by Benyamin
I shook my head and dust enough for a brick kiln fell out of my hair. And when I tried to run my fingers through my hair, it was so matted with sand and dirt that my fingers couldn’t get inside. My hair was already shoulder length. My beard had also grown. I took the big sheep-shearing scissors and manically cut away at my hair and beard. I got a wild itch from the unwashed hair and beard sometimes. I already had blisters from the dirty hair in my armpits and pubic area and had become revolting to look at. Lice, bugs and some other small insects from the goats’ bodies had settled there. They itched severely when I sweated at night. My body had become a pest reserve. Lice and bugs formed a crust on my skin. The goats were cleaner than I was.
Twenty-five
Hadn’t I promised to tell you the story of Pochakkari Ramani? And I will now. Apart from Pochakkari Ramani, I gave a name to each goat in the masara that I recognized to help me scold them and to make cuddling easier. People from my locality like Aravu Ravuthar, Marymaimuna, Indipokkar, Njandu Raghavan, Parippu Vijayan, Chakki, Ammini, Kausu, Raufat, Pinki, Ammu, Razia and Thahira, and public figures like Jagathy, Mohanlal and even EMS himself were a part of my masara. Each of them was dear to me in one way or another. Have you ever looked carefully at a goat’s face? It is quite similar to a human’s. I named the goats not only by looking at their faces but also relating their names to some character traits, their gait, the sounds they made, by incidents that reminded me of them. Just as how one gets a nickname back home.
I have told you about the billy goat who attacked me and broke my hand. I called him Aravu Ravuthar after the rowdiest person in our village. One day, my uppah was crossing a stream on a narrow bridge. Ravuthar approached from the other side. The bridge was so narrow that only one person could walk on it, that too barely. Unmindful that my uppah had already crossed half the bridge, Ravuthar walked up to him and asked him to retreat. Uppah didn’t want to. Ravuthar warned him once, and when my uppah didn’t move even after the second warning, he didn’t bother to repeat himself, he just leapt and head-butted uppah on his chest! Uppah fell down into the stream some twelve feet below. His elbow hit a granite rock and he broke his arm. Although he was taken to Alappuzha District Hospital immediately for treatment, his hand remained weak and crooked. Thus did my uppah get the nickname short-arm Abdu. I named the goat Aravu Ravuthar without much difficulty because he butted me in the same manner as I imagine the original Aravu Ravuthar must have attacked my uppah. Also, my hand broke just like my uppah’s did.
So there were many strange and personal reasons for each name I gave the goats. The logic of the names might be lost on others but they made perfect sense to me.
The name Marymaimuna too had such a story. Mary was the first heroine of my love story. My first love affair began when I was studying in the fifth standard. She was the most intelligent and beautiful girl I ever knew, and a wonderful singer. There were no boundaries for the dreams I had about her. Somehow, my ummah found out. That tactical deceiver—my elder ikka Abdu—who managed to get me to tell him my secret must have told her. Bouncing her big breasts, my ummah laughed on hearing about it.
‘By the sound of her name she seems to be a Christian,’ Ummah frowned between peals of laughter.
‘No, Ummah, she belongs to our religion,’ I broke in excitedly.
‘A Mary in our religion?’ Ummah laughed aloud.
It was only then that I actually gave her religion some thought—that she might not belong to our religion at all. ‘She’s not Mary, Ummah,’ I told her a name that came to my mind, ‘she’s Marymaimuna.’
‘All right. I am coming to your school. I want to see the girl with that name,’ Ummah continued laughing.
My ummah couldn’t come to school to see my Marymaimuna. I stopped going to school before she could. That was the year my father died.
It was a name that I had completely forgotten. Marymaimuna. But when I saw a particularly beautiful goat in the masara, in tremendous waves all those memories rushed back to me. To me, that goat had the same beauty as Marymaimuna!
Would you believe me if I told you that in my masara we had goats that laughed like Jagathy, walked like Mohanlal, stammered like EMS? Only a few goats were permanent residents in the masara: the female goats that produced babies constantly and gave enough milk, and some virile male goats. All the remaining ones were dispatched to the market at some point or the other. The most interesting thing was that when one with a particular name went away, that name did not die out. After some time, a goat with similar qualities appeared. Then I repeated the names: Jagathy, Mohanlal, Njandu Raghavan, Kausu, Ammini … I think that, for both men and goats, births are but reincarnations from generation to generation.
I started calling the goat whom I approached first when I was deputed to milk Pochakkari Ramani. It was the goat whose udders I touched for the first time. That name’s relevance lies in an incident that happened when I was young. One of my uncles, Pokkar mama, used to visit our house frequently. Whenever he came to visit us, he took me out for a walk in the afternoon. Before we stepped out, he would say to my ummah, ‘Atha, give me twenty-five paise to buy him sweets.’ And every time, Ummah gave him twenty-five paise, but I never got any sweets. Not only that, Pokkar mama only took me to the field nearby. We would wait there for the women to come and cut grass. Ramani was one of the many women who came to cut grass. It was Mama’s routine to pay Ramani the money he got from ummah to buy me sweets so that he could fondle her breasts.
I too developed a desire to fondle her breasts! ‘You can also fondle my breasts if you bring me twenty-five paise,’ Pochakkari Ramani said. She gave me a knock on my head and chased me away when I told her that I didn’t have any money. At home I was afraid to ask for money. I would only get a beating. Still, I had to fondle those breasts. So I pinched twenty-five paise from Ummah’s rice box. Thus, one day, to my delight, I too got to fondle the fodder girl Ramani’s breasts and enjoy the experience. But Ummah, who kept an account of every paisa, caught my theft. I divulged the truth when she questioned me. Pokkar mama’s visits to our house stopped after that incident and he got the nickname ‘breast mama’. Pochakkari Ramani eventually became a well-known prostitute in our locality!
Twenty-six
We can endure any misery if we have someone to share it with. Being lonely is very depressing. Words twitched like silverfish inside me. Unshared emotions pulsated, bubbled and frothed at my mouth. An ear to pour out my sorrows, two eyes to look at me and a cheek beside me became essential for my survival. In their absence one turns mad, even suicidal. It might be the reason why people condemned to solitary confinement turn insane.
Getting those words out, expelling them, provides the greatest mental peace. Those who do not get this chance die choking on words. I too would have died like that. But it was through the stories I narrated to my Pochakkari Ramani, my Marymaimuna, my Kausu and Aravu Ravuthar that I threw out those words accumulating inside me. I kept talking to them as if I were talking to dear ones when I walked them, milked them, filled their containers and gave them fodder. I poured out my tears, pains, sufferings, emotions and dreams. I do not know if they understood anything. But they listened to me, looked at me with raised eyes, even shed tears with me. That was enough for me.
In those days when I had only goats for company, there was an occasion when I shared with them not only my sorrows and pains, but also my body. One night, as I lay down, I could not sleep. I didn’t know why, but I was covered in sweat. I had an insatiable desire, a passion building up inside me like a desert storm. For some time, I had been impotent. I did not think I would have the urge to be sexually active again. But it happened. What had lain dormant for so long suddenly woke up. All my efforts to satiate it only made me crave it even more. Seductive nude female figures began to slither in front of my eyes. I thawed in that emotional surge. I needed a body to lie close to. I needed a cave to run into. I became mad. In the intensity of that madness, I got up and rushed out. When I opened my tired ey
es in the morning, I was in the masara. With Pochakkari Ramani lying close to me.
The desire to see Hakeem again also increased after I learned that he was in the neighbouring masara. My eyes had this craving to see another human being. He was also searching for ways to meet me. We realized that we had not run into each other in the desert till then because we had been taking our goats in different directions. Between our two masaras, there was a small valley. It ruined all the chances of our meeting. Slowly, however, I started going towards that valley. I began to spot Hakeem at a distance. He too started moving towards me. We began to meet though the arbab often scolded me about it. But I didn’t heed his words. My fear of him had vanished through constant exposure to it. What would happen? Some rebuke, some smacks. I had got used to both.
Hakeem’s arbab was worse than mine. Sometimes he told me about the torment he had to undergo. His arbab’s pastime included flicking boiling water on Hakeem’s face, pulling his hair, poking a stick into his backside, kicking his chest, dunking his head in water, etc. Therefore Hakeem was very afraid of our meetings being detected by his arbab. On the occasions when he actually came, he would run away after saying a word or two. We even devised ways to meet each other. For that, I would poke a stick into a goat’s anus or twist its tail. Then the goat would run crazily. I would run after it and hit it, which would make it run even faster. Thus, somehow, I would get near Hakeem. When the arbab looked from afar through his binoculars, it appeared as though I had reached the place chasing a runaway goat. We would quickly exchange a word or two. Our conversation would end there. It had to end there. If we spent even a little more time, the arbab would arrive in his vehicle. Just imagine how much we had to restrain ourselves to squeeze in all our thoughts into two pairs of words. A person who has the opportunity to talk incessantly all through the day would not be able to easily relate to my torment.
Twenty-seven
One day, I was sitting on a sand dune, watching over the goats. I could see Hakeem with his goats in the distance. I thought about going up to him for a chat. But the arbab hadn’t taken his eyes off the binoculars. His supervision had increased in the past few days. He had in fact strictly forbidden me from meeting Hakeem. It could be that he feared our frequent meetings might kindle in us a desire to escape together. But the reason my arbab gave me was different—that there might be germs and diseases in the other masara which could spread to our masara and to our goats through my contact with Hakeem. To tell you the truth, I felt like laughing—as if my masara was the abode of hygiene!
Anyway, I suppressed my desire to talk to Hakeem. I could somehow bear with the beatings and scoldings, but why should I push Hakeem towards the same fate?
Maybe because of that distant view of Hakeem, suddenly I was struck by the thoughts of the homeland. It did not happen very often during my life in the masara. All my longings rose in unison inside me. My Sainu, my ummah, my son … my daughter …? My house, my canoe. How many times had I heard about the nostalgia of the diaspora? It often surprised me later that I never grieved for my shattered dreams even in those hostile situations. I think such thoughts come only to those who can see an exit. I never thought that I would escape from the hell I was in. Once trapped, I carried on living with no hopes of escape. The dead don’t dream about life. But that day, a faint hope that I might also escape sprouted in me.
Merciful Allah, you perform great miracles in the lives of many: a beggar strikes gold by winning a jackpot, a sick man regains his health one fine morning, the victim of an accident leaves the place without a scratch, one person escapes while hundred others perish in a plane crash, a shipwrecked sailor makes it to the shore, someone comes up alive weeks later from the ruins of an earthquake. How many such events challenge common sense? Won’t you make such a miracle happen in my life? You just need to will it. What if a hay truck driver stopped his vehicle for me? A water truck man transported me to a safe place? Why, what if the arbab himself took pity on me and sent me back? Your will alone is required, your benevolence. I looked at the heavens. There were pale clouds floating like orphans, showing me no sign of hope.
It was then that I saw two billy goats locking horns. When these goats locked horns with each other, they turned twice as aggressive. They would stop only when their horns would break and heads bleed. The fury one male had towards another! I ran towards them and hit them. Seething with anger, one moved away. The other turned towards me and breathed fire from his nostrils, locking his eyes with mine. He drew all his fury to his horns. I didn’t budge from where I stood. As he leapt at me, I evaded him quickly. I had learned the manoeuvre from experience. A goat would never attack abruptly. It would stop, take aim and then leap. Until then, one should remain still. Dive away as it charges towards you. With the momentum carrying it forward, it can’t change direction. That’s the only way to dodge the charge of a billy goat.
As the goat lost its target, it nosedived into the ground. The fall took away its fury. Somehow it got up and went away in another direction. The goat’s fall had made a depression in the sand. When I looked there casually, I thought I spotted something. There was some evidence of previous digging. Tense, I walked up to the spot. The sight stunned me. I glanced at the arbab. He was resting, his eyes off the binoculars. I sat down and began to dig slowly. My suspicion came true. I jumped up horrified when I saw it. It was a human palm! A palm rotting away to the bones. With intense fear and anxiety I started brushing away the sand. I had merely removed a layer of the earth when a human skeleton came into view. I was really terrified now. As I stepped back, something struck my foot. A leather belt that had not yet decomposed. A belt that looked familiar. Suddenly, lightning struck me. I had seen that belt on the waist of the scary figure who had disappeared from the masara the third day after I reached.
I bolted towards the masara, leaving the goats there. I went and fell at the feet of the arbab. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I am not going to abscond from this place. It is enough if you don’t kill me. I don’t even mind living like this. I am afraid of death.’ I kept crying. The arbab was bemused. He couldn’t figure out the reason for my sudden outburst!
Twenty-eight
Every experience in life has a climax, whether it be happiness, sorrow, sickness or hunger. When we reach the end, there are only two paths left for us: either we learn to live with our lives or protest and struggle in a final attempt to escape. If we choose the second path, we are safe if we win; if not, we end up in a mental asylum or kill ourselves.
So far I had not tried to escape. The first few times were amateurish attempts. I had not reached the end of my tether then. Actually, I had learnt to live with my circumstances. My experience taught me that no matter how severe our pain or how harsh the difficulties we face, we come to terms with our miseries in the course of time. I became used to my life over the course of a year. I no longer found it burdensome. In the past I used to wonder how beggars, the very poor, the permanently sick, the blind and the handicapped went on with their lives, how happy smiles broke out on their faces. Now I had my answer—from life itself. I didn’t feel like my life had any difficulties any more. What did I have to do? Wake up in the morning, milk the goats, give fodder to the animals, take the goats for a walk, come back, eat khubus, go to bed in daylight and moonshine. No thoughts, no worries, no desires. What else did I need? I didn’t know anything about what was happening in the outside world. I had forgotten my family, my home, my homeland. They had become to me people who had lived with me in some other life or time. I was not at all affected by their sorrows or their miseries. My life was happy. Happy.
Thus, in my life, summer came, winter came, wind came, dust storm came, rain came now and then, trucks came once a week. Everything came. Everything left. Only my goats and I stayed in the masara without leaving. And Hakeem and his goats in the neighbouring masara. It was then that an unfortunate third came into our midst. He was brought to Hakeem’s masara. Hakeem and he were together all the time. That was
the first time I envied another human being so deeply. In fact, I was morose. Hakeem had someone to talk to, to communicate with. I remained a goat in the masara of goats. I began to hate myself even more.
Twenty-nine
The changes in Hakeem were visible. I didn’t know anything about the new arrival, who he was or where he came from. But he brought great changes in Hakeem’s life. Large smiles broke out on his face. His words were joyful. I shrank into a shell out of sheer envy. I felt anger and animosity towards the whole world. I gave vent to my bitterness by taking it out on the goats in the masara—by squashing the balls of the newborn males, jabbing at the udders of the milk-goats with my staff, and shoving sticks up the ass of the sheep.
Initially Hakeem was timid about coming to the place where I herded the goats. But after he got a companion, he began to come there quite often. Although he didn’t come very near, he came within shouting distance. Though his arbab hit him for making these forays, the boldness Hakeem acquired from his new companion made it possible to for him to keep coming. I really wanted to see his friend. But he didn’t come out of the masara too often. While Hakeem took the goats outside, he did the chores inside the masara.
However, one day Hakeem brought him to meet me. He was a gigantic figure. Very tall. My first impression was that he seemed like a character from Prophet Musa’s time. From a distance I was convinced that he was a Pathan from Pakistan. They came close and Hakeem introduced him to me: Ibrahim Khadiri from Somalia. A banyan tree that had grown in an African desert! Hakeem and I looked like wilting plants in front of that banyan tree. (Because of that meeting both saplings got enough beatings!)
