This chapter is an extract from Anand Ranganathan’s yet-to-be published novel, The Rat Eater.
Chapter: Brave New World
Amma thumped the tarpaulin-sheathed wickerwork basket on Bela’s head with such force the poor girl nearly collapsed on her knees. “Hold it! Steady!”, she snapped. “Here, Kamla, you teach her.”
The commotion woke up Amma’s husband, the father to her nine girls. He rubbed his eyes with his fists like a child, then used a towel to wipe his armpits and chest. Tossing it afterwards in disgust, he said, “Laxmi, what are you shouting about this early in the morning…”
“This early, Mala-ke-baba?”, rapped back Amma. She never used his name, always Bela-ke-baba, or Mala-ke-baba, Mala’s father. “Look at me”, she said, “all bloated up and still off to work!”
Amma did not wait for her husband’s retort; she hurried out of the shack shoring up her enormous belly with meshed fingers, driving away damp strands of hair from over her face with exaggerated breaths. To appear more menacing, she made herself face the road and not the shack. One by one, five of her girls tumbled out with baskets on their heads. They formed a line and waited, giggling, murmuring, nudging and bumping each other with their elbows and shoulders, and the banter would have carried on unabated were it not for the spray of mynas that exploded suddenly from the Kikarr tree under whose bullet-holed canopy the girls had lined up. The basket-laden heads moved hither and thither in delight, with the youngest and the shortest craning their necks to have a better view of the melting and forming patterns. Amma turned around slowly, moving her feet in tiny shuffles like a danseuse, and looked at the girls with deliberately enlarged eyes. A hush descended and the girls stared back to the detail of the drill. The line re-formed, expectant, excited, tapping its feet to the cattle collars that had now begun to come through, first from one pocket then the other and so on, the tinkles sounding louder, then suddenly, softer; distant, then nearer – a pastoral symphony of sorts.
The alarm had sounded: the day was up.
But Amma, instead, went down on her haunches, a smooth capsize, as though she was being gently pulled down by an invisible force. Arms extended, elbows resting on knees, hands wilted at the wrists, she waited. This, the guise for an endless wait, of a wait for comeuppance.
Oh, the inertia.
An uneven dopplered chant of huff and puff broke the dusty stillness and made Amma turn her head. A thin man, ribs showing through the shifting skin, with a plough bearing down on his shoulder, bounced past with his two little sons, swinging his free arm as help. Amma followed the procession – just her eyeballs – as it screened past. Slowly, the blur of dust dissipated, some if it resettled, and the man and his sons had long gone, but it seemed Amma was now searching for them, her gaze so wistful and unremitting.
Work. Cruel, merciless.
Amma raised herself up, pushing hard at her knees with her palms. She advanced at the line, that instantly tensed, as she now took the guard of honour, adjusting a basket here, rectifying a posture there. The sun, pitiless already, was turning the sky from blue to silver. “So soon”, thought Amma, looking at the sky and then at the mile-long dirt road that would take them to the village. “So long, the road”, she said to herself, twitching her elbows to better position the load. “Unending…”
The girls were being fidgety and one of them gave out a rueful choke. Amma snatched a basket that lay upturned on the thatched roof of the shack. Coronating herself with it, she asked the girls, much more gently than they were expecting: “Shall we?”
Meanwhile, at the other end of the mile-long road, the thakur household was just waking up. Multicoloured morning sun poured through the stained-glass patchwork ventilators of all fifteen rooms of the thakur haveli, acting on the sleeping residents like the morning alarm. Badey thakur, or elder thakur, the chief of the upper caste thakurs of the hamlet, was the first to be disturbed as such. He lifted his head to investigate the offending spotlight, then threw his head back on the pillow like a deadweight. He turned this way and that and gradually proceeded to get up from the only available side of his single bed, and, as on most days, the proverbial wrong side.
Badey thakur slept alone, had done so for as long as he could remember. An otherwise violent and terrifying man, the sole cardinal virtue of Mahatma Gandhi he had chosen to imbibe was to see the sexual act as a means of procreation, nothing more, nothing less. In his entire life of fifty years, the Badey thakur had performed the said act seven times, resulting in four sons, one daughter and two miscarriages. He believed, and it was a correct belief, that brazen word-of-mouth of this decision of his would confer on him a saint-like status among his subjects. And right he was. The villagers stood in awe; they anointed him as their very own mahatma, dusting the high moral carpet for him to squat and suck at a hookah and run the village with an iron hand.
Badi thakurayin, Badey thakur’s wife, like Gandhiji’s before her, gradually accepted her husband’s decision and began to preach it even, to the village gullible. She, too, started to sleep on a single bed, and besides in a different room so as to avoid all temptation. Kamdev, the unrepentant God of carnal jugglery, was forever lurking behind curtains and bedposts, she worried.
Man, though, is largely an animal, and much as the Badey thakur and Badi thakurayin pressed the virtues of sexual restraint, their exhortations were largely ignored by the village folk who proceeded to do what they did best behind closed doors. Fame spread, not the message, and so the axe fell on the nearest and dearest. Inwardly reluctant men and women of the thakur household outwardly volunteered to sleep in single beds once their quota of five children had been exhausted. There were no double-beds to be found anywhere inside the palatial haveli. The result of all this abstinence – charitable on the face of it – turned the haveli pregnant with unrequited sexual energy. It took release in terrifying repression and atrocities towards the lower castes and untouchables of the village, principal among them the Musahurs, or Rat Eaters. They were trampled beneath angry thakur feet, their backs bore bloody gashes of angry thakur whips; they drowned in the angry sea of unused thakur semen.
Badey thakur now got up from the bed and slapped his morning erection to a cowering withdrawal. He staggered out of his room holding one end of his dhoti and shouted: “Badi thakurayin?…Badi thakurayin!”
“Coming, in a moment!”, said the Badi thakurayin, a muffled shout coming from afar. Instinctively, her pace quickened, the veil slipped from her head, the haveli keys jangled by her waist, the saucer and cup trembled in her hand, as she now rushed to make her appointment with her lord.
The couple almost collided in the corridor that opened onto the front verandah. Badey thakur lost no time. “Where’s my tea? And my newspaper; and my mug of water!”
“I–, I’m sorry. I was held up in the kitchen”, said the Badi thakurayin, sliding her veil back on as she nervously passed her husband his tea.
“Held up in the kitchen…What were you doing there? Scheming how to ruin my day? Now get lost!”
“Ji.”
“And wait!”
Badi thakurayin froze where she was, her back towards the Badey thakur. She collected herself, then turned. “Ji?”, she muttered, yes?
“Have the latrines been cleaned?”
“I think so.”
“You think so? You think so?”
“But they are, I’m sure. That Musahurin comes early to do them – Laxmi is her name.”
“I don’t care what her name is! If I find any smell in there, I’ll get it cleaned by none other than you yourself, you understand? Now go and find out if the latrine’s been cleaned.”
“J-ji.”
The morning sweet-nothings over and done with, Badi thakurayin swept away quickly down the long corridor, venturing in and out of the jagged planks of sunshine flooding through the multiple archways that ran all along its length. She burst into the central verandah and came to a standstill under the generous shade of the Neem tree, itself draped with all types and thickness of sacred threads that ran round its girth.
Badi thakurayin tore a branch and ran her enclosed palm all along the stem, or datun, to clean it of its offshoots and began to chew one end with vigour. Shortly afterwards, she spat the froth out and looked in the direction of the many rooms along the quadrangular upper tier. “Arey, Sushma? Subhadra? Mandakini?…Where are all of you? Don’t know why I put up with this. One of these days, I am telling you the truth, I’ll just pick my jewelry up and leave, clean latrine or no clean latrine.”
A door opened, revealing a woman as yet unaffected by the cruelties of the normal day. Choti thakurayin, or wife of the younger thakur, walked the two steps to the wrought iron railing of the first floor walkway and looked down at her fuming bhabhi, sister-in-law,.
“Good morning!”, she said cheerfully, “What’re you muttering about this early in–“
“To hell with your good morning! Yes, that’s right – you just stand there yawning and stretching while your bhabhi runs around like a slave.”
“Uff, bhabhi, drop it, will you? Now tell me – what’s to be done; I’ll do everything!”
“Then go and see if that wretched Laxmi has cleaned the latrine up.”
The incredulous look on Choti thakurayin gave away the treachery of it. “What?!”
Badi thakurayin sucked the bitter life out of her datun with added satisfaction. “You heard me.”
“But, but Bhabhi, I’ve just got up and, –and Chotey thakur might ask for a cup of tea, and–“
Badi thakurayin was, of course, seasoned at such talk. “See? Didn’t I tell you? No respect; none!”
“Alright, bhabhi, you win! Only for you– my sweetest, dearest bhabhi.”
“Spoken like a true princess. Now go!”
Resigned and sulking, Choti thakurayin commenced her own trek around the haveli, climbing up a hundred stairs, then getting down them, taking sudden turns, pushing open and pulling shut heavy doors. She came finally to the end of the tour, at the last door, one that opened onto the back alleyway. Cursing herself constantly for having agreed to do this in the first place, she swung the door open and looked in both directions.
“Arey is anyone here?”, she shouted. “Who left this back entrance open!?…Laxmeeee? Laxm– there you are!” she exclaimed, having spotted Laxmi a few houses down. “What are you doing standing there, mui, you wretch?”
Laxmi – Amma to her family – was, along with her staff of five, occupied in her morning duties. The sudden shouting made her turn her head. She noticed with dread the angry figure of Choti thakurayin, that looked no less imposing even from this considerable distance. She let go of her hand-shovel and straightened. “Arey, Choti thakurayin? Coming in a minute, please wait!”
“What did you say?”
“I said, Choti thakurayin, I’m just–”
“Then hurry up, mui. I can’t wait for you all day, you hear.”
“Ji!…Come now Mala, Sarla, Bimla. Pick your baskets up, only Badey thakur’s house to go. Careful, Mala! Cover your mouth with the scarf – like this. Where is–…What took you so long, Bela, you stupid girl?”
Bela, all of seven, burst into tears. For reasons she could not explain she too talked softly, almost in whispers. “Amma, that Kania – he threw a rock at me and I lost my footing – and – and, everything from the basket fell on the road, Amma. Amma, the smell…it was terrible!”
“Now don’t be a trouble for your mother, you hear? I’m in enough as it is – nine months heavy and then having to take care of you lot; and this heat…Now come on. Last thing I want is Choti thakurayin mouthing me off – that’ll really make my –…Ohhhhh! Aouuuuu! Mala, here, just take my basket…Ooooooh-ai-maaaaa! It’s coming, I’m sure – today itself, I’m telling you! Ooooooo! Raaaaaam…oooooooh!”
“What –, what’s happening, Amma, what?”
“Your brother, or ooooh-ai-maa…sis-s-sister, is com-coming today, that’s w-what’s happening you stooopi-oooooo! Aimaaaa!…Now don’t trouble me any–; give me back my basket!”
The caravan of scavengers slowly wound its way and came to rest by the unwelcoming sight of Choti thakurayin. The line formed, and this time Amma was in it.
“What took you so long, mui?”
“Please forgive me, Choti thakurayin. That third house from the end – the head priest’s house – there, you see? We had to wait a while as panditji hadn’t finished his visit. Some food-poisoning, it seems.”
“Stop! Did I ask you? Did I? Listen, you! I’m not interested in your stories of waiting in line for a dollop of panditji’s reward.”
Amma was swaying under the weight of her basket. “I promise it won’t happen again, Choti thakurayin. I should’ve brought along Ganga, too. But she had to go and fetch the day’s water. Very sorr-rr….Ooooooh! maaaaaaaa!…s-sorry……Aiyaaaah!”
“Shut up, mui; you and your lies! And why are you screaming your head off?”
“Nothing-unhh C-ch-choti th-thak-ooraaayinn! Sorrr-reeee!…Oooooh! It’s just that I think…I’m going…into labor…my water’s just…..ai-maaaaaaah!”
“Keep your voice down, you’ll wake everyone up! So you are in labor – is that my problem? Another rat on the way. Is this your fifth? Sixth? Must be eighth?”
“T-tennnhh-tenth, Ch-ch-cho-choti thakurayin.”
Choti thakurayin displayed genuine shock. “Tenth! My god! What is it with you people? One doesn’t come out completely and the next starts to grow in the same womb? Now stop wailing – you’re not the first woman to be giving birth! Hold it, hold the rat till you’ve done our latrine, you understand?”
“Y-yes, of-coa-course, Choti thakurayin…Mala, Sarla…G-go-on…empty the can-canisters…aeee-maaaa…s-sorry…B-e-l-a…h-here…take this phe-pheen-phenyl and wa-wa-wash the trench upppp, dear.”
“Yes, Amma.”
The girls set to work under Amma’s eagle eye, moving expertly around her like little soldiers, emptying the canisters, splashing fistfuls of ash inside the cans to scrape them clean, then pouring phenyl in the trenches – here, Choti thakurayin ordered them to be more generous with the noxious liquid. Finally, after two of them had had to climb down into the trenches with handle-less brooms and fill their little baskets up, the girls lined up again and looked at their mother with a hint of pride.
Amma parted her trembling lips with great difficulty. “T-h-e-r-e, Ch-choa-choti thakurayin…d-d-dun-done.”
“Sure? As it should be? Let me not come over and find any stench.”
“No n-no Choa-choti thakurayin, n-o- smm-elll…noth-thing. Come, see f-f-for yor-y-yourselff.”
“Hm, no need. Good. How much do we pay you for this?”
Amma compressed her lips a few times before she could answer. “T-ten-ten p-p-paisay, th- thakurayin.”
“That much? And even then you people come late? Here…take this five – that’ll teach you to come on time. Now go!”
“Ji, Choa-choti thak-oooo-rayin…s-sorry ag-ag-again. Come, Mala, Bimla, every-won-nnnn…”
And the caravan set sail again; tired, defeated, humiliated, the Indian file of scavengers, owners of skills passed on from generation to generation, with a guaranteed job they had no worry of losing. What was lower?
The sun beat down on their heads while the tar took care of their soles. Unhurriedly, in formation, without a word between them, they walked on. After a while Mala, the lead, turned her head. “Amma? Can we stop for a minute? Choti thakurayin threw the coin in my basket; let me take it out.”
“L-leave it, Mala! That bitch! L-lee-leave her money in that thakur shit! Don’t touch it; we don’t want it! Ai-maaaaaah…ooooooh!…a-animals…ooohhh! Listen, I can’t walk any l-lo-long-longer. Waat-waterrrr…Where’s your fatherrrr?….Ai-maaaaaah…”
“Baba should be in the fields by now, Amma – it’s close by…”
“Call him! Run! I th-think it’s coming!….I have to si-sit now. Mal-Mala!…ai-maaaaaaa! Mala, hurry, call your father! Get him-m-mmm!”
“Yes, Amma!”
“It’s cominggg, it’s coming! Oh g-g-god, no! No-u-uuuuuu!…S-sar-l-a, listen dear, we don’t have a ch-choice…dispensary is too farrr-aaaaahh!…M-mm-midwifffe will take too long to come-mmm! You sisters only have to do ittttt!”
“Oh no, Amma!”
“Yess-sss!…Till Ma-Mala fetches Baba, one of you gg-get some waat-waterrr. Gouu-uuuuu!”
“But, Amma, we don’t have a can and there’s only thakur well nearby. We can’t even be seen near it. What’re we going to do, Amma? I’m so scared!”
“Listen, S-Sarla! Bimla! You don’t beee sc-scared, you foo-foo-fools! It’s n-nothing. Haven’t you seen mother cow give birth to her calf? Haan?…It’s n-nothinnnnnng!…Now g-go, get me some waat-water!”
“But Amma, there’re only some puddles…near there, can you see?”
“Then go…fi-f-fill your mouths with-with water…from those pud-p-pudd-puddles…C-come back and sp-spurt on me…Wa-wa-water…I need some waterrrr…Ai-maaaa!”
“Yes, Amma. Come on, Bimla, hurry!”
“Ai-maaaaaaaah! Dieeeeeee…let me dieeeeee!”
Meanwhile, Mala had sprinted over the fields, her little legs bursting forth dutifully, fear overcoming fatigue. She hopped and skipped through the steep incline of wild grass that demarcated each plot of land, the abrasive edges of the grass stalks slashing through, unnoticed, her limbs. Mala spotted her father without much difficulty. There he was, surfing the barren earth, with his legs perched on the plough mouldboard, his hands holding tight the reins for dear life.
Mala wasted no time. “Babaaaa?…Baaba? Babaaaaaaa!…Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh! Ba-hhh-baa-aah-Hain-uunnhhh!”
Baba let go of the reins and jumped off the contraption; the yoked beasts continued to run. He rushed towards Mala. “Mala! What happened? Is everything alright?!”
“Stop working at once baba, amma is in trouble she’s delivering the baby on the road near that tree baba please hurry amma may die oh god amma will die baba come baba there’s no water we are too far from the house we cannot call the midwife babaaa my amma my amma is surely going to die baba oh no baba please hurry right now she’s lying in the middle of the road there baba there’s no water there baba help!”
“Oh my god! Slow down, slow down, Mala! Where?”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh! Near that Neem tree! Hurry!”
“Yes yes, let’s go!”
In a matter of minutes father and daughter were beside the wailing mother. Baba collected his breath and took in the situation. He desired to be a calming influence.
“Laxmi? Mala-ki-amma? What’s happening?”, Rarely, only when excited, did he address his wife as Mala-ki-amma, Mala’s mother.
“B-b-bay-baby is hap-hap-ennningg, you foo-foo-fool! Maaaaaaaa!…A-aeeeeee!”
The calming influence was not to last. “Oh my god! Oh my god!”
“Shut up! Shut up! It is you! You’ve done this! You’ve killed me! You’re responsible, Mala-ke-baba!…Ooooh!…Aii!…aeeeeee!”
“Don’t say that, Mala-ki-amma, please don’t. Calm down! You need to calm down!”
“Don’t say one word! One word!…Who called him? Mala, who called himmmmm!?”
“You did, Amma…Amma, please calm down.”
“Mala-ke-babaaaa?…Mala-ke-babaaaaaa…Are you there…?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Then do somethingggg…say somethingggg!”
“What?!”
“Say pushhhh!”
“Push!”
“Say pooooooooosh-sh-sh-shhhh….aeee-mmmmaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Pushhhh!…Push….Pushhhh!”
“Dieeeeee…just let me dieeeeee!”
“It’s coming! It’s coming! I can see the head – it’s very black – the head!”
“Say Pushhhh!”
“It’s coming…Pushhhh…pushhhh!”
“Sa-sar-sarlaaa, hold the head…my darling, hold the head…and pulllll….Dieeeee, let me dieeeeee!…”
“Push Amma push! Push Amma, pleeeease push…with all your strength!’
“Haiiiiiii! Save mmm-e, my Lord Ram! Raaaaaammmmmmm!”
“Yessss! That’s good!”
“Raaaaaamm!”
“More! More!”
“Raaaaaammmmmmmmmmm!”
“It’s coming! Coming! Just a few more, Amma…pleeeasee!”
“Raaaaaaaammmmmm!”
”Push Amma push! Nearly there! Sarla! Bela! Empty your mouthfuls here! Spit!”
“Aaaathhhoooooo!”
“Aaaathhhoooooo!”
“Bimla! Go get some more mouthfuls! It’s nearly there, Amma! It’s sliding, it’s sliding out!”
Baba offered his help. “Keep calm, Laxmi, keep calm!”
“Shuttt uppppp!…You try ittttt!…Next time you try itttt! There’ll be no next time-mmmm…I promissssss!”
“Don’t say that, Mala-ki-amma! What if it’s a girl?”
“I promissssss!…Never in a thousand y-yyyears! Raaaaaamm!”
Baba insisted. “But what if it comes out a girl?”
“Neverrrr againnn!”
“But–“
Mala had had just about enough of this bizarre altercation. “Baba, shut up! Can’t you see Amma’s in so much pain?!”
“Dieeeee! Killlll! Meeeeeeeeee! Enough-Enough! Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh! Maaaaaaaa! A-A-A-A-y-eemaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Mala was in command. “Bimla! Spit out! Now!”
“Aaa-thhooooo!”
“There…Amma! It’s come out! It’s out!…It’s a boy! A boy! A brother! Did you see? A brother!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh! Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“Amma! A baby boy!”
”Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Baba! Can you see? A brother!…For us!”
“Yes! Yes! A boy! Finally! A boy! A son! A son!”
“…”
“Mala-ki-amma, can you hear it! Can you not hear his beautiful, sweet cries; can you not see it?”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“It’s a boy! My son!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Tenth time lucky! Tenth time lucky, Mala-ki-amma! Thank you, god! Thank you!”
“Hain-uunnhhh!”
“He is my son!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“My only son!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“He will be strong!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“He will rise!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“He will lead us!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“He will feed us!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Protect us!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“He is our saviour!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“He is our avatar!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Dashavatar!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“Did you hear? Mala-ki-Amma?”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Dashavatar!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“The tenth reincarnation!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“I’ll – we’ll! – call him – Kalki!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Kalki!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“Kalki has come! Kalki has come!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“Kalki has entered this rotten godforsaken world! But he has come now, yes my son has come now!”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh, Haan-uunhh!”
“Did you hear?”
“Hain-Hain-uunnhhh!”
“Are you listening, Kalki-ki-Amma?”
