River Town Chronicles (4 page)

B
EFORE LONG
, we settled into our daily routines. Pat ground spices and perfected her chapatti making skills under the watchful eyes of Madhu and Saroj. I was learning the art of bargaining in the bazaar and dealing with Mohan's close examination of the results. Tim squatted on his haunches out front, next to the
mochi,
keeping an eye on the sweet shop across the lane and studying the passersby, relating to us at the end of each day how many thieves and hooligans the two of them had seen pass by our gate. Brian shuffled off each morning to take his place in
bhabhi's
kitchen, sitting cross legged like a little buddha, stuffing himself with chapattis and listening to
bhabhi
ramble on to him in Hindi. And Lori reveled in playing marbles with Meena and Paphu, unconcerned with the fact that she was losing her best marbles, the big, brightly colored ones, to their mastery at knocking her marbles clear out of the circle.

I was anxious to get on with my ethnographic study of River Town and engaged Roshan, a merchant's son, to show me around the merchant neighborhoods. The most significant thing I discovered about the merchants was the network of kinship that existed among them and the way this was reflected in the layout of their neighborhoods. The neighborhoods were basically a maze of narrow alleyways where the residents traced their descent back through the male line (the common patrilineal descent pattern found in northern India). Each of the neighborhoods was associated with a particular event from the past that involved a member of a particular kin group and from which the group derived its name. These named kin groups, called
byongs
in the local dialect, made up the core of the different merchant neighborhoods and served as a mechanism for establishing marriage and business relationships between them. Among the names of the neighborhoods were the
lathmaron ki
(stick beaters),
peeth mosni
(stomach pilferers),
chuchi pinon ki
(breast suckers), and
choriliyan
(taken by a thief). The
byongs
served to identify the kinship affiliation of individual merchants and to establish the historical and current relationships among them. It was a kind of accounting system (appropriate, I suppose, for merchants) that connected the merchants from the different neighborhoods, ultimately linking them together. For example, if a girl from the
lathmars
had ever married in the past a boy from the
peeth mosni
then any future marriages between the two
byongs
would follow the same pattern;
lathmar
girl with
peeth mosni
boy and so on among the different
byongs
in an asymetrical (circular) manner.

As Roshan and I made our way around the narrow lanes of the merchant neighborhoods, I was struck by the fortress like structure of the houses, with iron bars over shuttered openings and heavy, padlocked doors. Some of the houses were decorated with shiny mirrors embedded in the walls and ornate paintings of Rama and Sita on the shutters. What went on behind these doors was not visible to the public. The world of women and family life that took place within these neighborhoods and behind these doors was shut away from the world of the bazaar. The only evidence of life in the lanes were the young children scurrying about and the occasional stray dog that drew my careful scrutiny.

We finally emerged from the merchant neighborhoods and I left Roshan and turned towards home. Kaga passed me on the street with a basket of human waste perched gracefully on her head. Her
dupatta
covered her face but I could see that her eyes recognized me and I saw her twitch her broom at me (was this a greeting or a threat?) What a contrast, I thought, to the high caste merchant women secluded behind the doors of their neighborhoods for no one to see. Kaga was a contradiction with her haughty gait and fearless manner shamelessly coupled with a basket of excrement piled on top of her head. These were the two extremes of life in River Town; high caste and low caste, purity and pollution, restraint and freedom.

T
HE MONSOON RAINS
had tempered the heat of summer somewhat. The rains arrived sporadically now, often popping up in the afternoon, and providing welcome relief. But they also brought flooding and chaos in the streets, as passersby waded through a torrent of debris swirling down the lanes.

Towards the end of the monsoon season, the rain poured down so hard that our roof began to leak. Outside, the electric line leading to a light bulb hanging in our entrance way began to spark. I watched as the sparks spread up the line to the bulb and shorted out all the lights in our house, creating a spectacular display of fireworks. We lit candles and placed empty buckets under the leaks in the ceiling. During the night, we moved our
charpois
from place to place trying to stay ahead of the streams of water that chased us around the room.

The next morning, I asked Ram Swarup if there was someone who could fix the roof. “Not until it stops raining,” he replied. I asked him when he thought that might be.
“Bhagwan jaane”
(God knows), he answered.

We huddled together inside the house, even though it seemed at times that we couldn't be any more miserable if we just stood outside in the rain. The rain continued the next day. And the next. Still no lights and the roof continued to leak like a sieve. We were all cranky and short tempered by the third day of steady rain. It was almost a welcome relief to hear Kaga beating her broom on the door in the mornings, demanding to be let in. She swished her broom around in puddles of water and shouted obscenities, probably hoping to confront
bhabhi.
But even
bhabhi
couldn't be moved to confront Kaga in the pouring rain. It was as if Kaga was the only person alive in the world these days.

The monsoon rains finally subsided and I was able to get some needed supplies from the bazaar. When I returned home, a troop of monkeys scampered overhead, one of them swinging Tarzan style just above my head. Pat was lying on the
charpoi
and not feeling well. I asked her if anyone had been by to fix the roof. “Yeah, a guy dumped a cart load of buffalo manure out front and said he would plaster the roof with it. Ram Swarup said that will fix the leaks when it dries up.”
Ay Bhagwan.
An eco-friendly solution for a leaky roof.

A
FTER THE MONSOON RAINS SUBSIDED
, I set out with Chamu, the
mochi,
to explore the other areas of River Town, beyond the bazaars and merchant neighborhoods. I had seen brief glimpses of the mud huts and lean-tos that flanked the four corners of the town but knew nothing about the inhabitants who lived there.

We approached the very southern outskirts of town where the temporary shelters of the
khana bedosh
(homeless vagabonds) were located. A pack of dogs snarled at us. The inhabitants of this place lived in small, animal skin huts and subsisted on the flesh of small animals and rodents they flushed from the brush with the help of a pack of nervous, underfed dogs. They collected the bones of dead animals, crushed them up and sold the powdered bones for fertilizer. Situated a little bit further on the outskirts of town were the colorful camps of the
bagris
(itinerant iron workers). They gathered in these camps during the winter months, moving their colorful caravan of bullock carts on to other areas. They claimed to be of royal descent and forced to migrate as political exiles from their homeland in Rajasthan. They circled their bullock carts on the outskirts of River Town and wandered through town offering to sharpen knives and repair tools, recalling the life of gypsies in other parts of the world, to whom some claim they are related.

We walked out beyond the town boundaries and passed a Muslim slaughter house and the Hindu cremation grounds, where the spirits of dead bodies were released in the smoke and flames of the funeral pyres.

Next we headed for the small mission hospital located on the outskirts of town. Inside the compound were cots spread out under the overhang of the roof. Sick and ailing patients were wrapped in blankets and family members squatted next to the cots with their kerosene stoves, cooking utensils and bedding, prepared to stay as long as necessary next to their sick relatives. I introduced myself to the New Zealand doctor in charge and met an Indian Christian doctor and several New Zealand and Indian nurses. They greeted me warmly but couldn';t understand why I chose to live in the bazaar “like a native.” The New Zealand missionaries had never set foot in the bazaars and lanes of River Town. They were fluent in the Hindi language, though they never mastered the intonation and local phrasing of native speech, which left me wondering if the missionaries did not hear the subtleties of the spoken language or was it that they did not want to hear them? I felt conflicted about the activities of the missionaries, but secretly relieved to discover the hospital. Who knew if the missionary doctors' skills might be necessary for our own well being?

As we continued our walk, Chamu pointed out to me the huts of the
dhobis
(washermen), the
bhangis
(sweepers), where Kaga lived, and those of the
chamars
(leatherworkers), where Chamu himself lived. I followed him down a path towards his hut. The hut was made of mud and surrounded by puddles of stagnant water. We waded through the water to reach the opening to his hut. A woman and a gaggle of children scurried away from the door. Chamu invited me inside and we sat down on the bare dirt floor of the hut. “I would offer you tea, but we have run out,” he said apologetically. I looked around the stark interior of the hut, its bare walls protected by a tin roof held in place with rocks and dirt piled on top. A little girl darted in front of me wearing a tattered
shalwar/kamiz.
Her eyes were bright and she had an impish smile.
“Jaao.”
She scampered away and disappeared out the back door. “We are the despised ones,” Chamu hissed through his teeth. “Look how we live. We live like animals.” Then he continued, “As much as the others (the higher castes, like the merchants) despise us, they cannot live without us. Who else would be willing to remove the carcasses of dead animals from the fields and streets, or mend the broken down shoes of those who ignore us?.” Then he went on, “But, we have powerful forces on our side. Our women can contact the goddesses that will cure disease, like smallpox, and can even cure a woman's infertility. We may be dirty, but we are powerful.”

Chamu got up and I followed him along the dirt path that circumambulated the town outside the merchant neighborhoods. We passed the huts of the
naiis
(barbers), the
kumars
(potters) and
thathiyars
(metal workers). As we walked the outskirts of town I sensed the kind of “look-see” calculus that defined one's life in River Town. “Look what I am doing with my hands, see who I am.” Among those castes living on the outskirts of River Town, working with your hands to transform raw materials (clay, metals) into useful objects (pots, utensils) resulted in a caste status only slightly higher than those who collected or handled raw bodily fluids and polluting substances (sweepers, washermen, barbers, leather workers). Those in the higher caste neighborhoods, like the merchants and Brahmins, kept their hands “pure” by confining their work to account books and sacred rites.