The Weary Generations (20 page)

‘Roshan Agha has bought a motor car. We all have to pay our share.'

‘Why? What share? It is not your motor car.'

The man simply said, ‘We all have to pay.'

‘How much?' Naim asked.

‘It depends on how much land you till. I have twenty acres under me, so I have paid a half maund.'

‘What? Twenty seers of wheat?' asked Naim, dumbfounded.

‘We all have to pay,' the man repeated.

Ahmad Din pushed his crack-nailed, bent-fingered black hands under Naim's eyes. ‘I will have nothing to eat if I give motorana. I will starve. I grew my wheat with these hands.' Tears began to flow from his eyes. ‘All on my own, my son has not come back from the war, I am alone, I will not pay them even if they kill me …'

Naim put his hand on Ahmad Din's shoulder. ‘Don't worry, chacha. I will talk to them.' He walked back to his house, leaving the old man whimpering, ‘They beat me,' with his fists pressed to his chest.

In the house, Niaz Beg was mending the reins with the help of a leather-needle and strong cotton thread.

‘Do you pay motorana too?' Naim asked him angrily.

‘Hunh!' Niaz Beg made a sound of utter contempt in his throat. ‘Motorana? We are the owners of our land and masters of our grain. I will put them to eternal sleep right outside my door if they come round here. We are not like other people. We,' he thumped his chest, looking at his son sideways, ‘have won a medal for bravery. Who does he think he is?'

Reins mended, Naim saddled the mare.

Niaz Beg asked him, ‘Don't you want your lassi?'

‘I will have it at the Sikhs' dera,' he said. Mounting the mare and holding the reins and a spear in one hand, he dug his heels into his mount. The mare, taking to its heels, jumped over the high plinth of the open door and they were gone.

The hunting party, riding their best horses, approached the dense jungle, leading their mounts between the trees with great caution. This was a part of the forest where sunlight seldom touched the ground and the earth was covered with years of fallen leaves that made a damp carpet which killed all sound. Apart from the rotting foliage, this darkened world was permeated with the smell of layers of droppings from the crows, pigeons and parrots that came to rest among the thick branches of shisham, pipal and bargad at night, of generations of decomposing dead birds and the strong odour of large and small animals that lived on the ground – the mixed aroma of the jungle that excited a lust for blood in the hearts of the men. The previous day they had dug seven pits in which they
could sit with only their heads showing above ground. The party consisted of fifteen men, seven for the kill and the rest to serve as ‘beaters', all carrying spears forged with sharp arrow-heads at the killing end.

A horse neighed. The rider patted its neck to calm it down. ‘The bugger will wake them up.' He began to tell Naim the rudiments of boar-hunting. ‘After they have ruined our crops in the fields and had their fill in the night, they come back to sleep here at this time. When roused from sleep, a boar becomes blind. But if you give it time, only a few minutes, then it regains its sight and can see what is happening before it. You'd better join the beaters and stay with them. No, do not get me wrong, I only mean that a boar is a powerful animal, you need the strength of both hands to kill it. When a boar comes at you, do not run, stand still, and when it is almost upon you, jump aside. It's neck is stiff, it can't turn inside a circle of ten yards …'

Seven men sat in the pits with their spears laid along the ground at the ready. The party of beaters went around on tiptoe until they came upon two families of boar, some lying down, some sitting up playing with their young. At the sight of them, the beaters started making the loudest noise they could manage, shouting and beating spear upon spear. Taken by surprise, the boars sprang up and started running in all directions. Whichever way they turned, they were confronted by the semi-circle of men and their weapons and the terrible noise they were making. Eventually the boars were rounded up and driven towards the pits. In the first run, only one animal went straight into a spear carried by a youth, all the others missing them. In a state of excitement approaching panic, the beaters re-formed and were able after a time to encircle three adult boars, the rest having escaped into the jungle. Back at the pits, the one that was pinned down struggled a bit to get away but found that the spear head, which could only go forward into the pierced skin and through the layers of fat and flesh, wouldn't let it off the fatal hook. The boar stood there, looking at its captor through beady eyes, its snout exhaling great gusts of warm, desperate breath. The youth jumped out of the pit and pressed hard on the spear, pushing the boar backwards. The boar fell on its side, beating the air with its short, stumpy legs. A second man got out of his pit and started stabbing the boar in the stomach with a long, thick dagger. After a few minutes, amid the boar's last squeals, they cut its throat.

The three boars trapped by the beaters were heading blindly towards the pits. Two of them, perhaps remembering their first run, suddenly turned back and charged through the legs of the beaters, tusking one man in the leg. The third, a huge beast, ran on right down the line of Juginder
Singh's pit. Fixing the grip of both his hands on the spear, Juginder Singh raised its front end, aiming at the boar's chest between its forelegs. A split-second before the impact, the boar turned ever so slightly to the side. The spear's point ploughed through the skin of the boar at full force from shoulder to hind leg and slipped out, exposing a thick layer of cotton-white fat along the boar's side. Juginder Singh had been unable to stop it. He swore. The beast fell headlong into the pit on top of a cowering Juginder Singh, ripping the skin on his back with an angry jerk of its tusk. The next moment it jumped out of the pit and disappeared, squealing wildly, into the trees. Both the hunter and the hunted had exposed one another's bodies and drawn blood. The beaters stopped and gathered round Juginder Singh's pit. As Naim, who had run off to the other side when the last two boars charged them, was coming back to the pits his eye caught two hind hooves sticking out from behind a tree. Quietly he went round and saw the wounded animal sitting there, his good side resting against the tree trunk, a wide sheet of skin hanging from the open side, dripping blood. With his spear raised to the level of the boar's chest, Naim approached the beast. The boar just looked dumbly at the man coming towards him. At the last moment Naim changed direction and, positioning himself on the side, quickly pushed the spear through the boar's open wound. The pig squealed. Those tending the two injured men around the pits came running. They saw shivers running through the boar's body and Naim pushing the weapon deeper and deeper into it.

‘Push, push,' they shouted. ‘Right on, keep pushing, hard, harder …'

With only one hand, an arm and a shoulder behind the long, heavy spear, Naim had to grit his teeth to dredge up the last of his strength to get the spearhead into the animal's vitals. The boar didn't struggle much. There was a moment when Naim, looking into the beast's glittering eyes, thought he heard the abrading sound, vibrating through the iron to his ear, of the steel point piercing far into the boar's trunk. He also wished at that instant that he had another hand to put behind it so that the business would end sooner. The last few seconds were the hardest for Naim, not for the strength that it required of him but because he couldn't take his eyes off the expressionless, slowly dying face of the boar, who finally let out a high, agonized cry and slumped to the ground, resting its snout lightly before it. A cheer went up from the men standing around.

‘Gone through the heart,' one said. ‘It puts its snout on the ground only when something breaks its heart in two.'

‘How do you know about the snout?' another asked. ‘They all die like that.'

‘I know,' the first one said. ‘My life is spent among pigs.'

‘We know,' the second answered, ‘you are almost one of them.'

Laughter arose from the assembly of men. Naim didn't bother to pull his spear out of the dead pig's body. He walked back to where Juginder Singh was lying in his pit. Two men were burning up a cotton cloth, mixing it with a man's urine and rubbing the stuff into his wound. Naim sat down at the edge of the pit and realized that he hadn't really wanted to kill the boar, only to test the strength of his arm, and that in the end, looking at the animal's helpless face, he had even wished that it would jump away from him and run.

‘I have taken revenge for you,' he said to Juginder Singh.

‘Good,' Juginder Singh said, smiling through a grimace of pain. ‘If Mahindroo was here, he too would go after it and kill the bastard.'

Naim wanted to say, no, it was just luck. But he kept quiet. He felt the absence of Mahinder Singh deeply. The story he had told the village was that Mahinder Singh had died fighting bravely on the battlefield. ‘Yes,' Naim said. ‘He would.'

Dusk was falling as they returned to the village. Roshan Agha's new Ford car was parked near the haveli. Everybody in the hunting party saw it and quickly went off to their homes, except Naim, who turned his mare towards the haveli. On horseback Naim could see over the boundary wall. There were two chairs in the courtyard, one large, throne-like, on which Roshan Agha sat, and on the other sat the munshi. All the older sharecroppers and field labourers from the village were sitting on the ground in front of the chairs. They had all put on their best clothes and starched turbans with high shamlas in honour of the Agha; the only one among the elders not present was Niaz Beg. Around the yard stood three tables, and on two of them, towards the sides, there were oil lamps with tall clear glass chimneys. The third table was set beside Roshan Agha's chair. There was a white china plate on this table filled with a small heap of dried fruit, although Roshan wasn't eating anything from it. There was a low hum of talk among the men. Suddenly a high-pitched voice from one side shouted, ‘Ahmad Din.'

Ahmad Din got up from the middle and walked forward.

‘Not like that,' the munshi said severely. ‘On your knees.'

Ahmad Din hesitated a moment. The munshi gestured to his servants. Two young men came up and, grabbing Ahmad Din by the shoulders, forced him down to the ground, where he stood on all fours, looking up. Upon another silent gesture from the munshi, the men tore off Ahmad Din's splendidly wound red silk turban and knotted it loosely around his
neck, holding on to the other end of it.

‘Grass in his mouth.' ordered the munshi.

One of the men pulled up a handful of grass from the earth and pushed it in Ahmad Din's mouth. By now, all resistance had gone out of the old man.

‘Now come,' the munshi said.

The servant with one end of the turban in his hand gave it a tug. Ahmad Din crawled for a yard, then fell flat on his stomach, shivering throughout the length of his dry old body.

‘He got double his share, Agha Ji,' the munshi said to Roshan Agha, ‘just as your janab gave your honourable word when his son went to war. Now, with one mouth less to feed, his store is full of wheat, and yet he refuses to pay motorana.'

Roshan Agha hadn't spoken a word the whole time. His face showed displeasure and he didn't look straight at what was going on. In the end he lifted his right hand and waved it as if fanning away the air from in front of his nose. The man holding Ahmad Din's turban dropped it instantly and withdrew. But Ahmad Din did not rise. He lay there, face down, as if trying to hide his head in a hole in the ground, shivering uncontrollably. Naim turned his eyes away. Riding home, he passed Roshan Agha's car. He had a thick twig in the hand that held the reins. With the full force of his arm, he threw the twig at the car. It skidded off the top of the car and fell on the other side. He was halfway to his house when he heard quick footsteps behind him. He pulled up and looked over his shoulder. In the growing dark of the evening he recognized the young schoolmaster Hari Chand. A primary school had been started in the village on Roshan Agha's orders in Naim's absence. Hari Chand was the only teacher, hired from outside, who taught some village children in a side room of the haveli.

‘Naim sahib,' the teacher said to him, ‘will you come with me for a few minutes?'

‘Where?' Naim asked him.

‘To my humble house. I would be grateful.'

Naim got down. After a brief pause, he started following in the footsteps of the schoolmaster. It was a single dark mud hut in which Hari Chand lived.

‘Just a minute, sir,' he said, ‘I will light the lantern.'

The glass casing of the hurricane lamp hanging from the wall was smudged with dirt. There was a misshapen hole in the ground that served as a hearth, and around it the walls had become blackened with wood smoke. A narrow cot, covered by a heavy, rough cotton durree, lay along one wall. Books, sheets of paper and pencils were scattered on the cot.
More bound volumes and half-open copybooks lay irregularly on a bare table that wobbled on the uneven floor.

‘Please sit down,' Hari Chand said, pointing vaguely to the cot. ‘Do you like green tea?' Then without waiting for an answer he added, ‘I will make a cup for you.'

Rearranging one or two books to make room, Naim sat down on a corner of the cot. The schoolmaster was breaking up some twigs. After placing them neatly in the hearth, he struggled for a minute with a damp matchbox, finally getting the twigs alight, and fanning the fire by furiously blowing in it. Smoke filled the room.

‘Did you see that?' Hari Chand suddenly asked.

‘What?'

‘In the haveli.'

‘Yes.'

‘Were you upset?'

Naim took a minute to answer, then said quietly, ‘Yes.'

‘The Agha is not a bad man. I saw his face turn pale when the wretched old man was crawling like an animal on a leash. But what difference does it make? He won't do anything because his raj runs on such things. The whole thing is rotten.'