Kiran Desai - Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

‘Keep away,’ Sampath shouted at them when he saw them approaching. ‘Keep away until you’re sober.’

He knew there would be trouble. But they did not heed his warning. Exuding the rough, raw scent of local brew, they arrived like hooligans and, in true hooligan style, proceeded to turn everything they could upside-down.

Sampath had seen drunks every now and then, of course, but only once had he had a direct experience with one, when he had found himself in conversation with the neighbourhood drunkard outside the tea stall. Tottering about, crashing into the tables, the drunk had embraced Sampath, who was the only person there. ‘Say you are my best friend,’ he had pleaded, clutching hold of Sampath. ‘Are you my best friend?’

Sampath had been scared to death. ‘Yes,’ he had said.

And the man had embraced him. ‘Everything I have is yours.’

But I want nothing that is yours, Sampath had silently pleaded. The man had smelt of a sewer filth that had turned Sampath’s stomach. His eyes had been red, his breath powerful and he had held Sampath as if he would never ever let him go. Finally the man was chased away by the tea-stall owner, who came outside to pelt him with stones. Sampath had cycled far away and stood in middle of a field to recover. Still as the plants about him, gulping in the quiet and greenery.

Oh, but the monkeys were different, he thought, despite himself, as he watched them raid his mother’s kitchen, overturning pots and pans, sending buckets rolling through the orchard, the discordant clatter of metal filling the air. They were so beautiful, so full of graceful strength. Tails held high above their heads, they knocked over the milk can so the milk disappeared into the grass. They tore open the sacks of supplies that were piled under the porch, and the rice and lentils spilled into rivers of gold and green, black and white. They ate quantities of raisins and nuts, almonds, cashews and tiny, precious pine kernels whose theft caused Kulfi to chase after them with her broom. But they avoided her easily, as they did all the intrepid devotees who had formed a whole pebble-slinging army under Ammaji’s jurisdiction — bravely, they sent their stone artillery flying from slingshots, running back and forth through the trees, feeling rather drunk themselves on the excitement of it all.

‘Don’t touch the monkeys,’ Mr Chawla yelled, waving his arms, trying to snatch slingshots from the hands of the devotees. ‘They are dangerous. In this state, they will turn on you.’ But at present even he was unsure of exactly what to do. He should have taken precautions. He should have nipped the problem in the bud. But how?

When they had become bored of the kitchen, they tore newspapers to shreds; they stole Ammaji’s comb and lodged it high in a branch, they broke the spokes of Sampath’s umbrella and left it battered and full of holes. They pulled the washing from the lantana bushes where it was laid to dry. As Pinky shook a leafy branch — ‘You badmashes. Go back to the jungle where you belong’ — they loped about in circles, half draped in garments, dragging saris and sheets and petticoats behind them, tearing the fabric to shreds, strewing her finery like paint over the tree tops.

By now, the greater number of devotees had relinquished their slingshots and retreated down the hillside, frightened by the langurs’ growing violence, worried that they would be chased and robbed and perhaps even bitten.

Sampath’s tree thrashed in a fierce chaos of branches and leaves. In it, he was tossed here and there, and upside-down. What was happening? It was all too quick for him to take in. His heart leaping and falling, skipping and jumping, his mind in a whirl, he was sure if he let go he would be sent careening through the air to land, concussed, upon the ground. Before his eyes a sickening blur moved and shook.

‘Come down, Sampath,’ everyone shouted, but he held tightly on to his cot.

‘If you are not going to come down, keep absolutely still,’ his father yelled. ‘Do not move.’

Caught up in this drunken dance, savage faces, long tails, saris draped in purple and yellow streamers all about him, useless bits of thought flew past Sampath, everything going by too fast for him to stop and grab at them. He could jump; but no, it would be his undoing. He could pull on the monkeys’ tails; no, he would shout. No, he had better hold tight …

Luckily, before anybody was actually bitten or hurt, the monkeys bounded off into the university research forest, tired of the noise people were making, or perhaps tired of the orchard, their wild spirits carrying them farther and farther to the opposite hill, where the family could see them continuing their onslaught upon the meek landscape, wrecking every tree, uprooting every bush, expending their energy on anything that came in their way, leaving entire areas of the forest ravaged as if by a tornado.

Before dawn the next day, Mr Chawla was up and dressed, making his way into town as fast as he was able. Worry knit his brow. Things had gone too far. After all, diseases like rabies were carried by these animals. Something would have to be done. The old District Collector had just left and the new one had not yet arrived. There was no top authority for him to visit, but he decided to see all the other officials he could think of to make it clear that it was their responsibility to do something about this disruption to sanctity and peace in Shahkot.

It was about six in the morning and already the Shahkot newspaper man was delivering the story all over town. It arrived with a thwack upon verandas and porches, against doors and through windows.

Soon, the newspaper man bicycled by the house of the Chief Medical Officer, who sat in a wicker chair on his veranda in happy anticipation of the paper and the cup of tea he had just poured out to steam gently and fragrantly before him. Now, this newspaper deliverer was somebody who prided himself on his perfect aim and, seeing the CMO sitting quietly there on the veranda, he attempted to deliver the paper right at his feet. It arrived like a missile, zipping through the air and landing with a crash into the tea tray.

‘Really, you are too zealous,’ shouted the CMO after the figure bicycling quickly away, and he settled down sadly to the day’s news without his usual comforting cup of Darjeeling. ‘Rama Rama Rama Rama Rama,’ he muttered as he read of the monkeys’ exploits and he rubbed his feet together to encourage himself in the face of such bothersome news. ‘Rama Rama Rama Rama Rama.’ He mulled things over. This would be trouble. He knew it. It always meant trouble. It was precisely this sort of thing that caused his ulcers to get worse.

He lived in a constant state of panic that his ulcers would get worse, and everybody knew that nothing was worse for ulcers than worry and this worried him all the more. He moaned and rubbed his feet. He would have to go on a strict herbal diet right away. Fenugreek sprouts and onion juice. Onion juice and more onion juice. Oh, he wouldn’t be able to bear all the onion juice he’d have to drink.

He had not even given the matter at hand a proper thought, or decided on an appropriate response to this ruckus, when he heard the sound of Mr Chawla arriving in the cycle rickshaw he had taken all the way down the hillside. The residence of the Chief Medical Officer happened to be first on the road between the orchard and Shahkot. The CMO looked up surprised as the rickshaw, having gathered the momentum of a slight slope to the north of the bungalow, swept in front of his veranda with a loud squealing of brakes.

Mr Chawla leapt from his seat on to the gravel patch in front of the veranda steps and ran up them to stand threateningly in front of the official, disregarding the muddy footprints he left on the polished, red-painted floor.