Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 5, Number 1. May 2022. ISSN: 2581-7094
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| Image courtesy: youtube.com |
Neema had not been able to sleep. The sounds had been very
different last night. Instead of the customary yelps of the barking deer or the
high-pitched call of the monal, there were strange screams, hisses and
chatter, as if some animals had been uncaged and yelled in fear and confusion.
She had heard the rumble of a truck on the slope above the village, and then
the retreating scrunch of tyres on the stony track. She saw her
husband Ghanshyam stirring on his cot, but the children Paro and Naveen slept
soundly beneath their quilts. It was well past dawn when she rose, her hands
still clammy. The village was strangely quiet, as if frozen with fear.
From her small barred window, she saw the horde first in the
plum trees. In the morning chill, their furry brown bodies shivered as they
plucked the ripe fruit, bit into them and threw barely-eaten fruit onto the
ground. The ground was already strewn with smashed maroon plums. Some monkeys
had climbed the ripe cornstalks and ripped off pale ears of corn, swaying on
the stalks as they did. She heard Ghanshyam's angry hiss from behind her and
watched him stream out like a warrior, waving a stout pole above his head. He
beat the tree trunks with the pole, screaming a continuous Oye... Neema
went for the cornstalks, shouting curses as she waved her stick. A monkey
swaying on a tall green stalk clambered down to join its companion squatting on
a swathe of felled greens. Both bared their teeth at Neema, hissed, before
turning on their heels to saunter off.
From their insolent saunter and stiff resistant tails, she
knew these monkeys were not from the hills. They were different, not seedha like monkeys here. Clever, nasty
and hugely destructive. They were from the plains, clever like the people
there. Sticks still gripped in their hands, Neema and Ghanshyam stared at the
monkeys, now sitting in a long row on their broken boundary wall. They stared
back. The dogs let off a volley of barks from a distance, their yelps echoing
even after the monkeys followed their leader into the village forest beyond.
Unlike for the local monkeys, the forest would not be their home, Neema knew.
These monkeys knew human settlements much too well.
It had turned dark and thundery in the afternoon when Neema
finished housework at Suri Madam’s cottage. There had been no rain for two
months and water had run out in the Madam’s underground tank. She had ordered a
tanker of water – ₹ 4500 for 5000 litres. Holding the green pipe, Neema was
reminded of a giant caterpillar coiling towards her as the force of water from
the tanker’s pump pulsed through her hands into the cavernous underground. She
thought of the times when their naulas
were full, when they could wash clothes there, bathe their children and cattle.
Now there were scattered hand pumps that burrowed deep into the heart of their
hills, long queues and only canisters of water to carry home. Ever since the
plains people began building summer homes here, there was less water, even less
rain, it seemed. The jungles had receded and the longer walks to cut fodder and
fuel wood have made her more tired, very tired.
Returning home, Neema took shelter beneath the tin canopy of
a tea shop in the bazaar, jostling for space with men, women, and cows and
goats being herded home. Rain water swilled around her feet along with floating
garbage. Only Neema noticed a monkey with its baby clinging to its chest pop
her head over the roof edge to take in the scene. She watched with fascination
as the monkey climbed down the leaking rain pipe and make a swipe for the mashed
potatoes piled as stuffing for samosas.
‘Oye,’ shouted Ramu the helper, peeling steaming hot
potatoes with his fingers. The monkey ignored him. It’s only when Ramu ran
towards her, waving a steel spatula in her face that she retreated, but not
before baring her teeth at him in anger, and grabbing a samosa. Sitting just
out of reach, she ate it with relish, sharing a few scraps with her baby.
Ramu wiped his hands on a grey rag. “I saw the truck bring
them in last night,” he said. “They were in iron cages, shaking the bars,
squealing and screaming, making such a ruckus. They are city monkeys fed with chips
and pizza and ice cream. What’s a samosa?”
In the silence that followed, Govind, the shop owner joined
the crowd. Staring at the monkey, he said. “They have come in truckloads from
Delhi, Mathura, Vrindavan....pata nahin
kahan kahan se ... left here so that city-wallahs don’t suffer – but buddhu paharis can. They are all over
our villages... Pokhri, Harkholi, Pilakhua. For years now, we have had hordes of
wild boars. Now these outside monkeys. My uncle’s village has been dealing with
this for months. They have eaten everything in sight – cucumbers, squash,
beans, apricots, plums, peaches, pears. Pahari
monkeys also raid, but not like this. In one week, these city thieves destroyed
my uncle’s whole plum harvest. Just one week; and a whole year’s labor gone.
Like this,” he finished, snapping his fingers in the air.
Shekhar, a gaunt unemployed graduate muttered, “Can’t even
kill them. The white people left us their laws and the animal activists added
theirs. Even if the monkeys kill us, we can’t kill them back. Even if the boars
kill us, we can’t kill them back. There is no way we can get rid of them.”
His mother, old Bheena Devi, said bitterly: “We don’t have
money. There is no work for the educated. They don’t want to do labor work on
roads and repairs. There is only land. Our devbhumi.
Even that is being eaten up by monkeys, by rich people who come here to build
their kothis. What will we worship?”
Neema knew Bheena Devi’s bitterness. She lived with her
husband Gopal and her son Shekhar’s family in an old stone house at the edge of
the forest. Shekhar had been unemployed for ten years, had done wage labour for a few years, but had given it up in
frustration and taken to alcohol. For most of her life, Bheena Devi had been
content to do farm work and to look after the animals – cows, bulls, buffalos
and goats. Selling animals, mainly goats, was her own means of earning, as it
was she along with other household women who looked after them. Even as she
grew older, she was compelled to take up wage labor on construction sites for
the many cottages springing up on hill land. With the days now spent outside,
the animals and farm had fallen into neglect, her daughter-in-law Shobha barely
able to cope with the increased tasks.
Neema sighed. A pahari woman’s
life is hard labour, she thought – hard labour from childhood, hard labor
till death.
During the weeks that followed, Ghanshyam and Neema got news
of more destruction. Pappu who lived some slopes above had hired a Nepali labourer’s son to keep night vigil
in his fields, as wild boars raided mostly after dark. At dawn, half-asleep and
slumped against a tree, two monkeys descended on him, rummaged through his
cloth bag and hissed at him as he scrambled to his feet. Stooping to collect
stones, he aimed one at a monkey’s leg. Hurt, the monkey screamed and leapt on
the boy, bit off a piece of his cheek. The father refused to send the boy to
work even on double wages. Neema shivered at this news.
Neema saw that Ghanshyam now barely slept at night,
patrolling the fields, sounding his stout stick on the ground with loud thuds.
She worried after his health for he was one of the few men having a steady day-time
government job with the local horticulture department. Sleepless herself, she
watched her children sleep soundly on their cots – her tired feisty helpers
who, despite school work, helped her with daily tasks – rasoi work, fetching water, feeding animals, herding them home from
the forest.
It rained again just as Neema finished her half-day work at
Suri Madam’s to walk to the forest to cut grass and leaves for the animals.
From an upper slope she glimpsed her daughter Paro with a small group of
friends returning homewards after school. Blue blouses, dark blue skirts, blue
ribbons, multi-colored backpacks. A girl stopped to bite open what looked like
a blue foil packet of snacks. She passed it around, the group forming a small
excited circle. It was then that Neema saw them lope down the slopes – the
monkeys. In a trice, the girls’ group split up, running helter-skelter. The
blue foil flew in the air and landed at Paro’s feet. She bent to pick it up. A
monkey leapt on her thigh. Neema screamed, slid down the slope, landed on the
road and ran to her daughter, brandishing her scythe over her head, emitting a
blood-letting scream all the way. The monkeys fled, but Paro was frozen in
shock, as she stared at blood spout from an open wound where a small chunk of
flesh had been ripped off. Stitches and anti-rabies injections followed, which
meant long trips and long waits at the district hospital. But what really
worried Neema was Paro’s reluctance to walk to school, even when accompanied.
At the hand pump, the refrain among the women became more
common. Bheena Devi’s granddaughter had been bitten. As the family lived at the
edge of the forest where the monkeys retreated at night, her daughter-in-law
was being threatened by them as she worked on the fields. Monkeys had entered
their home and caused havoc: a sack of red chillies had been ripped open and
strewn around; half-eaten plums, potatoes and corn scattered all over; a metal box
wrenched open and a stack of rotis
eaten.
It was after dusk that Bheena Devi’s son, Shekhar and his
father Gopalda visited. Neema saw that the father looked as gaunt as the son,
his waistcoat loose around his yellowing kurta, his cap askew. A faint smell of
alcohol lingered on the porch. Neema listened from her window.
Said Gopalda: “We thought they were being brought from
Nainital and Almora – so the tourists don’t get scared and stop coming. But
Shekhar tells me they are coming all the way from Delhi – Dilli ke Bandar hain. They are as clever and cunning as Dilliwalas. We will never outsmart them.
Why have they sent them here? To kill us in our own homes? Do we send them our
leopards, our wild boars, our bears – to kill them?”
Shekhar’s voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke, “It’s not
the forest department, it’s the land mafia. Harish from the Gwal Sena told me.
They hire monkey catchers who have worked with the forest department. When our
crops are ripe, these bandars are
brought in Scorpios at night. To destroy our crops. To break our backs. When we
have no alternative but to give up farming, the mafia offers to buy our land.
Cheap, always cheap. Whether you sell immediately or later when the land grows
old and fallow, it doesn’t matter. It will sell cheap.”
Neema saw her husband listen intently. Suddenly, the house
was plunged in darkness. Ghanshyam ambled to a corner, lit a gas lamp. She
watched him brood into its white light, the men now speaking in whispers.
For the next few nights, the sound of Ghanshyam’s pole could
be heard through most of the night. One night, Neema heard no sound at all
except for the high-pitched call of the monal. He was not in his cot.
There was commotion in the village the next morning. A farmer
had found two dead monkeys on the track that wove through the village – bodies
frozen in grimace. The sarpanch immediately registered the deaths with the
municipality. The following day there was some rumble in the local press that
villagers were poisoning monkeys. But the sarpanch had already registered the
possible cause of death: sparks from live cable wires which occurred just
before the power outage. The carcasses were removed before the day was out.
On her way to Suri Madam’s Neema saw a monkey on an oak tree,
clutching her baby to her breast. She saw it was a local. Neema smiled at the
baby which looked back at her with large inquisitive eyes. Lone mother. Loners.
What passed between them felt reciprocal, something close to love.
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