Wild Animals Prohibited

by Subimal Misra

  What do we conclude about the significance of these discoveries?

  There was Rabindrasangeet playing in the house next door. Tinu – Ajoy was called Tinu as a child – picked up a pencil and drew a square, and at its centre he made a red dot. The clock struck nine. The pet cat lay in the sun, its body stretched out. There was a spider's web on the wall, sparkling white. A fly buzzed around.

  What happens when flapping wings sound

  Pollen rains down

  What will the fly do

  It'll be caught in the spider's web

  Where's the spider

  In the middle of Sushma's belly

  Tinu now wanted a colour pencil – red pencil blue pencil green pencil. Tinu drew a picture of an ogre, filling the entire page. But he said he'd drawn a picture of a man. As he brought down the small hand of the clock showing nine, it turned six. The pet cat showed off a trapeze act on the spider's web. As water flowed gushingly and loudly in the bathroom, every kind of laughter and weeping was washed and wiped away. Sushma, open your mouth. I shall look for a spider inside your mouth. Using a blue pencil, Tinu drew walls on the four sides, he drew a gate. He drew a watchman at the gate. He wondered if there should be a gun in his hand. As he tried to draw a huge moustache on the watchman, he ended up drawing a long, straight-line procession of men. He drew red flags in their hands. Sushma, I'm looking for a job. If I had a job the shame would be far less. I could tell everyone, my chest swollen with pride. Tinu drew a happy nook in the room, he drew a parrot in a cage. He made a gramophone. The gramophone adorned the happy nook. Across the river Padma, in Bakshiganj, the weekly market assembled. It was Friday. And today? The villagers bought and sold. And in the city? Tinu tried to draw a bullock cart. He had forgotten what a bullock cart looked like. Then he drew the latest Fiat model.

  On the one hand we create artificial humans and on the other hand the oxygen in our atmosphere is progressively getting exhausted. We are advancing rapidly towards a sudden disastrous event. It is from the countless planktons in the oceans that, through photosynthesis, more than 70 per cent of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced. Some fifty thousand poisonous substances and pesticides, radio isotopes, enzymes, etc., that can severely harm life, all invented in the modern era, are now thrown as waste into the sea. Owing to the movement of ships and so on, every year one and a half million tonnes of oil spills into the seawater. The oil that spills from motor cars and industrial plants on land is almost double that, and almost all of it goes into rivers that eventually reach the sea. Earlier, it was not necessary for the earth to degrade many of these toxic substances. It has been observed in tests that even tiny doses of these substances greatly destroy the sea plankton, thus endangering our source of oxygen.

  Moreover, every year, through the increasing use of fuel, we are irresponsibly exhausting the oxygen in the atmosphere. Before the onset of the industrial revolution, the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million, at present there are 321 parts, meaning each year the quantity goes up by seventy parts per million. In addition, by destroying trees and natural vegetation, which enable photosynthesis, over thousands of acres of land, we hinder the production of oxygen yet again. It's not just our air and water that is polluted but oxygen itself that is rapidly disappearing from the earth. Till the very end of his life, Professor Lloyd undertook research on the sources of oxygen. He cautions us with this conclusion: one day, very suddenly, there will be a deficiency in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. And the earth's population is advancing rapidly towards that terrible day.

  Its teeth were terribly sharp, it chewed and ate humans.

  No one lived in the city's old quarters, broken houses, heaps of bricks, a jungle of weeds, derelict factories, people didn't go there, they shuddered even if they went there during the day. It lived there and it ate human flesh.

  Once complete darkness envelops the place, it emerges, it searches for raw humans.

  Not heeding any obstacles, the hay-laden bullock cart went along the road, it collapsed. A man who spoke of such chicanery – within twenty-four hours his mouth filled with blood and he died.

  The sacred offerings in the broken pot lay on one side, goat's blood – standing in the darkness, looking, the sharp teeth were sighted, it ate human flesh.

  Searching among heaps of bricks, torchlight in hand, braving the wind that whistled away like a flute being played, the torch slipped and dropped from the hand. Nothing could be discerned in the darkness.

  A dog wailed somewhere. Tearing through the darkness, the waxing eleven-day moon rose above the saal trees. Moonlight flooded the grated windows of the factory.

  Roads from all directions culminated here.

  Moonlight flooded the old grated windows of the factory.

  Perspiring profusely, the terrifying sharp teeth were sighted, it ate humans.

  Mohenjodaro endangered! Save the 'monument of the dead' from the fury of the Indus's floods and salinity! Reading, he approached, and as he approached he saw that someone had thrown Sushma's headless corpse under the dim light at the crossroads. He felt sick when he saw that and in order to overcome it, without looking in any direction, he just kept running fast. After a while, he stopped in front of a cigarette shop, fatigued, and saw some people there. Heaving a sigh of relief as he gave the man sitting in the elevated booth some coins for a cigarette, he remembered that this very afternoon he had seen a man who looked like worn-out hanging leather, sucking at the leg of a dead dog with relish. Instead of buying a cigarette, he lifted and showed the heel of his shoe to the shopkeeper and asked him: Could you please see whether there's any blood on my heel? The man sitting in the shop was somewhat startled at this, and stared at his dishevelled hair. He raised the heel of the shoe higher, and moving closer to the shopkeeper, said: Can you see anything? Any bloodstains? The shopkeeper wasn't startled this time, his attention was directed at the paan he was preparing, and as he applied lime to the paan leaves, he said: Yes, I see it, not on your heel but on your elbow, on your shirt. He was very surprised and said, But it's not supposed to be there. With an air of indifference, the shopkeeper continued to fold his paan leaves and said, I don't know anything about that. Here, take some lime and apply it on the stain.

  As he applied the lime, he remembered that Mohenjodaro was endangered. It had to be protected from the fury of the Indus's floods and salinity.

  Man

  A kind of radioactive waste

  Between demon and man

  The ogre kills for need, man without need

  Mohenjodaro

  City of the dead

  Ajoy loved Sushma

  And Sushma Ajoy

  YOU PEOPLE SAY DAY AND NIGHT

  Ajoy hated Sushma

  And Sushma Ajoy

  What happens when flapping wings sound

  Pollen rains down

  What will the fly do

  It'll be caught in the spider's web

  Where's the spider

  In the middle of Sushma's belly

  But much as he tried to chew it his mouth only

  Filled with blood and

  That fresh blood

  Trickled and flowed for two miles

  The billy goat stopped chewing and in amazement

  Began to wonder

  The sound of the golden eagle flapping its wings

  Could be heard on and on

  Because of the genes, two million genes

  Today, not a single child is born without at least one unit of a transuranium element in its body. This poison enters our body through food. When transuranium (92) enters a pregnant woman's body, a good part of it accumulates in the foetus. What is most worrying is that within ten minutes of entering the body, its terrible radioactivity reaches the bones, where it nestles permanently. Radioactive transuranium elements reside in the body for at least twenty-eight years and there is no way of removing this substance from the bones. A child born with a transuranium element has to live out its
whole life as this radioactivity's waste. Not only that, iodine (131) nestles in the thyroid gland and cesium (137) in the nervous system and in muscle tissue, and under specific conditions, these give rise to frightful diseases. Far more harm than that caused by nuclear weapons and tests is caused by the use of nuclear energy in so-called peaceful purposes. The impact of radioactivity on gene mutation is, alas Ajoy and Sushma, unhindered today.

  RADIOACTIVITY CONTINOUSLY ACCUMULATES IN THE HUMAN BODY

  THE TRANSMISSION PATH OF RADIO NUCLIDES

  Pictures drawn by ancient man in Lascaux's caves: between a rhinoceros and a bison lies a dead man, a stick-like body. The bison's body speared, its innards spewing out, its head lowered, ready to strike with its horns. In the middle a dead body, drawn with a few paltry strokes, a rectangular body, arms and legs like sticks, the face bird-like. Killed in battle, that half-man lies between the rhinoceros and the bison, his face flat on the earth.

  _________________

  Tejoskriyo Aborjona, 1980

  The Cow Is a Kind of

  Quadrangular Creature

  The cow is a kind of quadrangular creature that conceals the cosmic beam in its eyelids. There are bits and pieces of all sorts of treasures in cows' heads, with which they ruminate over everything in the world as they chew cud. Baba had once brought a cow from Honduras which actually exactly reproduced the work of its forebears and destroyed the colourful slough of plywood, fabricated over thirty years, which people at every turn call democracy. And ever since, we steadily became well-versed in cow-related affairs. Baba explained to us that no matter how confident we might be regarding cows' legs, we weren't correct, because cows could have two or three or four or even five legs – there was nothing certain about it. Cows could definitely declare a state of emergency or, if they so desired, they possessed the capability to bring about a military coup at a whim. They loved to chew furtively on newspapers or the rolled-up pages of the Constitution. Dry roots and tubers from beneath the soil, syntax: the alphabet system, their own tails, thorny plants, unused cartridges – all this, everything was their fodder, and they derived great pleasure from eating them. But it wouldn't do to think that cows did not possess a sense of beauty or that they were not aware of their own class interest. They dearly loved to sing 'The forests are alive with spring'. When the nation needed pharmaceutical factories, it was cows who reminded the ministers to increase the production of cosmetics instead, and it was cows who advised them to manufacture armaments, keeping people starved. If one were to look at a cow's tail, there would seem to be nothing useful about it, but many believe it comes in handy for nuclear disarmament. Even if cows usually seemed quite innocent, they could become terribly bloodthirsty. If they got the appropriate opportunity and means, they even killed someone as untroublesome as Archimedes. Cows cannot tolerate the views of others. Some people speak in whispers about a special type of cow. These cows apparently use the horns on their head as antennae, and nurture hostility towards every other line of thinking. They say: 'Only what I say is correct, and that's what you must do.' Asking questions is always banned in the cows' world. There's a worldwide revolution taking place among cows. A perpetual uprising. Their clothes and garb, thinking, everything is changing rapidly. Those who can't stay in step with this get rejected. They become obsolete. There aren't just innards and intestines in the cow's belly, there is every kind of wicked design in there, every evil intent to keep humans human. Cows couldn't attain ultimate bliss unless they feuded among themselves. There are many molesters among cows. Most cows know a Sten gun and can tell a country bomb from a pomelo. The cerebral excellence of cows depends upon a certain cosmic beam. Cows worship in Kalighat, but given the opportunity, they also commit adultery. Dropping bombs on children's schools makes them happy. They love to use diaphragms. The twelfth cow that Baba had reared in his lifetime loved to listen to Beethoven and from time to time it took to sexual assault. It once showed the precise site from where civilization and everything else had begun. But what it did eventually was unimaginable. One night, finding an opportunity, it raped Baba and saw to it that Ma was compelled to go into that room. Although ordinary to look at, cows are exceptional beings. Water is water to them and pistols are merely pistols, but they don't see female bodies simply as female bodies. One hears that in some places the cows' urge for self-inquiry is so profound that they end up writing Mein Kampf, or getting into the Guernicaas mites, they devour it, robbing it of the lustre of the hues and curves of the lines. Everyone knows about vampires sitting on cows and sucking their blood at night, but what people don't know is that sometimes cows suck away the vampire's blood, leaving it a paper-white spine. It is fatuous to say that there are differences of opinion among scholars regarding cows; in fact no two scholars can ever be unanimous about cows. Some cows suffer indigestion from eating too much while some get by with eating very little all their lives and scuffling among themselves. There are divisions among cows along lines of nation–time–role. A seventy-seven-year-old cow will never chew on dry straw like a forty-seven-year-old one. You can't immediately tell the colour of the pupils of a cow's eyes but it can rest its entire weight on two legs and stretch its neck and look at the moonlight through the window. Cows love to see nude cows very much – they call it art. In some species of cow, wearing undergarments is also in vogue. Up-to-date cows think about sexuality, they also think about revolution, while for others, arranging cacti decoratively in the verandah is a daily ritual. The shadow of the Tata Centre building falls quite often on the cows as they feed on grass in the Maidan. Cows are extremely wary of one thing. If any of them read books or thought contrarily, they were declared dangerous. And if they are extremely wayward they are made to stand in front of a firing squad. In this respect, the cows' civilization is incomparable. However, it is true that cows themselves shall one day decide on the means of liberation of cows.

  _________________

  Goru Ek Dhoroner Chotushkon Prani, 1977

  How a Horse Becomes a Donkey:

  Horse > Horkey > Honkey > Donkey

  No rice in the belly

  And the husband's horny

  When the massive Mohenjodaro bull advanced, it looked terribly extremist, and Hemnalini coquettishly twirled the bangles on her wrist – sometimes she sang 'Don't love in a tumult…' and sometimes it was 'Love's as sticky as jackfruit gum…' Seeing the bull, the one from Mohenjodaro, still advancing, she snarled, 'Why so horny, smartass cow – always standing erect?' and then asked, 'Is my body a clove's flower? That whoever finds it, whenever, can nibble away?' The pre-historic bull doesn't stop even at that, and then Hemnalini sees lotuses everywhere, she gazes at them –

  A mad elephant's in the lotus bower a serpent's

  in the lotus bower

  a pair of swans in the lotus bower

  Right then, the son of One-cowrie Mondal of Madaritala considers hawking bread in the train compartment to be far more profitable than going to school.

  Right then, in India's employment exchanges

  Counting only the registered unemployed, the figure stood at tens of millions

  Right then, there's pervasive boy–metaphor–rage– adorned–tiger-torment

  Some people's calves had been carried away by a tiger

  Full of rage, they made a tiger trap –

  Before doing it, the prehistoric bull transformed itself into an omnipotent western bull with a bison-like head, a chain strung from the brass ring through its nose, massive shoulders– speedy–young son-in-law–lolling in adulation – what we fetch from the faraway west, spending our valuable foreign exchange in order to make a new generation of babies in the wombs of Indian cows with their udders hanging from bulging stomachs; they who snatch our mothers and sisters and do it to them in public, while we the shrivelled wait for a future that is bullish in every way. Whenever anything foreign is sighted, Hemnalini sways her buttocks in a frenzy. For one it was a yankee bull, and on top of that, seeing the one-and-a-half-foot-long huge re
d radish, she can no longer control her lust. Intoxicated with desire, she lies on her back and spreads her two legs

  In this fashion, Hemnalini was busy making bullish Indian babies in her womb,

  With the western bull's seed

  The mangy mongrel on the street walks by, lifting its leg and pissing all the way

  An exquisite melody of eternal love plays

  In Rabindrasangeet calligraphed in golden letters over deep blue:

  Love says I've stayed awake for you age upon age

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes

  Elderly revolutionaries, afflicted by constipation, Enunciate the objective condition of the nation, spewing Marx–Lenin

  They eat cottage cheese morning and night, there's protein in cottage cheese

  In honour of their success at being able to admit their sons into English-medium schools

  The clerical parents too feel as proud as though they've stepped on the moon

  … Do you know, Jayanti, our Nantoo speaks only in English

  He has almost forgotten Bengali