‘Our sacred tree is more than what most religions offer,’ said a new voice. He was the street theologian who claimed to have read the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, and had been after the Zend Avesta for some time now.
‘The Parsees don’t translate the Zend Avesta, I tell you. Keep it all hidden. What is there in these books? Tell me, what is there? This is it. Humans are animals. Animals are plants. Plants are humans. We become animals. Plants become humans. Sometimes there is an error. The cycle of reincarnation is not perfect. It breaks. The crow becomes human. The tree becomes the crow. This is mischief. This is play. The way lightning illuminates the dark sky, these cracks, these mischiefs, these errors illuminate the divine. What else is there to understand in this small world? Tell me.’
Having failed to extract a satisfactory response from the officer, Natwarlal, or Battisi, the street theologian concluded they were not on par with the rest of the crowd on issues of contemporary theology and returned to his original flock. The spokesman, on the other hand, like many others, was mesmerized, despite being privy to this speech many times. He had arrived long before the theologian and had quickly asserted himself. Yet when the street theologian arrived at the scene a few weeks ago, the spokesman acknowledged that he was not quite up to it and returned to enumerating the facts. Nevertheless, the spokesman was convinced he was not playing second fiddle. Without the scientificity of facts, no one will believe the theologian. He needs me. He needs my clarity. However, each time the theologian spoke, the spokesman couldn’t help feeling that the primary reason why the theologian had taken over was different. The theologian’s sundried face, his peppered hair and beard, his piercing eyes, his half-sleeved white kurta, performed only a part of the role. At times the theologian would raise his hands upward towards the sky with awe. The spokesman’s intuition told him that the street theologian was truly closer to the man standing on one leg, to the crow accompanying the man, to the tree that had become divine through the doctrine of contact, and to God himself—his mischiefs and misadventures. For some reason that the spokesman could not articulate, the theologian seemed more willing and able, not only with his head and heart, but with his entire body that seemed porous, in sync with its surroundings, absorbing, learning and giving.
‘The crow arrived two months ago,’ the spokesman continued, ‘and now refuses to leave the man’s side and has begun to caw in unison with the man standing on one leg. It says “cow”, but in English. A few days ago, an Englishman was here. He confirmed that this crow actually said “cow” in English.’
‘I don’t believe it. It’s like crows eating rice,’ Natwarlal said.
‘I have seen crows eat rice many times. With my own eyes,’ Battisi responded.
‘They smell it. They don’t eat it. I heard it from Sir Thompson. When Banerjee’s grandfather died, his father sent for him a few times. I personally delivered the letter to Banerjee. The letter said that the crow had not touched the rice for two days.’
‘Do you read office letters?’
‘No. Never. How can I? I overheard Banerjee talking to Sir Thompson. Banerjee was the old man’s favourite grandson. Banerjee called him Dada. He wanted to see Banerjee before he died. Didn’t happen. On the tenth day, at the ceremony, the crow did not touch the rice. Dada’s soul did not depart. It is hanging between this world and the next. Banerjee said it was an expensive trip, and for someone who is no longer alive.’
‘But Thompson Sir never speaks to Banerjee,’ Battisi returned to his doubt. ‘Can you read . that much?’
‘A week later Banerjee’s father wrote again. That the teapot fell and broke because Dada’s soul was in the house sending all sorts of coded messages. Banerjee didn’t go.’
‘The old man’s cycle of reincarnation must have been punctured. Ha, ha!’
‘The crow becomes human. The human becomes the crow,’ Natwarlal responded.
‘Ha, ha! This is mischief. This is play.’
‘What else is there in this small world, tell me?’ They walked quietly for some time.
‘Banerjee has a son? If I ever get to see my great grandson it will be a miracle,’ said Battisi.
‘Last week Banerjee’s father was very angry. He ordered Banerjee to come right away and sign some property papers,’ Natwarlal continued.
‘Did Sir Thompson allow?’
‘Sir Thompson asked Banerjee what would happen if Banerjee went and the crow didn’t touch the rice. Banerjee said that then it was not his fault. Sir Thompson argued that the old man was dead anyway and wouldn’t know whether Banerjee was there or whether the crow touched the rice.’
‘Sir Thompson has not been properly informed. It is not for the dead man to know whether the crow touched the rice. It is for those who remain to know that the dead have travelled safely to the other side,’ said Battisi.
‘At that moment Sir Thompson told Banerjee, “Crows don’t eat rice. They eat insects and small animals.”’
‘Doesn’t Sir Thompson know about Hindu crows? Hindu crows are vegetarian,’ said Battisi.
‘Whatever these crows eat, they are resilient, I tell you. It could rain for days, there could be thunder and lightning or the sweltering heat of summer could transform people into dried mangoes, but these crows hold their ground. They shake themselves dry. They may lose their feathers and look miserable, but they endure and survive. True spirits of Bombay.’
‘Whoever heard of that? True spirits,’ responded Battisi. ‘What wrong did the parrots do? And the pigeons?’
‘Oh! They’re loafers, freeloaders, hundreds of pigeons flock around statues and roofs. Never do a day’s work. Besides who will pay to clean those dirty statues. Crows are clean.’
‘Yet no one keeps crows as pets.’
‘Crows have self-respect.’
‘Did Banerjee go to Calcutta?’
‘No.’
‘His grandfather’s soul must be running around in the house by now.’
‘His father is cunning. It must be about the property,’ said Natwarlal, keeping his eyes on the officer who was listening to the street theologian.
‘You have a devious mind.’
4
Dear Dibu,
Yesterday, I took Bhopu to Kalighat. Initially, he refused to enter the temple. Then, he was unwilling to offer prayers. He greeted Durga Ma with, ‘Good morning, Madam.’ Such impertinence is becoming a trend among the boys at Hindu College. But your son is only fourteen.
Holi was the usual affair. The kids who were assigned to the task of collecting dry leaves and twigs for the bonfire, in their competitive overenthusiasm, vandalized the shrubs of their green leaves and caused quite a bit of smoke. I had an onion, two potatoes, and a piece of coconut. They were well done, black on the outside, sweet and smoky on the inside.
Champa is in full bloom. With a little breeze, the courtyard is fragrant throughout the day. People stop in the street. Many flowers are plucked. I don’t mind people picking a few but they will stop at nothing short of baring the whole tree.
I asked the postman to write this letter for me. He promised to send someone. When that someone came, he charged me one anna per page. This has never happened before, but he insisted that one anna was the standard rate. This trade is not even a week old and they have already established the standards to fool the public. Tomorrow they will charge for collection. His handwriting is very large too. I can read this letter without my glasses.
Continuing our conversation, do not forget that universal ties are built on virtues. Virtues transcend kinship and identity. Participatory individualism is a necessary condition for virtue. Individual selflessness should not be directed towards a collective interest under the false belief that a collective is not selfish.
Yours,
Dada
5
Church bells pealed in the distance. It was two in the afternoon. Natwarlal, Battisi and the officer, as if induced into a hypnotic trance, stepped away from the crowd under the gulmohar tree and re
sumed their journey towards the station with renewed vigour.
‘There, I see one,’ Natwarlal shouted, pointing to a sturdy, milk-white cow busily rubbing herself against a banyan tree. Her horns were painted red.
‘Do you see the owner?’ the officer asked.
‘That monkey is staring at us,’ Natwarlal said.
Next to the cow stood a monkey with a red collar. A thin rope tethered the red collar to a red brick under the tree. As soon as the monkey saw the men approaching the cow, he began pacing around the brick.
‘It must be related to the cow,’ Battisi said to Natwarlal.
‘Last week at this very spot I saw a similar monkey with a bear. They were performing. As soon as they finished the monkey began cleaning lice from the bear’s scalp,’ Natwarlal responded.
‘Monkeys are friendly.’
‘My uncle had a monkey too. He bought it as a pet for his son. One day his son was teaching that monkey a game, in which you put your hands together in front of your body like this and the other person tries to slap your hands. If he wins he gets another chance, else it’s your turn.’
‘As a child, I used to hit very hard. No one dared to play with me.’
‘The monkey tried to slap my cousin’s palms and failed. Then my cousin tried to slap the monkey’s palm and won. He laughed loudly. The monkey was angry and slapped my cousin’s face. His fingers were imprinted on the boy’s cheek for five days. Monkeys look small, but . It’s a running joke in the family. At school, they asked him what happened. He said he had gotten into a fight with a boy from another school.’
‘That monkey was too smart for him. What happened to it?’
‘My uncle returned it the next day.’
‘Poor monkey.’
‘The cow isn’t tied. Must be a stray. According to Victoria, a free cow can be put to use if it is wandering about and belongs to no one,’ the officer interrupted.
‘But, sir, not for a Mohammedan,’ said Natwarlal.
‘The rules are different for one-eyed cows,’ Battisi added meekly. His voice did not reach the officer but his glorious smile did.
‘Both her eyes are intact,’ Natwarlal responded. ‘She has a bell around her neck.’
‘Are we stealing her? We’ll get her back in no time,’ the officer assured.
Natwarlal gathered some leafy twigs from a hedge not far from the monkey. ‘Is this enough?’
‘She won’t eat them,’ Battisi responded, still focused on the monkey pacing around agitatedly.
‘She will. There’s no time to look for grass,’ the officer said.
The cow looked at the leafy twigs Natwarlal was dangling in front of her. When he began rubbing them on her nose she opened her mouth, took it in, then spat it out instantly.
‘Now, how do I tie this rope?’ the officer attempted to take control.
‘Around her neck, take it over her ears and horns, sir,’ Natwarlal responded.
The officer held the noose like a garland and advanced. The cow shook her head and the rope fell into dung.
‘Eeep!’
‘It is okay. Don’t you eat it, sir?’ said Natwarlal.
‘Better to eat dung than cows,’ responded the officer.
They managed to tie the rope around her neck. Meanwhile, Natwarlal ran across to the temple’s gate to buy some grass.
‘Half anna,’ said the old woman who sat leaning against the three-foot high, crumbling pile of bricks that served as the temple wall. Beside her was a man in a long, dusty, cotton shirt, a dhoti and a red turban, selling two pomegranates, three guavas and one pineapple in a brown bamboo basket. The man sitting next to him was no different except for his spotless, white turban and razor-thin moustache that curled upwards. From six feet away it looked like he had one more pineapple in his basket. They weren’t convinced of any need to specialize in a fruit, or display, or price. They could have been brothers. Four others, in similar attire, except for a dash of earthy colours, sat around without any visible activity. They weren’t talking. The wall didn’t support them. By the time the wall reached them it was an uneven mound padded by fresh banana peels. Perhaps the mound comprised composted banana peels several days, even weeks, old. Word on the street was that the wall was a hurried attempt by the temple authorities to prevent government encroachment, common under the pretext of road extension programmes. The remaining three walls were not built. The whole structure had the stamp of Brahmin austerity.
‘Here, take a quarter. You aren’t doing any business anyway.’
‘Let that be my problem. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Take what you get old woman. Tomorrow the grass will dry up like your face.’ Natwarlal tossed the coin on to the woman’s tattered bamboo mat.
The cow, with the bell dangling from her neck, followed the three men.
‘We are taking her for a little while,’ said the officer to a man rolling tobacco underneath the same tree. The man raised his bag of tobacco. The officer waved at him. The man waved back. The officer pointed to the cow. The man waved again.
No one spoke for the entire duration of their walk on the promenade. The sea stood still. A solitary steamer chugged towards the harbour. Natwarlal began counting the floors of the newly built Taj Mahal Palace hotel on the right. A string of horse carriages lined both sides of the promenade.
‘From where do they get these horses? They’re like elephants,’ Battisi said. Despite her horns, the cow had dwarfed in his eyes. They reached the end of the promenade, beyond which was a cotton mill and some housing tenements. Beyond the tenements were the remnants of a fishing village.
When they reached the stairs of their office, the cow stopped abruptly. Natwarlal and Battisi began pushing her rump.
‘What’s going on?’ the guard came running behind them. ‘Where are you taking that cow?’
‘To Sir Thompson,’ said Natwarlal. ‘She refuses to walk up.’ The guard whacked the cow with his baton, hard. By the time they reached the second floor she had urinated on Natwarlal’s shirt and on the red carpet in the lobby. The officer laughed loudly.
‘Sir, you might drink this, but for us .’ said Natwarlal, removing his shirt halfway to the toilet. The officer fell silent. It was a stale joke, unworthy of a reaction. But he was concerned that Natwarlal was systematically overstepping his limits. He made a mental note of it. This was the fourth time since Natwarlal had arrived a few months ago. Two and a half of the infractions had occurred in the past two hours. Natwarlal’s snide remarks on urine and cow dung were unpardonable. They were in an office and an office had hierarchies. So what if Hinduism was under reformation or Bombay was in the midst of a renaissance.
6
When Mapel Jones entered, Thompson straightened his collar. His feet returned to the floor. Mapel Jones led the Ladies’ Association for the Promotion of Female Education Amongst the Heathens, a Presbyterian Mission in Byculla.
‘Our very own Professor Duff has brilliantly characterized the orthodoxy of the Brahmins. The spread of the Gospel will bring in a revolution,’ she said.
‘I read his essay.’ Why does she speak so affectedly?
‘He talked about an encounter between a Brahmin and a priest. It seems that the Brahmins are always looking for an opportunity to argue with our missionaries. Not just that, they will contradict everything anyone tells them . One of our missionaries was on the banks of the Ganges, you know the sacred river where they dispose of their dead. He was talking to a large crowd. Halfway through the sermon, a Brahmin—in the usual disruptive way they foil any attempts to teach the heathens—stood up. The reverend was graceful. The Brahmin asked, quite sarcastically, “Does the devil make man sin?”
The wise reverend said “Yes.”
To that the Brahmin responded, cheekily, “In that case, the devil is at fault. Why should the man be punished?”
The quick-witted reverend, aware where he stood, said, “Dearest Brahmin, do you see the boat on the other side of the river?”
“Yes.”
“If I were to send my friend to kill everybody on that boat and return with the spoils, who should suffer the punishment for the wicked act?”
“Both of you,” the Brahmin responded, with no grace.
“If you and the devil sin together, you and the devil will be punished together,” the reverend said. The Brahmin lost face and walked away.’
‘I know from my own experience that the Brahmin influence cannot be eradicated easily. Professor Hitchens says the Brahmins were among the earliest inhabitants of the region.’
‘Old wives’ tale. Last week I had the honour of attending a lecture by Professor Stewart from Oxford. He says the Brahmins gained their superiority after Alexander’s invasion. Their Sanskrit has its origins in Greek. Alexander enforced Greek on some groups. These groups mixed Greek with their own impure tongues and Sanskrit was born. Within two generations following Alexander’s invasion, a whole lot of people spoke Sanskrit. Today, we call them Brahmins. This is all hidden. The Brahmins don’t want us to know. There’s this man going around town saying the sages who wrote their Vedas lived in the Arctic caves . during the interglacial period. Here, they move around naked, without shame, with just one thread across their chests. How could they possibly have survived in the Arctic?’
‘Wouldn’t their ink freeze?’ Thompson added.
‘They must have used pencils.’
‘Isn’t he the same man who invented that festival of the elephant god?’
‘Better in prison than going around sowing the seeds of ignorance. The time has come to lead by example. The native women should no longer be slaves to their men. We must liberate them.’
Cow and Company Page 2