The Year of Rice and Salt

'He'd better be sent to hell!' Kokila shouted at the black god. 'The lowest nastiest level of hell!'

Bihari shook her head. 'It's step by step, as I said. Little steps up and down. And it's you they're likely to judge down, after what you did.'

'It was justice!' Kokila exclaimed with vehement bitterness. 'I took justice into my own hands because no one else would do it! And I would do it again, too.' She shouted up at the black god: 'Justice, damn it!'

'Shh!' Bihari said urgently. 'You'll get your turn. You don't want to be sent back as an animal.'

Kokila glared at her. 'We are animals already, and don't you forget it.' She took a slap at Bihari's arm and her hand went right through Bihari's which somewhat deflated her point. They were in the realm of souls, there was no denying it. 'Forget these gods,' she snarled, 'it's justice we need! I'll bring the revolt right into the bardo itself if that's what it takes!'

'First things first,' Bihari's said. 'One step at a time. just try to recognize your jati, and take care of them first. Then on from there.'

Three. Tiger Mercy

Kya the tiger moved through elephant grass, stomach full and fur warm in the sun. The grass was a green wall around her, pressing in on every side. Above her the grass tips waved in the breeze, crossing the blue of the sky. The grass grew in giant bunches, radiating out from their centre and bending over at the tops, and though the clumps were very close, her way forward was to find the narrow breaks at the bottom between clumps, pushing through the fallen stalks. Eventually she came to the edge of the grass, bordering a parklike maidan, burned annually by humans to keep it clear. Here grazed great numbers of chital and other deer, wild pig, and antelopes, especially the nilghai.

This morning there stood a lone wapiti doe, nibbling grass. Kya could imitate the sound of a wapiti stag, and when she was in heat, she did it just to do it; but now she simply waited. The doe sensed something and jolted away. But a young gaur wandered into the clearing, dark chestnut in colour, white socked. As it approached Kya lifted her left forepaw, straightened her tail back, and swayed slightly fore and back, getting her balance. Then she threw her tail up and leapt across the park in a series of twenty foot bounds, roaring all the while. She hit the gaur and knocked it down, bit its neck until it died.

She ate.

Ba loo ah!

Her kol babl, a jackal that had been kicked out of his pack and was now following her around, showed his ugly face at the far end of the maidan, and barked again. She growled at him to leave, and he slunk back into the grass.

When she was full she got up and padded downhill. The kol bahl and ravens would finish the gaur.

She came to the river that wound its way through this part of the country. The shallow expanse was studded with islands, each a little jungle under its canopy of sal and shisharn trees, and several of these held nests of hers, in the matted undergrowth of brake and creepers, under tamarisk trees overhanging the warm sand on the banks of the stream. The tiger padded over pebbles to the water's edge, drank. She stepped in the river and stood, feeling the current push her fur downstream. The water was clear and warmed by the sun. In the sand at the stream's edge were pawprints of a number of animals, and in the grass their scents: wapiti and mouse deer, jackal and hyena, rhinoceros and gaur, pig and pangolin; the whole village, but none in sight. She waded across to one of her islands, lay in the smashed grass of her bed, in the shade. A nap. No cubs this year, no need to hunt for another day or two: Kya yawned hugely in her bed. She fell asleep in the silence that extends out from tigers in the jungle.

She dreamed that she was a little brown village girl. Her tail twitched as she felt again the heat of a cooking fire, the feel of sex face to face, the impact of witch-killing stones. A sleeping rumble, big fangs exposed. The fear of it woke her up and she stirred, trying to fall back into a different dream.

Noises pulled her back into the world. Birds and monkeys were talking about the arrival of people, coming in from the west, no doubt to the ford they used downstream. Kya rose quickly and splashed off the island, slipped into thickets of elephant grass backing the curve of the stream. People could be dangerous, especially in groups. Individually they were helpless, it was only a question of picking one's moment and attacking from behind. But groups of them could drive animals into traps or ambushes, and that had been the end of many tigers, left skinned and beheaded. Once she had seen a male tiger try to walk a pole to some meat, slip on a slippery patch, and fall onto spikes hidden in leaves. People had arranged that.