A State of Freedom

by Neel Mukherjee

– Why not now? Lakshman asks. He is prepared to let go of his idea of using the bear as a stream of income if he can get ready money for it now. The animal seems to be a godsend, not a bad omen.

  – Impossible to do it now, Salim says.

  – Why? Lakshman persists.

  – They’ve banned bear-dancing. If they catch you travelling with a bear now, making it dance, like we used to do, our livelihoods were dependent on this, all our community did this, but now if they catch you, they take the bear away and put you in jail for seven years.

  Lakshman had not thought of this possibility, so the novelty of it makes it easy for him to treat it as something trivial.

  – You give them something, some tea-snack money, and they’ll leave you alone, no?

  – Yes, we did that for a while, but they have become stricter and stricter. Who knows, someone powerful may be sitting at the top, asking the police and people to catch poor folk like us.

  Salim falls silent, ponders a while, then says – They caught my brother, Afzal. He’s breathing jail air now. They asked him to hand over his bear and even offered him a job in return.

  – What job?

  – Some useless shop or the other. Putting spices in little plastic packets and selling them. They offered the same to another man from our village. He went bust in three months – how many people can you sell spices to in a small, poor village to make a living? Who has money there to buy spices in little packets? In three months he made less than half the money he drew in from a good week’s bear-dancing. From crowds who gathered to watch his bear dance, who threw money and clapped their hands. But the bear was now gone … Afzal knew what happened to this man. He said – no, I’ll run away with Bilkis (that’s his bear), I’ll run away with her to a town far away, they’ll never find me, he had laughed.

  – What happened then?

  – Find him they did. They took away Bilkis. Allah alone knows where she is now. They sent Afzal to jail.

  A long silence descends.

  – He’s still there, Salim adds at last.

  Lakshman can’t find anything to say. He still cannot quite bring himself to believe that someone can go to jail for making bears dance in public. It had been done for ages; he has known about it ever since he was little. Besides, what he cannot understand is why it should be prohibited now. It wasn’t robbing, or killing, or stealing. Where was the harm in it? Before he can put the question to Salim, the qalandar has swerved him along a far easier track.

  – But if you want to keep him – Salim says – I can do what needs to be done. He will then dance for you for ever.

  This is what Lakshman wants to hear, this is what he has been hoping for from the beginning.

  – You’ll do it? Lakshman’s eyes shine. What needs to be done?

  – A rope needs to go through his nose. Then some of his teeth must be broken. You have to do them when they’re very young, when it is easy to handle them and keep them down. You’ll also need a special stick, the one that we qalandars have. But you’ll have to pay me to do all this.

  – How much? To Lakshman, the actions are of far less moment than their price.

  – Five hundred rupees.

  Lakshman looks stricken. Where is he going to get that amount of money? He feels oddly irritated: what does this qalandar think, that money falls from trees?

  – Where will I get five hundred rupees? Are we emirs or sheikhs?

  – How can I work without money? It’s hard work I’ll be doing, not anybody can do it. Very few people, only qalandars, understand it.

  – But I cannot give you so much money, I don’t have it.

  Salim mutters something under his breath, then goes quiet. The cub seems to be gnawing on his wrist; Salim shakes him off. There is another long silence.

  – All right, then – he says at last – you owe me money. I will return to collect it, don’t ever forget that.

  Relief makes Lakshman rashly generous. He says – All right, come back when you want, after the bear has grown a bit and I’ve made some money. I will pay you more than two hundred rupees now.

  – Remember this, because I will be back. This bear-dancing is our work, Muslim people’s work. You are not one of us, you will never prosper in it unless you repay your debt. Do not forget this.

  A fire is lit with kindling and, after it catches properly, a log placed on it; Salim wants it to be a deep, slow-burning fire. When it reaches the desired temperature, which Salim seems to be able to gauge with his eye, he inserts one end of a long iron rod in it. He has already cut some thick oak branches into different lengths. There is a piece of rope, generously lubricated with mustard oil. Over the time it has taken to procure most of these things, the people who have given them have come over to see what is going on. They do not know what it takes to make a bear dance; it will be a unique experience. Salim chooses four men, one of them Lakshman, and explains to them what they need to do. Each of the four men wraps a length of cloth – a vest, a sweater, rags – around his hand.

  As if impelled by some deep instinct, the cub has scuttled off into its box to hide. Salim reaches a hand in, pulls it out and places it on the open ground, then tethers it with a short length of rope to a sturdy stick planted deep and firmly in the ground.

  – Now, he shouts.

  The four men turn the cub on its back – it’s squealing now, a thick, squeaky noise – and stretch out its four legs, holding down the paws with their wrapped hands so that its claws can’t inflict any damage. It moves its head manically, but Salim soon puts a stop to that. He inserts the thickest of the sticks into the cub’s open mouth while the two men pinning down the front paws hold down the ends jutting out, effectively fixing the head to the ground. Its mouth looks like an improbably pristine pink hole seeded with small white teeth. The sound that comes out of it now is some kind of a hoarse attempt at a whisper from the throat.

  – Don’t press down too hard on the stick, Salim shouts – just enough to keep its head from moving.

  But it isn’t moving any longer, unless the convulsion going through its exposed underside, rippling that white garland and issuing as a staccato hiss, can be counted as movement. The spectacle of a tiny cub and five big men is a mockery of scale and proportion: it’s as if a cannon has been deployed to deal with a fly. With four quick but forceful taps using a shorter stick, Salim knocks out the cub’s canine teeth. The hiss changes to an odd rasping. The pink streaks with thin ribbons of red. They spill out, mixed with saliva, from the open corners of the mouth. Salim winds a long piece of cloth around his right hand, then removes the iron rod from the fire. He holds it for a while, one end of it glowing red, briefly, before it turns an ashy black, closes his eyes and begins to mutter something, as if he’s in a trance. The crowd that rings around this business has fallen into a total hush. The surrounding pines respond in unison to a passing breeze with their own swishing sound. Children form the innermost circle, the children from Lakshman and Ramlal’s family, the toddlers on the hips of their mothers, a scattering of boys and girls from the village. Salim opens his eyes – they’re unfocused, as if seeing through everything in front of them to something invisible beyond or under things. Even the pines hold their breath now. He lets out a demonic cry and with a short, thrusting movement, which seems bathetic coming after that sound, he drives the hot end of the rod through the area just above the dark grey tip of the cub’s nose, pierces it in one go, brings it out, then drives it in again a few centimetres above that point, punching a hole through the bone.

  The wail of a child punctures the hush with unexpected force. The cub cannot writhe or move – it is pinned into place at every point where movement can occur. Lakshman feels the tug from the sheer need to move express itself as tiny jerks in the joints of the leg that he’s holding down; a cyclone manifesting itself as a breath of air. The red-pink open mouth, leaking liquid, would look as if a moment of utter, grinning glee has been frozen in time, had it not been for the unearthly squeal, dotted with a g
urgling rasp, emerging from it. Then a smell alerts Lakshman – he notices that the cub is shitting, and dribbling a few drops of piss, not enough to wet the ground under him.

  – Keep holding him down, but not too much force, remember, Salim orders.

  He fetches the length of rope, now generously dripping mustard oil, and begins to insert it through the hole he has pierced above the cub’s nose. The heat has cauterised the wound, so there’s no blood, but there is the faintest whiff of burnt flesh. Lakshman looks into the bear’s eyes, inches below his own face; they alternate between squinting, squeezing shut and opening wide. The pupils swim madly, left and right. A bead of sweat drops from Lakshman’s forehead on to the animal’s shoulder. Salim’s deftness seems to have left him, as he has trouble threading the rope through the piercing. He fails once, twice, three times, shouts curses, then manages to do it at the fourth go. The sound that comes out of the cub – something Lakshman has never heard before – becomes weaker, as if the creature is running out of energy. Salim draws the end of the rope that has emerged from the hole and pulls it for a bit from the other side until both ends are more or less equal.

  – The pain, Lakshman begins, but the words don’t come out. He clears his throat and rephrases what he had in mind to ask Salim – He’ll be all right, no? Soon?

  Salim smiles. It is tinged with contempt, or certainly superiority.

  – They are animals, their pain doesn’t last. All these animals that live in the wild, in the forest, on the streets, you’ve never known them to need a doctor, have you? He laughs at his own witticism, a dry, hollow, foolish sound, and continues – They heal quickly, they’re strong. It’s we, humans, who are weak. He’ll be all right in a few days. Don’t let anyone go near him for a while. Keep him in that box and only you look after him, no one else.

  Then Salim warns the men that he’s about to remove the stick from the cub’s mouth; the men should withdraw their hands off its paws simultaneously and move away.

  A curious thing happens after it is released – it immediately retracts its legs from the stretched into a more natural angled configuration, but remains on its back, blinking, those eyes swivelling.

  The crowd stirs into life.

  – It’ll run away now. Don’t let it escape. Stand close.

  – Don’t go near it, it’ll bite, stay away.

  – Arrey, why isn’t it getting up? Is it dead or what?

  – No, how can it be dead, its legs are moving, see?

  – When will it dance? Will it dance as soon as it gets up?

  And get up the bear does, after what seems a long time, after some of the people are beginning to give it up as dead: it turns on one side first, then on the other, then lies on that side for a moment or two before standing. It falls immediately. A sound of amusement goes through the spectators in a weak ripple. It stands up again, the rope through its nose trailing on the ground like a giant noose. It wobbles and falls again.

  – It’s trying to dance, someone in the crowd says – but hasn’t learned it properly yet.

  – No, no, it’s got to be trained to do that. The qalandar will teach it.

  The squealing has now changed to an odd whimper. Its jaws remain open, like a panting dog’s.

  – Now you give it a name, Salim says to Lakshman. It’s your bear for life.

  – Raju, Lakshman says. His name is Raju.

  Salim takes Lakshman through what he needs to do over the next few days – the fitting of the band that will sit above the nose, how to connect the mouth guard to the leash, the necessary information about feeding and where to keep him, and how to make the special stick that Lakshman could tie to the leash in order both to lead him and to prevent the bear from turning on Lakshman and attacking him, although this was extremely unlikely because Raju would now acknowledge Lakshman as his master and lord and do anything that he bid.

  – Can’t you give me that stick, that special stick you use? Lakshman asks.

  – How can I get one here? I could find one in my village, Salim answers. Besides, you owe me money.

  Before leaving, Salim reminds Lakshman – Don’t forget, the bear is the lord of the underworld. The idolators and kafirs worship him because they say he has powers.

  With that he is gone.

  At night, Lakshman dreams of jaws, with pine trees growing inside, trying to grind him. From there the dream slides elsewhere but when he wakes up, to the sound of a wailing child, he cannot remember it. The taste in his mouth is metallic. Could he have been dreaming of his brother again? The weight of the grinding seems to be on his chest, on his entire body now, as if a huge invisible stone is bearing down upon him with the slow movement of a pestle. He pushes against air and goes out of the room into the open. He navigates in the pitch-dark by familiarity, then pisses against a tree, legs wide apart so that the stream doesn’t touch his feet on its run back. The sound of the warm jet perforating a hole in the soil is disproportionately loud. By the time he finishes, his eyes are becoming dark-adapted. In the faint starlight, he can see Raju in the vegetable patch at the back, tethered to a baanj, as a darker lump of the night.

  Lakshman stands there, waiting for his peering eyes to become more attuned to the dark. The lump shifts. He hears something between a snuffle and a snort. He has positioned himself in such a way that even if Raju advances, the shortness of the rope with which he is tied will ensure that there is significant distance between him and the animal, but Raju makes no movement towards him. Lakshman stands and waits, he does not know what for. He wishes he could see clearly what Raju is doing, how he is observing Lakshman. He stands there for a long time, at the end of which he is still unable to establish if Raju has been looking at him in the dark. Then he goes inside. The weight settles back on him again.

  Lakshman comes in one day to discover Geeta cooking egg-and-potato curry for dinner. The children get one egg each, Lakshman only potatoes and gravy.

  – Arrey, where’s my egg? he asks.

  Geeta is silent.

  – You didn’t hear me? Where’s my egg?

  The pared-down reply – Only for the children – comes in a manner that makes it obvious to Lakshman that she is hiding something.

  He asks again. The same reply is returned but this time impatiently, with some heat. Lakshman feels an old, familiar roiling start up in him, but it must get rid of the surface confusion before it can get going fully.

  – Why didn’t you buy eggs for me?

  Silence.

  – You want me to force the answer out of you?

  – Didi gave me eggs for the children.

  It takes Lakshman a while to work out that she is referring to her employer, the woman whose husband’s house, the big new one with the terraced garden, past the old bungalow by the hedges near the turning for the road up, Geeta goes to clean every day. City people, rich, holiday home in the hills.

  – How come? Lakshman’s confusion has been swept away.

  – Her wish.

  – She thinks I don’t give enough to my children to eat? She thinks we’re beggars?

  Geeta, who has sensed from the beginning the approaching combustion of the very air around them, remains silent; any words would be fuel.

  – Why are you so quiet? Did you go begging? Did you go and say – here he mimics her voice – Didi, Didi, the children are hungry, the children don’t have enough to eat?

  The children have become still as stones. Their plates are polished clean. Geeta steels herself against what’s coming and sends up a quick, desperate, silent prayer.

  Lakshman is trembling. His eyes have gone small. The mimicry continues – Didi, I’m begging, begging you for my children’s food, they haven’t eaten for three days, Didi, save us. The palm of his right hand, fingers curved inwards to imitate a beggar’s gesture, suddenly stretches open as he leans forward, thought-fast, and slaps Geeta full on the face. She utters a short cry and topples over from her sitting position. No amount of experience in reading the signals �
� the small eyes, the silent crackle in the air, the subtle tremor in his hands and voice – has ever prepared her for the first blow. The girl, Sudha, starts whimpering. Lakshman turns to her, she cowers, he barks out – Shut your mouth or you’ll be next.

  Just as suddenly the rage leaves him; maybe it’s Sudha’s crying, or Geeta’s prayer. He says to his wife – If I catch you bringing in food, or anything those people give you, I’ll break your face. Understood?

  Silence.

  – Understood? he roars. Geeta walks out.

  Raju attempts to chew the wood of the fruit crate, which he has now outgrown. Children and adults no longer congregate outside Lakshman’s back garden to throw stones and prod Raju into dancing. His novelty value has almost dissipated and the long, fruitless wait to be entertained has edged into boredom.

  – When? the children ask.

  – Soon, Lakshman answers. He does not know himself; the qalandar, Salim, who knew all the secrets, didn’t tell him. Does he need to train the bear? How? By dancing in front of him and waiting for him to imitate? By getting hold of a damru and playing it to him? He does not know, and at times this fills him with panic. Is he saddled with a useless pet? Instead of bringing in money, will it be a steady and continuing drain on what little he earns? Another mouth to feed?

  Just before the onset of the rainy season, he builds Raju a makeshift shed of wood and corrugated tin – stolen from the next village – with plastic placed on the roof under bricks and stones. His family huddles inside their two rooms, sometimes for days on end. The vegetable patch is washed away; in its place, there is an irregular rectangle of mud and puddles the colour of milky tea from which they have to salvage the junal, which they grill on coals and eat every day. The insects are so numerous in the mandua flour that Geeta is defeated by the business of sieving and picking them out. Mould spores everything that can be eaten, and objects and surfaces and damp clothes, too. The dense vegetation cladding the surrounding hills manages to look not green, but one with the grey of the skies.

  Hearing a crash one night, Lakshman is aroused from his thin sleep. His first thought is that Raju has been attacked by a marauding panther. He goes with a torch and in the weak, faltering light cast by fading batteries he can make out Raju standing on his hind legs and the roof collapsed on to the mud. Rain falls on the tin and plastic, making a sound slightly different from the noise of the monsoon on the shed when it was standing.