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  A hunter, tired and hungry because he had not found any game, came to lie down under a tree. He gathered some dry twigs, and lit a fire to keep warm. In the tree was a pair of doves. “Darling,” the male dove told the female, “that hunter, lying there below us, is hungry because he has not found any game. It is our duty to save him. Therefore, I shall drop into his fire, to become his meal. But if he is still not satiated, then you, too, must fall into the fire.”

  Delirious with hunger, the hunter ate the male dove. The female watched him. When it was clear that he was still hungry, she fell into the fire as well.

  Our town is full of doves; there are more doves here than in any other town in the world. If other towns are full of air, then ours is full of the air exhaled by doves. I think God has sent the doves so that man may forget his sorrows. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that I had been born as a dove.

  Do you know why there are so many doves? It is because Hazrat Abdul Qadri Owliya is buried here. He was a Sufi saint who came to India two hundred and seventy years ago. There are many legends about him. His miracles were innumerable; he cured every disease in the area and brought people back to life who had been bitten by snakes. Everyone in the town, both children and adults, knows the story of how he and his disciples crossed the river, and could narrate the events as though they happened yesterday.

  There was a great flood; the raging river had overflowed. Nobody could figure out how to get across to the opposite bank. Owliya shut his eyes and began chanting the Sura Fatiha, and when he finished the chant, he and his disciples were standing on the other shore. There was another miraculous story, about the way he saved the life of Hamidha Banu, the daughter of Nawab Ali Mansur, the ruler of the land in those days. The nawab loved his daughter more than his own life. Suddenly, she disappeared. She was not the kind of girl who would go out on her own without informing her father. They searched everywhere but could not find her. So he came to Hazrat Abdul Qadri Owliya for help. Owliya poured some water into a bowl, and asked the Nawab to gaze into it. There, in the water, he saw his beloved daughter, her hands and feet bound, on the back of a galloping horse. She had been kidnapped by Mushtaq Ahmed, son of Umar Sheik, the king of the neighboring land. It was also revealed that the Nawab’s own Chief Minister had assisted in her abduction. The Nawab threw his minister in prison, gathered his soldiers, and thanks to Owliya’s grace, was able to rescue his daughter.

  Perhaps it is due to the presence of Owliya’s dargah in this town that the Hindu-Muslim riots that so often plague the neighboring states never seem to occur here. Elsewhere, there were riots because a temple was being constructed in the kasbah; riots because the Muslim landlords kept borrowing from the Hindu moneylenders; riots because a cow’s head was thrown into a temple, in retribution for a slaughtered pig that had been thrown into a masjid; riots because a kabadi match was lost. Only when the white soldiers arrived would the rioters be brought under control; and only after peace had returned would anyone ever come to know of it here, in this town. But always, before the soldiers arrived, several people would be killed. Whenever Fuckrunissa heard stories like this, she would wonder how a man could kill another.

  Fuckrunissa was almost nine years old when she first encountered death. She would never forget that day. She had come to the dargah to feed the doves, as usual. There, from a distance, she saw a white dove which had hurt its wing and was hopping around in pain. Before she could run over to help it, the dove was run down by a speeding horse chariot. Fuckrunissa came running to pick it up; as she cradled it in her palms, it heaved its last breath, and she felt death for the first time, right there at her fingertips.

  She had asked the Maulvi: “Why do living things die?” “Such is the law of nature,” the Maulvi had replied. The answer had not satisfied her. Here were men killing their fellow men—and in the name of religion! To whom should she go now, for explanation?

  But of course, it must be by the grace of Owliya that such incidents have never occurred in this zamin. As long as his grace persists, there is no need for soldiers or sentries to guard this fort.

  Fuckrunissa’s diary went on and on like this. Scattered in between were notes on her dance compositions and Urdu poems. Until the moment when Nawab Mirza surrendered to the British, Fuckrunissa devoted herself to the Nawab’s pleasure. He in turn was enslaved by her Urdu poems and ghazals. Then there were pages and pages about smoking opium from the hookah. She writes about an occasion when the Nawab was too overcome with emotion to speak, and about rubbing opium onto his lips, and reviving him with tea.

  “Whenever I think of Fuckrunissa,” Neena said, “I imagine the hookah, its gadagadagada noise, and the enveloping smell of the smoke.”

  But the charms of the hookah, and of Fuckrunissa’s beautiful voice, were all brought to an end by the military power and cunning tactics of the British. The Nawab, though he could smell the most subtle nuances in the scent of a jasmine flower, and appreciate all the finer points of Fuckrunissa’s dancing, was not smart enough to negotiate with the British. He depended for defense upon a bunch of soldiers too lost in their wine and their women to offer any real resistance. And so, the Nawab was killed, and his palace looted. Afterwards the white soldiers’ eyes turned to Fuckrunissa’s mansion. They took everything, leaving only the roof and walls. Kashmiri shawls, Persian carpets, bejewelled wine glasses, the ruby-studded hookahs, the diamond-encrusted spittoons; they took them all, not leaving a single thing behind.

  Fuckrunissa crushed a diamond into powder and swallowed it, thus giving up her life. The women who had depended on her for employment had no other option but to go to the streets and sell their bodies. All of them, including Fuckrunissa’s adopted daughter, Neena, contracted venereal diseases, which they then spread among the white soldiers. Once alerted to the danger, the whites made a law forcing the women to register and have their bodies checked out at regular intervals. Their income was taxed, as well. Thus the women of the Nawab’s harem were reduced to street prostitutes.

  Neena did not like that life. She fell in love. Her lover promised to marry her. It was only after the marriage, when she entered his home, did she understand:

  I have been brought as a slave to his house. He and a huge army of relatives, his parents, their parents, his father’s younger brother, his elder brother and his wife, and a few cows, have all been waiting here for me to come and serve them.

  She had to get up before dawn to milk the cows. Make tea when the rest of the household woke up—some of them wanted milk instead. Then make the chapathis. Wash all their clothes. Make the cowdung into dung cakes. (Here, Didi would offer her some help, but not with anything else.) Sweep the entire house. The old hag—his father’s mother—would pee in the bed. She would have to wash the room. Change the sheets.

  Every time she looked at the old hag, she wondered if God had forgotten to send the Reaper out for her. Wash the dishes. She herself would be half dead before she could get a shine on the brass spittoons, into which they had been spitting their betelnut juice throughout the day. Dinner. After dinner, massage the legs of the women of the house. Do the dishes. Clean the kitchen. Sometimes, massage the hag with mustard oil, and bathe her. “Zile Singh is lucky to get a woman like you, Beti,” the hag would say, caressing Neena’s face and then cracking her knuckles to ward off the evil eye. It wasn’t only the hag. Everyone in the house would go on and on like that: “Beti, please massage my body.” “Beti, please give me my bath.” “Boil the milk and soak some jalebis in it, Beti.” “Dear child, we don’t know whether we are bound for heaven or for hell, but you will definitely go to heaven!”

  It was a different sort of problem from the men. I was making dung cakes, after finishing the chapathis, when Jilay Singh’s father came and carried me off. When I objected, Jilay Singh said, “Look here, Neena. In this family, we know the names of our forefathers going back four generations. Do you even know the names of your parents? If yo
u had stayed out there on the streets, you would have had—what, say nine men a day? In a month, 270. In a year, 3240. If you worked for eighteen years, just count how many you would have had to serve. What is it you’re lacking here? We treat you like a queen. We eat what you feed us. What more do you want?”

  The next day the old man came again. I objected vehemently. The entire household surrounded us. “Beti is possessed,” said the old hag. Nobody listened to my protests. Instead they bound my hands in chains. The exorcist was brought in. My sari was ripped off and he threw me naked on the sand. “Arrey, Beti! Arrey, Beti!” sobbed the old hag. I went limp. My lips whispered for water. The exorcist took me inside the room and fucked me like a beast. Consciousness and unconsciousness came and went. When I struggled to stay awake, I could tell that the man on top of me was not the exorcist, but someone else. Before I could recognize who it was, I would slip again into blackness.

  It was only after I became fully conscious that I realized every man in that household had taken me in turn to drive out the evil spirit. After that, I had to go any time they beckoned. That old man—what arrogance! Whenever he caught me alone, he would stuff his organ into my mouth and nearly suffocate me. I would think: God, if You really are there, You should be made to go through this torture too.

  There was no way to escape. But I did not accept defeat so easily. I spat on their food, pissed on it, threw bits of pussy crust into the potato fry. They spied on me, and saw me do it. The exorcist was brought in again. This time the exorcism was violent. I had to eat my own excrement. My genitals were stuffed with chili powder. “You are torturing our Neena! Wait, I shall take away your clitoris,” the exorcist said, and pulled out the devil’s clitoris and sliced it off with his knife. Then he rammed a huge stick into the devil’s vagina.

  I was unconscious for several days. They drugged me heavily. I could hear them sobbing “Beti, Beti!” all around me. I am back in Fuckrunissa’s palace… Nissa’s palace, sitting with my left foot folded under me and my right leg a gopuram, smoking the hookah. The room is filled with opium fumes. Gada gada gada gada gada gada gada gada gada. After the smoke, I sing; but it is Nissa’s voice. Nissa and I play tag. She teaches me to swim in the pool. I lie down with my cheek caressing the cold marble. The stone slowly turns warm against my cheek… Nissa’s cheek.

  I was lucky to come out of it alive. The devil which had possessed me fell away with my rotted uterus; they said it would never return. I don’t know how long I lay there, limp as a string. All I know is that, having survived, I was a different person.

  I stayed quiet. Summer came, and brought unbearable heat. The air became thick and heavy. The winds would swirl the burning sands into a demonic serpent and raise it up to the sky. Whatever lay in the serpent’s path, whether a tree, a cow, or a man, it would be torn to pieces. The year before, a cow belonging to the house had been killed in just such a tornado; it was caught in the vortex, and the head was ripped off and flung away into the distance. There was no way to know when the breeze would turn threatening, lift the sands of the desert and throw them at the face. There was always sandy grit between the teeth. The old women would all cover their faces, but I was not allowed to; Zile Singh said my face was like the crescent moon, and he wanted to be able to see it all the time.

  It was during that summer that I finally managed to escape. A sandstorm came; the members of the household were all tired and asleep. I tucked a knife into my waistband. I pressed a pillow over each woman’s face in turn, killing them painlessly.

  The men slept alone, so it was even easier. Zile Singh’s brother was sleeping in his room; I dropped a huge stone pestle on his head. I didn’t even turn to look back at him. His uncle was sleeping in the courtyard. I slowly placed my hand on his organ. He woke up, saw me, and started gabbering something unintelligible, as though he was seeing a ghost. I didn’t waste any time; I cut off his organ with my knife. Zile Singh, who had been sleeping outside, heard him scream and came running in. He took my arm and twisted it behind my back. The knife slipped out of my hand. As he bent down to pick it up, I chomped down hard on his organ with my teeth. He hit me on the head, again and again, but I didn’t let go; the beating only made me bite harder. Finally I bit it off completely, and spat it out. He fell over like an uprooted tree.

  I wanted to do the same thing to the old man, so I came outside. He was lying there with his mouth open. I approached him, and placed my hand on his organ. It was cold. Uncomprehending, I tried to shake him awake. But he was already dead.

  Not wanting to commit suicide, I wandered here and there... until I met Shireen.

  Shireen, Shireen, Shireen! Do you know who she is? She is my Goddess! How bright her eyes are! A quiet light of inner peace. A light that shines right through to your marrow. A look from her, like a glimpse of the moon, thrills the body like a cascading waterfall.

  I have seen such a serene light once before, in an emerald that Nissa had. That light would speak to you. It would warm your heart, caress you, kiss your eyelashes, place you on a tree swing and swing you up into the clouds, pluck the stars out to play pallangkuzhi with you, spread out the sky before you as a carpet, take you into the deep sea and show you all the underwater wonders, introduce you to the land of the mermaids, play games with you beyond the orbits of the planets, teach you secret ways of escaping from sea dragons.

  I have preserved that light within me, preserved it so that it will never be lost in the tornado. It is tucked safely within the sky blanket she gave me.

  “Darling Neena, come, I shall gift you that light”—those were Shireen’s last words. The person who loved me is dead.

  She was the one who taught me dance and music. Everyone in the fort loved the thumris I sang. These were what she gave me. They were hers.

  I was disgusted with men. Her beauty protected me from the men who visited our fort. If any men came to me, enthralled by my thumris, I would show my scars and chase them off. If any still persisted, Shireen would charm them away.

  She pressed her spit into every wound on my body. I can say truthfully there is not a spot on my body that she has not kissed.

  The fragrance of her body thrilled me. Her lips sparked an erotic fire. Her spit and her cum gave me back my life. She licked me from the tip of my big toe to my foot, to my calves, to my knees, to my thighs, to my waist, to my navel, to my stomach, to my nipples, to my neck, to my shoulders, to my eyebrows, to my cheeks, to my nose, to my eyelashes—her snakelike tongue would suddenly enter my yoni.

  I shuddered with pleasure. Shireen, Shireen!

  Shireen died holding my hands. The intense meditation had come to an end.

  You will not believe this: her spirit left her through my hands. I felt the life slipping out of her and into my body through my fingers. Shireen had not died; she had merged into me.

  It was on the day that Shireen died that Bhuchi brought me the child from the garbage bin. In its tiny body, gnawed by a rat, there was still life trembling. Even now, I am amazed that I could help it survive.

  9

  IN HIS REVIEW of Muniyandi’s novel, Ninth-Century-A.D.-Dead-Brain has woven in accounts of various events that occurred in different times and different places. I am going to give you some more facts about those events now; listen.

  Firstly, the bomb attack in the textile showroom. Paalvannam Pillai, the showroom owner, is not merely a textile showroom owner. He also owns many of the beedi factories in the villages of Seenur, Vanjur, and Kaarasamangalam. You should come and see these villages. The total population here is 13,500, of which 72% work rolling beedis. In your town, people begin registering their children for pre-kindergarten and lower kindergarten even before they turn thirty-six months old. Some of them even send letters to the editors of English dailies complaining that they have to pay a fee to register and retain a school seat as soon as the child is born. But in these villages, the children are pledged to the beedi
factories when they are only thirty-six months old. A woman who was widowed at a young age and left with three young kids reports that she has mortgaged her children for 1800 and 900 rupees. The youngest is still a babe-in-arms. The beedi factory is a dark stuffy dungeon. Stop reading at this point and visualize a dark, stuffy dungeon for a moment. In each room there are nine children toiling from dawn until nine in the night. There is a short lunch break. If they manage to roll 900 beedis they get a daily wage of eighteen rupees. The children who work as bonded laborers get only nine rupees. They are whipped with wires to make them work faster. The girl children bear the pain; the boys attempt to flee. But if these run-away boys are caught, their limbs are bound to poles with thick chains. They are released only if they promise to obey—and even then only during work hours. During the lunch break, and while being taken home, they remain bound. They also have to do domestic chores in the owner’s house and construction work when ordered. A girl bonded laborer works at the construction site, but her elder brother has run off, unable to bear the torture. Still, Paalvannam Pillai claims the factory supervisors do not torment the children. He also insists that the parents send their children here only to be trained in a skill, and that he plays music on a tape deck so that the children do not feel burdened by the work. Most beedi laborers don’t get anything to eat, and survive only on tea. Children are pledged so the parents can meet wedding expenses, or visit the Sabarimalai temple. I do not want to write about this anymore. I’m tired of it. That bank robbery is now history. Ninth-Century-A.D.- Dead-Brain won’t be able to make sense of any of this anyway. It looks as though if Dead-Brain could find an Aryan yoni, he would stop worrying about such things.

  NINTH-CENTURY-A.D.-DEAD-BRAIN’S STORY

  NINTH-CENTURY-A.D.-DEAD-BRAIN roams the Earth as an immortal, just as Aswathama from the Mahabharata is immortal. He was born in the 9th century A.D., and ever since then, his male organ has been growing non-stop. Next to his organ, the organs of Sornamuthu Pillai and New York Karuppan are like tiny specks of dust. You do know the story of Sornamuthu Pillai, don’t you, Lady Reader? No? Then I shall tell it to you now.