The Goat

Jeeut was stained by sin. Thick, sticky sin. Up to his neck, he was submerged in a congealed blood pool of sin.

It was a sin to slaughter a goat with a curved, handleless dao, its blade made from a single piece of solid iron weighing about a seer. It was also sinful to peel off its skin and rinse its body while it still twitched.

Every day, Jeeut meticulously washed the goat’s legs before slaughtering it. He performed this task with great care. The animal shouldn’t sense its approaching death. It is bad for the animal to know. By bad he meant that the meat would be spoiled. The fear of death brings a peculiar bitter taste to the meat. To the goat he pretended as if it was just another afternoon. Calm. Another day in Cuka-Pathar.

Even after reverently touching them and bowing to them three times, the severed goat heads continued to curse him. Their still eyes silently invited him to hell. As if he knew this hell. The flames in the abyss.

Jeeut sat on a sturdy piece of nahar wood while slicing the goat’s meat into pieces.

Every evening, he would pack a goat in a sack, secure it to the triangular frame of his bicycle, and ride to the Cuka-Pathar crossing where four paths intersected. The goat’s head stuck out from the top of the sack, peeking through the bicycle frame. It didn’t bleat. Instead, stunned by the cycle trip and its sixth sense (if goats even had sixth sense), it sat still with a heavy heart.

The cycle’s carrier also held two pieces of wood. He used one as a seat, and the other to chop the goat’s meat into equal pieces. In the corner of a blue waterproof cloth, the goat’s blood collected and congealed into a thick mound of butter shaped like a small, upturned bowl.

The two pieces of wood looked identical, but Jeeut never confused them. One was his comfortable seat, a thick circular piece of nahar wood on which he perched with great pleasure, as if it were a throne. That piece of wood had been given to him by Yug Bora. Jeeut and Yug Bora shared a brotherly love. The two had become like gecko siblings, growing up together, recognizing each other’s voices.

#

Jeeut Sahu of Bhojpur district was a lover of Indiraji.

In this world, among all the lovers of Indira Gandhi, Jeeut believed he held the top spot. Back in his village, during bidi sessions under the mahua tree, he spoke openly to his friends about his mohabbat, his fervent love.

Jeeut’s love for Indiraji remained unmatched even when doctors and nurses teamed up with the CRP, the reserved police, and roamed around the villages to perform the nasbandi, the forced vasectomy visited upon the men in the region.

People said that Indiraji would exterminate masculinity in India. Aurat Raj shall prevail, women’s rule.

Doctors arrived in large numbers, caught hold of the men, and performed vasectomies. The village Panchayat office was turned into a nasbandi camp. A sense of panic descended upon the village when the meaning of ‘vasectomy’ was understood. Once a man underwent the procedure, even if he had sex with his wife a thousand times, he would not make her pregnant.

After the procedure, the men were given a gift by the government. Saddened that they could never have children again, they returned home with glum faces and a tin of mustard oil or a bag of sugar.

The men examined their male parts in minute detail. Time and again, they dragged their wives to bed in order to test their sexual potency. Many of them stopped getting an erection; others failed to ejaculate. The ones who had fallen into the hands of inexperienced doctors developed internal infections.

Sipahi, Janmesh and Birju’s manhood sagged like a bag of skin. Sipahi’s wife wouldn’t let anyone touch her only son. Born after six daughters, he was the only male child. There wasn’t any hope left for more sons. Sipahi Sahu sank into a strange kind of depression.

Stories of the side effects of the nasbandi floated around the village in hushed tones.

Someone said that Indira Gandhi was committing a sin. The sin of eating away the manhood of thousands. Jeeut laughed it off. Indiraji and sin! Impossible!

Yug Bora was one of those who didn’t subscribe to her policy of nasbandi. Violence performed by women was not a good thing. On this matter, the old friends, Yug Bora and Jeeut, began a cold war.

Afraid of being caught by the CRP and forced to undergo a vasectomy, Jeeut’s father chose to sleep in the open fields for many days. Eventually, he fled to Assam on foot.

By the time Jeeut arrived in Cuka-Pathar, he was all alone. Yet, Jeeut couldn’t bring himself to hate Indiraji.

His youthful years were dedicated to fantasizing about Indiraji. The photograph of the iron-willed woman in the maroon and gold sari was stained with his passion. Kiss after kiss of drooling saliva covered Nehru’s daughter’s magnificent face.

Jeeut snipped out Richard Nixon standing beside Indiraji in a photograph in front of the White House. He then cut the image into a thousand tiny pieces. He abhorred Nixon’s long face. Nixon had never liked Indiraji. ‘Even if I share a bed with this Indian woman, I wouldn’t get an erection,’ he had pronounced publicly. ‘Compared to her, African women’s hips are far better. At least they have a little animal-like charm.’

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In the evening, Jeeut wrapped up his business and headed to Yugmohan’s place in Chapra district for his usual pegs of sour palm wine. Jeeut never crossed his limit—two pegs meant two pegs. Even if someone insisted, he stuck to his limit. But his self-control faltered when it came to regular alcohol.

Yugmohan’s wife saved parts of the head and the leg of the goat for dinner. Many a time, she set aside either a female goat’s udder or chunks of congealed blood. This she would fry with dried red chilli. On the days she served small bites of udder, shaped like sweet barfi, they drank regular alcohol, not palm wine.

On the narrow, sand-and-gravel road in Cuka-Pathar, Jeeut was singing at the top of his voice:

Oh Shyam, you play your flute slowly,

Play your flute slowly, Oh Shyam.

Every evening, Jeeut asked for forgiveness for his sins by singing bhajans loudly and cheerfully, as shown in the movies. The sin of slaughtering goats. In those moments, he felt himself bowing before his revered Indiraji, a presence beyond his reach. Despite his love, Jeeut never imagined himself as someone who could claim her. Rather, he aspired to serve her from a distance. As her true lover. Selfless.

#

Since then, like a faithful Hanuman, he took out one Meghnad after another. The first Meghnad was Dev Kant Barooah of Dibrugarh, the governor. By writing poems, he milked his power under Indiraji.

Jeeut couldn’t stand Dev Kant. ‘This poet will hurt Indiraji’s heart.’ He said once. ‘He’s not a true lover; he’s only after power.’

The day Dev Kant left Indiraji and joined Congress (U) with D. Devaraj, Jeeut said, ‘See, I told you so.’

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Babu Jagjiban Ram! He was a Chamar. A low caste.  One must wash himself if they touched him. He was of Chandwar, in Bhojpur district. Though they belonged to the same place, Jeeut couldn’t stand him. Jagjiban held a ministerial chair for thirty years. A world record that still stood—no one had stayed in parliament for that long.

Still, he betrayed Indira at the worst possible time. He left her cabinet and joined the Janata Party, which caused her defeat in the 1977 elections.

After all, God exists. He had to return to Indira and plead at her feet. Meghnad number two: Jagjiban. Chamar of Chandwar.

#

When afternoons were sunny, Jeeut cleaned goat hides.

Cured in salt for a few days, the layers of fat melted and the water dripped away. He stretched the skin on a frame made of four bamboo sticks. Using a straight razor, he shaved the hides clean of hair. After drying them under the sun for several days, he stacked them. When they piled up, Maqbool Mia came to collect them, and a horse cart carried the load away. The money earned from selling hides went to Jeeut’s second wife, Gudia.

After giving birth to a daughter who couldn’t speak, his first wife had died. People said that the goats had cursed him before they were slaughtered. That was why his daughter stuck her tongue out like a goat.

True, very true.

Jeeut’s daughter stuck her tongue out like a dead goat. Her mouth was always drooling, her chest and belly drenched with saliva. In a corner of the yard, all day long, she lay on a cot. She hummed when she was hungry. She hummed when she wanted to urinate. When bitten by ants, she hummed.

Gudia loved her unconditionally as though she were her own flesh and blood. Her affection for her stepdaughter inspired Sarat Bhuyan of No. 2 Borachuburi, Cuka-Pathar, to make a second marriage.

Gudia spent her days wiping the saliva off her daughter’s face. She was the only child Gudia had. Jeeut was a sinner. He never could be a father again. He couldn’t make Gudia pregnant. Every evening, Gudia sang Ramdhun near the rock that resembled a Shivling in the courtyard. She gently waved a cloth over the girl’s body, suffering from the bite of a dah. A sweet verse mingled with the Ramdhun. The dah’s buzzing felt like a part of the chorus. A fine piano note under the melody of Ramdhun.

She had never tasted goat meat in her life. Jeeut used to fry up leftover goat meat on the stove in the yard.

Despite not having undergone nasbandi, Jeeut feared not having more children. It may have been because of his sins. Those sins that lead to the abyss of hell.

Jeeut was contemplating a trip to Delhi to visit Indira Gandhi’s house in Teen Murti when someone burned his house down. Among the smoke and ashes were aluminium utensils. They shone like silver after burning in the fire.

Gudia’s hair also burned in the fire and became short. Just like Indiraji’s hair. Losing the house to the fire convinced Jeeut that he had sinned. The sin of slaughtering goats. Why else would Yug Bora’s son, who fought in the Assam movement, burn down Jeeut’s house? He wouldn’t do it without a reason.

Yug Bora and Jeeut had grown up together in Cuka-Pathar, like a pair of gecko siblings who recognized each other’s voices. Jeeut used to talk for hours with Yug Bora about Indiraji. Yug Bora himself was a true lover of Indiraji. Whenever he went to get a quarter of goat meat from Jeeut, he would talk for hours about Radharaman of Delhi.

Radharaman, the chief of the Congress Party in Delhi, was another genuine lover of Indiraji. To save Indiraji from the mob, Radharaman, who was then in his sixties, threw himself at her feet. People couldn’t get to Indiraji without trampling over his frail body. The very next day, Indira Gandhi appointed Radharaman as the chief of the Delhi Congress. Reward for his genuine devotion.

Zail Singh … Zail Singh. Another true devotee. A president who was ready to literally sweep the floor at her bidding.

Sometimes, Jeeut thought that he would be rewarded too. He would be rewarded for his true love.

#

Jeeut Sahu had sinned. Otherwise, Yug Bora’s son wouldn’t have burned down his house. The young men who had come along with him, who had just grown beards, were known to Jeeut. As the burning bamboo spikes fell from the roof onto Jeeut’s daughter, she shivered like a half-dead goat. She passed away three days later.

On the same day, Satwant Singh’s sterling submachine gun shattered the doll dressed in a yellow sari that was Jeeut’s soul.

Someone spotted Jeeut at the railway station. With a rope around his neck. Bleating like a goat.