Kiran Desai - Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

A few days after their first encounter with alcohol, they discovered a case of beer in a delivery van.

A week later, a bottle of whisky in a rickshaw.

Then more beer.

Then more rum.

Dark faces full of determination, wild, liquid eyes, they ran with great leaping strides to meet each bus that arrived, each scooter rickshaw that drove up, searching for liquor of any sort, inspired, no doubt, by the memory of a certain race to the blood, a mysterious lift to the spirits. They grew bolder and bolder, rifling through the contents of bedrolls, grabbing hold of shopping bags and chasing away the owners, who ran off screaming in horror. It was as if all their old bazaar habits were resurfacing; as if, bored by plenty, they were doing their best to re-create the excitement of their former life of thievery and assault in the midst of public outcry.

When they were chased from their shameless attempt at plunder, they bared their teeth, so the travellers retreated for fear of being bitten. When the pilgrims shook their fists at them, they shook their fists back and jeered loudly. As soon as they were clapped and shooed from one place, they appeared doing something worse in another. It was like warfare. They mimicked the pilgrims and lined up along with them by Sampath’s tree, smacking each other with glee as they waited for his blessing.

It soon became clear that the display of affection between Sampath and the monkeys would not extend to include everybody within its charmed circle; that their simian charms, so dear to him, would not endear them to anybody else. Peanut-laden film-lovers might be making their way to the cinema unmolested, but evidently the monkey problem had merely shifted focus.

Concern permeated the devotees’ happiness. Almost overnight, it seemed, they had a new problem on their hands.

‘If they were a nuisance before, it was more in the way children are naughty,’ said Miss Jyotsna sadly to the others as she watched the monkeys raid her bag of mail, scattering the letters in a frenzy of disappointment when they discovered no bottles in her possession.

‘Yes,’ agreed one gentleman. ‘In fact, they were endearing in their very naughtiness,’ and though he had gone too far, everyone sympathized, for generally speaking there was some truth to what he said.

One afternoon, a little while after the frequency of these unfortunate events had accelerated, Mr Chawla stood thinking under Sampath’s tree. The monkeys were getting more and more out of hand and he had an unsettling feeling that their hallowed days in the orchard might be under serious risk of disruption.

But the family bank account in the State Bank of India was growing by leaps and bounds and he was eager to buy shares in the VIP Hosiery Products company; they could do without a disturbance to upset this nice little venture he had set to sail. He looked to the right and left, surveyed their domain with its paths and a little arrow pointing in Sampath’s direction, with its advertisements that hung colourfully on the neighbouring trees: Dr Sood’s Dental Centre, Gentleman Tailors — ‘God made Man, we make Gentleman’ — for Campa Cola, Limca, Fanta and Goldspot, Ayurvedic Talcum Powder and Odomos Mosquito Repellent. All paid for by lavish donations, boxes of nuts and more sweetmeats, yellow, green, pink and white, than anybody knew what to do with. If it was not for Mr Chawla none of this would exist. None of it.

‘Sampath,’ said his father, ‘perhaps it is time to build you a proper hermitage. The problem of the monkeys is getting out of hand. If you lived inside a concrete structure, we could keep them out and control things. Anyway, we can’t have you sitting in a tree for ever. What will happen when the monsoon comes? There are only a few months left now.’ He envisioned a whole complex with a temple and dormitory accommodation for travellers designed to suit modern tastes in comfort, a complex that would be a prize pilgrimage stop and an environment he could keep control of.

Sampath looked at his father. Could he be hearing correctly?

Seeing Sampath’s face, Mr Chawla was filled with irritation. What a ridiculous look of overdone incredulity! ‘And you had better start learning some philosophy and religion,’ he said. ‘People will soon get tired if you cannot converse on a deeper level. I will buy you a copy of the Vedas. You really cannot sit saying silly things for ever.’

The monkeys threw apples at Mr Chawla’s head for fun, though it looked as if they were attempting to protect Sampath. He gestured angrily at them, but they greeted his protest with a barrage of bananas. Mr Chawla lost his temper.

‘They are making a mockery of us,’ he said, his sense of dignity hurt. ‘It is getting too much. People will think you are a circus act. Sitting in the tree with drunken monkeys! We must put you in a proper building immediately.’

‘I am not going to live anywhere but in this tree,’ said Sampath. ‘And the monkeys are not drunk right now. They are only playing.’

When his father had gone he realized his heart was thumping. He could not get the horrible thought out of his mind. Leave his tree? Never. Never ever, he thought, his body trembling with indignation. Fiercely, he studied the branch in front of him. He and his father were as different as black from white, as chickens from potatoes, as peas from buckets. What did he think? Did he think he would just climb down and return to his old existence like some old fool? He had left Shahkot in order to be alone. And what had they all done? They had followed him.

He spotted a beetle crawling out of an aberration in the bark right beneath his very nose. Covered in brilliant green armour, antlers sprouting from its head, wisps of wings like transparent petticoats peeping ridiculously from beneath its hard-shelled exterior; it seemed a visual proof of the silliness of his father’s proposition. Gradually, he calmed down. How beautiful these insects around him were, how incredibly beautiful: huge, generous flowery butterflies, bees with tongues that he could see hanging thin and long from their mouths, finely powdered beetles with kohl-rimmed eyes and clown-faced caterpillars with round noses, false beards and foolish feet; creatures made from leaves and sepals, petals and pollen dust. He watched an endless parade of them, wriggling, hopping, flying by, emerging as if from the bubbling pots of a magician, with the flicker and jewelled shine of … of what? Of the essence of wind and grass? Of sunlight and water?

When his mother brought his dinner to load on to the pulley system, Sampath peered down at her. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘they are planning to build a hermitage, but I will not leave this tree.’

Kulfi looked up at him. Of course he could not leave. ‘We could always poison them, you know,’ she said, trying to comfort him.

And he smiled, despite himself, to think of the time he had been rushed, vomiting and blue, into the emergency room at the Government Medical Institute after eating a meal she had cooked. Joyfully, he had missed a whole week of school. Looking at her he felt a pang of tenderness. His mother, the monkeys and himself, he thought, they were a band together.

‘You had better change your ways,’ he warned the monkeys. ‘There will be trouble for all of us if you don’t behave better.’

But the monkeys did not behave better. In fact, they behaved a good deal worse.

About a month after their first encounter with alcohol, apparently disgusted by their meagre success in the orchard, the langurs made a trip to the bazaar, where they overpowered the old woman who sold illicit liquor from a cart. They devoured her entire supply and, drunk as could be, drunker than ever before, they returned to the Chawla compound.