Wild Boar in the Cane Field

by Anniqua Rana

  “My daughter, Tara. I’m going to the shrine this afternoon,” she told me. “Can you finish your work and not get into trouble?”

  “Me?”

  “I see the garland on your wrist. I’m just surprised that she didn’t.” For all that Bhaggan noticed, I couldn’t understand why she chose to ignore what was sometimes so pronounced, like Sultan’s incompetence, Taaj’s nastiness, Maalik’s stupidity, and, most of all, Saffiya’s meanness.

  “Everyone is always after me. What have I ever done?” I responded.

  “Nothing. You never do anything. It’s just your attitude.”

  “What about my attitude?”

  “Swallow your anger. Finish all your work, and I’ll get you the doll I promised. When I go to the shrine.”

  I didn’t think I wanted a doll anymore, maybe some earrings instead, but if I changed my mind, Bhaggan would act suspicious. “Why earrings and not a doll?” she’d ask, and I wouldn’t have an answer.

  “And for me, too!” Maria called from outside.

  I wanted to go to the shrine with Bhaggan to look at the glass bangles and beaded necklaces I had seen when I had gone. Then, Maria and I had wanted the dolls that were now ragged, and if I went, Maria would want to go too.

  I knew Amman Bhaggan would not take both of us. She took Sultan instead. He had to carry the deg of biryani on his head. It had cooled down a bit before he asked his brother to place it on the rolled cloth stabilizer perched on his skull.

  “Come, Taaj, help your brother carry the deg on his head,” Bhaggan called.

  “He’s the eldest and the strongest. Why can’t he do it himself?” Taaj whined.

  “Son of a dog. Why do you make me curse my dead husband? Come, and don’t make me waste my breath.”

  I decided I would show how mature I had become, so I stood in front of Sultan, with the deg between us, and looked intensely at him, willing him to make eye contact. Taaj came and stood next to me, brushing against me.

  I stared at Sultan and bent over. I realized that my neckline was now visible, since I had pulled my dopatta tightly around my neck, so it no longer covered the area that it was supposed to protect.

  I looked up at Sultan and knew he had been staring at my breasts. I pretended to pull my dopatta closer, but as I did, I elbowed Taaj.

  “It’s nearly time for the afternoon prayers.” Amman Bhaggan beckoned as she slipped on her slippers and left the kitchen.

  When she left, Taaj moved closer and brushed his arm against my breast. I nearly dropped my side of the deg. Sultan kept it balanced and saved it from slipping, we heaved the pot onto his head, and he followed his mother to the bus stand.

  No longer feeling as mature as I had felt earlier, I kicked Taaj as he followed his brother.

  Maalik and Taaj would walk up to the cane fields. They would both break themselves off a piece of cane to chew. They would stand near the canal close to the house and spit out the chewed-up sugarcane, devoid of all the sugar they would have sucked out. They would then see how far downstream the chewed cane husks would flow before disintegrating.

  Neither Maria nor I was allowed to go that far, so I shouted as they left, “Bring me a cane, too, brothers.”

  The Shrine of Sain Makhianwala

  Sain Makhianwala, the patron saint of the shrine, the Keeper of Flies, the man who had lain for a hundred years in a grave covered with red, green, and gold satin shrouds, had never taken a bath.

  I had seen men like that on the roadside. They stayed away from the village. They had no use for family or home or food like the rest of us. Amman Bhaggan said God had given them the power to stay alive, and that when he took them, their graves marked a special place for forgiveness and blessings.

  Sain Makhianwala had come to the village at a time when there were no buses or cars or electricity. He had come to remind the villagers, the farmworkers, and their families to cherish all life, even flies that contaminated food and carried sickness.

  “He sat motionless for hours, letting flies and maggots live off the filth on his body. Cleansing himself would kill a living being,” Amman Bhaggan told me. “Dogs would lick the salt from his sweaty body. That brought him closer to God,” she added.

  “Such a holy man!” She sighed. “Everyone goes to his shrine, and he blesses sinners and saints alike. When I took Jannat to pray for sons, she got two. She couldn’t care for them, but that was on her. Bibi Saffiya herself went before her wedding. Her prayers were answered: She returned to the village within a year. Sain Makhianwala doesn’t discriminate. And everyone believes in his powers.”

  Not everyone, I thought.

  Even before I had visited the shrine, Amman Bhaggan’s veneration of Sain Makhianwala’s bodily filth had intrigued me. To amuse myself and the others at morning religion lessons with Zakia, the maulvi’s wife, I mentioned the holiness of the Keeper of Flies.

  As if the fumes of Sain Makhianwala’s unwashed body had emanated from the shrine, spread across the cane fields, and engulfed Zakia, she breathed heavily and then began her tirade on how even a dead body needs to be washed before it’s placed in the ground.

  I wondered if that was what had happened to the holy man —if he had spent his whole life distancing himself from water, only to be bathed once he was dead.

  Zakia must have rambled on in anger about the torturous consequences of flouting the rituals of religion, cleanliness being key, but I was no longer interested in what she thought. I did, however, provide an opportunity for the others to stop memorizing the lines they had been repeating for the past ten minutes.

  Visions of hellfire reflected in Maalik’s dilating pupils as he listened to Zakia’s decree. Taaj, as if to tempt fate, drew unmentionable body parts on the ground with his finger, daringly close to Zakia’s line of sight, though she never turned her head in his direction. Perhaps he knew she wouldn’t.

  The two sisters, Hamida and Nafissa, fingers stuck to the words on the page of the Qaida, rocked soundlessly, hypnotized by what they heard.

  I turned my gaze toward the maulvi, wondering what he thought as he sat silently, listening to his wife, smoking his hookah. I caught his eye, but he looked away and gestured to Taaj to bring a fresh coal from the stove, where Zakia sat overseeing the preparation of the day’s meal.

  The lesson stretched to eternity as Zakia’s wrath persisted.

  But when we returned to Amman Bhaggan’s kitchen, I asked if the maulvi had ever gone to the shrine to ask for mercy for being married to such a woman. She laughed and said I would get myself in trouble for such thoughts and promised to take me the next time she went to the shrine.

  Amman Bhaggan kept her promise and took me twice after that.

  The first time we went with an Eid offering. Bibi Saffiya had sacrificed one black and one white goat that year. The white one was for all the luck she needed for herself, the black one in memory of her father, dead for more than a decade.

  Amman Bhaggan distributed a third of the meat among the villagers and kept another third at home.

  After consulting with Bibi Saffiya, she took the leftover meat to the shrine, ensuring continued blessings for the crops and cattle for the next year.

  Remembering her promise, she said, “Bibi, the two girls, Tara and Maria, want to go, too. I’ll take them for an hour and return before the afternoon prayer.”

  “They’ll just be a nuisance. They can stay behind. I’m sure there’s plenty to do,” Bibi Saffiya grouched.

  Maria and I stood behind the door of Bibi Saffiya’s room and held hands tightly, as if this would give Bhaggan more power to convince her mistress to take us.

  “We have two pots, and you know my knees. I’ll have to get them to help me load and unload.”

  We heard Bibi Saffiya clicking her tongue disapprovingly. We waited for her to suggest that Taaj or Maalik, Bhaggan’s sons, help with the task, but she didn’t.

  Maria squeezed my hand, and I stopped biting my lip as I heard Saffiya ask Bhaggan to pass her t
he keys to her cupboard. I could hear her shuffling to the cupboard door and opening the heavy lock.

  “Here, take the bus fare for the four of you, but don’t forget to return the change. And tell the girls not to make a habit of wanting an outing so often.”

  Gulping down my anger at Saffiya’s suggestion that a yearly outing was one too many, I let go of Maria’s hand and straightened my clothes, excited for this first trip to the shrine that I had heard so much about.

  The next morning, after breakfast, we would take the bus and leave the meat with the cooks of the shrine. They would prepare a meal to distribute among the supplicants. With full stomachs, the beggars and holy men would have more power in their prayers.

  The power of prayer might help even me. What would I pray for? My true mother? A family? A home?

  I’m sure I didn’t sleep that night. I had to think of the perfect prayer so that Sain Makhianwala would hear it at the shrine. Amman Bhaggan had explained that to be heard, I had to be respectful in my prayer. First an invocation to God, and then a durood to the Prophet. Only then should I think of myself.

  If I asked for a mother, would that make me happy? I wasn’t sure. What if she were like Jannat? Did I want a mother like her? If I asked for a family, I might be happier. A home with a family would be even better. I would keep all my options open. I would make a list, say it quickly, and then wait for the most deserving prayer to be acknowledged.

  I was up before the rest the next morning. After breakfast, Amman Bhaggan and Sultan carried the pots of meat on their heads, and Maria and I walked behind them on the canal banks through the cane fields.

  Maria trailed behind and twice dropped her two rupees, the money we had received for Eid from Bibi Saffiya. The second time she dropped the money, I helped her tie it in her dopatta, like I had done.

  When we reached the main road, I grasped Maria’s hand, sensing her terror among the overcrowded, whizzing buses, trucks, vans, and bullock carts. Men were holding on to the backs and sides of the vehicles, and some were even sitting on top, holding the side rails to avoid toppling off.

  The vehicles were all decorated with paintings of birds and beautiful women. Dusty silk scarves in pink, blue, and green fluttered from the tiny mirrors on each side. Even the bullocks were dyed bright pink, with jewel-like bells proclaiming their arrival.

  Maria pulled her hand away from mine as she pointed at a man dressed in women’s clothes, with his face covered in pink and white makeup. She looked up at me and smiled, but I made a stern face, not knowing how else to respond.

  I stepped back to avoid the sparks and ashes of a cigarette flying out of a bus. Two men holding hands sauntered by, and then a crowd of passengers exiting from a bus on the opposite side of the road crossed to our side.

  “Give me your hand,” I told Maria. Sultan had told me of the pickpockets at the bus stop, but I was worried Maria might get swept away in the crowd.

  Buses flew by, not stopping, a layer of dust settling on our group as they disappeared into the horizon.

  After a while, Amman Bhaggan asked me to help her take the pot of meat down from her head, and I struggled. She would rest while we waited. I was not used to traveling on a bus, and I wasn’t sure how we would make them stop. Sultan kept stretching out his right hand while steadying the meat pot with his left. The brightly painted buses rushed past, choosing to ignore we meat carriers.

  Will we ever get to the shrine? I thought, brushing a fly from my nose. It landed on Maria, who tried to squat on the dusty roadside, but I pulled her up. Amman Bhaggan had already made a seat of her meat pot. Then, as I glanced toward the cane field from which we had walked from the village, I saw a familiar figure walking toward us. Dressed in flowing white garments with a red-and-white-checkered shoulder cloth, the maulvi appeared as our savior.

  Maria let go of her money knot to wave at him and then excitedly turned to Bhaggan to announce the maulvi’s arrival.

  Amman Bhaggan stayed seated but looked relieved. We all had our reasons to get to the shrine as soon as possible, but time was not cooperating. Surely, the maulvi could help.

  “Bhai maulvi, you’re like rain on a hot day. I have to return before the afternoon prayer, and the bus drivers have all sworn not to take anyone from our village to the shrine!” she called to him, before he was within hearing distance.

  He came closer and said, “I’m going to the shrine. Let’s move to the next corner, near the tea stall, and we should be able to catch a bus.”

  He was right. A slightly tilted bus swerved toward us and stopped long enough for us to struggle on. First, Maulvi climbed up onto the bus, turned, and took the meat pot from Bhaggan and pushed it toward the back seat. Then, taking her hand, he pulled her up and shoved her toward the pot. I scrambled up after her and pulled up Maria. Sultan placed his pot on the step, and I dragged it up in time for Sultan to jump onto the step.

  We had not yet found our way to the back seat when the driver hit the gas and we stumbled onto the passengers around us.

  “Bastard. Son of an owl!” Amman Bhaggan shouted at the bus driver, as she pushed the meat pots under the seat.

  Maria and I sat on either side of Bhaggan with the meat pots beneath us while Maulvi and Sultan held on to the pole in front of us, swaying with the moving vehicle.

  After an hour of churning in the bus, we stiffly descended to the dusty path to the shrine. The maulvi told Bhaggan that there was still an hour until the afternoon prayer. I wondered who would call for prayer back at the village, considering he had chosen to come to the shrine instead, but didn’t want to offend him by asking.

  He led us to the shrine, creating a path for the meat carriers. As we left the bus stop, we were surrounded by peddlers enticing us with guavas sprayed with lemon and chilies and baskets overflowing with glass bangles. I pulled Maria past these distractions, reminding her of our original plan to buy a pair of dolls so we could arrange their marriage and celebrate it by inviting Hamida and Nafissa to sing wedding songs.

  We struggled through the path that the maulvi, Bhaggan, and Sultan had created for us. I thought of the dresses I would tell Maria to make for the bride’s dowry. We would ask Hamida’s mother, who sewed clothes for all the village women, to give us the leftover material that she saved for patchwork quilts. I had seen a whole bundle under her charpoy.

  Maria would buy the bride doll and I the groom. Then, after they were married, I would get both. I would let Maria take her doll home when I chose, because I would be the mother-in-law, with more power. After all, I would have the male doll.

  The thickened crowds indicated that we were approaching the entrance to the shrine. Now the peddler carts were filled with shiny flags and satin shrouds for offerings to the Keeper of Flies. Some of the shrouds were printed with holy words, like the ones we had learned with Zakia, and others had gold embroidery.

  Bhaggan told me how supplicants could buy the shrouds as offerings to cover the grave of Sain Makhianwala. They would layer them on over the previous shrouds to make their prayers more prominent than those of the previous petitioners.

  I had seen the layered shrouds at the graveyard near our village. The holy man buried there was not as miraculous as Sain Makhianwala, but some of the villagers believed that he listened to their prayers. The less fortunate villagers tied prayer rags on the tree covering that lonely little grave, but I had never seen crowds like I was witnessing at this shrine. All of them wanted their prayers to be heard by the great saint. And he heard them all—the people, and the flies that hovered around them.

  Flies, the true worshippers of their protector, covered the carts selling sugar balls, bright candies, fruits, and toys.

  I pulled Maria toward a pair of cloth dolls on the cart farthest from us. It was the perfect pair, a bride and a groom made in grayed-out white cotton. Their identical, large, staring black eyes were kohled with thread, the tiny red lips permanently sewn into smiles of joy.

  A red-and-gold wedding dress covered
the bride, and tiny ear and nose rings were sewn on forever. The groom’s face was hidden behind a veil of shiny tinsel, and on his head was the most perfect wedding turban.

  I picked up the groom, opened my money knot, and handed my two rupees to the man standing next to the cart. Maria hungrily grabbed the bride and did the same, but she couldn’t find the money knot on any of the corners on her dopatta. She let out a wail.

  Maulvi, who had followed us, placed his hand on Maria’s head and asked her why she was so sad.

  “My two rupees Eidi are gone,” she whined.

  Maulvi dug his fist into his side pocket and pulled out some coins to pay for the doll, but before he handed it over, Amman Bhaggan puffed from behind us, “They can play with one doll.”

  “I can’t stand seeing little girls cry,” he responded as he paid the salesman on the other side of the cart. The man counted the money carefully, and stuck it into a pocket sewn onto the front of his vest.

  Maria and I held our dolls tight and followed the adults, now entering the half-open gate to the shrine courtyard. The smells and sounds overwhelmed me. I covered my nose with my dopatta, disguising my confusion with the demeanor of someone who visited the shrine often.

  The shrine itself was not as large as I had imagined. Mosque-like, it had an onion dome, but instead of walls, doors, and windows, arched pillars supported the roof. In the center of the shrine, the grave of the Keeper of Flies was elevated and covered in layers of shiny prayer clothes.

  I squinted to focus on the bright green satin sheet covering a mound barely visible behind the columns. The crowds of men surrounding the grave of Sain Makhianwala held their hands high in prayer. Even though the building was slightly smaller than the village mosque, the men standing in it far outnumbered the number of villagers who entered the mosque.

  I wanted to push past the crowds to move closer to the grave, so my prayers would be heard, but Maulvi held me back.