Chapter 180: The Garden is Full of Beasts
Khanna is a small village under Mirzapur. The land here is fertile and it is a land of fish and rice.
Everywhere there are green rice fields, golden wheat waves and clear ponds.
The pond was full of lotus roots and water lilies, and buffaloes were stepping on the muddy edge of the pond and chewing on the lotus leaves.
Outside the village lies a small river, a tributary of the Ganges, and every week boats sail down the river, bringing in all sorts of daily necessities from the outside world.
There is also a small street in the village, divided into two halves by a black drainage ditch.
A small market was built on the mud on both sides of the drainage ditch. There were two or three small shops in it, and the storefronts looked similar.
The same thing goes for the things they sell: old rice, cooking oil, kerosene, cigarettes, and palm sugar that are inferior in quality.
At the end of the market there is a tall conical tower with its exterior walls whitewashed with lime water.
The village lacks everything except lime.
Even the stone slabs around the tower were powdered with lime, and a little higher up they were painted with entangled black snakes.
This is the village temple, which houses a saffron-colored half-human, half-monkey creature, the monkey god Hanuman.
He is Rama's most loyal servant and the supreme god believed by everyone in the village.
The monkey god Hanuman sets an example for the villagers to serve their master with absolute loyalty, love and devotion.
That's right, the people in this village are born servants, and they have been burdened with a low caste that is as low as the dust for generations.
The lush green wheat fields belonged to the landlords, the golden wheat waves had nothing to do with them, and they were not even allowed to bathe in the clear pond.
"Muna! You little bastard are slacking off again!" The tea shop owner hit the boy on the head with a big spoon.
Muna shuddered, he withdrew his dazed gaze from the pond, and then ran around the table begging for mercy.
He had to run, because wherever the spoon went, the scalding syrup would leave marks on his body.
His ears and arms were already covered with many small white spots from burns. People who didn't know him might have thought he had vitiligo or some other skin disease.
"Sir, look, there's a new movie!" Muna thought quickly and pointed at the bicycle that was swaying towards him from outside.
There was a cardboard tied to the back seat of the bicycle, and on it was a brand new poster of the pornographic movie "Da Fuku".
Hey, there's new stuff!
The tea shop owner came to the door, and the rickshaw drivers huddled on the back seats around him all stared with wide eyes.
The man on the bicycle rang the bell vigorously and circled the tea shop three times.
The tea shop is the activity center of the village. The bus from the town stops in front of the tea shop every noon.
When the police come to the village to cause trouble, they also park their jeeps here.
There is a similar tea shop in every village in Uttar Pradesh.
In the north, the poor drink tea and the rich drink coffee. In the south, the poor drink coffee and the rich drink tea.
Of course, pornographic movies are also indispensable in rural areas of the north.
What kind of traditional Indian village is it if it doesn't have a theatre that shows pornographic films?
There is a small cinema across the river that shows this kind of movie every night.
They're all two-and-a-half-hour, flashy feature films.
Names like "He is a Real Man", "Who Moved Her Diary", and "The Good Things Uncle Did" are very easy to remember!
The villagers are illiterate and cannot remember complicated names.
Take this poster on the bicycle for example.
Hey, it’s difficult to get close to the mother?
Everyone, from the tea shop owner to the rickshaw puller to the little boy Munna, had this word popping into their heads.
This is not to say that they recognized those words, nor was it that Durga appeared in person and silently recited her title in their hearts.
But it’s the woman on the poster, who looks very similar to Durga in the temple.
Muna recognized it immediately. There was a temple of Durga Puja in the town, and his mother had taken him there when he was a child.
But this Durga was special, her sari was wet.
Mula heard a heavy gasp and turned his head. The tea shop owner stared at the poster, as if he had drunk syrup from a spoon and was extremely thirsty.
The rickshaw pullers outside were not much better, they kept scratching their ears and crotches.
"It's hard to get close to my mother." Someone muttered almost in a groan.
Boom! Everyone's heart seemed to be on fire, and their faces turned red.
They stopped the cyclist and asked him what time the movie would start and how much a ticket cost.
Tickets for these new movies are usually more expensive than those for old movies that have been shown countless times.
Sure enough, the cyclist made a gesture, which immediately attracted a lot of condemnation.
"8 rupees! That's not even what I earned today!"
“It’s too expensive!”
"The ticket I bought last night was only 5 rupees."
Muna also sighed. The price was prohibitive for him.
His daily salary was only 6 rupees, which he gave all to his grandmother, leaving him without a single paise of pocket money.
While the tea shop owner was asking about the movie, Muna was also staring at the poster.
I couldn't afford the ticket, so I could only look at the graceful figure and understand the mystery.
The curves under the wet sari caught everyone's attention, including the tea drinkers.
"Ding ding!" A car is coming.
The rickshaw drivers who were gathered in front of the bicycle posters dispersed and automatically lined up under the awning.
It was an Ambassador, covered in dust, the glass from the rearview mirror missing, and the front bumper rattling non-stop.
The noise made the drivers nervous and worried.
Sitting in the car was Honey Badger, a short, fat, and calm man with a pistol on his hip.
The honey badger is one of the landlords in Kana Village. He is greedy and cunning by nature.
He exploits all rickshaw drivers and controls the roads. If you rely on the roads for your livelihood, you have to pay him a share of the bill.
The drivers in the tea shop pull carts for passengers getting on and off the buses, and they get one-third of all the income.
Also in the car was the honey badger's brother, the crow.
His land was a small hill nearby, which was covered with gravel and could not be cultivated, but the sheep loved to eat the grass on the slope.
Shepherds grazing there had to pay him a toll. If anyone refused, a crow would knock a hole in his back with a pointed stick. That's how he got his nickname.
These two beasts lived in a high-walled compound outside the village of Kana. They had their own manor and rarely came out except to collect money.
The drivers lined up to pay, no one complained, no one was dissatisfied, and everyone had a flattering smile on their face.
The honey badger is very ruthless and will even scold those who have a meager income and pay little in the form of tax.
Muna turned around and went back to the tea shop, picked up a large lump of coal in the corner, and hit it hard with a brick, again and again, until the coal broke into pieces.
His father used to be a rickshaw driver, but he couldn't stand the exploitation of honey badgers and left the village.
Many men in the village also left. There was nothing they could do. Since the landlord refused to leave, they had no choice but to leave.
Those two beasts will squeeze every drop of money out of the village until it is completely gone.
The desperate villagers have no choice but to go to other places to make a living. Every year they gather outside the tea shop to wait for the bus.
As soon as the train arrived, they rushed on, squeezed into the carriage, stood by holding on to the handrails, climbed onto the roof, and drove all the way to Varanasi.
Once there, they swarmed into the train station, squeezed onto the trains, climbed onto the roofs, and headed to Lucknow and New Delhi to find work to make a living.
A month before the rainy season, they returned from New Delhi and Lucknow.
He became thinner and darker, and his originally bloated belly was filled with more gas, but he had a few more coins in his pocket.
The women were waiting for them at home. They hid behind the door and jumped out with a loud scream as soon as the men walked into the house.
Like a wild cat seeing a large piece of meat, the woman excitedly beat the man, howling and screaming.
That was also Muna's happiest time. He would run to his father, climb on his back, and stroke his body from forehead to neck.
Gradually, Muna's father became so tired that he bent over and had a hunched back. He couldn't always find work outside.
He could only continue pedaling, pedaling to Lucknow, and pedaling to New Delhi.
He was as thin as a stick, leaning forward off the seat and pedaling desperately.
At this time, the back seat of the car may be carrying a middle-class meat mountain and his meat mountain wife, as well as a pile of shopping bags.
His father was like a two-legged mule, as thin as a reed stick.
Then one day the mule vomited blood and there was no money to treat it. Muna went to ask the two beasts for help, but it was useless.
The beasts would not do business at a loss, because they knew the mule would die and the high-interest loan they lent out would never be recovered.
The mule could only continue to vomit blood, mouthful after mouthful, without stopping until it died.
Muna hated the beasts, but he knew how to hide himself and would even prick up his ears to eavesdrop on their conversations.
"How do they say it in Lucknow?" was the voice of the honey badger.
"Those bastards sold us out! A whole mountain and the mine!" The crow's voice sounded embarrassed and angry.
"Send more money. Those guys' appetites are getting bigger and bigger."
"It's useless. People from Varanasi want to build a cement plant here, and they are taking kickbacks from the bank."
"How much?" asked the honey badger.
"A lot, more than us..."
Muna didn't hear clearly because the crow lowered his voice.
"Anyway, I won't give up my territory. It's my property!"
The crow was very angry, but Muna was secretly happy.
Several nearby hills are the crows' territories, some are used for grazing and some are used for mining.
The lime water used in the village temple comes from there.
When villagers build houses, they also like to apply a layer of white lime on the earth walls, which looks like brick walls in the city from a distance.
But the crow would not allow it. As long as he found someone's wall covered with lime water, he would collect a share of the money, even if the lime was not dug from his territory.
Muna rarely saw the crow suffer a setback, which made him use a lot more strength to knock the coal.
"Muna, let's go to the movies tonight!" Raja came to the outside of the tea shop.
"Where did you get the ticket?" Muna stood up in surprise.
"My grandmother believed in Durga the most. I told her that I wanted to pray to Durga to bless Lina to marry a good man. She gave me money and told me not to forget to do the puja."
Raja is Muna's older brother and is of marriageable age, but before that, his cousin Lina must be married off.
According to traditional Indian family rules, all Raja's earnings must be handed over before marriage.
But today is an exception. The movie about Durga’s story is a sacred thing for the rural people.
Raja successfully cheated money for two movie tickets from his grandma, and as soon as he finished his work in the fields, he couldn't wait to find Muna.
"Hurry up, it's getting dark and we have to grab a good spot." Raja called to his brother.
The tea shop closed early today because the owner also likes to watch this kind of movie.
(End of this chapter)
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