By the end of the first week, Ishvar and Om felt they had spent an eternity in this hell. They were barely able to rise for the dawn whistle. Dizzy spells made the world dance around them when they got out of bed. Their morning steadied somewhat after their glass of strong, overboiled tea. They staggered through the day, listening to the bewildering threats and insults of overseers and paid workers. They fell asleep early in the evening, cradled in the scrawny lap of exhaustion.
One night their chappals were stolen while they slept. They wondered if it was one of the men who shared the tin hut with them. They went barefoot to complain to the foreman, hoping he would issue replacements for them.
“You should have been more careful,” said the foreman, stooping to buckle his sandals. “How can I guard everybody’s chappals? Anyway, it’s not a big problem. Sadhus and fakirs all travel with naked feet. And so does M.F. Husain.”
“Who is M. F. Husain, sahab?” asked Ishvar humbly. “Government minister?”
“He is a very famous artist in our country. He never covers his feet because he does not want to lose contact with Mother Earth. So why do you need chappals?”
There was no footwear available in the camp supplies. The tailors looked inside their hut one more time in case someone had taken the chappals by mistake. Then they walked carefully to the worksite, trying to avoid sharp stones.
“I will soon get back the feet of my childhood,” said Ishvar. “You know, your grandfather Dukhi never wore chappals. And your father and I could not afford our first pair till we had finished apprenticing with Ashraf Chacha. By then our feet had become like leather – as though the Chamaars had tanned them, tough as cowhide.”
In the evening Ishvar claimed that his soles were already hardening. He examined the dust-caked skin with satisfaction, enjoying the roughness under his fingers. But it was excruciating for Om. He had never gone with unprotected feet.
At the start of the second week, Ishvar’s dizziness persisted past the morning glass of tea, getting worse under the burgeoning dome of heat. The sun battered his head like a giant fist. Towards noon, he stumbled and fell into a ditch with his load of gravel.
“Take him to Doctor sahab,” the overseer ordered two men. Ishvar put his arms over their shoulders and hopped on one foot to the work camp’s dispensary.
Before Ishvar could tell Doctor sahab what had happened, the white-coated man turned away towards an array of tubes and bottles. Most were empty; nevertheless, the display looked impressive. He selected an ointment while Ishvar, balancing on one leg, held up his injured ankle to encourage an examination. “Doctor sahab, it’s paining over there.”
He was told to put his foot down. “Nothing broken, don’t worry. This ointment will cure your pain.”
The white-coated man gave him permission to rest for the remainder of the day. Shankar spent a lot of time with Ishvar in the hut, leaving at intervals on his rolling platform to fetch food and tea. “No, babu, don’t get up, tell me what you want.”
“But I have to make water.”
Shankar slipped off his platform and motioned to him to get on. “You shouldn’t put weight upon your injured foot,” he said.
Ishvar was touched that he who had no feet should care so much about another’s. He seated himself gingerly on the platform, crossed his legs, and began rolling, using his hands the way Shankar did. It was not as easy as it looked, he discovered. The trip to the latrine and back exhausted his arms.
“Did you like my gaadi?” asked Shankar.
“Very comfortable.”
The next day Ishvar had to leave his bedding and hobble to the gravel area, though his ankle was swollen and painful. The overseer told him to fill baskets with the women instead of transporting them. “You can do that job sitting down,” he said.
There were other accidents too, more severe than Ishvar’s. A blind woman, set to crushing rocks, had, after several successful days, smashed her fingers with the hammer. A child fell from a scaffolding and broke both legs. An armless man, carrying sand in panniers on a shoulder yoke, suffered neck injuries when he lost his balance and the yoke slipped.
By week’s end, scores of newcomers were classified as useless by the foreman. Doctor sahab treated them with his favourite ointment. In his more inspired moments he even used splints and bandages. Shankar was assigned to ferrying the patients’ meals. He enjoyed the task, looking forward eagerly to mealtimes, paddling his platform from the hot kitchen to the groaning huts with a newfound sense of purpose. At every stop he was showered with the invalids’ grateful thanks and blessings.
What he really wanted, though, was to nurse their injuries and alleviate their pain, which Doctor sahab seemed unable to do. “I don’t think he is a very clever doctor,” he confided to Ishvar and Om. “He keeps using the same medicine for everyone.”
The patients cried out for help through the long, hot days, and Shankar talked to them, moistened their brows with water, gave them assurances of better times to come. When the workers returned in the evening, hungry and exhausted, the ceaseless moaning irritated them. It continued deep into the night, and they could not sleep. After a few nights, someone finally went to complain.
Annoyed at being awakened, the foreman admonished the injured. “Doctor sahab is looking after you so well. What more do you people want? If we took you to a hospital, you think you’d be better off than here? Hospitals are so overcrowded, so badly run, the nurses will throw you in filthy corridors and leave you to rot. Here at least you have a clean place to rest.”
Over the next few days, the foreman, shorthanded, was forced to rehire the laid-off paid workers. They quickly realized this was the answer to their problem: incapacitate the free labour, and the jobs would return.
Animosity towards the beggars and pavement-dwellers reached dangerous proportions. The day-labourers began pushing them off ledges and scaffoldings, swung carelessly with pickaxes, let boulders accidentally roll down hillsides. The number of casualties increased sharply. Shankar welcomed his new charges. He poured his entire soul into the added responsibility.
Now the project manager took a different view of the victims’ complaints. Security staff was increased, and ordered to patrol the worksite at all times, not just at night. Day-labourers were warned that negligence on the job would be punished by dismissal. The attacks decreased, but the irrigation project began to look like an armed camp.
The next time the Facilitator arrived with a fresh load of pavement-dwellers, the foreman complained that his free labour was a bad investment. He pretended the injuries had been sustained prior to their arrival. “You have stuck me with feeding and housing too many unproductive cripples.”
The Facilitator opened his register to the delivery date in question, and showed him details pertaining to the detainees’ physical condition. “I admit there were a few bad ones. But that’s not my fault. The police shoves everybody, living and half-dead, into my truck.”
“In that case, I don’t want any more.”
The Facilitator tried to pacify the foreman and rescue the deal. “Give me a few days, no, I’ll sort something out. I’ll make sure you won’t suffer a total loss.”
In the meantime, the latest consignment waiting to be unloaded from the truck included various types of street performers. There were jugglers, musicians, acrobats, and magicians. The foreman decided to give them a choice – join the labour force like the other pavement-dwellers, or entertain the camp in return for boarding and lodging.
The entertainers chose the latter option, as the foreman had expected. They were housed separately from the rest, and told to prepare for a performance that night. The project manager agreed with the foreman’s proposal. The diversion would be good for the morale of the labourers, and would help relieve the tension and bad blood threatening the work camp.
The show was held after dinner, under the lights of the eating area. The security captain agreed to be master of ceremonies. Tumbling tricks, a man juggling wooden clubs,
and a tightrope walker started the proceedings. Then there was a musical interlude with patriotic songs, which elicited a standing ovation from the project manager. Next, a husband-and-wife contortionist team proved very popular, followed by card tricks and more jugglers.
Shankar, who sat with Ishvar and Om to watch the entertainment, was having a splendid time, bouncing on the platform with excitement, clapping heartily, though his bandaged palms only produced muffled reports. “I wish the others could also enjoy,” he said from time to time, thinking of his patients in the tin huts. He could hear their groans during the moments of quiet when the audience became silent, tense with anxiety, as a performer did something particularly daring with knives and swords or on the tightrope.
The project manager kept nodding approvingly at the foreman; the decision had been a good one. The last entertainer was waiting in the kitchen’s shadow. The props of the previous act were cleared away. The security captain announced that for the finale they would witness an amazing display of balancing. The performer stepped into the light.
“It’s Monkey-man!” said Om.
“And his sister’s two children,” said Ishvar. “Must be the new act he told us he was planning.”
The children were not included in Monkey-man’s opening move, some brief juggling of the sort already seen. It was received poorly. Now he introduced the little girl and boy, lifting them in the air, one in the palm of each hand. Both had colds, and sneezed. He proceeded to tie them to the ends of a fifteen-foot pole. Then he lowered himself to the ground, rolled onto his back, and balanced the pole horizontally on the soles of his bare feet. When it was steady, he began spinning it with his toes. The children revolved on the rudimentary merry-go-round, slowly at first, while he assayed the equilibrium and the rhythm, then faster and faster. They hung limply, making no sound, their bodies a blur.
The cheering was scattered, the audience anxious and uncertain. Then the clapping became urgent, as though they hoped the hazardous feat would end if they gave the man his due, or, at the very least, the applause would somehow sustain the balance, keep the children safe.
The pole began to slow down, and stopped. Monkey-man untied the children and wiped their mouths; centrifugal force had drawn a stream of mucus from their runny noses. Next he laid them face to face on the ground. This time they were both tied to the same end of the pole, their feet resting on a little crossbar. He tested the bindings and erected the pole.
The children were lifted high above the ground. Their faces disappeared into the night, beyond the reach of the kitchen lights. The audience gasped. He raised the pole higher, gave it a little toss, and caught the end upon his palm. His stringy arm muscles quivered. He moved the pole to and fro, making the top end sway like a treetop in a breeze. Then another little toss, and the pole was balanced on his thumb.
A cascade of protest spilled from the spectators. Doubt and reproach swirled in the area of darkness around Monkey-man. In the deafness of his concentration he heard nothing. He started walking back and forth within the circle of light, then running, tossing the pole from thumb to thumb.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Ishvar. “I don’t find it enjoyable.” Shankar shook his head too, mesmerized on his platform, swaying his trunk to the swaying of the pole.
“Would have been better if he stuck to monkeys,” said Om, his eyes fixed on the tiny figures in the sky.
Then Monkey-man threw his head back and balanced the pole on his brow. People rose angrily to their feet. “Stop it!” yelled someone. “Stop it before you kill them!”
Others joined in, “Saala shameless budmaas! Torturing innocent children!”
“Saala gandoo! Save it for the mohallas of the heartless rich! We are not interested in watching!”
The shouting dislocated Monkey-man’s focus. He could hear again. He hurriedly lowered the pole and untied the children. “What’s wrong? I’m not mistreating them. Ask them yourself, they enjoy it. Everybody has to make a living.”
But the uproar did not give him much of a chance to defend himself. Even more than Monkey-man, people were upset with the foreman who had arranged this cruel entertainment, and they screamed at him to let him know. “Monster from somewhere! Worse than Ravan!”
The security guards quickly dispersed the audience to their huts for the night, while the project manager’s former approval turned to censure. He shook his finger in the foreman’s face. “It was an error in judgement on your part. These people neither need nor appreciate kindness. If you are nice to them, they sit on your head. Hard work is the only formula.”
No more performances were scheduled. Next day the street entertainers were apportioned among various work crews. Monkey-man became the most unpopular person in the irrigation project, and before the week was out he joined the casualties with severe head injuries. Ishvar and Om felt sorry for him because they knew he was really so tenderhearted.
“Remember the old woman’s prophecy?” said Om. “The night his monkeys died?”
“Yes,” said Ishvar. “About killing his dog and committing an even worse murder. Right now, the poor fellow looks as though he himself has been murdered.”
The Facilitator returned to the irrigation project a fortnight later with someone he introduced to the foreman as “the man who will solve your crippling labour problems.”
The foreman and the Facilitator laughed at the joke. The new man’s face remained deadly serious, acquiring a hint of displeasure.
They went to the tin huts where the injured were prostrate, forty-two in all. Shankar was trundling back and forth among them, stroking one’s forehead, patting another’s back, whispering, comforting. The smell of festering wounds and unwashed bodies wafted through the doors, nauseating the foreman.
“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he excused himself.
The visitor said he would prefer to take a quick look at the injuries and estimate their potential. “Only then can I make a reasonable offer.”
They stepped inside the first hut, temporarily blinded by the move from harsh sunlight into semidarkness. Shankar wheeled his platform around to see who it was. Craning his neck, he let out a shriek of recognition.
“Who’s that?” said the visitor. “Worm?” His eyes had not adjusted to the interior, but he knew the familiar rumble of rolling castors. “So this is where you are. All these weeks I wondered what happened to you.”
Shankar paddled his platform towards the man’s feet, his palms flailing the ground excitedly. “Beggarmaster! The police took me away! I did not want to go!” Relief and anxiety merged in his sobs as he clutched the maris shins. “Beggarmaster, please help me, I want to go home!”
The distraction in the hut prompted the injured to start moaning and coughing, pleading for attention, hoping that this stranger, whoever he was, had at long last brought them deliverance. The Facilitator moved closer to the door for fresh air.
“Don’t worry, Worm, of course I’ll take you back,” said Beggarmaster. “How can I do without my best beggar?” He completed a quick inspection of the disabled and turned to leave. Shankar wanted to accompany him right then, but was told to wait. “First I have to make some arrangements.”
Outside, Beggarmaster asked the Facilitator, “Is Worm included in the lot?”
“Of course he is.”
“I won’t pay you for what is already mine. I inherited him from my father. And my father had him since he was a child.”
“But see it from my side, no,” bargained the Facilitator. “I had to pay the police for him.”
“Forget all that. I am willing to give two thousand rupees for the lot. Worm included.”
The amount was higher than the Facilitator had expected. Taking into account the rebate promised to the foreman, he would still make a nice profit. “We have much business ahead of us,” he said, concealing his delight. “I don’t want to haggle. Two thousand is okay, you can take your Worm.” He chuckled. “And any bugs or centipedes that you like.”
r /> A look of disapproval darkened Beggarmaster’s face. This time he sharply rebuked the Facilitator. “I don’t like people making fun of my beggars.”
“I meant no harm.”
“One more thing. Your truck must take them back to the city – that’s part of the price.”
The Facilitator agreed. He led Beggarmaster to the kitchen and brought him a glass of tea to make up for offending him. Then he went to find the foreman, whose cut was still to be negotiated.
Rowing full tilt, Shankar sped to tell his two friends the happy news, but was intercepted by the overseer, who refused to let the rhythm of the work be interrupted. He shooed him away, stamping his foot, pretending to pick up a stone. Shankar retreated.
He waited till the lunch whistle blew, and caught up with Ishvar and Om near the eating area. “Beggarmaster has found me! I’m going home!”
Om bent to pat his shoulder, and Ishvar comforted him, “Yes, it’s okay, Shankar, don’t worry. One day we’ll all go home, when the work is finished.”
“No, I am going home tomorrow, really! My Beggarmaster is here!” They continued to disbelieve till he explained in more detail.
“But why are you so happy to go?” asked Ishvar. “You are not suffering like us slaves. Free meals, a little fetching and carrying on your gaadi. Don’t you prefer this to begging?”
“I did enjoy it for a while, especially looking after you, and the other sick ones. But now I miss the city.”
“You’re lucky,” said Om. “This work is going to kill us, for sure. Wish we could go back with you.”
“I can ask Beggarmaster to take you. Let’s talk with him.”
“Yes, but we… okay, ask him.”
They found Beggarmaster sipping tea on a bench near the kitchen. Shankar rolled up and tugged at his trouser cuff. “What’s the matter, Worm? I asked you to wait in the hut.” But he left his tea to kneel beside him, listening, nodding, then tousling his hair and laughing. He came over to the tailors.
“Worm says you are his friends. He wants me to help you.”