That was the evidence that my husband gave. I myself am fortunate to be still alive. I may have been involved too had I been near by. I wonder whether anyone came forward to claim his body. Whether his body was taken back to his village to be buried by his people or whether he had come to the city and lost all connection with his kith and kin. Perhaps he will be buried at state expense. If no family member has claimed his body there will be no pansakula ceremonies. No funeral orations. Who will set fire to the funeral pyre after walking round it three times? Is his death a tragedy to anyone? And who would give dana for him? We are all the nameless people. I am one of the women in the case. I wonder who the other was. The man who was murdered was a trader from Maliban Street. Traders. So are we, in a way, though we trade in different commodities, our flesh consumed by the fires of lust. In the end we are all consumed by our actions and deeds over which we have no control. I am now more conscious of life, of death. What will my next birth be like? We must all suffer, endure our karma. I might have been able to save him if he had come with me. This thought nags my mind. If only he had not got involved in a violent argument. But perhaps his time had come. His death could not then have been deferred. A sirri-sirri bag had lain beside him. Two apples had rolled out of it. They were already going bad. I had fanned away a blue-bottle buzzing near my face. I had to continue my samsaric journey. I had still to earn my rest.

Fear: Meditations in a Camp

Upani Yati Loko Addhuvo’ti
(Life in any world is unstable—The Dhammuddesa)

I SAT ALONE on the porch. Cold with fear. A motor cycle stopped at the gate. I rushed to see who had arrived. Two priests from the Methodist Church, Reverend Harold and Reverend Artie, had come in search of us, to find out whether we were safe. The crowds had gathered at Padmasiri’s petti kade, the small boutique of packing-case wood where men generally gathered to smoke a bidi or cigarette, the women and children to buy bread or buns or quartered bars of soap when they went down to the river to bathe. But this was in the past, the innocuous past. Now there was a great hubbub there. The two priests had been intercepted and interrogated.

‘Are you one of them? A Demala?’ they had asked. Reverend Harold was dark complexioned.

‘Can you pronounce baldhiya?’ had been the next question. Linguistic racism. Tamils were thought to say valdhiya.