Curried Lamb

By Priscilla Jolly

The faint morning light brought out the layer of dust that enveloped the bizarre menagerie- the rather unhealthily pink colored lobes of a plastic brain, an eyeball which stared at no one in particular, a detached ear (something akin to the one which the artist sliced off), a plastic duck with a gaping hole in the middle and a whole lot of grotesquely-colored animals with glassy eyes. Remnants of those days when the hall was teeming with children who gazed at this now forgotten collection in wonder.  A camel, tethered to a tree which had stayed rooted for too long, reduced to a bag of bones held together by a stretch of dirty ochre with grey splotches, stared painfully at the shelf – an act of acceptance of the shelf life that its demise might produce for itself. The goats tethered to the window greeted the morning with a series of cacophonous bleats, waking Kahn. He sat up on his mattress on the floor and stretched his arms out with a big yawn that opened a passageway to his innards, if anyone were interested in looking. He stood up and slipped on a shirt that was next to the bed and pulled the front door open which whimpered, making the animals turn in the direction of this unexpected noise. The odor of small, shiny balls of goat shit hit him.

Kahn turned back, on hearing feeble bleats from the inside. He watched Muskaan, the lamb, wrapped up in a piece of blanket trying to prop herself up. “Aaah! Muskaan, meri jaan! You’re up! But we stay inside for bit more time. Very cold outside. We’ll wait for the sun to come up!” he crooned in her ears. When she seemed to be at ease again, he set her down on the mattress. He tackled the task of washing himself, including his tangled mane which he refused to trim. By the time he emerged from his wash like some primordial god with matted hair adorned by water drops clinging to the sliver shards, the sun was out. Kahn gathered a small tumbler and went out. He sat on his haunches beside the ewe that had just given birth and milked her. When he had enough for his morning drink, he went in, fetched Muskaan and set her down near the mother. Muskaan started to suckle greedily. Kahn, meanwhile, mixed the milk with the local arrack and drank it in one gulp. The drink was the jolt that pushed his body into action every day.

Kahn splashed a pail of water on the stone-flanked floor. He waited for his part-time pupils to arrive. Not long afterwards, a trail of dust seemed to be heading towards Kahn’s adobe, kicking up a cloud quite similar to the pestilence that plagued the ancient Egyptians. Boys of all ages clothed in filth traipsed around the camel. The boldest of them – and Kahn’s favorite – stepped forward, tugged his arm and asked him, “Today if we finish early can we ride Billoo?” Kahn shook his head. “Billoo is too old. Once I have money I’ll buy a new camel and start my own business. Rides for all the firangi people. Then you can have your ride. Not on Billoo. And Billoo has spirit inside him. Everyone inside!” The children trooped inside after a couple of moments. Being the wild spirits that they were, they weren’t used to instant obedience to anyone.

“Aieeeoooooo, aieeeeeooooooooo-it hurts! It hurts!” shrieked one being made to sit on cold floor. Bums being tortured by the cold stone. Reluctance to sit finally overcome, everyone settled with their slates and pencils. They read Persian with Kahn, and some rudimentary math. If someone were to ask why learn Persian in a country where people do not even speak the language, they would just shrug their shoulders, throwing their hair back that had already started browning from the lack of adequate nutrition. They formed letters and words on their slates while Kahn looked on. He peered over the shoulder of the boy who was most the promising of the lot, Hari. He formed the curves and slants of the letters painstakingly, reminding Kahn of his own boyhood days. Once they filled their slate with the portion that had been assigned for the day, Kahn moved on to oral recitation. He recited Ghalib to them, closing his eyes, the recitation being the only opportunity for him to go back to a time that he sometimes doubted to have existed in his life at all. After the recitation, when Kahn opened his eyes, when it seemed that his eyes would melt at the slightest sight of beauty that he had seen in the verse, his brown eyes would often stop on Hari’s face. He made the boys commit the verses to memory and recite them later. It was Hari’s recitation that affected him in ways that he could not imagine – the boy’s voice opened up the inaccessible corners of his mind.

After the lesson the boys went out, fetched their playmates from colony and played with the animals that were once a part of a school that Kahn’s father ran. The smaller ones played on the green and yellow slide with wheees, whoooos and other quirky articulations of delight. Kahn watched as they played. On one side a marriage ceremony was in progress. The bride was a small girl dressed only in a shirt now the color of the dirt that caked it. What’s a bride without a dress? The children had fashioned a train for her from the white plastic wrap that someone had abandoned near the slum. She walked in beauty, taking her steps gingerly, with the plastic trailing behind her. A true bride of the grotesque. The procession led her to Kahn’s house, where they stopped in front of Muskaan. While the bride played with Muskaan, throwing her plastic train aside, Hari – who was leading the procession – stepped up and asked “O dear sir, time has come to give this child away. What bride price will you give us? Would you part with your lamb?” Kahn shook his head. “No bride price, no wedding,” Hari announced flatly. He broke from the group and joined the one pretending to be a bandit brotherhood. The paper strips of the train were being to put to use to make armbands. The children fashioned headbands and took up sticks that could rival Excalibur because of the sheer sincerity with which they cried and charged towards Kahn’s house. The bandits circled around the goats. Kahn watched and then whistled. Time to disperse.

The second half of Kahn’s day involved invoking the supernatural on unsuspecting and fearful common folk. He went inside, fashioned a turban around his head with a piece of black cloth, lined his eyes with kohl  and went looking for the rest of the paraphernalia involved in transforming himself into a fakir. A copper plate with a chalice which held burning frankincense. A black turban and his beard dyed to a fiery orange with mehendi. A fan made of peacock feathers.  And eyes that could affect people so much. Kahn slung a cloth bag across his shoulders. Before leaving, he sought the camel’s blessing (0r the spirit within the camel), entrusted Muskaan to Hari and walked off in search of those who were in need of a little extraterrestrial boost in their lives. These folk didn’t require any further convincing that Kahn was genuine after having laid their eyes on him. A towering man dressed in black, his eyes drilling into you while he wafted the wisps of incense that curl around him towards the awed average person. All those who lived near him kept him at a distance because of the rumors that surrounded him. In his younger days Kahn was notorious for his temper. He allegedly beat a man to pulp (who croaked later) because he poked Kahn with a stick while he was taking his afternoon siesta. The men still talked about it – how Kahn was sleeping with the sunlight reflected on his bald shiny head and how the mad man brushed his head with a stalk of bougainvillea. Kahn tried pushing the branch away in his sleep, but the man refused to give up. When Kahn woke up he wouldn’t stop beating the man. He sank his bare fists into the man’s face and his chest, making him a mass of red pulp. They had to literally peel him off the guy. The people, however, also talked about Kahn’s affection for children. He never refused requests from mothers; he warded off the evil eye from babies with a swirl of his peacock fan. The colony folk were aware of this and so they sent their children to him.

Kahn walked in the sun that burned mercilessly, with the kind of heat that feels fiery on your skin without making you sweat. As he passed the colony a woman’s voice, slightly quivering, called out to him. “Kahn sahib!” Kahn turned and looked around and saw no one. He was about to leave when the voice called out again. A woman emerged from her hiding place behind the tree with folded hands. “Kahn sahib, you have to help me.” She looked around herself like an animal about to be hunted down and aware of the fact. “Tell me, woman! What’s the matter?”

“My babies!” she sobbed, “my babies don’t live! I lose them all while they are still inside – a lot of blood – but no pain. And I’m worried sick for my child Hari.”

Kahn stiffened when he heard the name Hari. “Hari?”

“He’s not keeping well – gets sick all the time – fighting with me and his father – I don’t have the heart to see him getting beaten by my husband – my husband’s taken to drink and movies – spends all money on that! Comes home drunk and acts out scenes from the movie that he saw! Them movies don’t bring no food! I just don’t know!”

Kahn patted her shoulder. He then muttered something, placing his hands over her head and finished it off by asking her to inhale the fumes coming out of his chalice. He touched her head three times with his fan. He dug into his bag and fished out three phials of white powder. “Today evening, go home and cook some lamb. After you cook it, divide it into three portions. Sprinkle the powder on each plate and pray. Bring each plate close to your face and whisper your name three times with your plate. Do likewise for your husband’s share and Hari’s share. And then eat it with white rice. Remember no one else should know about this. If you tell someone the magic’s useless. You have to do it today for the power to be there – it’s auspicious because of the full moon.” Woman thanked him and shook her head vigorously as though the amount of energy in her shakes would convey to him how indebted she was.

Hari’s mother went back to the tent which the family called home and sat down on the floor. The phials had been safely tucked in her bosom, inside her blouse. Where would she get hold of lamb now? She stood up and went to the corner where a ramshackle mattress was sprawled on the earth. She lifted one corner of the mattress and started to scrape the earth with her hands. She drew out a box covered in black soil. She shook the soil loose and opened the box.  She wailed upon opening it, like a demented woman who had lost everything. She had lost everything. All the money that she had saved was gone. It must have been her husband. Hari came running to find her mother sitting with earth strewn all around her and swearing “Saala, chutiya!” She wiped away her tears smearing her face with soil, mixing the earth and the tears.  Hari asked her, “Maa, why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying,” she said, wiping her eyes. “See, not crying at all. Now, I want you stay inside till I come back, okay. Don’t go outside.” She walked out. She stood outside for a while trying to figure out which geographical direction was ideal for her quest for lamb. If it were possible to borrow some money – her thought trailed off, bringing to her the faces of her neighbors and the items that she owed each of them. Rice. Dal. Sugar. Kerosene. Wood. She walked to the butcher’s, with a resolve to appeal to his human side.

At the butcher’s she waited until his customers were served. She didn’t dare address the butcher before he took notice of her. The butcher took his sweet time, casting his glances everywhere else but on this woman who would have bowed at his feet if need be. The butcher looked at her and questioned her with his eyes. She hesitated and said “Could I have some bit of lamb? Something that’s left over from the sales?”

“How much money have you got?”

“Bhai saab, I don’t have any money now. But, but I’ll pay it later. Could I please have it?”

“You have no money, you’ve already taken god knows how much of my meat on credit, don’t you have any shame, woman?”

“It’s urgent!” she pleaded.

“What sort time are you living in? Is someone going to die if they don’t eat lamb today?”

“It’s for this ritual-a fakir-”

“I’m not giving any meat for your superstitions. Today it’s you. Tomorrow it’s someone else. I have a business to run.”

She waited with the expectation that her waiting would change his mind. After a while she walked back, dragging her feet on the ground.

As she passed Kahn’s house on her way back, she heard the bleating of goats. There was a lamb in that house. The thought made her stand still in the path as though she had been clubbed. There’s no other way to get hold of the meat. The sun was sinking; the trees were silhouetted in the twilight. What if? What if? Her mind raced. She walked to Kahn’s house. The camel looked at the stranger and decided to let her pass – the spirit must have decided that the woman posed no threat. Kahn never locked his doors. She found the doors responding to the slightest of her pushes with whimpers. Summoning courage, she gave the door one big push and it swung open in a clean motion. Once inside the house she found Muskaan, who was trying to nibble at a banana that Kahn seemed to have forgotten. She raised the lamb to her chest and covered the lamb’s mouth with hands. The lamb nestled in her bosom. As it felt the depletion of air inside, the white fleece covered limbs came alive, with jerky motions. She held down firmly, realizing that the animal would fight with every ounce of the life force left it in to make this ordeal pass. She didn’t dare look in the eyes of Muskaan since her mother had told that once you watch the life drain out from the eyes, the look in those eyes would never leave you. She looked at the ceiling, studied the flaky bits of paint on the roof in bizarre patterns and the water drops that seeped in through the roof. The twitching stopped and yet she didn’t take her hands off. From the roof, a drop of water fell and shattered on her nape, making her gasp. She removed her hands slowly and walked out of the house. She went back to the tent in order to fetch her knife. “Maa, where are you taking the knife?”

“No need for you to know. Stay here.”

Hari waited for a while and decided to follow his mother. Anything that he wasn’t supposed to know was worth the risk for him. He was surprised when he saw her go in to Kahn’s house. He watched from a distance. Why would she bring Muskaan out? Didn’t she know that everyone else was forbidden to touch Muskaan? Hari considered yelling to his mother but decided against it when he thought of his father’s belt and the sight of it being used on him. She disappeared behind a bush. No noise. No motion. Hari sat down. She emerged with a plastic bag which appeared heavy. Hari ran back to the tent before she could see him. As she entered the tent, Hari asked her, “Can I go out? I’ll be back before the dark – promise!” She nodded and he ran to the bush. He looked behind the bush and felt his stomach heave. He retched. He clutched his chest and panted. His eyes were streaming. When he walked back to his mother he had red-rimmed eyes and sick green snot poking its head like a snake from his nose. He lay on the dirty mattress. His mother seemed to be surprised that he returned so soon after playing, but she was too busy to investigate. With her arsenal of borrowed spices she cooked the lamb and divided it into three. When the moon had risen she mixed the powder in all the shares and brought out the plates.

When she had dragged her husband back home from the toddy shop, she put down the meal. Hari refused to eat the meat. At the sight of his father’s bloodshot eyes he thrust it into his mouth. His eyes betrayed him and filled up with tears every now and then. He wiped his face on shirt sleeve to avoid being seen by his father.

Kahn upon his return burst into the house to cradle Muskaan in his arms. He couldn’t find her. He called out for her and walked around the house. When he saw what was behind the bush, he howled. He clutched the entrails that had been left behind and called on the spirit in his camel to bring Muskaan back. Kahn’s wails echoed in the night no longer night beneath blood-orange skies.

Priscilla Jolly is from India and is pursuing her postgraduate degree in English Literature at Hyderabad. Her earliest experience of writing was an imitation of an Enid Blyton novel that she read while growing up. Apart from reading and writing, she is passionate about teaching young children English and learning new languages.