Kiran Desai – Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard Jan 28, 2022

  Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard - first edition cover

The Sermon in the Guava Tree by Kiran Desai appeared as a short story on page 90 in the June 23, 1997 issue of The New Yorker. The novel appeared a year later.

The Sermon in the Guava Tree by Kiran Desai appeared as a short story in the June 23, 1997 issue of The New Yorker

The short story begins with Sampath moving into the Guava tree and the police being unable to trace him. Later he is found in the orchard. “We must formulate a plan. Only monkeys climb up trees,” says his father and a doctor is called in to examine him, but concludes, “Nobody except for God can do anything about him.”
A holy man is consulted, and he says all Sampath needs is a mate, for whom there is a standard roster of requisite qualifications. This was the subject of the passage Saras read from the novel. A talcum-powdered girl is found and she is hoisted up the tree to Sampath.

Sampath notices people he knew in the audience below, whose letters he had secretly read in the post office after steaming them open. He proceeds to divulge snippets and after a few such episodes of seeming clairvoyance, he is confirmed as a Baba, a god-man.

Mr. Chawla, has the racketeer’s epiphany: Sampath might make his family's fortune. They could be rich! “How many men of unfathomable wisdom possessed unfathomable bank accounts?” At this point begins the pampering of Sampath who is provided every comfort for his chosen arboreal existence:
“He made a lovely picture seated there amid the greenery, reclining on his cot at a slight angle to the world; propped against numerous cushions, tucked up, during chilly evenings, in a glamorous satin quilt covered with leopard-skin spots. On his head he sported a tea-cozy-like red woollen hat that had been knitted by his grandmother.”

Thus ensconced in his orchard bower, Sampath gave what came to be known as The Sermon in the Guava Tree. Sampath uses his secret knowledge from steamed (and steamy) letters to amaze the audience. Then he issues a series of wisdom sayings, which Kiran Desai attributes in the novel’s acknowledgement, to Bhargava’s Standard Illustrated Dictionary of the Hindi Language, compiled by R. C. Pathak, BA, LT.
– Many a pickle makes a mickle . . .
– When the buffaloes fight, the crops suffer.
– It is a hard winter when dogs eat dogs.
– Every cock fights best on his own dunghill.
Etc.

The short story ends with Sampath making the news:
POST-OFFICE CLERK CLIMBS TREE
“Fleeing tedious duties at the Shahkot Post Office, a clerk has been reported to have settled in a large guava tree. According to popular speculation, he is one of an unusual spiritual nature, his child-like ways being coupled with unfathomable wisdom.”

But the novel has a more mysterious ending in which a metamorphosis of Sampath takes place into a Buddha-like Guava with his own birthmark. The langurs then spirit him off, thus transformed, to a distant forest in the mountains.

                                  

     
Kiran Desai - American Academy

Kiran Desai is an Indian author, best known for her Booker Prize winning second novel “Inheritance of Loss” (2006). However, at KRG Devika and Saras chose her first novel “Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard” (HITGO) written in 1998, as the first novel to be read in January 2022. Certain considerations directed the choice, mainly that after the Christmas and New Year holidays when most people travel, one doesn’t have much time to read a longer and more complex novel. The fact that we wanted to feature an Indian author and if possible a female one was another consideration.

There isn’t much information available on the net about Kiran Desai (KD) other than the usual basic facts
• She is the daughter of novelist Anita Desai, born in 1971
• She lived in India, mainly in Punjab and Mumbai, till the age of 14 after which she moved with her mother to UK for a year and then on to USA, where she currently resides.
• She studied creative writing at Bennington College, Hollins University and Colombia University.
• HITGO was published in 1998 to accolades from Salman Rushdie. It won her the Betty Trask Prize, given to first time authors under the age of 35 from the Commonwealth of Nations.
• In 2006 at the age of 35 she became the youngest winner of the Man Booker with her second novel “Inheritance of Loss”. This record was later broken in 2013 by Eleanor Catton.
• She has not published another novel, though one is rumoured to be in the works since 2017.

Anita Desai with Kiran Desai – Mother and Daughter

One fact that came out during the discussions at our reading session was that KD was in a relation ship with Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red) for a while. I was not aware of this.

KD said in an interview with Bookbrowse that she got the idea for the HITGO from a small news item in the Times of India, about a famous hermit who lived on a tree for many years until he died. She developed the story from there and she mentions that she had a lot of fun writing the novel. As it was her first novel, she had to learn to write and had a lot of fun doing it. She says she edited out nearly half of what she had written. You can read the full interview here https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/229/kiran-desai

HITGO is a light hearted novel, fast paced and whimsical and could fall in the genre of Magical Realism. It is the story of young Sampath Chawla, who was born in a time of drought that ended with a vengeance the night of his birth. All signs being auspicious, the villagers triumphantly assured Sampath's proud parents that their son was destined for greatness. Twenty years of failure later, that unfortunately does not appear to be the case. A sullen government worker, Sampath is inspired only when in search of a quiet place to take his nap. "But the world is round," his grandmother says. "Wait and see Even if it appears he is going downhill, he will come up the other side. Yes, on top of the world. He is just taking a longer route." No one believes her until, one day, Sampath climbs into a guava tree and becomes unintentionally famous as a holy man, setting off a series of events that spin increasingly out of control.

A delightfully sweet comic novel , Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is as surprising and entertaining as it is beautifully wrought. It can be read at many levels, as a simple tale with many comic characters and rich descriptions of dusty, small town India or as a study of a dysfunctional family, the ridiculousness of hero worship, official bungling and ineptness and the lure of commercialism.
However, the readers at KRG were of the opinion that the ending of the novel felt contrived.

Geetha

Geetha chose a passage that depicts the general disorder around the town, focussing on the rent barbed wire fence that was supposed to protect the post office.
KD in an interview said that she hardly did any research for this novel – the story was all made up. The truth is that writers’ imagination stems from previous reading, life experiences, and stories they have heard.
Joe mentioned in our discussion this mythical place of Shahkot seemed very like a place by that name near Jalandhar in Punjab. Similar townships may be found all along the Indian landscape.
Geetha chose this passage because the description depicts the small town ethos of north India. The townspeople are colourfully sketched. The nonchalant attitude of the folks while appropriating the barbed wire erected specifically to maintain the post office as a symbol of ‘official order and duty’, speaks of their readiness to make free with government property without fear, in order to gain some little advantage.
With such indiscipline the task of the government to bring law and order to the people becomes unmanageable. They are hardened by poverty and unaccustomed to civic restrictions. People need to evolve a lot further to make them ‘propah’ citizens!
The passage also brings to life the extraordinary homogeneity of the small town dwellers, blending the traditional and the modern. Add to that the marauding langurs that roam around the roads and grounds … it is all so typically Indian!

The line in the novel in Chapter 4, ‘Truly India is a land of miracles’, Geetha felt, expresses the joy with which the author penned the story of her homeland, blending humour and satire. She brings out the true character of the crafty and resourceful middlemen, ready to exploit any opportunity for personal profit. The gullible nature of small town Indians, who form the vast majority of the nation, permits the scams to flourish.

Thomo

The passage Thomo read from Chapter 5 is arguably the most comical of the events described in the book. It describes how Sampath, at the wedding of his boss's daughter, takes on the colours and textures of the wedding clothes until he is drunk with the idea. He strips off his clothes till he is completely naked.
It reminded Thommo of a scene in an almost forgettable film Central Intelligence (starring Dwayne Johnson) which he had seen a few weeks before. In it, the main character acted by Dwayne Johnson, a superstar wrestler known in the ring as ‘The Rock’ strips at a high school reunion to remind schoolmates of how he as a fat and flabby teenager was hauled into the school auditorium by bullies and pushed onto the dance floor – all for a laugh.
In the book Sampath and his mother Kulfi are considered mad, or at least eccentric, by the people in their village around them. Sampath's cross-dressing and stripping antics at the wedding reception solidify in the minds of both townspeople and reader the singular strangeness of his behaviour. As the passage ended Sampath “… stuck his brown behind up into the air and wiggled it wildly in an ecstatic appreciation of the evening's entertainment he himself had just provided.”

There was a burst of laughter from the readers at this comic passage. Joe said this is one of the funniest scenes in the book. It could transpose very well to a movie, because Sampath would be able to display all the dazzling bump and grind of Bollywood dancers – while he is naked on the fountain. It would give Peter Sellers in The Party a run for his money!

Joe

 

Joe chose the passage from Chapter 5 because the word ‘guava’ which is central to the novel occurs seven times on this page. You’ll see the role of the guava here, while Sampath is still trying to find his footing, when he is being harassed by his family and bullied by his father, in particular. The mother gives him a guava treat and “he stared at the fruit, wished he could absorb all its coolness, all its quiet and stillness into him.” The guava becomes a receptacle of attractive calm in his eyes; it could drain away all his frustrations. This is confirmed further: “Sampath felt his body fill with a cool greenness, his heart swell with a mysterious wild sweetness.”

'No, I do not want an egg,' he tells his mother, 'I want my freedom,’ is how the passage ends. This is the setting for what is going to happen; there are going to be a lot of guavas in his future. But he is launched on the path of liberation from his family who are constantly bearing down on him and correcting him. One feels pity for Sampath, who is a victim of his overbearing family. They want him to behave in a certain way and accomplish certain things – but he is clearly not up to it. What to do? But then he discovers a unique mission, and a unique vision …

Shoba

 

The passage Shobha chose is from chapter 6. Sampath is taken by a sudden urge to flee his old life and to be free. He climbs on to a bus that takes milk sellers home. His heart was caught in a thrall of joy and fear. He imagined snakes that leave withered old skins behind; of insects that struggle from the warm blindness of silk and membrane to be lost in the skies. As the bus climbs up a mountainside, his feeling of exhilaration is disturbed by an old crone who moves to sit closer ,causing him to lean out of the window. She plagues him with questions and so irritates him, that he jumps out of the window. He runs up the mountainside straight to the old guava tree. Without pausing he starts to climb.

Up till this point, the location of the story was Shahkot. It suddenly and dramatically switches to this old guava tree in an orchard bordering a reserve forest. The rest of the story happens there. Sampath and the tree are destined for fame.
Before him he saw a tree, an ancient tree. Silence reigned through its branches like a prayer. This tree had been waiting all these years to become the throne of a godman! 

Some questions arose about this passage.

1. Is Sampath self- deceived? Is he conscious he is playing a con-game? 

Sampath was not comfortable with who he was … in his old life. The scene at the wedding shows him breaking out of the mould, forced on him by his family and society. On a whim, he decides to flee. He does not know what he is searching for; he just wishes to leave his old life behind. Once he is seated in the guava tree, he feels at peace. He is child-like in the sense that there is no worry any longer about how he is going to live.

The ensuing events shaped and formed his next avatar as a god-man.

2. In India, the tradition of men who leave home to become sanyasis, is accepted and such men are revered. Sampath‘s family moves to the orchard be with him. His mother discovers her hidden culinary skills and cooks him delicious food, and entertains the people who come to pay homage. People are curious to know what the hullabaloo is all about. Sampath starts to enjoy his new status and revels in the attention. Mischievously, he discloses secrets he has learned from letters he opened while a postal clerk. Yes, certainly in India people are exceedingly gullible. Once they have decided that Sampath is a ‘holy man’, all his utterances take on deeper significance and meaning. Sampath is once again trapped in a role that is not of his choice.

3. The ending focuses on the rationalist spy, who is trying to debunk the myth of the holy man. He is not a central character. It could have ended with Sampath … or Kulfi, whose character was well fleshed out, or even his father, whose aim was to exploit the situation and extract profit from it. Maybe the author wanted to convey the message that logic and reason go out of the window in such cases ! Or perhaps the author had come to the end of her imagination and needed to find a quick way to end the story –– by a magical intervention.

Saras

 

“It is necessary at some point for every family with a son to acquire a daughter- in-law. This girl who is to marry the son of the house must come from a good family. She must have a pleasant personality. Her character must be decent and not shameless and bold. This girl should keep her eyes lowered and, because she is humble and shy, she should keep her head bowed as well. Nobody wants a girl who stares people right in the face with big froggy eyes. She should be fair-complexioned, but if she is dark the dowry should include at least one of the following items: a television set, a refrigerator, a Godrej steel cupboard and maybe even a scooter. This girl must be a good student and show proficiency in a variety of different fields. When she sings her voice must be honey-sweet and bring tears of joy to the eyes. When she dances people should exclaim 'Wah!' in astounded pleasure. It should be made clear that she will not dance and sing after marriage and shame the family. This girl should have passed all her examinations in the first division but will listen respectfully when her prospective in-laws lecture her on various subjects they themselves failed in secondary school.
She must not be lame. She must walk a few steps, delicately, feet small beneath her sari. She must not stride or kick up her legs like a horse. She must sit quietly, with knees together. She should talk just a little to show she can, but she should not talk too much. She should say just one word, or maybe two after she has been coaxed and begged several times: 'Just a few sentences. Just one sentence.' Her mother should urge: 'Eat something. Eat a laddoo. My daughter made these with her own hands.' And these laddoos must not be recognisable as coming from the sweetmeat shop down the road. The embroidery on the cushion covers the prospective in-laws lean against, and the paintings on the walls opposite, should also be the work of her own hands. They should be colour-coordinated, with designs of fruit and flowers. She should not be fat. She should be pleasantly plump, with large hips and breasts but a small waist. Though generous and good-tempered, this girl should be frugal and not the sort who would squander the family's wealth. A girl who, though quiet, would be able to shout down the prices of vegetables and haggle with the shopkeepers and spot all their dirty tricks and expose them. Talk of husband and children should so overcome her with shyness and embarrassment that she should hide her face, pink as a rosebud in the fold of her sari.
Then, if she has fulfilled all the requirements for a sound character and impressive accomplishments, if her parents have agreed to meet all the necessary financial contributions, if the fortune-tellers have decided the stars are lucky and the planets are compatible, everyone can laugh with relief and tilt her face up by the chin and say she is exactly what they have been looking for, that she will be a daughter to their household. This, after all, is the boy's family. They're entitled to their sense of pride. “
I was struck by how the requisites for a bride have not changed over the years. A glance at the matrimonial pages of any newspaper shows you the same. Every one wants a “tall ( not too tall - after all she cannot tower over the groom!) fair, well educated” bride. The docile, and “obedient “ is not spelt out as such and is termed as home loving ( must not make waves!!) Education and financial independence because of employment has made some difference in urban India but small town India remains much the same.
The suitability of Sampath as a groom has no bearing in this case. Why should it bother a girl that she is to wed an unemployed man, who is living on a tree. She is to marry and presumably have children at the appropriate time and in enough numbers.

Zakia

                                

                                                   
The passage selected from chapter 7 depicts the prospective bride being hoisted up the guava tree rather unwillingly to meet Sampath. This whole scene is described rather humorously and although this meeting was meant to be auspicious it turned out to be quite the opposite.
He had visualised her to to resemble the lady on the bottle of oil with a long braid but to his horror:
“she was encased in layers of shiny material like a large expensive toffee.”
The author has brought into perspective the familial misunderstanding and the ridiculousness of the situation portrayed.

Pamela

 

Pamela was drawn to this passage from Chapter 12 because it was a scene she had often seen in the past –
a swami with monkeys around him. She had always wondered what made those monkeys stick together. There was no way of controlling them or restricting them from running away. Many of the rural temples in Kerala, do have a band of monkeys that remain in a place for years.
Pamela thought they were kept as pets or were there for some divine reason. It's only when she read this passage by Kiran Desai, that she began to think of the situation from the monkeys’ point of view. It was food that drew them, plentiful food because the devotees always brought food.
The author draws our attention to the monkeys’ way of thinking – “I don't have to steal from shopkeepers or grab food from passers by. I can get enough by just monkeying around this guy.”
The approach of the monkeys to Sampath and how the monkeys tried to befriend him just because he imitated their hooting, was very amusing. Throughout the story we find a strain of humorous satire, causing critics to label the book as satirical literature. While providing humour, it also kindles profound thoughts on human values, for example the sentence:
“Funnily enough, all the food in the orchard seemed clustered about this hooting boy who possessed qualities that, though not admired in them, seemed to be greatly appreciated in him.”

Another amusing phrase regarding Sampath is this: “He was not merely accepted, then, but endowed with elevated status within the monkey hierarchy.”
Pamela thought this part was really hilarious! – how the cinema bully monkey shared Sampath’s cot in the tree which the author describes thus: “Propped up simian-style against each other's backs, they awaited visitors in this their shared state of splendour, for no longer did the troupe spend its time scavenging in the market, …”
The scene has great entertainment value. At the same time it demonstrates human disregard for the needs of other creatures.

Priya



Priya read from Chapter 14, which deals with the havoc the monkeys create in the guava orchard after consuming alcohol. The simians had developed a love for drinks after they raided the bags of a devotee and managed to steal five bottles of rum. Sampath Chawla, the protagonist, had forfeited worldly life and chosen to live atop a guava tree, along with the monkeys, on the outskirts of Shahkot, a small town in Punjab. Called Monkey Baba, for his cryptic, mystical wisdom sayings, he was visited by a stream of devotees who arrived to pay respects to him
After their first tryst with alcohol, the monkeys learn to access booze, stealing it from pilgrims who made a beeline for a darshan of Sampath. From playful animals on tree tops they become hyperactive and fierce hooligans, making faces at the devotees, scaring them off, tearing their clothes, upsetting vessels in Kulfi’s kitchen in the orchard, shaking branches of the trees violently, and creating general pandemonium. This in the literal sense is the Hullabaloo of the title, but on a deeper level the disturbance caused by the monkeys is also about the disturbed minds of the people in the story.

It is a comic tale mixed with magic realism. HITGO operates at several levels. One reason Priya chose the passage is because she has had close encounters with monkeys in Ayodhya in UP where she stayed for long periods to nurse her grandmother-in-law. An incident she recalled was monkeys imitating human actions; one monkey stole a rosary and would sit for hours fingering the beads, exactly like the old widows of Ayodhya. Pulling clothes off the clothesline, especially saris and wrapping them around themselves was another common behaviour. But instead of shooing the monkeys away, the people of Ayodhya, coexist with them, believing the monkeys to be the avatar of Lord Hanuman. Their response was akin to Sampath’s: “Oh, they are only monkeys. What can they possibly know? When the rest of the household is sleeping, the child puffs on his father’s hookah.”

Behaviour of monkeys mimics human behaviour

Extensive research has been done on the close resemblance between the behaviour of monkeys and humans, especially in regard to the fondness for booze. Here’s a link to one such research study:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/monkey-drunks-ways-monkey-drinking-habits-resemble-human/story?id=12649508.

Also read: Alcohol can make a monkey out of us:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/apr/26/1

The famous primate researcher, Jane Goodall, would definitely have an interesting take on Sampath Chawla’s arboreal abode and life with monkeys. Here’s her categorisation of the order of primates, and her comment that chimpanzees share about 98.6% of our DNA:
https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/06/27/chimps-humans-monkeys-whats-difference/

KumKum

The novel has one central quirky, hilarious story, concerning the curious life and the mysterious vanishing act of the protagonist Sampath Chawla. The book also contains many other minor tales, which mingle with the main story like tributaries, adding more drollery and laughter. I found chapter 23 to be a gem. In this chapter we are about to see Sampath’s sister, Pinky Chawla, eloping with Hungry Hop, the ice-cream vendor in his van. A go-between carried messages between the two lovers, Pinky and Hungry Hop. Pinky decided on April 30, as the date for their elopement, figuring everyone was going to be busy catching the monkeys. They were to meet under the big tamarind tree on the street leading to the Orchard-bazaar road at 5.00 a.m.
Pinky’s message was bold and precise, unusually forward for girls from traditional families. Though April 30th was only 3 days away Hungry Hop showed no hesitation in assenting: “Without fail I will be there.”
Meanwhile, Hungry Hop’s family takes preventive action, introducing him to a girl whom they chose to be his future wife. Initially he did not wish to look at the girl at all, but his relatives persuaded him to enter the room where the girl was sitting between her mother and father.
One look at the girl from the doorway, and Hungry Hop was smitten by her fair complexion. Kiran Desai hilariously describes the young Indian male’s fascination for fair-complexioned brides. Nothing else mattered to Hungry Hop. He thought the girl was like a Birthday cake, her fair cheeks, like ‘vanilla pudding’ and her mouth, ‘like the rose on top of the icing of a birthday cake.

Devika

When I read this part of the book it reminded me of the movie which I’d watched years ago and continue to watch as its hilarious. It’s called Pattanapravesam. There is an avid bird watcher who is in search of an elusive Bull Finch and his whole life revolves around recording the song of this bird. At one point, he almost catches the CID for disturbing his watch but then hears the bird sing and forgets everything else. And in frustration he calls out – “I am a Bird Watcher

The elusive Green Pigeon

I’ve shortened the passage a bit. I fact I should have stopped at the part where the Green Pigeon flies away.
As our session was going on and the passages were being read out, I felt that the descriptions were so beautiful that one could visualise each and every aspect of the book…..from Sampath dancing in the fountain to the requisites of a bride, the orchard and rampage by the monkeys, the green pigeon, the brigadier, the girl with cheeks that looked like vanilla pudding, the post office….
There was this discussion going on among us as to whether the green pigeon exists. And Joe, true to his nature immediately found us a picture of the green pigeon!

A short note on Kiran Desai (Saras has done the bio of the author)
Youngest of 4 children, Kiran was brought up in a household where her mother was totally involved with her writing and her father a busy executive. She loved animals and the family had a dog and a guinea pig. The family also looked after all the building cats. She was called Small Kiran and there was another Kiran in the building. Friendly by nature with a lively presence, she tagged along witherything else. And in frustration he calls out – “I am a Bird Watcher!

Arundhaty



During our KRG session this book was described by many of us readers, Devika, and others, myself included, as one which was unfettered in imagination, and open. While writing this book the author allowed herself to take off in any direction she pleased.
While that may be, she covers many issues of societal prejudices about how a woman should behave, and the qualities she should possess, thanks to the character of Kulfi, and the absurd process of selection of brides in India. We also encounter the infatuations of youth, through the character of Pinky. The ‘blind faith’ the public puts in sanctified god-men is on display. The single minded ambition of the father to make money out of the heaven-sent opportunity shows venality at its core.

The main pivot of the story is the parental pressures on the young, the desperation and longing of a young man to break free. The author delves into it all with great humour and uncommon elan .

In the passage chosen, Sampath meditates in the guava tree and has an extra-corporeal experience; he picks a perfect Buddha shaped fruit. Sampath overcomes his anxieties about the monkeys, their extreme shenanigans, his father’s pressures, the public’s devotion and their violent reactions to the langurs, the chaos and cacophony around him, and his fears about the future. In the ending a mysterious metamorphosis of Sampath into a Buddha-like Guava with his own birthmark takes place. The langurs spirit him off, thus transformed, to a distant forest in the mountains.
The description of the gurgling water being drawn into the trees reminded this reader of an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine which quotes from the book The Hidden Life of Trees by the forester Peter Wohlleben. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wohlleben

He asks: do trees talk to each other?
He answers yes, and his ideas are shaking up the scientific world.
Some are calling it the ‘wood-wide web,’ according to Wohlleben. “All the trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected to each other through underground fungal networks. Trees share water and nutrients through the networks, and also use them to communicate. They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive these messages.”

In the last lines of this paragraph Sampath connects to the beauty of the guava fruit, the likeness of its shape to Buddha, and thinks how the fruit represents the cycle of life. Beautiful, distant fruit, growing softer as the days go by; beautiful fruit filled with the constellation of young stars.
Did this lead to Sampath himself finally turning into a Guava? Readers applauded the ending, and Joe said, of course, it is a fantasy, but one that lets the novel end, not on a comedic note, but one of yearning for something more blessed in life than the crassness of Shahkot and the father’s materialistic ambition to profit from his son’s liberation.

Some questions:
1. In the modern Indian context where two wage-earners are needed to maintain a household, would a boy still consider favourably a girl who ‘had failed every examination she had ever taken’? After all, the lifetime earnings of a clever spouse would far exceed a mere Maruti car's value, which he was offered.

The Readings

Ch 4 – Geetha

The barbed-wire fence around the post-office did not stop anyone. The confusion of a typical Indian small town is depicted.

The post office, like so many government buildings, was painted yellow. Over the years, it had faded to match per­fectly the haze of dust that enveloped Sampath each time he bicycled in to work. He took a short cut that led down the main bazaar road, through the hospital grounds and then under the barbed-wire fence that had been erected about the post office compound to establish it as a place sacred to official order and duty. Naturally, the barbed­ wire fence was not entirely intact, for the residents of Shahkot, never ones to respect such foolish efforts, had set to work as quickly as they could to dismantle this unfortu­nate obstruction. All about their own houses and in their gardens and courtyards, they discovered a sudden need for wire; and all through the day, while, say, picking an annoying wedge of betel nut from between their teeth, or lifting their feet into a friendly lap for a foot massage, inspiration for wire-use struck them. They had always wanted to scratch their names upon the bark of a certain tree or across the dome of a certain protected monument. A curtain needed hooks. A gate, some sort of latch. There was a plant that would not stand up straight. A goat that tried to eat the plant. A dog that tried to bite the goat. An urgent need for fencing close to home. Soon there were gaps all around, and wherever there weren't, one person or another had worked the wire up on stakes or trampled it down to allow for free movement about the town.

And so the post office stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Shahkot. Schoolchildren, beggars, potters and signboard painters. Cows and pigs and water buf­faloes. Ikebana class teachers from the polytechnic. Mathe­matics tutors. Clerks from the asthma institute, and cooks. Lady doctors and the head of the mental asylum. Accoun­tants. Hosiery products men. Umbrella repair men. A bread and egg man. A fish woman. Flies. A washerman barely visible beneath sheets and towels. An orange-robed sadhu smiling and bowing despite the heat. (Truly India is a land of miracles.) Scooters and rickshaws, trucks and cars. Everyone's mother, father, uncle, sister-in-law and fourth and fifth cousin-brother twice and thrice removed.

Ch 5 – Thommo

Sampath dances naked in the fountain at the wedding event of his boss’ daughter

Venturing out of the room to where the party had just begun, he was made brave by the smell of the biryani and kebabs; encouraged by the sparkle of elegant clothes and jewellery, by the clinking of plates and finger bowls, by the laughter of the arriving guests in the tent and the jostling sweets frying in clarified butter just outside. A red carpet stretched from the entrance of the marriage tent all the way to a fountain at the centre. Sampath cavorted up and down its length, tossing his nose ring, kicking his legs. Mr. D. P. S. and his wife, plying their future son-in-law's family with drinks and snacks, greeted his advance upon them with stunned silence. Sampath felt as if his feet were far above the floor, as if, floating in some groundless state, he were missing the weight of his head, his stomach and all of his insides. 'Tomorrow it will be too late,' he sang, chandelier­ style drops in his nose all aquiver. He waded into the foun­tain and jumped in the spray, splashing the grand ladies with water so they ran squealing in consternation. 'Meet me under the plantain tree,' he warbled, 'and there will be no more talk of heartache.'

And slowly, deliciously, feeling it was the right thing to do, Sampath began to disrobe. Horrified shrieks rose from his audience. However, in this flushed moment, he mistook them for cries of admiration. With a style particular to him­self, one by one he let the saris and dupattas draped about him fall. He unwrapped the last glittering length of fabric, but still he felt he had not yet reached the dazzling pinnacle of his performance, the pinnacle he strove toward, that his whole being was in anticipation of. He could not let himself down and he began to unbutton his shirt. He tossed the garment into the air like a hero throwing away the rag with which he has cleaned the weapon that will kill his enemy. As the shrieks grew in volume and intensity, he lowered his hand to his pants. 'Stop him,' shouted Mr. D. P. S., and sev­eral people rushed forward. But Sampath climbed deftly on to the highest tier of the fountain and, in one swift move­ment, lowered both his trousers and his underpants. His back to the crowd, he stuck his brown behind up into the air and wiggled it wildly in an ecstatic appreciation of the evening's entertainment he himself had just provided. (417 words)

Ch 5 – Joe

These ideas unite in Sampath: the cool stillness of the guava fruit, his longing to be free of care, and to be rid of his father’s constant nagging, 

Kulfi Chawla climbed the stairs that led from the balcony to the rooftop with a guava. Sorry for her son, she crept up behind him. 'Would you like a guava?' she asked. She had been unable to resist buying it, even though it was the first of the season and still a little hard. She pulled his ear affec­tionately.

He thought of the post office.

'No,' he wanted to shout. 'No, I do not want any guava,' he wanted to say. But his stomach growled and he took the fruit into his hands. He was cross and grumpy. The guava was cool and green and calm-looking.

The post office. The post office. The post office. It made him want to throw up. He decided not to think of it again.

Guavas are tasty and refreshing and should be eaten whenever possible.

He stared at the fruit, wished he could absorb all its cool­ness, all its quiet and stillness into him.

'Oh, what should I do?' he asked out loud, all of a sud­den. 'What, what, what?' He stared at the guava intently, ferociously, with a fevered gaze, and gave it a shake. He felt it expand in response, rising under his fingertips.

'What should I do?' he said, giving it another desperate shake. 'I do not want a job. I do not like to live like this,' he wailed . . . And suddenly, before his amazed eyes, the sur­face of the guava rose even more . . . and exploded in a vast Boom! creamy flesh flying, droplets showering high into the sky, seeds scattering and hitting people on the balconies and rooftops, and down on the street.

'Ho!' shouted Lakshmiji, who had been hit in the eye. 'What is going on there? All kinds of bizarre happenings in that household always.'

But she received no answer. Up on the rooftop, Sampath felt his body fill with a cool greenness, his heart swell with a mysterious wild sweetness. He felt an awake clear sap flowing through him, something quite unlike human blood. How do such things happen? He could have sworn a strange force had entered him, that something new was circulating within him. He shuddered in a peculiar manner and then he began to smile.

'Oh dear,' said Kulfi. 'I will complain to the fruit seller, Sampath, beta. Would you like an egg instead?'

Sampath's bare feet were cold against the floor. A breeze lifted the hair off his forehead. Goose bumps covered his arms. He thought of Public Transport, of the Bureau of Sta­tistics, of head massages, of socks and shoes, of interview strategies. Of never ever being left alone, of being unable to sleep and of his father talking and lecturing in the room below.

'No,' Sampath answered. His heart was big inside his chest. 'No, I do not want an egg,' he said. 'I want my freedom.' (482 words)

Ch 6 – Shoba 

Sampath, fleeing in a bus, is needled by an old woman. He jumps out of the window, runs into an orchard, and climbs up a guava tree.

An old crone moved to sit closer to him. She had so many canisters, he was forced to lean right out of the window and to hang on for dear life. What is more, she was one of those old women who despise a silence. Especially irritated by Sampath's face in its cocoon-like veil, she used her voice like a needle to reach and poke. 'Where do you come from and what is your family name? What does your father do and how much does your uncle earn? How many relatives do you have in your house and how many cupboards? And the way to really good health is to drink a litre of buffalo milk first thing in the morning before the sun rises.'

Sampath felt the marvellous emotion that had overtaken him begin to sag. The bus groaned its way up the slope of the hill. For a brief moment, the engine hiccuped and the bus stopped. In this moment, before the driver changed gears and proceeded up the hillside, Sampath leapt from the window of the stalling bus, spurred by his annoyance at the old crone's voice. Amazed passengers who happened to be looking out at the view as they continued their jour­ney saw Sampath racing into the wilderness toward an old orchard visible far up the slope. He ran with a feeling of great urgency. Over bushes, through weeds. Before him he saw a tree, an ancient tree, silence held between its branches like a prayer. He reached its base and feverishly, without pausing, he began to climb. He clawed his way from branch to branch. Hoisting himself up, he disturbed dead leaves and insect carcasses and all the bits of dried-up debris that collect in a tree. It rained down about him as he clambered all the way to the top. When he settled among the leaves­ the very moment he did so-the burgeoning of spirits that had carried him so far away and so high up fell from him like a gust of wind that comes out of nowhere, rustles through the trees and melts into nothing like a ghost. (356 words)

Ch 7 – Saras

The requisites of a bride

It is necessary at some point for every family with a son to acquire a daughter-in-law. This girl who is to marry the son of the house must come from a good family. She must have a pleasant personality. Her character must be decent and not shameless and bold. This girl should keep her eyes lowered and, because she is humble and shy, she should keep her head bowed as well. Nobody wants a girl who stares people right in the face with big froggy eyes. She should be fair-complexioned, but if she is dark the dowry should include at least one of the following items: a televi­sion set, a refrigerator, a Godrej steel cupboard and maybe even a scooter. This girl must be a good student and show proficiency in a variety of different fields. When she sings her voice must be honey-sweet and bring tears of joy to the eyes. When she dances people should exclaim 'Wah!' in astounded pleasure. It should be made clear that she will not dance and sing after marriage and shame the family. This girl should have passed all her examinations in the first division but will listen respectfully when her prospec­tive in-laws lecture her on various subjects they themselves failed in secondary school.

She must not be lame. She must walk a few steps, deli­cately, feet small beneath her sari. She must not stride or kick up her legs like a horse. She must sit quietly, with knees together. She should talk just a little to show she can, but she should not talk too much. She should say just one word, or maybe two after she has been coaxed and begged several times: 'Just a few sentences. Just one sentence.' Her mother should urge: 'Eat something. Eat a laddoo. My daughter made these with her own hands.' And these laddoos must not be recognisable as coming from the sweetmeat shop down the road. The embroidery on the cushion covers the prospective in-laws lean against, and the paintings on the walls opposite, should also be the work of her own hands. They should be colour-coordinated, with designs of fruit and flowers.

She should not be fat. She should be pleasantly plump, with large hips and breasts but a small waist. Though gen­erous and good-tempered, this girl should be frugal and not the sort who would squander the family's wealth. A girl who, though quiet, would be able to shout down the prices of vegetables and haggle with the shopkeepers and spot all their dirty tricks and expose them. Talk of husband and children should so overcome her with shyness and embarrassment that she should hide her face, pink as a rosebud in the fold of her sari.

Then, if she has fulfilled all the requirements for a sound character and impressive accomplishments, if her parents have agreed to meet all the necessary financial contribu­tions, if the fortune-tellers have decided the stars are lucky and the planets are compatible, everyone can laugh with relief and tilt her face up by the chin and say she is exactly what they have been looking for, that she will be a daughter to their household. This, after all, is the boy's family. They're entitled to their sense of pride. (544 words)

Ch 7 – Zakia

The father brings a fresh prospective bride to the guava orchard; she is hoisted into the guava tree to have darshan of Sampath

Holding the prospective bride before them like a gift, the group moved toward the guava tree. Sam­ path had always had a soft spot for the lady on the label of the coconut hair-oil bottle. He had spent rather a large amount of time in consideration of her mysterious smile upon the bathroom shelf. While squatting upon the mildewed wooden platform taking his bucket baths, he had conducted a series of imagined encounters with her, complete with imagined conversations and imagined quar­rels and reconciliations. She would meet him wreathed in the scent of the oil, with a smile as white as the gleaming inside of a coconut. A braid of hair had traveled downward from the top of the coconut lady's head and followed the undulations of the bottle. Sampath looked down at the veiled woman standing underneath his tree and felt hot and horrified.

'Please come down and be introduced. You have sat in the tree long enough,' said Mr. Chawla.

Sampath thought he might faint.

'Climb up, daughter,' the girl's father urged her. 'Climb up. Come on, one step. Just a step.'

The devotees raised the girl's rigid, unwilling form into the tree. 'Up,' they urged, and slowly she began to climb. She was encased in layers of shiny material, like a large, expensive toffee. The cloth billowed about her, making her look absurdly stout. Her gold slippers slipped with every step. Her sari was pulled over her head and she held the edge of it between her teeth so as to keep as much of her face modestly covered as possible. It seemed an eternity before she neared Sampath. It was clear that this girl would not take well to life in a tree. She paused and looked back down for further directions. Nobody knew quite what to expect, or how she should proceed. Even Mr. Chawla was at a loss as to what should happen next.

'Touch his feet,' someone finally shouted in a moment of inspiration.

'Yes, touch his feet,' the rest of the pilgrims cried, and, extending a single timid finger, like a snail peeping from its shell, she gingerly poked at Sampath's toe. Her finger was as cold as ice and moist. Sampath leapt up in horror. In an equal state of distress, the girl let out a faint cry. Losing her balance and her gold slippers, she tumbled indecorously towards the ground, accompanied by the more robust cries of the pilgrims and her family, who rushed at her with arms outstretched. But they failed to catch her as she fell and she landed with a dull thump upon the ground.

The signs for marriage were not auspicious.

The devotees propped her up against a tree and fanned her with a leafy branch.

'What am I to do with this boy?' Mr. Chawla threw his hands up in the air. 'Tell me what I should do? The best education. A job. A wife. The world served to him on a plat­ter, but, oh no, none of it is good enough for him. Mister here must run and sit in a tree. He is not in the least bit thankful for all that has been done for him. '

The girl began to sneeze in tiny mouse-like squeals.

'Stop fanning her with that dirty branch,' someone shouted. 'All the dust must have gone up her nose.'

'Dust or no dust, it is yet one more inauspicious sign,' said another onlooker. (576 words)

Ch 12 – Pamela

The monkeys relocate to the Guava Orchard and cosy up to Sampath

And it was not long before the troupe from Shahkot, presided over by the Cinema Monkey, became regular visitors to the fields and forests surrounding the orchard. They rarely ventured out of town and people wondered why they'd made this trip up the hillside-had even the ape community obtained news of Sampath and organised a visit?

The monkeys, when they first arrived, looked upon Sam­ path, the strange sedentary member of another species they had spotted up in their usual domain, with some trepida­tion and maintained a wary distance, baring their grotes­que and discoloured teeth, making faces, chattering in a scornful show of contempt and derision. Unbothered by their mocking, glad of yet another distraction, Sampath turned their dirty game right back on them and hooted and howled. 'Hoo hoo,' he cried, rolling his eyes, puffing out his cheeks in a way that seemed to cause mutual satisfaction, for these antics continued and soon the monkeys drew closer, extended their dirty wizened palms and nudged Sampath, at first gingerly, to see how he would react, and then with a great rude push once they decided he was not a threat. And how he could contort his face! A look of being very impressed showed across their monkey faces.

They looked even more impressed when they had spent long enough in the orchard to identify Sampath as the nucleus of this bountiful community they had come upon. Funnily enough, all the food in the orchard seemed clus­tered about this hooting boy who possessed qualities that, though not admired in them, seemed to be greatly appreci­ated in him. No doubt, the closer a human was to a monkey, the more presents he was given: the freshest fruit, the best nuts, were brought to Sampath's feet. He was not merely accepted, then, but endowed with elevated status within the monkey hierarchy. Through him they could receive the tastiest titbits. Before he knew what was happening, he was sharing his string cot with the cinema bully himself. Propped up simian-style against each other's backs, they awaited visitors in this their shared state of splendour, for no longer did the troupe spend its time scavenging in the mar­ ket, stealing from the shopkeepers, terrorising the likes of Miss Jyotsna and Pinky. Why would they do that, when they had realised soon enough that they could obtain their meals much more easily by sitting near Sampath and receiving the kind people who drove up for the express rea­son, it appeared, of bringing peanuts and bananas? (419 words)

Ch 14 – Priya

The monkeys rampage over the orchard, ransacking the kitchen supplies. They even menace Sampath momentarily, and then bound off in a gang. 

Oh, but the monkeys were different, he thought, despite himself, as he watched them raid his mother's kitchen, overturning pots and pans, sending buckets rolling through the orchard, the discordant clatter of metal filling the air. They were so beautiful, so full of graceful strength. Tails held high above their heads, they knocked over the milk can so the milk disappeared into the grass. They tore open the sacks of supplies that were piled under the porch, and the rice and lentils spilled into rivers of gold and green, black and white. They ate quantities of raisins and nuts, almonds, cashews and tiny, precious pine kernels whose theft caused Kulfi to chase after them with her broom. But they avoided her easily, as they did all the intrepid devotees who had formed a whole pebble-slinging army under Ammaji' s jurisdiction - bravely, they sent their stone artillery flying from slingshots, running back and forth through the trees, feeling rather drunk themselves on the excitement of it all.

'Don't touch the monkeys,' Mr. Chawla yelled, waving his arms, trying to snatch slingshots from the hands of the devotees. 'They are dangerous. In this state, they will turn on you.' But at present even he was unsure of exactly what to do. He should have taken precautions. He should have nipped the problem in the bud. But how?

When they had become bored of the kitchen, they tore newspapers to shreds; they stole Ammaji's comb and lodged it high in a branch, they broke the spokes of Sampath's umbrella and left it battered and full of holes. They pulled the washing from the lantana bushes where it was laid out to dry. As Pinky shook a leafy branch - 'You badmashes. Go back to the jungle where you belong' - they loped about in circles, half draped in garments, dragging saris and sheets and petticoats behind them, tearing the fabric to shreds, strewing her finery like paint over the treetops.

By now, the greater number of devotees had relin­quished their slingshots and retreated down the hillside, frightened by the langurs' growing violence, worried that they would be chased and robbed and perhaps even bitten.

Sampath's tree thrashed in a fierce chaos of branches and leaves. In it, he was tossed here and there, and upside down. What was happening? It was all too quick for him to take in. His heart leaping and falling, skipping and jump­ing, his mind in a whirl, he was sure if he let go he would be sent careening through the air to land, concussed, upon the ground. Before his eyes a sickening blur moved and shook.

'Come down, Sampath,' everyone shouted, but he held tightly onto his cot.

'If you are not going to come down, keep absolutely still,' his father yelled. 'Do not move.'

Caught up in this drunken dance, savage faces, long tails, saris draped in purple and yellow streamers all about him, useless bits of thought flew past Sampath, everything going by too fast for him to stop and grab at them. He could jump; but no, it would be his undoing. He could pull on the monkeys' tails; no, he would shout. No, he had better hold tight . . .

Luckily, before anybody was actually bitten or hurt, the monkeys bounded off into the university research forest, tired of the noise people were making, or perhaps tired of the orchard, their wild spirits carrying them farther and farther to the opposite hill, where the family could see them continuing their onslaught upon the meek landscape, wrecking every tree, uprooting every bush, expending their energy on anything that carne in their way, leaving entire areas of the forest ravaged as if by a tornado. (623 words)

Ch 23 – KumKum

Hungry Hop, the ice-cream vendor, is presented with a girl he should marry instead of Pinky – this one’s sari was rosebud-coloured, her cheeks like vanilla pudding

And . . .

Oh, but oh, who can plan against the powers of fate? What a girl! What a girl he saw sitting demurely between an ugly Mummy-Papa when he stepped around the cur­tain hanging in the doorway of the room! She surpassed anything he could have ever expected. So plump, so pink and white! A complexion like that under the Indian sun! With such a sleepy face and sleepy eyes, such a good­ natured sleepy smile . . . He could not believe his eyes! Her sari was rosebud-coloured, her cheeks were like vanilla pud­ding, her mouth like the rose on top of the icing of a birth­day cake . . . Yes, he thought, she was exactly like a birthday cake, a pink and white birthday cake . . . The pearls in her ears and about her neck and wrists were like the little silver decoration balls. He opened his mouth and stared.

All about the room, his sisters and aunties, his grand­ mother and mother nudged each other. This girl had failed every examination she had ever taken, it was true, but there was something to her, wasn't there? They were very pleased and proud with the good job they had done despite the difficult circumstances.

Hungry Hop retreated, his head in a whirl. When she left, his family closed in upon him, filling his ears with talk, bribing him with promises of a Maruti car and television, a wedding party of two weeks in duration . . . Stop! he thought to himself. How can I do this? But they continued and a pleased look could not help but show through the grumpy one he tried hard to maintain. (287 words)

Ch 24 – Devika 

The Brigadier and his army contingent march forward with nets to capture the monkeys, but he is distracted into snaring a green pigeon, and runs into barriers of bedding rolls.

At precisely this time in the army cantonment area, the lights were blazing from the barracks and men, already dressed in khaki uniforms, were gathering about the flag pole. At the appointed time the Brigadier appeared as well and, marching to the main gates, spick-and-span, he got into his personal jeep.

'Ready?' he barked. 'Well, then, onward mar -'

It was at this point, even though the sky was only just beginning to lighten, that he spotted, with his eagle eyes, his heart's desire: there, in the old mulberry tree by the gate, the modest green pigeon who had so long teased, maddened and seduced him with its liquid notes, its reminders, sweet . . . piercing . . . of the old film songs that his mother had listened to when he was a child. Ah, that haunting sadness, that limpid voice pouring heartrend­ingly from the throat of Lata Mangeshkar, a voice that sang of death and lost love, of lotus-flower feet and sandalwood skin, of long dark eyes, of loneliness, and the ache, the dreadful ache, of memory. All this and more he remem­bered from the few notes that sounded in the trees by his house. All this and more, he thought, from this small, drab bird sitting silent now upon the branch.

'A net!' he hissed. 'Quick, a net, a net . . .' Urgently, he prodded a surprised soldier with his baton. Then, snatching a monkey net from the startled man, he jumped from the jeep and threw it at the green pigeon in a blind desire to cap­ture this elusive bird, to keep it by him as he lived in the army cantonment, to torture himself with the memory of his childhood, of his mother, whom he had loved so fiercely . . .

The net was far too big and too heavy, of course, for a sin­gle man to toss after a bird, and it traveled only a few feet before falling to the ground with a heavy thump, a pile of cumbersome nylon rope. With a slight flutter past his ears, the green pigeon rose and, before his horrified eyes, flew away, high over his head, to who knows where.

'Damn!' The Brigadier smashed his fist down upon his palm. 'Damn, damn, damn.' It was a bad omen. But then, who was he to believe in omens? 'Forward march, you damn fools,' he said angrily to his men when he became aware of the stares turned in his direction. And they hur­ried off, having forgotten meanwhile to wait for the DC and Mr. Gupta, who finally alerted their attention by blowing their horn loudly as they approached, driving full speed about the bends in the road, catching hold of whatever part of the jeep they could as they rattled and leapt over the rub­ble. When they caught up and the procession was com­plete, they started again. Now, hopefully, there would be no more delays. 'Come on now. Move quickly, we are late . . . Double march . . . Left, right . . . Left, right . . . One, two . . . One, two . . . Left, right. Left -'

And they double-marched, it is sad to report, left right left, straight into another pile of suitcases and bedding rolls spread mysteriously upon the road. (557 words)

Ch 25 – Arundhaty

Sampath meditates in the guava tree and has an extra-corporeal experience; he picks a perfect Buddha shaped fruit.  

The night wore on. Down below, all was silent. Still Sam­path sat and watched. Once he felt a flutter of terror about his heart, but he did not follow it to its source, did not think ahead to what was to happen the next day, and the flutter died down as quickly as it had started. Hour upon hour went by. The hour of midnight passed. It was Monday, the last day of April, and all was quiet in the orchard. The fam­ ily slept and the monkeys were silent in the guava tree.

There were ways of thinking about darkness. He could steel himself against it, Sampath thought, close his eyes tight, wrap himself up in his quilt. Or he could let all its whisperings, all its shades of violet, float into him. This impersonal darkness could be comforting as no human attention ever was. He felt the muscle in him relax, and as time drew on he felt strangely calm, felt his thoughts drop away and a strange strength enter into him, a numbness seeping into his limbs. From exhaustion, or resignation, or faith in some new inspiration, who knows? He could not feel the trunk of his body anymore, but his senses were not numbed. They grew sharper and he was acutely aware of every tiny sound, every scent and rustle in the night: the stirrings of a mouse in the grass, the wings of a faraway bat, the beckoning scent that drew the insects to hover and buzz somewhere beyond the orchard. Underground, he could hear water gurgling, could hear it being drawn into the trees about him; he heard the breathing of the leaves and the movements of the sleeping monkeys.

Here and there in the branches near him, the season's last guavas loomed from amidst the moonlit leaves. One, two, three of them . . . so ripe, so heavy, the slightest touch could make them fall from the tree.

He picked one. Perfect Buddha shape. Mulling on its insides, unconcerned with the world . . . Beautiful, distant fruit, growing softer as the days went by, as the nights passed on; beautiful fruit filled with an undiscovered con­stellation of young stars.

He held it in his hand. It was cool, uneven to his touch. The hours passed. More stars than sky. He sat unmoving in this hushed night. (396 words)