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bundles of grass to people who would buy the bundle and feed it to the cow. Feeding the cow was a pious act and they were glad to pay a little and perform it. It brought him some money but not enough so he combined this occupation of ushering the sacred cow around the villages with the selling and administering of medicines that he found in the forest and prepared himself. He was a sharp-looking man and he kept all kinds of powders and pills in packets tied into the folds of his white
dhoti
and his pink turban. With these he treated the villagers for their boils, aches and fevers. He was also known to perform special
puja
for those who were too ill to benefit from his powders – the mad, the unhappy and the dying. All this gave him the air of a magician, of witchcraft, which made the girls shiver slightly when they heard him approach.
    He raised his hand in the air as he marched over the log on the creek and gave another long blast on his trumpet which was made of bone. The bone of what? the girls wondered uneasily.
    Lila came running out of the house and Bela and Kamal clung to Pinto to prevent him from attacking the holy cow. They would have liked to go closer and inspect the dwarf creature but Lila wanted them to keep Pinto away while she spoke to the man.
    ‘My mother is ill. She has been ill for a long time. Now she has fever too. Have you any medicine for fever? Have you any medicine for making her strong? She is so weak,’ Lila explained.
    ‘Slowly, slowly, daughter. What is the hurry? First I must have water for my cow – fresh well water. Next, I must have grass for her. Fresh, tender grass. Then I will come and see your mother.’
    So that was how things had to be done. After the cow had been looked after, he too demanded attention. Lila had to heat a tumbler of tea for
him which he sipped, sitting on a string cot under the frangipani tree while the girls stood before him and told him how their mother was growing weaker and weaker, refusing to eat and unable to get up at all. ‘And now she is hot with fever,’ Lila wailed suddenly, no longer able to speak calmly.
    The man looked at her with his sharp, bright eyes, understanding how it was with her. He got up quickly and started being very busy. To their surprise he did not go in to see to their mother as they had expected he would. Instead, he ordered them to build a fire on the threshold of the hut. He watched them critically and ordered them about: he wanted a particular kind of wood and the sticks had to be laid just so. Once it had started crackling and smoking, he flung in packets of flowers that he took from a bag slung on to the cow’s back – jasmine and marigold, hibiscus and frangipani. He recited a long prayer in Sanskrit in a sing-song undertone while he did so, and the fire crackled and spat. The three girls sat on their heels around the fire, their chins resting on their hands, watching. When the fire had died down, he poked at it with a long stick, scattering the ashes so that they cooled. Then he scooped them up into his cupped hand and asked for water.
They brought him a tumbler and he poured a little into the palm of his hand and with one thumb and forefinger he mixed it with the ash. Then he went in to see their mother at last.
    She was lying on her side with her eyes closed. When he spoke to her, she turned over and opened her eyes in fear. Lila put her hand on her forehead and spoke to her soothingly. The man told her to open her mouth and put out her tongue which she did, and on it he dropped some of the ash. ‘Eat, sister,’ he said. ‘Holy ash, purified ash. It will purify you within. It will drive away the demons that create the fever. Swallow.’ He kept rolling small balls of ash between his fingers and dropping them into her mouth, making her swallow them. Then he clapped his hands together, broke into the loud recitation of prayers, and walked out.
    The girls followed, dazed.
    ‘Sweep up all that ash. Collect it. Bring it to