Indra Sinha - Animal's People

So the buffalo asks what she is saying and a jarnalis standing nearby says, “I don’t know how to translate it.”

Then Gargi says that if the Kampani has any honour it must stand trial, and it should pay just and proper compensation for all the wrongs it has done.

“What’s she saying now?” the lawyer asks.

“Sir,” says the jarnalis, “she is asking for money.”

The buffalo reaches in his red-lined coat, gets out his wallet. “Buy yourself something nice,” he says. Old Gargi’s standing there with five hundred rupees in her hand.

“Mr. Musisin, how do you justify what you do?” asks a voice that comes from a creature not of this world. It’s Zafar, propped between two friends. His face is sunken, he has not taken a drop of water.

The lawyer knows who Zafar is. The smile on his face grows broad.

“Hey, Zafar,” he says. “When you get to my age and you have two Italian greyhounds and you’ve read as many books as I have, and have as many friends among lawyers and judges, and have won as many cases, you don’t have to spend time justifying yourself.”

“He won’t let me see him. You must go, Animal. Tell him I love him, if he dies I will die too. Remind him of all the reasons there are for him to live.”

“He can’t die.” Zafar is invincible, untouchable, immortal.

“Animal, I’m afraid. Elli says he’s weak from his stomach upsets. He has forbidden her for her own safety to go to him.”

A huge stone slides in my bowels. I have done this, if he dies it’ll be my fault. I’ll go to him and say, Zafar stop this fucking nonsense, take some milk, take a little kheer. Meanwhile I’ll pray, “Gods of fate, or whatever, if you exist you know Zafar’s a marked man, one day some Kampani hitman is sure to take his life. For love’s sake I made one stupid mistake don’t make me his fucking murderer.”

Bhoora Khan returns empty-handed from Huriya’s place. Although Aliya’s still burning up, the old people say they can no longer take her to Elli.

“Who says you can’t?” Bhoora argued with them. “Zafar brother would want Aliya to take treatment.”

“People say Zafar brother is dying. We cannot go.”

So then I know that this time the people will not come back. Elli’s dream is finished and so is mine.

Seven days without water. Even Zafar knows it’s over. He has to give up now or he will die. His body is failing, he is so weak, he can no longer stand. His eyesight is blurring. He whispers, “Animal, is it you?”

I put my mouth right next to his ear, “Speak brother, I am here.”

In that moment I love him utterly and know it will break my heart if he goes, plus I feel Nisha’s love within me like a torrent.

“I’m okay,” he lies, his breath is rasping. “Who wouldn’t feel weak after a week without water? There’s a stove in my chest. I’m burning inside. When I wash my face I feel tempted to take a sip. When I see someone drinking water my heart whispers let’s have just a little drink. But then I think, if I drink what will happen to our struggle?”

“How is Farouq?” I ask, seeing my archenemy lying there on the rug. I feel pity even for him.

“Farouq has the Upstairs One,” he says. “He gets strength from that. Me, I won’t ask god to help, but I get strength from my friends. Like you, Animal, bastard.” He manages a faint smile. “Such a bloody idiot you are, did you never realise that datura is an aphrodisiac?”

“What, you felt the urge?”

“What else?” says he. “Am I not human?”

He lies back, someone places a cushion under his head. They are there waiting with frosted bottles, trying to tempt him with the cool water, heedless are they of the agony it causes him, they are trying to break his will and save his life, but still he will not drink. “Animal, ask Somraj to come and see me. Take good care of yourself, mate. Best as you are able, look after Nisha.”

“We’re going to win,” I tell him. Almost I am in tears. “I’m confident we will win. Listen you bastard, listen, you darling cunt of a man, we are going to win.”

I am smiling at him through my tears, and trying to hold in my mind the vision of a world in which the power of nothing has swept away the Kampani and all the evil and cruel things are no more. Come, you power of nothing, if ever there was a time for you to show yourself it’s now, it’s now. Whatever he had, this man has given. Nothing more has he to give, except his life, and soon there will be nothing left of Zafar. Never has his power been greater than at this moment. The Nautapa is flaring out of his body, his breath is like flames. One breath from Zafar could set the world on fire.

How long do I sit there, beside the man who is going? An hour maybe, two, time has no meaning. My head is full of thoughts that circle like pigeons, always coming back to the same roost. On Zafar’s face is an expression that is filled with peace, as if he has resolved all his struggles.

What is this thing called dying? Saying goodbye, letting go, one by one, of memories and sensations, the last time one ever thinks of cloves, or ginger, or green silk, or the white etawa bird. All the things that make up life, let them go one by one, until there is only now and here, the colours on the wall of the tent, that blur of light, voices…let all that too go.

“Zafar, my brother, I once heard you say something beautiful. You said, jahã jaan hai, jahaan hai .” We have the world, while we still have life.

“Fucking romantic.” These are the last words I hear him speak.

A great noise begins outside. “The factory,” voices are shouting. “They’re beating people! We must all go there.”

At the factory gates there’s a brawl going on. People from Jyotinagar, right across the road, are gathered there, demanding to be let inside. About forty cops have their backs to the gates. The rusting ironwork begins to rock. People have climbed over the wall and come up from behind. They’re climbing on the gates, gripping the bars and shaking them, trying to pull them down. The gates are swaying. Guards come running from inside, but these are village oafs the Kampani has hired, the ones who sit drinking tea all day and night, they do not want to get involved. The police are screaming at them to attack the invaders, pull them off the gates, beat them, but the guards stand and watch. More and more protesters appear each minute, thin figures running out of alleys, shouting, waving their arms. I too push close, shouldering my way past knees and thighs, trying to avoid having my fingers stepped on. Rage I’m feeling, plus sorrow. I have just left Zafar, never will I forgive his death or the manner of it. I want to rend the bastard Kampani in bits, if I could attack that buffalo lawyer I would bite his cancerous tongue out and squeeze his throat till greyhounds pop out of his eyes and he feels maddened teeth tearing his heart. In this moment of anger I look up and there are placid clouds drifting across the sky. This shakes me. Outside of ourselves nothing cares.

Zafar and Farouq are far away in the old city, they have breathed their last, if this news should reach the crowd, god knows what the result will be. One of the women is shouting at the senior cop. He is afraid, I can see, though I cannot hear what is being said. She stoops, rises again with a slipper in her hand. She strikes him with it right across the face. The cop does nothing, his men are scared, now the fury of the people has been let loose who knows where it’ll stop, it’s a storm battering everything in its path, it’s an avalanche pouring down a mountain, it’s a flood that rises swiftly with no warning, it’s a fire lit by lightning on a hillside where all is dry, awaiting the spark. These things I’m saying I did not believe before, now I do, the power of nothing is unleashed, as Zafar feared it is already out of control, it will destroy what it touches because it is fuelled not just by anger but despair. The cop who was struck’s being harangued by others. The gates are rocking wildly, one’s come away from its hinges and is hanging, the men clinging to it double their efforts, others are jumping on to add their weight. Still the guards stand watching, many of them have thrown down their sticks, it’s not worth their lives to defend this place of horror, this land of cobras. The police are trying to get out from underneath, or they’ll be crushed when the gates fall. Another hinge gives way and slowly, the barred portal to the factory sags, then dhoofs flat on the ground in a cloud of dust, the police have fled, some of them too are sitting on the ground with their sticks laid down. The crowd surges into the wilderness beyond the gates, but now they’re in they do not know what to do. There is an open space, to one side of the avenue of small mango trees that leads to the guardhouse and here the crowd gathers. Many sit down, there are no leaders to tell them what should happen next, this is something they’ve done themselves. Someone has to take charge, but there is no one. “What shall we do now?” people are asking.