by Polly McGee
‘Change car,’ the older driver insisted over his shoulder, shuffling back towards the Mighty Boy.
The new driver nodded and patted the seat of his auto-rickshaw emphatically.
‘Hello, I am Raj, welcoming you to India with pride.’
Lola looked on, bewildered.
‘Civil Lines, isn’t it?’ he said, head nodding and shaking eagerly. ‘I take you, madam, actually, let us be leaving.’
Lola climbed aboard, resigned to the inevitability of her death at the hands of Raj. The auto-rickshaw blew its horn. With a theatrical waving of arms and impassioned shouting at larger vehicles, Raj, who seemed to be quite happy to bear his foreign-lady fare, re-entered the aggressive traffic flow. He watched Lola through the rear-vision mirror for a little while, before unleashing a string of questions in Hinglish: where was she from, why was she here, did she like cricket, did she want some Roy Bons just like his, practically real – at least ten percent UV blocking with free mirror.
Lola stared ahead in mute horror. Raj was undeterred by the lack of communication. They seemed to have been crawling for the best part of an hour, with Raj chatting away about Brett Lee, Bollywood and his ambitions for emigration to a fine country such as Australia. The auto-rickshaw finally turned off the main highway. The street did not appear to be peppered with mansions. A large craft emporium was signposted ahead.
‘Are we here?’ she asked.
‘Oh, not long, Aussie madam. We’re just visiting my cousin actually; he gives me a petrol voucher.’
Lola would learn on her first day that many a taxi or auto-rickshaw ride would result in a visit to a relative of the driver, connected with a warehouse full of Indian crafts and a spurious voucher. Once she had been ushered out of the auto-rickshaw and into the sprawling emporium, Lola was given a cup filled with sweet milky tea. A very persuasive salesman then took her through the finer points of the wool score for high-end pashminas. He threw wrap after wrap in a pile at her feet, Lola watching with jetlagged delirium as he acted out with throat-slashing gestures to the tender area of the neck where the fine fleece was sourced from. If the pashminas before her hadn’t borne witness, the salesman could have been describing a halal slaughter.
There was only one way out. She handed over some cash and demanded Raj get them on their way.
Four long hours after she had walked through the glass doors of the airport, Lola crossed the threshold of her new home for the next three months, Hastinapuri Estate, for the first time. She was still clutching her backpack, her shoulders wrapped tight in a new pashmina.
Chapter Three
The Acting Director
Sita Unival, ambitious reporter for the New Delhi Times, sat in the back of the luxury car, imagining how many of her pay packets it would cost, and cursing her choice of career as a journalist when she, too, could have been at the bribery buffet that was the public service in India. Pushpant Godboley, the Acting Director of New Delhi Municipal Council, car owner and subject of today’s interview, stepped out of the rear passenger side of the gleaming black Lexus. Pushpant gestured dramatically to his agitated driver, who seemed to be fussing over something at the front of the vehicle. The driver took off his jacket with a deep scowl as Pushpant delivered a cuff to the back of his head. Through the closed window, it was a silent movie to Sita, complete with exaggerated actions.
The driver opened the rear door, Sita swung her well-heeled feet onto the dusty cement, ready to get her scoop on the acting director’s new animal-control policy. Sita was strategically climbing the news ladder, breathing in the exhilarating status of her first assignment on the local-government beat. Her elevation was hard-fought as a girl in the masculine and competitive world of Indian print journalism – undoubtedly a result of her recent reporting coup, when she uncovered a transgender finalist in the Miss India pageant, creating record sales for the paper.
As a lifelong Delhiite, Sita didn’t breathe in too deeply – status or air – knowing both were somewhat on the nose. She nodded and allowed her eyelashes a flutter to fuel the acting director’s obvious delight in his own importance. In her experience on the job, flattery often loosened lips. She held out her phone, making sure the microphone was capturing every word as Pushpant Godboley spoke expansively of his vision for a safer, cleaner, less stray-populated New Delhi. Too many dogs, too many monkeys, he said in a plummy accented Hinglish. All about to change. Harm minimisation with minimal harm, he said. The coat jacket next to Sita shuddered into stillness and she let out a shriek as a paw shot out from under the lapel. Godboley grabbed her arm and led her towards the entrance to the metro, as he hissed something at his driver, nodding towards the deceased dog.
The acting director’s voice droned on. The first critical action of his senior management unit to support the New Delhi Municipal Council workers relocating and eradicating strays was some fine signage. Marvellous signage. A positive shame that the XIX Commonwealth Games were over, he said. Approval for signage took longer than expected. Tourists had missed their opportunity to see the beautiful signs the New Delhi Municipal Council erected.
Sita took notes diligently, allowing her focus to be interrupted every now and then with future visions of the New Delhi Times’ front cover. In her mind, she visualised a flattering picture of herself just underneath the newspaper masthead: Chief Reporter, Ms Sita Unival.
Dragging herself back to the tedium of the present, she interrupted the self-congratulatory monologue of the acting director. The street animal situation in New Delhi was obviously causing great community consternation. The Pariah Animal Welfare group (PAW) was claiming that the relocation was cruel and created great tension within existing animal colonies.
‘Do you care to comment, Acting Director Godboley?’
Sita’s front-page dream faded as Godboley killed her question and the notion of animal rights with the dismissive wave of his well-manicured public-service hand. Sita took a deliberately unflattering photo of him in front of a newly erected sign declaring the Civil Lines metro station a ‘Dog and Monkey Free Zone’. The sign he was photographed beside featured graphic images of a ferocious dog and a menacing monkey. The cartoon animals were trapped inside the universal language of a red circle with a diagonal slash, unlike, Sita noted ironically, the dogs that sat beneath the sign, apparently unaware of the policy on their exile.
Sita was ushered back into the car to tour some other signage achievements of the New Delhi Municipal Council. As she climbed in, the acting director’s hand slid across her shoulders and rested in the middle of her back. Sita stiffened with the sensation of the unwanted and uninvited touch. Another disgusting old man who thought her body was a perk of his job. She jerked away and sat pressed against the door, clicking the safety belt into place like a barrier to further violation. Looking up, she caught the eye of the driver in the rear-view mirror. He gave her the briefest of eye rolls and a subtle headshake before he turned back to the front and the engine gunned with what sounded like pent-up fury.
***
Above the new sign from the New Delhi Municipal Council, an assortment of macaque monkeys watched the acting director, the intrepid girl reporter and the partially uniformed driver speed off in the shiny black car. The monkeys scampered along the edge of the station’s glass roof.
Paksheet, their monkey leader – an alpha male and fearless fighter skilled in manipulation – sat apart from his chattering clan, taking in the scene below. Like Godboley, he had risen quickly to the top using a variety of social and antisocial tools. In his arms was a tiny monkey called Yanki. Yanki was his decoy baby, a trick often deployed by the macaque males to catch rivals off guard before striking to claim social dominance. Yanki was used to being Paksheet’s greeting card and had quickly learned the rules of engagement. Still being alive was the only reward for her passivity and compliance.
A rhesus Napoleon, Paksheet believed the world was his enemy, and his duty to conquer. It was in fact his daring behaviour that had inspired the n
ew metro signs. Paksheet had incited the wrath of the New Delhi Municipal Council’s Animal Eradication Department when he’d boldly strolled into the metro and onto the 3.45 pm service from Chandni Chowk, bound for Civil Lines.
Once on board the subway train, Paksheet climbed onto a seat in the corner, watching the humans back away in fear. His antics were recorded on their phones as further proof of the monkey problem. The footage, showing Paksheet basking in his commuter victory, went viral on YouTube, embarrassing the city’s bureaucrats. He was swaggering along the carriage seats, swinging from vacant hangers before leisurely consuming an abandoned jalebi. He licked his sticky fingers, tore the paper bag into shreds and scattered it around the train. He then jumped and shrieked and raged with joy as the world looked on in amusement.
Arriving at Civil Lines, Paksheet disembarked, feeling delighted with his escapade. Scampering up the stairs, onto the escalator, he passed the surprised security guards and strutted out of the station. It only took three stations of travel to plant the seed of what would be known forever in the memory of New Delhi as the Monkey Wars.
The metro ride had transformed Paksheet in the monkey hierarchy from violent bully to despotic leader. Through his notoriety, the city’s monkeys became mini-Hanumans, growing greater in numbers through the constant feeding and reverence from devout humans. In doing so, the citizens of New Delhi inadvertently provisioned the monkey army: more food, more worship, more trouble. The monkeys in Paksheet’s army used Kamla Nehru Park as their bivouac. Once a human battleground during the bloody Sepoy Rebellion, the occupation of the ramparts and ruins was an ironic stationing by the macaque.
Paksheet gazed back at the Ridge, with its monuments to war, from atop his perch at the metro station. It stood out on the horizon as an expansive green belt in a dirt-coloured city draped in smog. Further in the distance, the ochre of the Red Fort minarets rose up beyond Chandni Chowk. Paksheet felt euphoric at the possibilities of his future reign. Yanki shifted in his arms and made a soft whimpering noise to remind him she was hungry. His reverie fractured; he nipped her arm to silence her. She was becoming an irritation.
***
Beneath the macaque peanut gallery, the suit jacket lay still. Its folds were already collecting dirt particles and the odd rubbish tumbleweed of empty bhuja packets and cigarette butts. The dispersed pariah dogs slunk back to the scene of the incident, sniffing gingerly around the shrouded corpse of the deceased Shiva. Lakshman, the incumbent pack leader, tugged at a sleeve until the coat slipped off.
The body of Shiva looked surprisingly undamaged. His ribcage was sunken where the impact had been, and a sticky dark trickle of blood stained the ground under his nose. In the illusion of death, Shiva appeared to be asleep. An idle cycle-rickshaw driver spotted the dislodged coat jacket and swooped in crow-like, donning it with a victor’s pride. Lakshman growled at him, making his first decision as the new pack leader.
With Shiva gone, the pack faced a survival situation. The group was comprised mainly of younger dogs, some barely out of puppyhood, and a couple of bitches about to whelp. A dog-pack leader was critical in being able to maintain territory and secure the limited share of food. Shiva had been a good leader until the fight with the luxury car had not gone his way.
Lakshman was the dog equivalent of a late teen, brimming with hormones, chutzpah and distracted by uncontrollable urges to fight, mate and eat. He begrudgingly resisted the impulse to exploit the fresh meat supply that lay before them. Turning his paws towards the Ridge and the familiar safety of their den, he led on. The other dogs trotted along trustingly after him.
Chapter Four
Kamla Nehru Ridge
Mrs Poona Sheena strode with purpose, carrying a long, thin stick to ward off the gaggles of monkeys in her path. She wasn’t in the park to exercise and gossip like her peers. Each day was the same charity mission – survival of the local dog community.
An injured pariah dog was invisible to most of the human eyes of Civil Lines, but not to Poona. She knew every dog in the park and had named and fed most of them. Their welfare was her self-appointed business.
Almost before Poona saw Rocky’s congealing blood, the sickening tear on his head and his trembling legs, she noticed that the unfamiliar dog wore a collar and tag. She slipped her mobile phone out of her tunic pocket and called Gajrup Ramdas, her driver, go-to staff member and by proxy one of her pariah-feeding team. Poona spoke fast and low so as not to startle the injured dog. It was Tuesday – Hanuman worship day. The priest would be at the temple preparing for the evening devotions. She instructed Gajrup to go ask the priest for some turmeric powder and holy water, then to mix it into a salve. Poona would meet Gajrup near the temple gate in the usual dog-feeding spot and attempt some triage.
The park was a sizeable area, crisscrossed with paths. Gajrup would follow Poona in the car, delivering plastic bags full of lentil-and-rice gruel for distribution to hungry pariah dogs. Malina, the household cook and Gajrup’s wife, was tasked, along with her other duties, with preparing the daily batches of dog food. The dhal-esque slurry they were fed would bubble on the stove like her anger at being reduced to a glorified dog servant. Malina often made the food mix extra sloppy and, thus, prone to spill on a freshly laundered sari. Designed to be a spiteful reminder to Poona of Malina’s power and status in the house, more often than not it meant Gajrup’s pant cuffs needed extra scrubbing. The net result was that there was frequently frothing on washing day in Hastinapuri’s laundry room.
Poona was oblivious to Malina and her spite; her time was more valuably taken up by running the family hotel business and nourishing her park pariahs. Poona had once kept her own pet dogs at Hastinapuri Estate. The dogs were now buried together under an expansive parijata tree in the garden of the house. Their deaths, from nothing more sinister than ripe old age, remained so painful that replacements were unthinkable. Kamla Nehru Ridge was full of hungry, unrevered dogs, Poona reasoned. They were left to starve while a legion of monkeys was overfed. They became her call to alms.
The park dogs knew the sound of their feeding aunty approaching.
‘Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy,’ she chanted in her joyful singsong tones, beckoning to the dogs to come and eat. At the sound of her call, they spilled from their dens, tucked deep in the undergrowth. Some pariahs were bold, some timid, some wary, others flighty. But all came hungry from their hidden camps in their packs to wolf down the nutritious swill left in Poona’s wake. The remaining dogs arrived boisterously just as she began her food delivery. They were regular park diners and comfortable in the presence of their human benefactor. The food barely touched the ground before Lakshman pushed the others aside for the first mouthfuls. Poona observed the familiar animals without their leader.
‘Lakshman, where is Shiva today?’ she asked.
Like her own dogs, Govinda and Radha, Poona named all the dogs of the park from Hindu epics, matching their personality with their godly charms. The locals adopted the names for the various dogs she called out on her rounds, as if Poona were in charge of the dog nation of New Delhi, and had some authority over them. Park regulars would let her know where puppies had been born, where they had seen dogs wandering outside of their usual path and other intelligence to help Poona keep tabs on her canine charges. Poona was worried by the coincidence of the absence of Shiva and the appearance of the injured pariah dog that looked like a pet out of place rather than a seasoned street animal.
The dogs finished their meals and took off when Gajrup arrived with the salve. Poona could tell it was him by his shape as he loped towards her. Gajrup was a lanky fellow, with a permanently harried expression and a gloomy kindness in his eyes. Today he was precariously balancing the bright-yellow liquid in a cut-off plastic water bottle with a hastily constructed bag of dog food for enticement. Gajrup, like his wife, Malina, were part of Poona’s Hastinapuri staff family. They had been with her so long the enmeshment was beyond that of their roles, and she relied on him for frantic g
rabs to restrain sick dogs, hustling at pharmacies for antibiotics and carting dog food alongside her.
Poona and her husband, Chatura, repaid loyalty and service by the Ramdas family with generous sponsorship of their only child, Geet. They had supported him since he was a baby. It was hard for Poona to believe that he would be graduating from university as an engineer – if he could just knuckle down for the last exams. She wondered what was going on with Geet. Gajrup and Poona had barely mentioned him for months, and then she’d heard talk from the other servants that Geet was going away, that he had some big job opportunity overseas.
More intriguing was the arrival of Lola Wedd. Malina had brusquely informed her a couple of days ago that she had a guest arriving to stay, a friend of a relative, and that she would help her in the kitchen. Poona assumed it would be a village girl, hoping to get some work, and suspected Malina could be matchmaking and wanted to try before she bought. The arrival of the very foreign, very Australian Lola was extremely unexpected. Poona hadn’t seen her since the brief glimpse of her arrival, and Malina seemed to be keeping her very busy. Poona had decided to wait until Gajrup or Malina talked to her, or she got a chance to spend time with Lola to find out what the Ramdases were up to, rather than take as God’s truth the gossip that flowed like the Ganges out of the staff.
Poona saw Gajrup looking around for the wounded animal and she pointed to the golden dog with the blood-smeared face some distance from them, unsteady on its paws. Gajrup frowned with disapproval. Poona knew he thought sick dogs were trouble.
‘Better off dead,’ he said, shaking his head as he handed Poona the makeshift salve. They walked towards the dog until the three of them faced off.
‘Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy,’ Poona crooned.
Her feeding song became a beguiling whisper. She edged towards Rocky, pouring some food a short way from his nose, willing him to come closer. He moved forward, the pain of hunger as keen as that of the injury. Poona tipped the remaining food on the ground, standing as still as a statue. Rocky dipped his head to eat, the dangling tag on his collar reflecting the afternoon sunlight. Poona leaned in; she could just make out Rocky’s name, but the other details were obscured by the flashing and flipping tag. As he licked up the last scraps, she gave Gajrup the signal.