This time it was flying much lower than before. The risk paid off in accuracy: a grand finale of rose petals showered the stage. But the Prime Minister’s eighty-foot cutout began to sway in the tempest of the helicopter’s blades. The crowd shouted in alarm. The figure with outstretched arms groaned, and the ropes strained at their moorings. Security men waved frantically at the helicopter while struggling to hold on to the ropes and braces. But the whirlwind was much too strong to withstand. The cutout started to topple slowly, face forward. Those in the vicinity of the cardboard-and-plywood giant ran for their lives.
“Nobody wants to be caught in the Prime Minister’s embrace,” said Rajaram.
“But she tries to get on top of everyone,” said Om.
“Shameless boy,” said his uncle.
They hurried to the refreshments, where an endless line was being kept in order by security men. A shortage of cups prevented it from moving faster. The snack — one pakora per head — had run out. The servers’ hands grew ungenerous with the diminishing supply of tea. They began doling out half-cups. “It’s not less tea,” they explained to those who protested the stinginess. “It’s just more concentrated.”
While the queue crawled forward, ambulances swept past the edge of the field, sirens blaring, come to collect the casualties of the eighty-foot Prime Minister’s collapse. After an hour of waiting, Ishvar, Om, and Rajaram were still at the back of the line when the tea was depleted. Simultaneously, there was an announcement: the buses would be leaving in ten minutes. Frantic about being stranded, everyone abandoned the quarrel with the tea-dispensers and rushed to the departure area. They were paid four rupees each as they boarded the bus.
“Why four?” asked Ishvar. “They told us five when we came.”
“One rupee for bus fare, tea and snack.”
“We didn’t even get tea and snack!” Om thrust his face furiously before the other’s. “And they said the bus was free!”
“Heh? You want free bus ride? Your father’s Divali or what?”
Om tensed. “I’m warning you, don’t take my father’s name.”
Ishvar and Rajaram coaxed him onto the bus. The man laughed about someone looking like an insect and talking like a tiger.
They sat glumly through the return journey, thirsty and tired. “What a waste of a day,” said Ishvar. “We could have stitched six dresses. Thirty rupees lost.”
“And how much hair I would have collected by now.”
“Maybe I should visit Dinabai when we get back,” said Ishvar. “Just to explain. Promise her we’ll come tomorrow.”
Two hours later, the bus stopped in unfamiliar surroundings. The driver ordered everyone off. He had his instructions, he said. As a precaution, he rolled up his window and locked himself in the cabin.
The hutment dwellers rattled the door, spat on it, kicked the sides a few times. “You indecent people!” shouted the driver. “Damaging public property!”
A few more blows were rained on the bus before the crowd moved on. Ishvar and Om had no idea where they were, but Rajaram knew the way. There was thunder, and it began raining again. They walked for an hour. It was night in the slum when they arrived.
“Let’s eat something quickly,” said Ishvar. “Then I’ll go and pacify Dinabai.”
While he pumped up the Primus stove and struck a match, the darkness was torn to shreds by a terrifying shriek. It seemed neither human nor animal. The tailors grabbed their hurricane-lamp and ran with Rajaram towards the noise, towards Monkey-man.
They found him behind his shack, trying to strangle his dog. Tikka was on his side, his eyes bulging, with Monkey-man’s knees upon him. The dog’s legs pawed the air, seeking a purchase to help him flee the inexplicable pain around his neck.
Monkey-man’s fingers squeezed harder. His insane screams mingled with Tikka’s fearful howling. The terrible harmony of human and animal cries continued to rend the night.
Ishvar and Rajaram succeeded in prying loose Monkey-man’s fingers. Tikka struggled to stand. He did not run, waiting faithfully nearby, coughing, pawing at his face. Monkey-man tried to grab him again but was foiled by others who had gathered.
“Calm down,” said Rajaram. “Tell us what’s wrong.”
“Laila and Majnoo!” he wept, pointing to the shack, unable to explain. He tried to lure back the dog, making kissing sounds. “Tikka, Tikka, come my Tikka!”
Seeking pardon, the beast approached trustingly. Monkey-man got in a kick to his ribs before the others pulled him back. They raised the lantern and looked inside the shack.
The hissing light fell on the walls, then found the floor. They saw the monkeys’ corpses lying in a corner. Laila and Majnoo’s long brown tails, exuberant in life, seemed strangely shrunken. Like frayed old rope, the tails draggled on the earthen floor. One of the creatures had been partially eaten, the viscera hanging out, dark brown and stringy.
“Hai Ram,” said Ishvar, covering his mouth. “What a tragedy.”
“Let me look,” said someone trying to push through the crowd.
It was the old woman who had shared her water with Om on the first day, when the tap was dry. The harmonium player said she should be let through immediately, she could read entrails as fluently as a swami could read the Bhagavad Gita.
The crowd parted, and the old woman entered. She asked that the lantern be brought closer. With her foot she nudged the corpse till the entrails were better exposed. Bending, she stirred in them with a twig.
“The loss of two monkeys is not the worst loss he will suffer,” she pronounced. “The murder of the dog is not the worst murder he will commit.”
“But the dog,” started Rajaram, “we saved him, he is — ”
“The murder of the dog is not the worst murder he will commit,” she repeated with grim forcefulness, and left. Her audience shrugged, assuming that the old woman, despite her fierce demeanour, was a little disoriented and upset by the event.
“I’ll kill him!” Monkey-man began wailing again. “My babies are dead! I’ll kill that shameless dog!”
Someone led Tikka to safety while others tried to talk sense into Monkey-man. “The dog is a dumb animal. When animals get hungry, they want to eat. What’s the point of killing him? It’s your fault for locking them in together.”
“He played with them like brother and sister,” he wept. “All three were like my children. And now this. I’ll kill him.”
Ishvar and Rajaram led Monkey-man away from his shack. Comforting him would be easier if the gory little bodies were out of sight. They entered Rajaram’s shack, then quickly marched out again. The bundles of hair all over the place, like macabre hairy little corpses, were not something Monkey-man could tolerate in his present condition. So they went into the tailors’ shack, and gave him a drink of water. He sat with the glass in his hands, whimpering, shaking, muttering to himself.
Ishvar decided that dropping in on Dinabai now was out of the question, it was too late. “What a day it’s been,” he whispered to Om. “We’ll explain to her tomorrow.”
They stayed with Monkey-man past midnight, letting him grieve for as long as he liked. A burial was planned for Laila and Majnoo, and they convinced him to forgive the dog. The question of livelihood was raised by Rajaram: “How long will it take you to train new monkeys?”
“They were my friends — my children! I don’t want any talk of replacing them!”
He was silent for a while, then, oddly enough, broached the subject himself. “I have other talents, you know. Gymnastics, tightrope walking, juggling, balancing. A new act without monkeys is possible. I’ll think later about what to do. First, I must finish mourning.”
Dina displayed her displeasure when Maneck returned late from college. And this on his very first day, she thought. Nobody believed in punctuality anymore. Perhaps Mrs. Gupta was right, the Emergency wasn’t such a bad thing if it taught people to observe the time.
“Your tea was ready over an hour ago,” she said, pouring him a cup and buttering a slice of Britannia Bread. “What kept you?”
“Sorry, Aunty. Very long wait at the bus stop. I was late for class in the morning as well. Everybody is
