Goats in the garden and Marx

Chittaranjan Roy looked at his garden first with incomprehension, then with horror, and finally with plain old dismay. What in the morning was a meticulously sculpted garden was now in near disarray, almost in a state of havoc. Rolling down the window of his ancient Hillman, he surveyed the carnage. The calendulas were trampled on, the garden mums dismembered, their delicate hair-like petals strewn all over, and worst of all the birds of paradise decapitated so that all that eerily remained were erect green stalks.

Roy had toiled for years to build this garden. With only the trees in inheritance from a previous resident, he had planted every flower and shrub in the garden. It was bound on two sides by a low, well maintained hedge. Along the longer side, and just inside the hedge were three large trees, an Ashok with its profusion of scarlet clusters, a Golden Champa in the center, and a Pride of Burma in the corner with its extravagant, crimson flowers. The other corner of the smaller side was adorned by a Gulmohar, or the Krishnachura as they called it back home in Calcutta where he came from. In between the trees along the inside of the hedge were rows of white flowered, low shrubs, a Gandharaj and a Kamini. The lawn itself was bordered by a row of yellow calendulas and garden mums on the side along the short driveway, and by a row of orange red birds of paradise interspersed with white Rajnigandhas on the side along the longer walkway to the house. On the far side of the garden were roses of different colors. It was an elaborate garden, and it would have been too elaborate were it not for the abundant space. If there was one thing that Roy felt a lack of, it was a good maali. Not that he required any imagination from his gardeners, but even a good pair of hands was hard to come by these days. He had already rotated through a few of them this very year. The first one was a drunk, the second one was too lazy, and the third a thief. For a while he considered having his house servant Ramu do the tending, but Ramu was just too incompetent. He could hardly be trusted with the broom stick, much less the clippers.  

Sliding off the car, Roy went looking for his no-good servant. Generally bulging in all directions, and particularly short, Roy almost rolled when he walked, and this along with his doming forehead, and extra large ears gave him the distinct impression of a small elephant in motion. There was a mixture of sharp awareness and geniality in his expressions, the kind of look that you can only acquire when you have seen a lot, been to a lot of places, but forgotten few, and forgiven most. Some things he battled to forget, a battle that he met with numbing success after his nightly tryst with whisky-soda, but with stark, haunting failure every morning when everyday knick knacks unexpectedly reminded him of all the people he had loved, the wife who had passed away several years ago, the sons who had flown the nest never to look or check back, other close ones who were gone, and amongst them she who would mean nothing and everything to him at the same time.

What were they to each other? The term friends was too shallow, lovers too deep. But they had felt for each other intensely, only their restraint was stronger. And now she had left behind her young daughter in his care, little Lipi, so full of life but so afraid of it. A daughter he could have had with her, but a daughter that he now was to have without her. When this had happened almost a year back, this singular event had nearly turned his life upside down. Roy whose life till that point was a carefully arranged sequence of office, home, garden, The Statesman, AIR, bridge, whisky-soda, a routine he had practiced religiously to keep him from feeling too strongly about anything anymore, had to now dig deep into his emotional reserves to lighten a melancholy child lost to her old world, and now lost in a new one. But he had coped reasonably well for a man his age, taking only the occasional refuge in his garden, to hide from the child his failing strength, and from himself his regrets. His garden was his escape, and to now see his sanctuary thus violated saddened him deeply.                              

“Ramu!” Roy barked out at the house servant “what is all this, and where the hell have you been, you monkey donkey totally useless nalayak?”

“Roy babu, just look at the mess. Some goats did it, I shooed them before they got to the roses. I was running around all day cleaning cooking washing, washing cooking cleaning all day, what can I say, Oh this is so horrible, all our flowers…” wailed his servant.

“Stop it nalayak. Just go get me my tea first” Roy stopped to poke the flower bed with a small twig. The calendulas and the mums would be easy, but the birds of paradise had been difficult to grow.   
 

Not too far from Roy’s house, by the temple walls leaned a small, make shift tent made of plastic bags, and palm fronds. Inside this tent, an old cripple squatted on his haunches huddled with his goat kids. There were three of them, each less than a year old, still white before the brown and black patches would appear. They had belonged to his grand daughter, the one that cholera had taken away. Hundreds had died, but several more like him were left to wither away. This was just after the babus in their cars and the police in their jeeps had kicked them out of their village. This is government land and the land is needed to build a big dam, they said. From Panposh to Lathikata to Jalda the old cripple had gone from village to village, looking for work, looking for food, with the goat kids trailing behind him like little waifs. But there was no work for an old cripple, and there was little food for the goat kids. Eventually he had ambled into the well maintained streets of Fertilizer Colony, and here he saw lush gardens inside gated houses. Living quarters belonging to the great Rourkela Steel Plant. Verdant grass, leafy shrubs, and flowers of all hues and fragrances, enough and more for his little starving goat kids. Go on my babies, a Kathgolop less will do the world no harm, he had said as he slowly let the kids in and hobbled away, this is government land after all.         

When the Kamini shrubs and the rose bed got ransacked the next day, Roy, incensed, instructed Ramu to stop his cooking cleaning washing and stand guard, and to catch the goats if they got into the garden again. He was prepared to stay back and stand guard himself if this happened again. This was getting to the point of an outrage.  

On the third evening Roy returned from his office to a little commotion at home. Three little goat kids were tethered to a tree in the yard, and little Lipi was feeding hay to them. Ramu had an old cripple  by the scruff of his neck. Roy was greeted with loud protestations and wails from Ramu.

“This rascal has been letting his goats into the house Roy babu. I caught the goat kids in the afternoon, and with great difficulty, they scram about like little devils, see how I scraped my knees, and now this old man just walks in asking for them. Like this is some picnic. He thinks he can just let them in and take them back when they are all finished. Oh No, I said, the goats belong to us now, don’t they? If they feed here, they stay here. That will teach him. Just look at the damage these beasts have done. Wait till I give these brutes to the kasai. What should I do babu, break his other leg? Wait till I get my stick on his back. Maybe I should turn him to the mamu, he will teach this mad man some sense?”

“Stop it nalayak. Just get me my tea first” said Roy, looking the old cripple over.

“Aha! So you are the badmash!”

“I want my goats back” said the old man, with more conviction than defiance.

“Not so soon, old man, why did you let them into my house in the first place?”

“Just let me go with my goats, I promise to never let them into your house again.”

“What about my garden? What if I got into your house and messed up your stuff?”

“I do not have a place to live” said the old man in a matter of fact manner.

Well, that is too bad, thought Roy, and he was definitely not satisfied with this lack of remorse. After all an assault of his garden was worse than a robbery of the house itself.

“Where do you people come from, have you no respect for personal property?”

“This land and this house do not belong to you, babuji. They belong to the government, and so to the people, even the goats.”

The words seemed insolent, but the old man did not. Roy considered him with calculating eyes. Was this just a simple minded soul, a lunatic, perhaps? He debated whether to lecture him on the difference between squatting on government land and being given official privilege to do so, or to simply ask Ramu to go fetch one of those lumbering, fly swatting police constables from Tangarpalli to rough the old man up a little.

But instead he said “A disciple of Karl Marx, eh? Comrade?”

“Never heard of him, but that is what they told us when they kicked us from our villages to build the big dam at Panposh.”

Government eviction, Adivasi displacement, Roy sighed, straining to keep the troubles of the world from slowly descending down on him. It was getting dark, his tea cold, and Mr. Gill would soon come by calling for the game of bridge at the clubhouse.

His thoughts were interrupted by peals of laughter from the yard. The goat kids that were shying away from little Lipi, now seemed completely unafraid of her. They nibbled hay off her hands, a little tentatively at first, then quite rapidly, bobbing their little heads vigorously as they butted their dank, dark snouts against her, pausing only to nuzzle their necks against her, and quickly going on to gambol on the delighted child, till girl and goats were rolled into one fuzzy ball of fur and cloth, bleats and squeals. Roy looked on for a while for he had not seen Lipi so happy in a long time. Then he caught the old cripple watching the scene with interest as well.

“Can we not keep these kids with us baba?” cried little Lipi “I can feed them hay from Sahoo auntie’s house, oh, are they not so adorable?”

The two men looked at each other. Thoughts of personal property, government land and Karl Marx fell away rapidly.

“And I can tend your garden” said the old man slowly, clearing his throat “make up for the damage. ”

“Thirty rupees a month, you can eat at the house, share the servant’s quarters with Ramu, and two new dhotis every Bijoy Dashami, and I would like the garden to be back in shape before the rains” said Roy conclusively, “And let us just keep Marx out of this.”

“As I said” the old man replied, walking up to his goats, with an inscrutable expression on his face “Marx, who?”

A cool evening breeze was beginning to blow, carrying with it the heady fragrances of the Champa and the Gandharaj. In another part of the world, a wall came down.

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