“The Temple of Annapurna,” one of the palanquin bearers shouted, and we were lowered to the ground. When I stepped outside, I saw that we were in a high-walled courtyard with a dozen other women who were paying their bearers for transportation. Grandmother paid our men from a purse she carried tucked into the waist of her white sari; then we left our sandals on the smooth marble floor and climbed fifteen steps to Annapurna’s temple.
I had never been to this temple before, so everything looked foreign and new. Not just the elaborate bronze lamps that illuminated our way to the top, even though it was daylight, but the giant metal pots housing sacred tulsi plants and the colored cages housing jewel-toned parrots. Someone had spent a great deal of money ensuring the temple was well maintained. The marble steps were clean, and fresh incense burned from costly hanging censers where the image of the goddess Annapurna resided.
Since there are three hundred and thirty million gods in our religion, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that I had never heard of Annapurna. Of course, when people hear this number, they think that Hindus go around making up gods at whim. But in the Hindu religion, there is really only one god—Lord Brahma—and all of the other gods and goddesses are merely aspects of Brahma himself. Take Durga, for instance, who is the warrior goddess of female power. She represents Brahma’s ability to meet any challenge. Or Shiva, the Destroyer, who illustrates Brahma’s power to take as well as give. On a day-to-day basis, only a few gods really feature in our lives, and they’re the ones we pray to every morning for guidance: Durga, Rama, Lakshmi, Krishna, Buddha, Saraswati, Ganesh. Few Hindus know the names of more than a dozen or so aspects of Brahma.
When we reached the top, I bowed, as everyone else was doing, then took a few moments to stare into the golden face of Annapurna, crowned with yellow and orange carnations.
“We’re not here for prayer,” Grandmother said. “Remember what I told you. Keep silent.”
I looked to my left and saw a skinny priest walking toward us. He was dressed in a very peculiar fashion, with red and white beads around his neck and thick clusters of them on his wrists and feet. But it was the unusual crown of neem leaves in his hair that caught my attention. I found myself staring at them even when I should have been looking away. He pressed his hands together in a respectful gesture of namaste, and I realized how young he was. No more than twenty or twenty-five.
“You returned,” he said. He sounded surprised, though not as surprised as I was. I had no idea when Grandmother might have visited this temple before. But the days after Mother’s death had passed by in a haze; it was entirely possible that she had left the house without my noticing.
“And this must be the girl,” he said. There was something uncomfortable about the way his smile remained in place while his eyes looked me up and down. “She’s thin.”
“Yes, but she’s only nine.”
He nodded thoughtfully, then circled around me and stopped when we were once again face-to-face. “She’s very pretty. With a face like hers, you’d think she’d find a good husband. Why is her father agreeing to this?”
“It doesn’t matter why. How much is the goddess willing to pay?”
He raised his eyebrows. “That all depends. Is she a virgin?”
“Of course. She was raised in my house.”
A group of women passed us and bowed very low to the priest, giggling as they went by. Their glass bangles made music on their arms, and they were dressed in the most exquisite saris I had ever seen—silk trimmed with elaborate beadwork of silver and gold. The fabrics rippled as they moved, and I longed to reach out and brush my fingertips against them.
“Three thousand rupees,” the priest said after the women passed.
“You do realize she’s not some Dalit. This child is a Kshatriya.”
“If she was a Dalit, we would not be having this discussion. This temple serves the richest men in Barwa Sagar.”
“And a girl like this will have them coming all the way from Jhansi. You think I don’t know what kind of men pay for a girl who speaks English as well as Hindi? Her customers will be rich British soldiers.”
I couldn’t imagine why I would ever have customers. Perhaps the temple wanted me as a translator. Grandmother said that this was a place where my mind wouldn’t be very useful, and what could be more boring than translating letters for soldiers?
“Five thousand, and that’s it.”
“Fifteen thousand.”
The man’s smile vanished. “You forget we’re in Barwa Sagar. Not Jhansi.”
“And you forget that I can easily dedicate her to the Temple of Durga down the street.”
They stared at each other, but what the priest didn’t know was that Grandmother could be as immovable as stone. Finally, the priest let out his breath and said, “Thirteen. But that’s the highest we’ve ever paid for a devadasi.”
It was one of the few times I ever saw Grandmother’s smile reach her eyes. She grabbed my hand and started walking.
“Where are you going?” The priest’s voice rose. “I thought we had a deal?”
“The child lost her mother and the funeral is tomorrow. I’ll return with her next week.”