Beloved Strangers Read Online Free Page B

the other squatted, head reclined feverishly. Their mother stood calmly. One of the men followed my gaze.
    ‘Hello, little missy, you like? Very tender meat,’ he grinned. ‘Good for seekh kebab.’
    Then it was time. The buzz of conversation died, everyone got into position. The head-butcher stepped forward with a long curved knife while four men circled the mother cow. In one imperceptible, lightning motion, they threw her down on the damp ground and flipped her on her back. She laid there, belly up, surprised, as they expertly tied all four of her legs together. She seemed to resist but only for one jerking, joking second.
    ‘In the name of God,’ chanted a chorus of voices as the gleaming machete came down on the soft skin of her throat.
    I peered into her dying eyes that had turned skywards and I saw the life seeping out of them. A fountain of blood sprouted from her neck and I sensed the warmth bubbling out of her body. A final guttural groan was wrenched from deep within her and splashed across the humid morning. Red betel juice dripped from the corners of the machete man’s mouth and trickled slowly down his chin.
    I watched as she turned into a limpid pool of redness, a mountain of white bones. They spread her out on banana leaves, skin, head, limbs and torso. Her eyes were glassy but her jaws were parted with slight deliberation. It was the hint of a smile, a smile that gave her the dignity to rise above her massacred body.
    The hordes of children started to arrive with their empty gunny sacks. They approached boldly and climbed up the rusted iron grille of the old gate like little monkeys. It did not shock me that they awaited their day’s meal with pleasure. What unsettled me was the look in their eyes, the way they stared at the kill, with the grim satisfaction of those who could only understand the meaning of blood in the context of spilling it. What fast could curb such appetite, tame such impulsion?
    The butcher was heading towards the squatting calf. I turned around and started to run back to the house.
    ‘Hey you,’ yelled someone. ‘Don’t be such a sissy.’
    I kept running. Behind me I heard the voices rise again as they prepared to slaughter the calf. Just as I reached the threshold of our porch, I turned back to look at my father. But he had his back to me. Had he even noticed me slip away? Or was he too disappointed to acknowledge my cowardice?
     
    The sight of the catfish wiggling in the shallow green pool of water in front of Shah Jalal Baba’s shrine filled me with foreboding because my father told me they were not real fish. In 1303, when Shah Jalal, the great saint from Delhi, came to Bengal to preach Islam, he defeated the ruling Hindu king, Gour Gobinda. Deeming that many of the king’s followers practised witchcraft, he turned them into catfish, condemning them as eternal examples of those who stray from the true path of God. Through centuries, these human-catfishes continued to live, their souls trapped in ugly black bodies, their bodies kept in a filthy tank for display.
    Inside the prayer hall of the mausoleum, I could not concentrate on the prayers I was supposed to recite in order to pay respect to the saint’s departed soul. I made frequent mistakes, disturbed by the vision of a family of catfish, roaming in unending agony. Around me, women prayed in various states of fervour. Some sat in rigid meditation, eyes closed, fingers nimbly moving through prayer beads. Others beat their foreheads on the hard ground, crying for mercy, pleading for the redemption of their sinful souls.
    After the prayers, Mother, Naveen, Tilat and I waited for my father and Avi to come down from the elevated section of the mausoleum where the men prayed. I would have given anything to enter the demarcated area containing the actual tomb of the saint, to kneel at his feet and beg for forgiveness on behalf of the old catfishes. But Shah Jalal Baba did not permit women to go near his tomb.
    ‘If I go