Shabari's Berries

Deep inside the Dandaka forest, where the sun came down only in coins through the leaves, an old woman named Shabari kept a small hut of mud and reed.

She had lived in that hut for more years than she could count on both hands twice. Her teacher, a gentle sage named Matanga, had told her, long ago when her hair was still black, that one day a prince would come walking through these trees. A prince with eyes like a rain cloud and a brother always one step behind him.

"You will know him when you see him," Matanga had said. "Until then, keep the path swept."

And so she had.

Every morning, before the light reached the tops of the sal trees, Shabari took a soft broom of twigs and walked the narrow path that led to her hut. She brushed away the dry leaves. She brushed away the pebbles that might hurt a tender foot. She brushed, in the end, only because brushing had become the shape of her love.

She also picked berries. Small purple ber from the thorn bushes, sweet when they were ripe and bitter when they were not. She had learned, over the years, that a single bitter berry could spoil the taste of ten sweet ones.

So she had taught herself a small, strange thing.

She would pick a berry. She would bite it gently. If it was sweet, she set it on a clean leaf for the guest who had not yet come. If it was sour, she swallowed it herself and asked the tree's pardon.

The village women, on the rare days they passed by, had laughed at her once.

"Shabari," one had said, "who eats half-bitten fruit? Even a beggar would refuse."

Shabari had only smiled. "My guest is coming a long way," she had said. "He should not have to taste my doubt."

The years went on. Matanga left his body. The other students of the forest moved to bigger ashrams, to bigger questions. Shabari stayed. The path stayed swept. The leaf, each morning, was clean.

Then, one afternoon in the dry month before the rains, two men walked out of the trees.

One was dark like a storm cloud just before it breaks. The other walked a little behind, with a bow on his back and a watchful kindness in his eyes.

Shabari, sweeping near the door, looked up. The broom slipped from her hand.

She did not bow. She did not weep. She only said, very softly, the way one says the first word in a song one has been humming for years —

"You came."

Rama smiled. "Mother," he said, "we are tired and the road is hot. Have you anything for us to eat?"

Shabari hurried inside. She came back with the leaf. On it lay a small, careful pile of berries, each one with a single small bite taken out of its side.

Lakshmana, behind his brother, frowned. He opened his mouth to speak. Rama lifted one finger — only one — and Lakshmana closed it again.

Rama sat down on the bare ground in front of Shabari's hut. He took the half-bitten berries, one at a time, slowly, the way a man drinks water at the end of a long fast.

"These," he said, looking up at her, "are the sweetest fruit I have ever eaten."

Shabari's eyes filled, but she did not cry. Crying, she felt, would have been too loud a thing in a moment so quiet.

"I tasted each one," she said, almost in apology. "I did not want a bitter one to reach you."

"I know," said Rama. "I have been eating your tasting all my life."

She did not understand his words then. She would understand them later, when the small hut was empty again and the two princes had walked on into the trees, when she sat in the doorway watching the path she had swept for so long.

She understood that the waiting had not been a waste. The waiting had been the welcome.

The sweetness in the berries had been hers. He had only come to receive it.

Little mother, your hands are doing something like Shabari's hands tonight. You are tasting the world before it reaches the small one inside you. You set aside the sour word. You swallow the worry on your own. You keep a clean leaf, a swept path, a steady heart.

No one will see it. No one will applaud it. The small one will not be able to thank you in words for many, many years. But somewhere in the soft, dark room where they are growing, a hand is already reaching for the sweetness you have kept.

Tonight, when you place your hand on your belly, feel the small weight of all you have already chosen. Whisper, if you like — I am keeping the sweet ones for you. And then rest. The path is swept. The leaf is ready. The guest is already on the way.