the creatures, drawn to the buzzing sound, decided to investigate. A wet, suffocating sensation woke me with a start of alarm. I opened my eyes to see the huge, pink tongue of a gigantic black water buffalo descending once again to smother my face. Shouting in fear and surprise, I fell off the bed and backed away on my hands and heels.
Rukhmabai led the laughter at my expense, but it was good laughter-honest, and kind, and with no knives in it. When she reached down to help me up, I took her hand and laughed with her.
"Gaee!" she said, pointing to the buffalo, and establishing the ground rule that if we were to be communicating with words, I would be the one learning a foreign language. Water buffalo!
She took a glass, and squatted by the udder of the immense, black, bow-horned beast to squeeze milk. I watched the milk squirt directly into the glass. She filled the glass with expert strokes, and then brought it to me, wiping the lip with the corner of her red cotton shawl.
I'm a city boy. I was born and raised in a fairly large city of three million people. One of the reasons I could remain for years on the run was that I love big cities, and feel completely confident and comfortable in them. The full range of a city boy's suspicion and dread of the country rose up in me when I held that glass of freshly squeezed milk. It was warm to the touch. It smelled of the cow. There seemed to be things floating in the glass. I hesitated. I had the sense that Louis Pasteur was standing just behind me, looking over my shoulder at the glass. I could hear him. Er, I would boil that milk first, Monsieur, if I were you...
I swallowed prejudice, fear, and the milk all at once, gulping it down as quickly as possible. The taste was not as bad as I'd expected it to be-creamy and rich, and with a hint of dried grasses within the bovine aftertaste. Rukhmabai snatched the glass from my hand and squatted down to fill it again, but my urgent, pleading protest convinced her that I was well satisfied with a single glass.
When we'd made our toilet, washed our faces, and cleaned our teeth, Rukhmabai stood over Prabaker and me while we ate a solid breakfast of roti and chai. The roti, or unleavened flatbreads, were made fresh for each breakfast, and cooked in a lightly oiled wok on an open fire. The hot, pancake-like bread was filled with a dab of ghee, or purified butter, and a large spoonful of sugar.
It was then rolled into a tube, so thick that the hand only just curled around it, and eaten with a mug of hot, sweet, milky tea.
Rukhmabai watched every bite and chew, prodding us with a finger or slapping us on the head or shoulder if either of us showed the slightest inclination to pause for breath during the breakfast.
Trapped, our jaws grinding away at the admittedly delicious food, we both cast surreptitious glances at the young women cooking at the wok, hoping that each roti, after the third or fourth we'd eaten, would be our last.
