Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

18

Far from being deterred by the public disapproval that had been expressed after their drunken orgy, the monkeys kept busy demonstrating how this was no isolated incident to be easily dismissed but, on the contrary, a whole new way of life for them.

Ammaji chased them from dawn till dark, assisted by her battalion that was sprinkled about the orchard, each person being allotted a daily ration of pebbles and a slingshot made by herself out of sticks and lengths of inner tubing she had rescued from old tyres. Everywhere you looked there was someone running through the trees as if involved in an archaic exercise in weaponry, letting the pellets fly. But nowadays the monkeys merely shrugged them off, realizing they did not really hurt, and instead the devotees themselves suffered many injuries, what with stones flying backwards instead of forwards and hitting them in the face.

When the monkeys were not in the orchard or the bazaar, they took to waiting in the trees growing by the market road and accosting people on their way home from the bazaar in the hopes of finding a bottle of toddy or even rum. Leaving their victims in a mess of apples, ladyfingers, Postman oil and who knows what other supplies, they bounded away unconcerned about the damage they had caused, contented if they had been successful, but still on the look-out for other victims if they came away empty-handed. It became dangerous to walk through the area alone, and people who lived there organized special groups to go shopping together. They kept their windows and doors closed, saying their prayers as the monkeys bounded over their tin rooftops with a vast crashing sound of thunder. They tried never to be by themselves in any exposed location. Despite these precautions, in a sad event that took place in a private garden, two young men drinking to their success in the university examinations were bitten and taken to the local hospital with monkey-teeth marks upon their arms.

A monkey bite can prove to be as dangerous as a cobra bite in that monkeys often carry rabies, which can, of course, be as deadly as snake venom. Rabies is one of the worst illnesses a lady or gentleman can contract. It is more common in the summer than in the rainy season … With his usual dramatic flair, Dr Banerjee published a whole-page article in the next day’s paper on the subject of monkey bites.

Immediately there was an uproar. Moaning in fear for his own safety, the Chief Medical Officer tried to do his duty and issued his own statement saying that as yet there was no problem with rabies, and under no circumstances should anybody succumb to panic-mongers and antisocial elements. They would persevere towards a working solution to this delicate problem.

Then, as if to undo any sense of calm that might result at this assurance, the Hanuman Temple took this opportunity to compose its own combative statement, officially joining the furore and expressing outrage at the indecent treatment of these monkeys. Clearly, forces bent on corrupting great Hindu traditions were at play, they said. They would sacrifice themselves for the religion’s good name, if necessary.

Reading this, the Superintendent of Police, the Brigadier and every politician for miles around shook with renewed terror, realizing that they were in for a severe law-and-order problem of the worst religious degree.

‘Some fruit must be eaten with the skin,’ said Sampath.

‘If you cannot find a car, you must do without.’

‘If you do not find a bottle of rum, you will not drink a bottle of rum.’

‘If your Auntyji finds a lump of silver, she might very well keep the lump of silver.’

‘If your two-year-old son behaves badly, you will not think to exchange him for another. No, instead you will wait until he behaves better …’

But, he realized, he was losing the heart to carry on, and nobody was paying any real attention to what he said any more.

Below his tree, two fervent camps of devotees had been formed: one was adamant that the monkeys be removed so as to save the Monkey Baba and the holy atmosphere of his hermitage; the other was furious that these sacred animals were to be thus humiliated and turned from their rightful home. The battle lines had been drawn and everybody even remotely associated with the dispute felt compelled to involve themselves and make their voices heard. Sampath himself was forgotten in the fray, although his name was bounced back and forth between the warring factions like a ping-pong ball. Fairly spitting at each other, barely able to contain their wrath, their indignation and alarm, they fought from the minute they were allowed beneath Sampath’s tree to the minute his visiting hours were over.

‘How can you ask the monkeys to leave?’ said Miss Jyotsna to everyone she met, supporting Sampath’s point of view with loyalty.

‘No one will be asking them, madamji. They will be kicking them out without asking them anything at all,’ said one vulgar man.

But scores of people rushed to Miss Jyotsna’s rescue. ‘How can you say that? You have no shame.’

‘Oh, rubbish,’ said the spy, who was in an awful mood these days. ‘Of course the monkeys should be done away with. They are cluttering up everything.’

People could not believe their ears. ‘Did you hear what he said?’ they asked each other. ‘Rubbish, done away with, cluttering up …’

Miss Jyotsna turned around ferociously to face him. The two-faced hypocrite! Here he had been coming to the orchard every day, professing his affection for Monkey Baba, noting down everything he said, and now he was advocating something that could only bring Monkey Baba pain. In fact, if the monkeys were removed they would not even be able to call the Monkey Baba Monkey Baba any more, for there would be no more monkeys.

‘Traitor,’ she said, and, to everyone’s surprise, especially Sampath’s, pursing her small round mouth, gentle Miss Jyotsna swung at the spy with her handbag and hit him in the stomach so he was forced to leave immediately and catch a rickshaw home.

‘Oh,’ said Pinky and Ammaji admiringly. Perhaps this girl had something to her after all. This was quite a change from all that sentimental singing beneath the tree. But they were forced to side with Mr Chawla, who, to Miss Jyotsna’s distress, said much the same thing as the spy, reasoning that the Baba might end up hurt and with rabies. At this, Miss Jyotsna did not know what to say and dissolved into tears. There seemed to be no solution to the problem.

Sampath was left worn out by these discussions, as if he himself had been caught hold of and pulled in various directions; as if he’d been stamped on and beaten black and blue. Yet, even though he was fatigued, every so often he was swept away on such a surge of anger, it was all he could do to keep from leaping up and throwing things, from yelling out loud or bursting into tears. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach a feeling of horrible anticipation had taken up permanent residence, and his head seemed possessed by an impenetrable fog. ‘Hsssh,’ he tried to calm himself. And: ‘Hssh,’ the breeze sounded about him. It seemed to Sampath that it shared his own concerns, that it was shushing him, soothing him. He tried to surrender himself to its gentleness, to its quiet, to the coolness that moved like a tender hand over his forehead, his cheek, his entire body.

The devotees made their way back down into Shahkot only to continue their arguments there, the sounds of their raised voices buzzing over the valley, rising from tea stalls, balconies and street corners.

In every neighbourhood, in every public venue, meetings and protest meetings were held. Meetings on the national level and the local level, in the religious interest and the civilian. A new Monkey Protection Society was formed with the support of the Cow Protection Society. A slew of members from the Atheist Society mingled unnoticed with the crowds. Every office, every family, seemed split over the matter. Business had come almost to a complete standstill as customers and shopkeepers refused to buy and sell from each other. ‘See if I patronize your shop, you donkey!’ ‘What makes you think I’d sell to you, you son of a pig?’ The police superintendent spent his days rushing about with his stick trying to break up the terrible fights that were taking place. There was no longer any peace in Shahkot.