by Kiran Desai
‘These monkeys are a terrible business, sir,’ said Mr Gupta, pretending hard to be unhappy, but looking, despite it all, very happy indeed.
21
The first meeting held with the Brigadier following the District Collector’s arrival was stormed by the Monkey Protection Society. Terrified, the DC looked out of the window at the crowd of gargantuan proportions that seemed only to grow each time he turned his head to look again.
The evening before he had been taken to see Sampath in the guava orchard. Of course, he too had been accompanied by what Mr Gupta had referred to as ‘rabble – rousers’. Shyly, for a moment, he had looked at Sampath and Sampath had looked at him. In a curious way, each of them had felt exposed and vulnerable to the other. Neither said a word as everybody else began, yet again, to have their say. Then Sampath had turned on his cot so he faced into the leaves and had refused to turn around again, so afraid was he of going through the same trauma that had caused him to be sick a few days ago. The DC felt a strong sympathy for the Baba and returned home even more distressed about the matter than before.
And now who knew what would happen at this meeting …
‘Don’t worry, sir,’ whispered Mr Gupta, who had arrived for the meeting so early he was even in time to help the official heat his bath water with a makeshift immersion heater made of an electric coil about a wooden stick. ‘I am here to give tip-top advice,’ Mr Gupta whispered to him, smiling comfortingly. He liked his new boss much more than mean Mr D. P. S. from the post office.
The Brigadier seated himself across from the DC and Mr Gupta. He had been looking forward to presenting his clever plan to them. But no sooner had he opened his mouth than the crowd began to shout very loudly through the window. How was he supposed to talk with all these village bumpkins gathered around?
‘What kind of military do we have in the country?’ said angry voices. ‘It is full of idiots. Firing guns every hour! We will not allow it. No guns in a holy place, no guns in a holy place, no guns in a holy place …’
‘Do you even …’ the Brigadier stuttered in response. ‘Illiterate donkeys!’
‘We will not stand for it,’ interrupted a stern woman from the Monkey Protection Society and poked her thin head right into the room. ‘No, we will not. We will absolutely, under no circumstances, stand for it.’
‘Really, sir,’ whispered Mr Gupta into the ear of the DC, ‘it is a silly plan, sir. “Disperse men throughout the brush,” he says here in his plan. But what brush, sir? Hundreds of people going up and down … it is more like a fairground than a brush. The bullets will be bound to hit somebody or other.’
‘What, then, do you propose we do?’ The Brigadier lost his temper at them all and leapt to his feet. ‘Why don’t you think of something yourselves? Why don’t you come up with an alternative plan, heh?’
‘We should investigate peaceful options,’ said a voice.
‘Like what?’ asked the Brigadier coldly and waited.
A silence fell upon the crowd.
‘Negotiation,’ said the Monkey Protection lady after a while.
‘Oh hoh!’ said the Brigadier with scorn and triumph. ‘You try negotiating with a monkey, aunty.’ And the seriousness of the protest was somewhat undermined as this picture of the stern Monkey Protection lady negotiating with the monkeys struck several people as being funny and they began, despite their fervent objection to his plan, to giggle rather inappropriately.
The DC looked at them amazed. How could they laugh? Just after they’d been shouting such angry threats …
Certainly, he reflected, he had come to a very unusual place. But this plan was inadmissible. His supervisor would be sure to hear of it and then, if there were any casualties … He must be firm about putting his foot down. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ he said to the Brigadier, ‘this does not appear to be the most prudent of possibilities …’
Later in the morning they met with the CMO, who was accompanied by a crowd of angry businessmen and shopkeepers who had spent all night chanting slogans outside his bungalow. Gasping and pale, he dashed from the car to the DC’s office under the guard of the police superintendent, who had been forced into duty yet again.
‘We have received protests from all the shopkeepers, sir,’ said Mr Gupta, giving the DC a quick briefing. ‘They refuse to have their liquor licences revoked, and also we have received threats from all the surrounding towns saying if we revoke the licences, the monkeys will simply shift their focus and carry on being a nuisance in their vicinity. And they are right, sir, these monkeys might even teach their tricks to the local monkey populations in other towns if they are thrown out of this one. And then we will have a whole state of drunken monkeys. You yourself are familiar with the adage “One bad apple spoils the others.” In this case we might say, “One bad monkey spoils the others.”’
‘But, sir,’ shouted someone in the listening crowd, inspired by Mr Gupta’s little witticism, ‘can you really teach an old monkey new tricks?’
‘Arreji,’ said someone else, ‘we will have enough problems with the young monkeys, whether the old ones are learning anything or not.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Gupta, ‘this would be a case of “Stick your head out in wartime and be hit on the head.’” He was enjoying showing off some of the lines he had learned from the Monkey Baba, especially since he had spotted Miss Jyotsna’s admiring face in the midst of the crowd. In fact, he was amazed at how he could say these things and somehow, without him having to think, they meant exactly what he meant. He imagined being alone with Miss Jyotsna on a moonlit night. ‘To make cream, you must churn the milk.’
Despite himself, the DC had begun to giggle. He felt surprisingly free. ‘I do not know,’ he said to the CMO, ‘if this revoking of liquor licences would be the best idea …
The CMO was dismayed at how his plan was being greeted. ‘Since this is the response I have been given,’ he said in a dignified and injured tone, ‘I might as well go home. I have another meeting to attend.’
‘Is this the meeting with Vermaji, the scientist?’ asked Mr Gupta with interest, and on hearing that it was, he turned to his boss. ‘We had better join in, sir. He too has a proposal, if you recall, to get rid of the monkeys. If the CMO passes it, it will be presented to you.’ He was loath to give up the fun and allow it to carry on somewhere else without him.
And so the three of them and their entourage of protesters travelled to the office of the Chief Medical Officer. On the way, the crowds gathered up their strength, even though they had been standing for quite a while now, and began to noisily shout their slogans. ‘Dab your mouth with honey and you will get plenty of flies,’ they shouted. ‘Sweep before your own door. Your answers are beside the question. Many a pickle makes a mickle. Every bean has its black. Gather thistles and expect pickles? Show a clean set of teeth.’
‘Do you hear them?’ asked the DC, puzzled, his thoughts side-tracked. ‘Many a pickle makes a mickle … what is a mickle? Guptaji, this town is full of adages I have never heard before.’
‘When the buffaloes fight, the crops suffer,’ the crowd continued. ‘It is a hard winter when dogs eat dogs. Every cock fights best on his own dunghill. Puff not against the wind. Talk of chalk and hear about cheese!’
‘Talk of chalk … and hear about cheese? Very odd. Where does this cheese come from?’ The DC found himself most interested. He wished he could have stopped to ask them the meaning of all they were saying. ‘Hear about cheese …’
While awaiting their arrival, Vermaji was sampling the tumbler of onion juice he had found sitting on the office desk in front of him, thinking, at first glance, that it was lemon squash. He took a gulp and immediately ran to the window to spit it out. He emptied the rest of the tumbler into the dry flowerbed.
‘Terrible juice,’ he said, making a face at the CMO when he entered. ‘Why don’t you drink orange instead?’ he asked. ‘Or pineapple?’
The temple people hammered on the door.
> What a rude man, thought the officer, looking at the empty glass. First he had drunk all his onion juice and then, after that, he had had the audacity to criticize it. Why had he drunk it in the first place? Immediately he decided he was not going to approve Verma’s plan. It was an absurd plan and why should he pass it when his own had been dismissed so readily? Nobody was considerate of him and he would not be considerate of Verma.
‘Absolutely not,’ he said.
‘Why, what is wrong with pineapple juice? It’s very nice juice,’ said Verma, perplexed.
‘I mean your plan,’ shouted the CMO angrily. (Oh, and now he would get another stress-induced ulcer, he thought, in an immediate terrified aside.)
‘But it is the one simple plan,’ Verma pleaded, ‘the one logical and scientific approach to what is after all a scientific problem of langur and human interaction, of alcohol addiction in monkeys – why can’t it be approved?’
‘It’s a silly plan, that’s why,’ said Mr Gupta, although it was not his place to say anything. ‘It will cause all sorts of bad smells and unsanitary conditions and that too in a holy place. And, no doubt, our fly problem would get worse.’
‘We must categorically refuse your request,’ said the CMO.
‘Yes,’ said the DC, who was still thinking of the adages.
But when at the end of the day they realized they had come up with no workable plan, they drove home somewhat subdued.
The police superintendent brought the DC the news that the monkeys had been on another expedition and raided the cupboards of the retired District Judge. They had taken five bottles of whisky and bounded away before the servants had even realized what had happened.
The DC went back to his bungalow and sat down worriedly. There he had been, laughing in a way he did only with his one close friend – miraculously his shyness had somewhat disappeared that day – but the problem had not been solved. He must not forget his responsibilities. He mulled things over, but could not think of anything that would raise his spirits. When the cook served his dinner, for it was already quite late in the evening, he was even further discouraged; he saw, with a sinking feeling of his heart, that his meal consisted of burnt-looking cutlets upon one of the grubbiest plates he had ever seen. Just where a pattern of flowers or, say, stripes should have been, the platter was stamped about with dirty fingerprints. The cook put it down before him with an unceremonious thump, then, without looking at the DC, turned and left.
Government officials did not know how to eat properly any more. The cook felt full of bitterness. And unable to make cutlets the first night, he had been struck with an unshakeable determination to make cutlets the second night. He made cutlets with a vengeance, a whole pile of them, and what insipid tasteless things they were – the DC was forced to bring out his mother’s pickle to add a bit of flavour to his meal. He felt as miserable as ever.
Miserable as ever, and alone, sitting there by himself at one end of the huge dining table. A bare bulb dangled from a wire above him and cast a dim light upon the table, while the rest of the room disappeared into darkness around him. The windows were black, gaping holes to his right and left. Sad, dirty curtains hung limply at their sides. He got up, drew the grey fabric together and sat back down to his cutlets. Oh, how would he be able to finish the awful, charred things?
Just as he was wondering whether to flush them down the toilet, he was interrupted by Mr Chawla.
‘Who is it?’ said the DC, alarmed.
‘It’s the Monkey Baba’s father,’ said Mr Chawla and, opening the flimsy wooden door that led in from the front veranda, he stepped inside. ‘I too,’ he said firmly, ‘have a proposal to make.’
‘What proposal?’ asked the DC, putting down his knife. A wave of tiredness swept over him. It had been a long day. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.
‘Let us train the army and police as monkey catchers,’ said Mr Chawla. ‘Decide on a day in the near future and catch all the monkeys in one go. We can use the army trucks to convey them to a far-off forest, preferably in another state, from where it will be impossible for them to return or to obtain any liquor. They will have to resume the life they should be leading as monkeys, eating forest fruits and nuts.’
The DC sat back, considering what he had heard. There seemed to be no problem with that … Who on earth could object? Monkeys eating forest fruits and nuts … It painted a very pretty picture. Provided it would work. At first glance, anyway, it was a harmless enough proposal. And this was the Baba’s father who was proposing this plan. Surely he would do only what was best for his son. With a rush of compassion, he remembered Sampath, who had turned his back on him when he paid a visit to the orchard. ‘Perhaps you have thought of something,’ he said, playing with his cutlets. And he thought it over some more.
Mr Chawla stood and waited.
He had not been moved to laughter or shouted slogans like the other fools during the day’s earlier meetings. The orchard had disintegrated into a sorry state and he knew his life there was in danger of drawing to a close. Already, the flow of money into the bank accounts was dwindling. There were no more talks, no more gentle evenings; there was no more laughter. Sampath sat miserably, as if hiding now, in his tree. And Mr Chawla had noticed the way his son was slipping back into his old silences, into his old opaque and unhappy manner, the way his eyes were losing their quiet, contented look and glazing over. His good humour and his sense of fun had disappeared altogether, and ever since the DC’s visit he had stayed facing the leaves, preoccupied, for all his father knew, with the thought of leaving. What if Sampath should climb down from the tree, run away and spoil everything? No, this would not do. Things would have to be resolved. The monkeys would have to be dealt with and peace restored. And clearly, he thought, after the day’s meetings and discussions, you could not leave anything to bureaucratic ineptitude. He had grown steadily more frustrated through all of the day’s earlier plans and meetings. Behind this frustration, though, there was something more: a terrible sadness and a feeling of vulnerability he did not wish to investigate, though it lapped against his immediate concerns, giving him, despite himself, the unsettling feeling of being afloat upon an infinite ocean. He would not, could not, consider this. To think of such things, he was sure, would mean drilling holes in his watertight heart; all sorts of doubts would pour in and he would be a lost man.
‘What do you think of my plan?’ he asked the DC.
The District Collector moved a bit of cutlet from one end of the plate to the other. ‘Yes,’ he said again, more certainly this time, ‘perhaps you have thought of something.’ The proposal involved no guns, no religious matters, no business interests that he could see. It should at least be given a try. And he was the DC, after all, he remembered with a rush. If he said ‘Yes’, it meant ‘Yes.’ As firmly as he could, he said: ‘Yes, this is a workable plan. Of course, the Baba will have to descend from his tree temporarily, or he might suffer injury,’ and he ate the last bit of pickle on his plate and pushed away his cutlets. ‘Khansama,’ he shouted to the cook, ‘please do not make cutlets ever again. Never ever. No cutlets, no fish fry, no mutton chops, no aloo mash, no vegetable boil, no tomato soup, no fritters, no trifle, no caramel custard, no English food …’ He practically panted as he said this.
The cook appeared at the doorway, stood for a minute in his soiled red coat with a filthy black dishrag over his shoulder and then gave the DC a look of withering scorn. Without a word, he turned and disappeared back down the black corridor into the reaches of the cavernous and sooty kitchen.
On Monday evening the monkeys returned from the English Wine and Beer shop tipsy. On Wednesday they attempted to break into the Club for Retired Members of the Court. And on Thursday they held to ransom top-secret documents in the army’s headquarters that outlined safety precautions taken by the Indian army against invasion. They would not give them up until they were bribed with bottles from the bar in the mess.
With remarkable speed
, the necessary permission for Mr Chawla’s plan was granted, the requisite papers stamped, orders given to the army and police, and a date set for Monday, the last day of April, for Sampath’s temporary descent from the tree and the capture and transport of the Shahkot monkeys to a destination far away from Shahkot.
‘I will not descend,’ said Sampath.
‘But the descent is temporary. You can climb down and then, a few hours later, you can climb back up.’
But Sampath did not quite believe this. If he climbed down, somehow, he was sure, he would not get to climb up again. No doubt they would try to bundle him into some outrageous hermitage. Anyway: ‘I will not live without the monkeys,’ he said firmly, holding on to his initial position and not in the mood for compromise. Beneath his tree Miss Jyotsna wept.
Ammaji gave her a dirty look. ‘Why don’t you go home for a while?’ she said, nudging her with a fly swatter. ‘You are spoiling his mood even more.’
Kulfi winked kindly at her son, but her thoughts were far away. A monkey, she thought, and her eyes gleamed, looking like dark lakes pierced by sun. A monkey. How would she cook this fascinating monkey? On the last day of the month of April …
Should she bake it in a tandoor? Simmer and stew it? Stuff or fry it? Roll it into banana leaves, fill it into chickens or goose eggs? Mix it into a naan? Seal it in an earthen pot? Season it with saffron? Scent it with cloves? Cook it with pomegranate juice?
Sampath looked and found no help in the faces of his family. How much had changed since he had first arrived in the orchard such a short time back. How quickly it was becoming more and more like all he hoped he had left behind for ever. Ugly advertisements defaced the neighbouring trees; a smelly garbage heap spilled down the hillside behind the tea stall and grew larger every week. The buzz of angry voices and the claustrophobia he had associated with life in the middle of town were creeping up upon him again. And now they were getting rid of his favourite company in the orchard! Didn’t they know how fond he was of the monkeys? And didn’t they know how little he cared for all of them? Why didn’t they take their advertising, their noise and dirt, their cars and buses and trucks, why didn’t they take their little minds and leave him to his peace and quiet, to his beloved monkeys, to his beautiful landscape that was being so dirtily and shoddily defaced?
