Tulsi Vivah Read online

  “Do you know what they say about sarcasm and wit?” She arched an eyebrow. “Gender doesn’t matter to Krishna. He can take whatever form he likes, and sometimes he likes being female.”

  Kris frowned. “Are you saying your god is transsexual?”

  “I’m saying gender is unimportant to him. What matters is romance, all the romance he can get, and I suppose the same old boy-meets-girl story gets boring after a while.”

  “So he’s… bisexual?”

  “What’s your obsession with labels? Not everything is that simple. Sexuality is one thing in the material world, when we’re trapped in these bodies made of meat and bone. It’s something else up there, where Krishna spends his days.” She seemed to be thinking, then continued. “I think it’s like I said—he’s addicted to romance. He loves to create these romantic storylines and cast his friends in different parts. It’ll often be him and Radharani—she’s his consort—but sometimes she is the man and he is the woman. Sometimes they share the same body. I don’t think he cares about sex or gender, as long as there’s romance. But that’s just my theory. You should ask the guru at the festival.”

  “You want me to ask a guru if your god is bi?”

  “Why not? He knows more than me. I just look after the plants. Here, make yourself useful and fill this for me.” She handed him a watering can.

  Kris stood at a tap in the wall and tried to process this information. He watched Tricia mixing compost into soil. “So, Hinduism is okay with gay relationships? Or bi, trans, queer, whatever? It’s not a sin?”

  She wiped her finger on the side of the trowel. “Were you raised in a religion?”

  “Catholic.”

  “Mm.” She nodded. “Go to a Catholic symposium, and you’ll find gay priests besides priests condemning homosexuals to hell, all of them convinced the Bible supports their views. Hinduism is even messier. There are a billion Hindus in different sects, worshipping any of hundreds of gods, following many different religious texts. Then there are cultural influences intertwined with religious beliefs, and it’s not easy to say which views come from one or the other.

  “To me, it’s clear that Krishna is happy when we love, male to male or female to female and anything in between. But Hinduism is entrenched in thousands of years of Indian culture and being gay is still illegal there. Every week gay people are attacked, even killed. Even with a priest behind you, even when you weren’t born and raised in India, it’s not easy for a Hindu to be out.”

  The watering can weighed down Kris’s arms. He clung on to it and leaned his head on the cool glass of the greenhouse.

  By the time he handed Tricia the full can, she had begun to sing. The alien, familiar words churned in Kris’s stomach.

  “I need some air,” he muttered and found a bench outside. The air was cool in the twilight, but he made no effort to get warm. He sat and stared at the cracks in the concrete path until he heard footsteps.

  Tricia stood in front of him. She was wearing a cardigan over her sari, and her bare feet were now in flip-flops.

  A nun in flip-flops.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” she said, sitting beside him. “Maybe I’ll have the answers you need.”

  “Unless you have a secret alcohol stash, you don’t have the answers.”

  She nudged his foot with hers. “I’ll pray for you, sinner.”

  Kris found himself smiling. Her eyes were still bright with humor, but no longer looked mocking.

  The sky was still pitch-black, though Kris felt he’d been awake half a day already.

  “Why do you get up so early?” he asked.

  “I like to go to the deity room when it’s quiet and talk to Krishna.”

  “Why? Does he answer?”

  “No. But maybe one day, if I keep talking and serving him the best I can.”

  “Bit needy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  Kris blinked at her.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Well, don’t we all want to be loved? And when people say they love us, don’t we look for validation, for proof, even after they’ve stuck by us for years?”

  “I….” Kris frowned at the gravel. “That’s different. We’re human.”

  “So is God. He wants to be cherished and loved unconditionally.”

  “But you talk to him and he never talks back. How is that fair?”

  “He wants proof that I love him first. Do you accept it when somebody says ‘I love you,’ or do you make them prove it?”

  Kris rubbed his heel along the concrete. “I’d accept it if their actions didn’t say differently. If they didn’t say they loved you, and would do anything for you, but they won’t do something that’s hard.”

  “Exactly.” She clicked her fingers, eyes alight. “So I wake up at two in the morning, even when I haven’t slept well, and I walk through the cold to the temple so I can see Krishna, and offer him flowers and incense, and tell him I will always love him. And then I come here, and I serve Tulsi, who has proved her love for Krishna over and over, and I ask her to help me reassure him and love him better.”

  “Shouldn’t love be easier than that?”

  “Nothing worth having is easy to get. You should hear what Tulsi did for love.”

  Kris sighed. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “No. Come back in and help me prepare for morning Tulsi worship. I listen to my guru’s lectures about her as I work, and maybe you’ll learn something.”

  “Don’t want to.” Kris stuck out his bottom lip and kicked the gravel at his feet. “You can’t force me to have knowledge.”

  “You must be a peach when you’re sulking. Get inside or I won’t help you with your plant.”

  Kris got up, muttering loudly about mercenary nuns, and followed her instructions as she selected two plants to be prepared for worship in the temple.

  The recording was on an old-fashioned cassette like the tapes Kris had made from the Top 40 radio show when he was a kid, trying to end each track after the last line of lyrics but before the presenter began to speak. Tricia’s tape had the same hum of white noise in the background, punctuated by coughs and rustling from an audience.

  The lecture began with a song. There was something in the rhythm that reminded Kris of Shakespeare, some rise and fall of tone that made it seem like a dance of the tongue.

  “Jai Sri Krishna,” said the guru when the song ended. A chorus of voices repeated it back to him; at least fifty, maybe more. Kris pictured his primary-school class in England, he and his classmates fidgeting as they sat on the carpet at the teacher’s feet and listened to her read a story. “With one week to go before Tulsi Vivah, our topic today is Tulsi Maharani and her devotion to Krishna. Her story is told in the Srimad Bhagavatam, and begins with the curse of the god Surya.”

  Kris resisted the sleepy pull of nostalgia. At least his teachers at school had been honest that their stories were fiction, not like this charlatan peddling gods and curses to keep his slavish followers in line.

  Before long, he was concentrating too hard to be angry. Apparently Tulsi, who was a plant and also a goddess and also a human, was Lakshmi, who was married to Vishnu who was also Krishna. The rest of school hadn’t been as pleasant as story time, and now he was the little boy confused and frustrated, unable to remember when the “I before E except after C” rule was actually a rule and when it was just trying to make him look a prat. Why couldn’t these gods just pick one name and stick to it?

  “And so,” said the guru, when Kris had tuned back in, “Tulsi devi gave up her material possessions and all the wealth and comfort of the palace and took a holy pilgrimage. When she had pleased Lord Brahma, she asked him for her heart’s desire—to marry her eternal consort, Lord Vishnu. Lord Brahma told her he had a duty for her to carry out and asked if she wanted more to please him, or more to be with her beloved Vishnu, whom she loved and missed terribly.”

  The guru paused for dramatic effect. “Srimati Tulsi chose
to serve Lord Brahma, and he ordered her to marry the demon, Shankhachuda.”

  Kris stared at Tricia, but she seemed unaffected. She knew the story and must have known that this Brahma would get his comeuppance.

  “Shankhachuda had served Lord Brahma well and so received two blessings. First, he won the hand of Srimati Tulsi in marriage, and second, the armor of Lord Vishnu, which rendered him invincible as long as his new wife remained chaste. There was no question of Tulsi devi’s chastity, so now Shankhachuda became very proud. An egomaniac. He conquered lands left, right, and center.

  “When the whole of the Earth was under his control, it still wasn’t enough. The demon waged war on the gods themselves and conquered the underworld and the heavens as well.

  “The deities went to the Mahadevas and begged them to end this reign of terror. Lord Shiva himself entered the battlefield to fight the demon, and Lord Vishnu went to Tulsi devi. Disguised as her husband, he tricked her into surrendering her chastity. Just as Shankhachuda raised his sword to Lord Shiva, his armor broke, and Lord Shiva killed him with a single blow.

  “Now what of Tulsi devi? Was she relieved to be rid of her demon husband and back in the arms of her beloved Lord Vishnu? No. She cursed Lord Vishnu for deceiving her and for tricking her into deceiving her demon husband. Even her eternal devotion to her true husband, Vishnu, was not as important as her duty to Brahma. In all things she remembers that she is a servant to the Mahadevas. This is why she is rewarded with the love of Lord Krishna and why even the sight of her brings us closer to Vrindavan.

  “When we can serve Krishna with the same selfless, unerring devotion as Tulsi, we will experience true bliss.” The guru paused for several moments. “Let us meditate on Srimati Tulasi and her service.”

  The sun had risen, and Kris felt stifled in the hothouse. He swept out and sat on the bench, but only for a second before he was on his feet, pacing up and down the path.

  Tricia exited the greenhouse with Arjuna’s plant under one arm and fell into step beside Kris, even though he wasn’t walking anywhere.

  She said nothing. Didn’t ask if he’d enjoyed the lecture. Didn’t ask what he thought of the story.

  “What a load of bollocks,” he said, as he stormed down the path. Tricia seemed to have no trouble keeping up with him.

  “Do you think?”

  Kris whirled on her. “Don’t you? Poor woman gives up everything to be with the man she loves and some god hands her to his mate like she’s a sodding corporate bonus? She has to stay married to a psychopathic demon for the excellent reason of someone else says so? It’s not your bloody Brahma that had to live with a violent egomaniac, is it? What gives him the right to force her to live in misery to prove she’ll do anything he wants? Talk about ego problems. Are you sure we’ve got the sides right, here? I wish Shanka-whatsit had shanked the bloody lot of them when he had the chance. Gods my arse.”

  “Yes, I see your point.” Tricia stared off into the distance for a moment. “But Tulsi had a choice, didn’t she? Brahma asked if she would marry the demon because it would please him, and she said yes.”

  “Well, then she’s a fool as well. What is it with these people so desperate to see others married? Buy a copy of The Sims and play god all you like, but don’t mess around with real people’s lives. Don’t tell someone he’s not allowed to love who he likes because he has to marry some bloody woman his parents—”

  He stopped, not liking the change in her expression. If she dared bring it up—

  “You’re looking at it through Western eyes,” she said calmly. “In Hindu culture, at least traditionally, you don’t try out different boyfriends or girlfriends, go to the movies and meet each other’s friends and maybe live together to see if it’ll work out permanently. People wiser than hot-blooded, hormonal young men and women arrange their marriages. Their parents, their aunts and uncles, their priests. That feels like the right way to do it, just like dating feels right to you.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re telling me hormonal teenagers really think it’s right for some old priest to choose their life partner? Somebody they might not even like? It’s cruel.”

  “Is our way any better? How many people do you know who stayed with their first love? How many people who even stayed with their first husband or wife? Nobody can look at our system, with all the heartbreak and grief it causes, and say it’s not cruel.”

  “At least I’m in charge of my own misery, not anybody’s puppet.”

  “Are you?” She looked him straight in the eyes. “You chose to fall in love and have your heart broken, did you?”

  “I didn’t say I’d had my heart broken,” he snapped.

  “No. You didn’t.”

  Tricia nodded at the dying plant in her arms. “Do you see that she isn’t just a plant? At least, to us. She’s what we aspire to be. Just having her in the house brings health and healing.”

  “Yeah, well, not that one. She obviously missed the memo about love being great in all forms. Will you try to revive her?”

  She appraised him. “No.”

  “Oh, come on! You’ve got loads, one more won’t hurt.” He gestured at the greenhouse with its dozens of plants.

  “I have a connection with my Tulsis. You have one with yours.”

  “I do not. She isn’t even mine. She—it—is just a plant.”

  “You glare at her like she’s a hissing cobra. People don’t hate plants when they’re just plants.”

  “Okay, so I have issues. I don’t want it in my house.”

  “No wonder she’s sick. Would you want to live in a house where you were unwanted and hated?”

  Kris threw his hands up. “It’s just a plant!”

  “You manage a garden center. Does she have everything a plant needs to thrive?”

  There was a silence, and then Kris said, “Yes,” through gritted teeth.

  “Then something else is wrong. Deal with it.” She thrust the plant at him. Kris wanted to let it drop to the ground, but he imagined her soil spilling like blood, and he couldn’t. Not because it wasn’t just a plant, but because he’d made a career from making sure plants didn’t die on the floor. Or because it was more than just a plant to Tricia. Or because Arjuna had poured his heart and soul into the damn thing.

  One of Tulsi’s leaves tickled his nose.

  “I don’t like you,” he said to Tricia.

  “Heal her.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “What do you want more? To please your friend, or to watch Tulsi die?”

  “No.” He shook his head, digging his fingers into the plant pot until it hurt. “You don’t get to do that. You and your precious guru don’t get to fill his head with crap and then make out it’s my fault this horrible thing is dying. This is your job. You’ll get brownie points with your baby god for healing it, so you knock yourself out.” He dumped the plant on the bench and stormed off to the car park.

  ARJUNA WASN’T expecting company, and adrenaline flooded his body as somebody knocked on the door. He took a shaky breath and stilled his nerves. There was no Kris here to hide, not even a toothbrush. Not even the ugly reindeer jumper that had been so soft and smelled of Tom Ford cologne; that was safely in his desk drawer at work.

  Maybe it was Kris knocking.

  He pushed himself off the sofa and raced down the hall in socked feet to open the door.

  “Hi,” Sharanya said.

  All Arjuna could think for a long moment was not Kris not Kris not Kris, but then he adjusted. Her eyes were red and swollen, and tear tracks disappeared into the collar of her blouse.

  “What’s wrong?” Arjuna took her arm and brought her inside, closing the door behind her. She sat on the sofa and accepted a tissue, twisting it between her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her nose. “I should have said I was coming. I didn’t mean to, really. I was just on the train and saw your stop and….” She burst into tears and buried her head in her hands.

  Arjun
a patted her back, and she turned until she was in his arms.

  “What happened?” Arjuna blew her hair out of his face and carried on patting her back like she was a dog waiting to see a vet.

  “I was working in the emergency department, and a little boy came in with lethargy and a temperature. Only five, with the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen and a little snub nose. He… I found the rash, but it was too late. Two hours and he was gone. His parents… oh God, his parents.” She covered her face and rocked back and forth, keening. Arjuna swallowed and held her tighter.

  “I’m sorry. I know you did all you could.” He grimaced over her shoulder at the trite, easy words. His eyes automatically went to the corner Tulsi had occupied, but the empty table left behind offered no inspiration.

  Sharanya didn’t seem to be listening. “I never wanted this. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to see children grow and flourish, to give them something they would remember forever, not to watch them die in my hands. I hate it. I hate all of it. The blood, the anguish, the worry, making decisions that mean life or death, the paperwork, the politics, the night shifts, the drunks threatening to kill me… and the children. The sick children. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  “Then quit. Be a teacher. I… we’ll have enough money. You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Right, and have Mum and Dad tell all their friends that their wonderful daughter, the doctor, couldn’t hack it? They’d disown me. What else would they have to talk about at weddings?”

  “Of course they won’t disown you. They just want you to be happy.”

  Sharanya withdrew and wiped her face. “Maybe you have parents like that. I don’t.” She unwound the scarf from her neck. “Promise me we won’t do that to our children. They can be unemployed no-hopers and we’ll still love them, won’t we?”

  Arjuna pictured her with a distended belly, reading out names from a baby book and reaching the Ks and not knowing, never knowing, what he was really thinking.