Wild Animals Prohibited

by Subimal Misra

  Kudchi flowers, kudchi flowers

  Bloom in bunches everywhere

  A tiger ate the landlord in the forest

  The rays of the setting sun penetrate through the tree canopy and spread in every direction. The girls supporting Women's Lib, the ones who burn their bras, attend the enchanting programme. They wear thin see-through tops and jeans, despite it being a winter's evening. The jeans start below the navel, and the two ends of the shirt are knotted together four inches above the navel.

  – Could you eat the flesh of a corpse?

  – No!

  – Drink your own urine?

  – Not at all, Babaji, I know nothing at all of all that.

  – But I can. I've learnt hathayoga. For twelve years I practised the occult in the crematorium, sitting on the five-skulled seat. I can turn brass into gold.

  Then one day, the Guru came home. Like an offering to the gods, litchis are served on a stone plate and Kissan squash in a stone cup, with ice. The Guru, clad in saffron-brown silks, an India Kings lit in his right hand, his drooping eyes gazing fervently at the shishya's buxom maid-servant. An eighty-year-old woman had once remarked: Lord Shiva is always aroused so don't disturb him too much, dear … – Bearer, bring the bill please. Someone said – It's the self-made men, I mean, those who've risen from humble beginnings, who despise the poor. A long time ago, quoting an American sociologist, Nehru had written: Politics is the beautiful art of obtaining votes from the poor and money from the rich by giving assurances to both rich and poor about saving one from the other. And he was a great artist in this respect. In a country of 600 million people, 70 per cent of the world's illiterates were Indians. And in 1969–70, class struggle and class conflict were dominating the minds of even nineteen– twenty-year-old boys. Well-paid journalists in big newspapers gave it the name 'politics of annihilation' … He does not know whether power flowed through the barrel of a gun, but he did know that the number of illiterates in the state of West Bengal alone was greater than the number of illiterates in the whole of Europe. The lady's voice was as soft as silk. Giant posters requesting tax-free saving in the National Savings Fund, right next to posters advertising Nirodh. This huge world was God's farmhouse. All the people would be judged by his inviolable law here, for as long as the true could be distinguished from the false. In human society now, the chaff was more than the wheat … Yes, one by one, all of them were killed, and before being killed their eyes were gouged out, nails were driven into their skulls with a hammer, their argumentative tongues were pulled out, and the breasts of young women were sliced with a sharp cleaver. At that terrifying scene, loud screams fill the cinema theatre. In the wintry night, the flowing river and the mysterious forest nearby, deep in intimacy, side by side.

  Bitu had passed out.

  Other than a few drunkards, no one was awake in the hotel.

  Atolyus stole Sisyphus's sheep. Sisyphus eloped with Atolyus's daughter Anticleia. Salmoneus occupied the throne of Sisyphus. Sisyphus raped the daughter of Salmoneus. Tyro murdered the son of Sisyphus. Salmoneus was accused of the murder and expelled from the country. Tryro married Uncle Graham. Sisyphus got back the throne.

  In the middle of a herd of buffaloes, bullet-riddled Balthazar, Bresson's donkey. It is dying by the minute. Before that it had participated in the religious procession.

  – Where are you

  – Somewhere in the dark

  And then the titter of laughter.

  All the while, something happens inside, in this way. He changes, he experiences. He experiences the change himself. After losing God, a huge void was created in his life, and now he fills that void with experience. Nothing was contemptible to him any more, human greatness as well as human bones and filth, were both the same and equally natural. What has Bitu given me? I have to ask myself this question, and I have to answer it too. I got life's secret from her. If I have to fight against life, I'll fight, and this very life will then select one of us. And Bitu, you probably won't believe me, but my sliding and falling in this way is not shameful, there's nothing to be pained about. This is how I lie in wait to ambush life. That's how I survive. The survival is not of the everyday variety, like it is for others to whom life only shows its fangs, to whom life appears mundane, bloody and hollow. An acute strangeness develops in every individual. And it grows. As he wakes up, a terrible hangover. He can't see properly, a headache, a nauseous feeling. Through the mist, the tall trees on the sides of the road take on a ghostly appearance. Pictures hang on the walls, oil paintings, such refined taste. He pulls them down and throws them away. The sound of breaking glass shatters the silence. Mother and daughter titter in laughter. I'm not jealous, am I? It's not clear whether it's the mother's voice or the daughter's. Somprakash, tall and lanky, had taken her out. At first she was quite curious: oh, no more, Som, please. How the two of them had cavorted! The tips of the blades of grass pricked the bare back like needles. I forced her to drink quite a bit of brandy. My mind wandered to the desolate hotel on the sea coast. She stands on the balcony, gazing at the endless stretch of sea, still and calm. After that a cigarette, gentle puffs. Bitu loved striptease. She had even performed a few times, at private parties, at the request of friends. Somprakash knows. On the last occasion he had seen it himself. A yellow woman, naked, on horseback. Behind her, on the vast backdrop, a sunset. The picture becomes clearer and more vivid. If one strains one's ears, one can almost hear the neigh of a horse. Right underneath, beneath the supreme teacher Mao's picture, the mother pulls out lice from her daughter's hair. The party wanted the masses to learn to respect the leaders. On the right side, the local arts centre. The subject of the exhibition, Socialist Realism, devoid of any hint of nudity, of course. On the left side, a classroom in Sweden, projecting a 'blue film', the teacher conducts a sexology class. Joya nudges and says: Hey, what do you think … Isn't Bitu there? The door is open … So what? Bitu's grown up now. Joya keeps thinking that Bitu will become even more beautiful. She suddenly remembers her own age. What does she give to Som? 'Shh, quiet. Can you hear that?' 'Really, amazing.' They spent a few days in the hotel, lying under the blanket in the soft bed. There was hardly anyone else awake in the hotel, other than a few drunkards. Something fell from Joya's hands in the kitchen, something made of glass. The sound of shattering. When the sound entered the room, Somprakash was suggesting to Bitu that they watch a blue film. But she doesn't feel like doing anything at all, it's terribly monotonous. When the whole system is false and devoid of morality, it's idiotic to stick to some bloody old sentiment … Wonderful aroma from your cooking, Somprakash forces himself to make a compliment. The scope for acting is quite limited here. The dialogue begins like this –

  My friend Tiya had an abortion, but I don't want to do that. After all, there are contraceptives. And even if I don't have it, so what? I don't make a fuss about sex. I like him, so, he's my father. But I like him. And I like Subroto too. But then everything depends … I don't mind sleeping with anyone. Actually, I don't love them at all, I just want to own them. Are you talking about the London Observer? I've read that article, very interesting –

  LOVE 'DOCTOR' HITS THE JACKPOT

  [From Peter McGill in Tokyo]

  Sex and education have long held pride of place in the Japanese list of obsessions, but until the arrival of the Junior Health Club in Tokyo, no one had tapped the enormous potential of joining them together to make money. An enterprising businessman called Yasuo Ishii recently hit the jackpot by offering evening classes in sex 'counselling' as well as a chance to improve sexual technique, and to work out frustrations through stimulating sex with hired 'models'…

  Here, a class of affluent readers would definitely support me. They would support this so-called unhealthy relation. But they will surely take from me too, in another way. 'They're human too, they too are rational'– they'd also like that to be said. Actually, they compliment me in the hope that they, this class, can employ my support as capital to legitimize their own doings.r />
  – Am I going too far in trying to help you?

  Whenever I recollect past conduct that's fearful, I try to get busy with some kind of work. The condition becomes dangerous – it would be wrong to call it fear. I don't feel like doing anything. I become like stone. If I had a blade nearby, I'd commit suicide. But in order to do that I'd have to go to the bathroom and search for the blade and get it. Eventually I don't do even that. Bitu, give me company, let's get a couple of beers and sit in the lounge. A bruise steadily becomes clear on the girl's breast, from which pus oozes out and trickles down, an angry red sore – is that a symbol? Here, in these parts, instead of seeing something or showing something, understanding it is most vital. Trying to show something to her, waiting until the very end to see where it goes – all this is very complex. But one advances and then leaves it, leaves it to others to understand. It all depends upon the person who understands this endeavour. Not all of it may be true either. Apparently it may seem that no one has any relation with anyone else. That may be, but it will all still continue; these characters, in the way they have crystallized, the incidents that they bring about in the normal course. And another point, what the writer wants to bring about. And yet another point, what the reader thinks. A fourth element could be added to this, the way the whole thing is presented, that is, the relation between sexual repression and social repression. And another element, perhaps an emotional reason – why perhaps, definitely so, and at this very moment. Someone enters the bedroom. She straightens her clothes vigorously. I heard you, Joya said. Setting his clothes right, he saw Joya standing at the door. He clutched his two shoulders with his hands. Resolute, he advanced towards Bitu brazenly. Putting on the shirt in her hand, Bitu moved to the other side of the bed. Then she stood near the window, a cigarette lit in her mouth. The mother standing at the door, the father standing with his back to her, with a hastily worn dressing gown, Bitu wore only a partially buttoned shirt. Suddenly, in front of her very eyes, Joya saw Somprakash grab and rip open Bitu's shirt. Bitu tried to hold onto the ripped shirt somehow or the other. The jeans and everything else lay beside the bed. Father and mother were in the middle of the room now. Both were looking at one another. Joya saw the father advancing towards the daughter. She pushed him hard. From the corner of her eye, Bitu saw her father fallen on the floor, mother bending down over his head, what is it that one sees – violence or vengeance? She puffs out smoke absent-mindedly, as if unaware of where she is. The cigarette dangles out of the corner of her lips, blood from a cut on the lip, blood on the tip of the cigarette too. Don't touch her, Joya repeats. Somprakash comes face-to-face with the girl, the cigarette dangles, face turned slightly in the other direction. He extends his left hand to the girl's shoulder, his other hand was moving towards the front of her shirt, its shadow falls on the wall. Bitu is willing, he says. Joya drops down. Right there. On the doorstep. The shadow of that too, there. There was no scope for oversimplification, one incident on top of another incident, one ingredient on top of another ingredient, all becoming so saturated that no tendency is separately identifiable any longer, in an immaculate way. The whole scene needn't have been seen in slow motion so far, but this shrill poison-blue incident is employed to scorch and nail our conscience. Although this particular incident is about debasement in a specific section of society, once it's shown as a still image it enables one to discover its links with the general crisis in society. Again, the ethicality of the act can be evaluated. Here is someone who tries to bring about a balance between two opposing forces. A stone of appropriate size always reaches the fist of the one who dares to defy, as soon as the muscles of his arm are stretched. The whole room is in a dishevelled state, the mattress and pillows on the floor. In one corner of the bed, Bitu's bra. While ascending the stairs, a large reproduction of Boticelli's Venus on the landing. It comes to mind. As he ran for his life, he felt as though his bones had turned to water. Not finding booze, he drank two gulps of oil by mistake. Hair oil, Joya's, Bitu wasn't born then. And then he was vomiting. Don't think I missed the stories about you on the walls of the college bathroom. As he vomited, he blurted out, I saw the writing: Som + Joya – the two come here, at night. You think you're very beautiful, don't you? I also remember, it was written on the wall of the college urinal – how many times Somprakash had noticed it: 'I want to see Joya's —.' In place of the dash, a vulgar word denoting the private parts. As he fondled Bitu, that line floated into his head. The two of them were active in the Students' Federation then, and then love, and love marriage. So who did Bitu get the disease from? He strokes Bitu's body. Flirtatious whore. And wasn't it imaginary – but even higher mathematics was imaginary. The bad times made me realize even more that life was rich in every way, with infinite variety, and it was beautiful, the value systems that we keep thinking about have no significance when it comes to life's necessities. The trees themselves burst into new leaves. He saw dark clouds on one side of the sky rapidly spreading across the other side. For the last few days, there had been kalboishakhi-like gales and thundershowers at this hour. Through the window with open curtains one could see the well-dressed men and women who had been invited there, plates in many of their hands. Suddenly, like a gust of wind, a burst of laughter, bright lights, the fragrance of the bunch of rajnigandha on the table. The gentleman looked completely different in a dhuti and silk punjabi. A thick garland of bel on his neck, a dot of sandal paste on his forehead, he looked just like a bridegroom should. In the course of physical exercise, there had developed in Somprakash a kind of narcissistic restlessness for full satisfaction from the 'taste' of his own body. Within this obsession with his body lay an intemperate wildness, which in another sequence is manifest in Bitu's and Somprakash's intimacy. If one observed closely, one would find that it was a kind of wild game they played with one another, resembling animal sex. In the delight of the game, Somprakash gets a taste of the satisfaction of unbridled freedom of his body, and the bodily right over another body. There's no element of love or surrender or suchlike attached in any way. In the shot with which this scene reaches a climax, Bitu is lying on top of Som's supine body, he lies in carefree pleasure, sheltered by the softness and warmth of her body; Somprakash's supine body, his sexuality submerged in narcissistic ecstasy. In Somprakash's own language at that time: this is really a battle against one's own body, in which the body becomes very eloquent, as if every nerve is a string of a melodious harp. After that, the scene of the final farewell is a grand one, when Bitu, without saying anything, tiptoes away slowly from the room, and he, lying in bed pretending to be asleep, is silent, knowing that neither of them will ever meet again. Perhaps they would meet once, fifty, sixty or a hundred years later, for just half an hour. Bitu's body would then be ugly and deformed, one leg shorter than the other after a failed operation, her body grown bent. Just here, in the middle of this, after the sex scenes are shown, a negative is placed on the opposite side, and the two things become clear: what you see and how you see your seeing – upon which the whole matter depends. Meaning, this exciting sexual movement – one in front and one behind – the seeing itself, to a great extent, and how it is shown, together determine the process of your classification, which way you are going and how far you are able to come away from your class-determined situation. You are looking at a nineteen-year-old girl who, at specific times, is nothing but a pleasure object to her father, and at other times, she is different, normal and sensitive, and in that sense complex too. Again, there's the side of the father who breaks social codes, at least that's his boast, and from that point of view he's radical, and he too keeps a sharp watch on how he is being presented, what his flaws are and why, the symbols and such like are observed minutely, and the endeavour to extract meaning is undertaken. The word 'endeavour' is necessary here because his mental make-up has compelled him to see the exploitation that has gone on in level after level of society as being on par with sexual exploitation. And so he too did just that, and did it expertly. Through all this, Bit
u is brought down the massive staircase, taken deep into the spotlight of civilization which chases her and brings her down. It was as if the light that had for all these days been a symbol of liberation for her and provided her sustenance, that very light was now attacking her, reducing her to utter nakedness, from which emerges a distressed wail: What does he want from me? Am I only a woman, a female body? Pieces of the future come in and become one with the present. She is lifted up and clothed in a red robe. She is marked out as the sacrificial offering to God and death. Gradually her body goes limp. The final piece of her clothing falls off. The body is exposed, blood, flesh and bones. Both life and death come to receive her in the same hand.