Animal's People

“For his sort we are not really people. We don’t have names. We flit in crowds at the corner of his eye. Extras we’re, in his movie.” 

Animal reflects how journalists “come to suck our stories from us” (5) and are “drawn by the smell of blood” (5). They see the suffering people not as people but as entertainment. Unlike the Khaufpuris themselves, foreigners and observers can put the suffering aside when they are through exploiting it. Animal at first is hesitant to speak to the journalist, not believing that telling his story can have any real effect. He is resentful of those who come to see the suffering with a morbid fascination. This sentiment echoes Animal’s later complaint to Elli as she expresses sorrow that he lives in such squalid conditions. He tells her he is not disgusted by the conditions themselves; rather, “[w]hat really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders that you look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice” (184). To Animal, worse than poverty is dehumanization in the hands of outsiders. The people have been dehumanized by the Kampani; Animal feels they are exploited again by those who condescend to them.

“Mother Nature’s trying to take back the land.” 

Animal describes the inside of the factory, which is overgrown with trees so beautiful “you forget it’s poisoned and haunted” (31). Animals roam the factory, though the dogs have “foaming mouths” (30). Though nature tries to take back the abandoned factory, the effects of “that night”—of the chemicals made in that factory—are evident after all these years. The factory represents the lingering illnesses and the lingering threats of the chemicals, which bleed into the water and soil, continuing to poison the people. When Animal climbs up “to where the death wind blew” (31), he imagines the people running for their lives and hears the voices of the dead clamoring out “for justice” (274). He describes “the old and the real law” (274), that “[o]nce the earth has tasted blood it craves more, now the killers must be killed” (274). Mother Nature seeks not only to take back the land but also to avenge the victims. The people’s burning of the factory at the end of the novel illustrates the idea that natural law requires justice.

“Love is different and more difficult. It has nothing to do with sex.” 

Animal talks constantly of sex—his desire for it and his inability to have it. The voices in his head frequently taunt him about it, making crude comments about Elli Barber, suggesting he could have sex with her. Animal admires “the swaying blue moons of madam Elli’s backside” (136) and the blue jeans that cling tightly to her legs. However, Animal is aware of the difference between his feelings for Elli and his feelings for Nisha, whom he desperately loves. He understands that his feelings for Nisha are more complex, and therefore simultaneously more rewarding and more devastating. He believes “the poison of love enters the blood” (46) before you even realize it; it’s in the subtle details of someone’s face, and “[o]nce you’ve seen it in someone’s face it’s always there” (81). His love for Nisha inspires him, despite his knowledge that hope only leads to disappointment, to ask the doctor at the hospital if his back ever will heal; later, he notes, “A creature of love, its brain is truly fucked” (214). His love for Nisha will make him do anything—nurture hope, remain silent about his knowledge that Elli was married to the American lawyer, even poison Zafar. However, he also suffers watching Zafar die in his hunger strike because he knows how much Zafar means to Nisha. Animal suggests that in a world in which trust is uncertain, the reason “why people keep their promises […] is love” (251).

“[H]e says to me be quiet and listen, music does not all have to be made with strings and bows and pipes, it can also be made by drops of rain or wind cut by a leaf.” 

At first, Animal finds Somraj, Nisha’s father, who had been a famous singer before his lungs were damaged “that night,” frightening and intimidating. One day, Somraj points out to Animal that the frog’s croaking he hears is actually the note of a scale. He observes that every sound in the world—“the creaking of bicycle wheels” (49) or the rain falling into the pond—“make[s] their own kind of music” (49). Somraj’s belief that music is everywhere and that different sounds all fall on the same scale suggests that we all have more in common than we may appear to. This idea is reflected in several other instances in the novel; for example, people of many religions come together to watch the coal walking during Muharram. 

“Having nothing, we can never be defeated.” 

After the judge at the hearing grants Zafar’s request that the Kampani be forced to come to court or risk their Indian assets, the people are elated. Zafar tells them that though the Kampani “has everything on its side” (54), the people are “[n]ot just strong but invincible” (54) because they have “the power of nothing” (54), or nothing to lose. Animal, who sometimes disagrees with Zafar’s idealistic vision of justice, is awed when, as Zafar lays dying in his hunger strike, the power of nothing is unleashed in a violent protest at the factory: “[N]ow the fury of the people has been let loose who knows where it’ll stop, it’s a storm battering everything in its path, it’s an avalanche pouring down a mountain, it’s a flood that rises swiftly with no warning” (310). Animal “did not believe before” (310) in the power of nothing but sees that “it will destroy what it touches because it is fueled not just by anger but despair” (310). The power of nothing shows its true force when the city is on the verge of losing Zafar, its symbol of hope. The people have already lost their loved ones, their health, and their future. When they lose the person who has inspired them to keep fighting, they truly have nothing, and they take their despair to the factory, the source of their misery. Whether the power of nothing truly can effect change is not determined at the end of the novel, for the hearing is postponed again and the factory remains standing.

“A desperate business is hope, not to be encouraged if you can be content with small happiness, but the curse of human beings and this animal alike is that whatever you have always you want more.” 

Even though a voice in his head tells him, “You will be disappointed” (57), Animal asks the doctor at the hospital whether he can perform an operation that will “make me stand up straight and walk on two legs” (57). Throughout Animal’s People, Animal frequently muses on the dangers of hope, which he can’t help but feel, even though it’s something to “despise” (78). Though he believes it is “stupid” (39) for him to hope Nisha will choose him over the handsome, saintly Zafar, still, hope lingers, making him imagine Elli healing his back so he can impress Nisha. Hope is “unforgivable” and “terrifying” (141), and Elli merely suggesting that she can help Animal achieve these dreams makes him run from her office. The danger of hope is also illustrated the night of the factory riot, when Animal finally asks Nisha to marry him, and is rejected; running from the house and into the night, he believes that if Jesus “promised to mend my bones personally with glue and reshape my body with his own hands” (334), he “would tell him to fuck off because this world is too cruel, it’s too hard […]” (334).

“[G]uilt is just a feeling, you can choose not to feel it, or else do the Kampani bosses sleep?” 

Having already climbed the mango tree outside Elli’s building to secretly watch her, Animal decides to climb the frangipani tree outside Nisha’s bedroom. He convinces himself it is his “duty” (115) to make sure “brother Zafar isn’t taking advantage” (115), that he “care[s] too much about Nisha” (116) not to spy on her. He worries that he won’t be able to face her the next day, but he finds that “all I have to do is forget last night” (117). In addition to learning that Zafar and Nisha are not physically intimate, he learns that he can easily stave off his guilt—how else, he asks, would people who have caused the city so much harm be able to live with themselves? When we meet the Kampani lawyers later, however, we see that they are not only indifferent to the people’s true suffering but oblivious to it. Unlike Animal, they do not seem to second guess their actions. 

“It’s the fucking Kampani I admire.” 

Walking across the street to Elli’s clinic for her to examine him, Animal considers that Zafar would not like him to associate with Elli. He contemplates how Zafar is “so fucking noble, so modest, above all, so powerful” (136) that “at your one word the people of the Apokalis put aside their suffering” (136) and agree not to go to the clinic to relieve their suffering. Animal is angry that Zafar accuses Elli of working for the Kampani “without any proof” (136) and that his obstinacy is “making the people suffer for nothing” (136). In this way, says Animal, “[t]he Kampani is stronger and clever than you” (137)—Zafar’s boycott will bring nothing but more suffering, while the Kampani itself “does what it wants and no one can say anything to it” (137). Animal’s People establishes the battle between the people and the Kampani as a larger metaphor for the powerless versus the powerful; the people, Animal later tells Elli, “love Zafar because he’s all they have” (185). In this quotation, Animal recognizes that the Kampani that has caused so much suffering has somehow made itself immune to suffering. In a life of poverty, pain, and hopelessness, the Kampani’s invincibility can appear something to admire, albeit bitterly.

“Well, conscience I don’t believe in, if I was given one I’d hand the fucking thing straight back.” 

Animal’s People begins with Chunarum bringing the journalist to Animal; Animal notes that Chunarum cares only for money and performs many services for foreigners, including showing them “[t]he really savage things, the worst cases. People like me” (4). Animal himself describes his own questionable past, when he performed scams around the city with his friend Faqri and was arrested and beaten for his crimes. The novel suggests a sense of desperation, of suffering people doing anything they can to survive. The people of Khaufpuri have been killed and injured by the Kampani, and have since been forgotten; the Kampani has escaped prosecution, and the people’s government is in the Kampani’s pockets. Animal, here, expresses disillusionment with systems of morality, which provide no comfort and appear to work only for those in power. Ironically, however, Animal frequently demonstrates that he does, in fact, have a conscience. His kindness toward Ma Franci and Aliya, his struggle to reconcile his conflicting feelings about Zafar, and his ultimate confession of what he knows of Elli all show that Animal adheres to a morality system despite his insistence that he is less than human.

“In the kingdom of the poor, time doesn’t exist.” 

When Elli shows that she is confounded that the suffering people turn down free care, Animal points to her watch, saying Khaufpuris have no need for a watch because it’s “always now o’clock” (185) when you’re starving and hopeless. Animal also expresses frustration with Elli’s sympathy that he lives in such a desolate house, saying “[w]hat really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders” (184). Animal is trying to make Elli understand the depth of the people’s suffering, and that their continued dehumanization and disillusionment means they make decisions she can’t understand. This passage is a comment on Western condescension and infantilization of the people of India and others who have experiences different from ours. It echoes the first tapes, in which Animal expresses resentment of journalists and other foreigners who profess to care about the Khaufpuris but because of their inability to relate to their suffering, forget them as soon as they leave them.

“In any case it did not bother me, there was a certain beauty in the clashing of our musics.” 

Elli tells Animal that she and Somraj each thought the other was trying to drown out his or her music; after they clear up the misunderstanding, he told her he did not mind. The harmony in clashing music is a theme running throughout Animal’s People. Many kinds of music or sounds blending into one represents the coming together of different kinds of people or different ideas. This concept is reiterated during the coal walk of Muharram, in which Somraj states that he doesn’t “distinguish” between prayers in different languages—rather, he tries “to hear it all together” (216), for “[w]hen songs clash […] sometimes out of that comes a new music, something completely fresh” (216). Elli responds, “Like with lives” (216). Somraj notes that while his world is made of music, and hers is “made of promises” (204), it is possible that two are not “as far apart as they seem” (204). Their marriage at the end of the novel indicates that those two worlds are not, in fact, irreconcilable and seems to put forth the hopeful message that different kinds of people can ultimately grow to understand each other. 

“I, me, mine, that’s what religions are, where’s room in them for god?” 

Before the coal walk, Animal and his friends discuss various religions, which differ in details but which all promise “to cheat death and live again, here or in heaven, wherever” (207). Animal finds them all to be the same, in that they promise something for the worshipper. He also questions how any religion can be true when so many of them exist. In Animal’s People, some characters, like Farouq and Ma Franci, adhere to traditional religion; others, like Somraj and Zafar, revere more abstract concepts, like music or humanity. Still others take a more humanistic approach to religion: Elli, for example, explains that she “fell out with god” (203), who has a “strange way of loving human beings” (203), so she can tend to them more practically by “heal[ing] their broken bodies and minds” (203). Animal says he’s had “hundreds of cups of tea” (104) in old Huriya’s tea kettle and that while “others believe in god, for goodness and a kind welcome I’ll believe in that kettle” (104). Animal’s appreciation for simple earthly pleasures and kindnesses seems fitting in a world in which it’s always “now o’clock.” 

“Zafar brother, I didn’t say this, if I did not hate you I would love you, you are an unusual human being.” 

This quotation represents Animal’s ambivalent feelings toward Zafar, whom he sees as his rival for Nisha’s love but who always treats Animal with respect and kindness. Animal begins to resent Zafar’s saintliness and even his trusting Animal with responsibilities, such as bringing large sums of money to needy people in town. He sneers that Zafar is “so fucking wise” (66) and deliberately needles Zafar “because he irritates me” (68). Animal dreams of Zafar carrying the world on his back and frequently muses on how pointless his hope for Nisha is, when Zafar is so handsome and so admired by all. Animal wrestles with his conscience when he poisons Zafar with Faqri’s pills, giving him a higher dosage when he’s angry and scaling back when Zafar becomes too sick. When Zafar performs his hunger strike, Animal regrets that his pills have weakened him; he does not want Zafar to die, both because he admires him and also because “[a] rival who’s alive can make mistakes” (296). In this quotation, Animal admits that his rivalry with Zafar impedes what otherwise would have been admiration. He similarly acknowledges that he “should have accepted defeat gracefully and wished Nisha joy” (214) but that when a person is in love, his “brain is fully fucked” (214).

“The Kampani has no face.” 

In a dream brought on by Faqri’s pills, Zafar dreams he meets a crow that grants him three wishes. One of his wishes is to “see my enemy’s face” (229); the crow tells him this is “impossible” because “[t]he Kampani has no face” (229). This passage depicts the futility in fighting the Kampani, which has money and politicians behind it. The Kampani’s having no face suggests that it is more than this particular company—it is a system, a movement, simply the way the world works. Animal reiterates this point when he discusses the Kampani with the Board of Directors. He explains that the Kampani “is too big and powerful, it cannot die, it will go on for all eternity” (237). Throughout Animal’s People, the Kampani represents the untouchable power that oppresses the people. 

“The notes of the scale are all really one note, which is sa. The singer’s job is to sing sa, nothing else only sa, but sa is bent and twisted by this world and what’s in it, by grief or love or longing, these things come in and introduce desires into sa, bending and deforming it, sending it higher or lower, and the result is what we call music.” 

Somraj explains that all notes are the same note but that they have been bent by the singer’s experiences in the world. Animal then speculates that all the sounds in the world “are fluctuating around some great sa that hums constantly in Somraj’s head, by which he tunes the universe” (250). This unifying message brings tears to Zafar’s eyes. This is a hopeful message that expands on Elli and Somraj’s discussion about how clashing music creates its own new music, “like with lives” (216). Though people may have different experiences, these experiences all revolve around a common human experience.

“It’s not anger I am feeling but terror. I knew the world was evil but never did I realize how fucking evil.” 

After Animal overhears Elli speaking with her ex-husband, he believes she works for the Kampani after all and that they have all been betrayed. The realization affects his opinion not only about Elli but also about the world. It’s a realization similar to that after 9/11, when Animal is unable to believe what he sees on television because “[s]tuff like that doesn’t happen in real life. Not in Amrika anyway” (61). That night in bed he ponders the horrible deaths, thinking, “such a terrible thing, who would have thought it could happen to others to die in terror, may I never know such a death” (64). Leaving the hotel after hearing Elli’s conversation, Animal must decide whether to keep his secret and help himself, or help the community by revealing what he knows.

“Listen, it might be that we’ll never win against the Kampani. Maybe we won’t ever get justice. But even if those evil ones escape punishment, they will still be just as blood-stained, just as wicked, in their hearts they themselves know it. Whatever happens they are ruined beings, their souls are already dead.” 

Zafar and his friends discuss what action to take now that the American lawyers are in Khaufpuri and that a deal threatens to derail justice being served to the Kampani. Zafar frequently exhibits a philosophical, idealistic vision of justice, in this way contrasting with Animal, who is “giddy with rage” (284) and thinking of “how they hideously took my parents’ lives and left me in this world alone” (283). Zafar also clashes with Nisha in his hunger strike: Nisha believes the Kampani is “laughing” (293) at Zafar, that rather than be moved they will “be cheering when the news comes” (296) of his death. Animal’s People presents many perspectives of justice and the best way to bring about it. Like religion, the dispensation of justice is an issue that divides, but ultimately unifies, characters who are different but who fight for a common cause.

“I never walked in fire because I refuse to bow to god. Refusing to bow is not the same thing as not believing. Look at the world’s misery and you have to believe that something very malevolent is at work here. I can’t honor this vile thing.” 

Zafar has never hidden his distaste for religion, but he has not, until this point, revealed the depths of his cynicism. “Brother Zafar,” seen as a saint throughout Khaufpur, has maintained positivity and composure, performing even his rituals of protest with poise and respect. In this passage, as Zafar suffers through his hunger strike, he is unable, or unwilling, to uphold his façade, suggesting there must be a god because no other being could produce such pain. Animal echoes this sentiment when Aliya dies, crying, “O god if really you exist, how wicked you must be, how you must hate us folk to torture us so, while in the gardens of Jehannnum the evil men are eating well and drinking wine, them you save while the poor go to the dogs” (326). The people suffered not only “that night” but every day since, with no end to their suffering in sight: the Kampani has avoided punishment, their factory has not been cleaned, and at every turn, justice has been thwarted. The world appears to the people not only indifferent but also callous. 

“Fucker, you pretend you’re an animal, and in this much you resemble one, you keep your nose to the ground and your tail up.” 

One of the most important themes in Animal’s People is humanity, not only in the sense that the Khaufpuris have been dehumanized by the Kampani but also in Animal’s denial of his own humanity. Animal repeatedly insists he is not a human and that he chooses to be an animal because he feels like one. However, sometimes the mask slips, and he reveals that his animal identity is in fact a defense mechanism to protect him against hope. In this scene, when Zafar is on his hunger strike, Animal and Zafar talk frankly, and Zafar reveals his respect for Animal. Though Zafar has always indulged Animal in his request to be treated as an animal, he refuses to conceal that he recognizes his humanity, and in this quotation, he forms an affectionate compromise, acknowledging Animal’s humanity and animal-like qualities as existing simultaneously and even depending on each other. Interestingly, Zafar reveals his own humanity by swearing, a behavior he has always been against on principle. His showing himself to be a man rather than a saint is perhaps not only a sign that he is too tired for formalities but also a compromise in and of itself.

“You were making poisons to kill insects, but you killed us instead. I would like to ask, was there ever much difference, to you?” 

The day of the hearing, the people gather to discover the hearing has been postponed. When the American lawyers arrive, journalists and bystanders ask them questions. In this quotation, an old woman draws attention to the Kampani’s dehumanization of the people, that the Kampani’s lack of responsibility for and care of its victims suggests it sees them as insects. Similarly, when Zafar asks the lawyer how he justifies his actions, the lawyer, smiling, responds that “[w]hen you get to my age and you have two Italian greyhounds […] and have as many friends among lawyers and judges, and have won as many cases, you don’t have to spend time justifying yourself” (307), thus establishing that those with money and high connections are more important than those without.

“In this moment of anger I look up and there are placid clouds drifting across the sky. This shakes me. Outside of ourselves nothing cares.”

During the factory riot, “the power of nothing” (310) is released, overwhelming the guards and officers and bringing to the people strength they hadn’t realized they had. In this quotation, Animal draws a parallel between the Kampani and a calm clear sky that seems to contrast with the people’s despair. The clear sky is a reminder that the people are powerless, that their anger and suffering are meaningless and impotent. That this passage follows the scene in which the people try in vain to make the lawyers understand their plight is key. Just as the sky reflects placidity even in the face of the people’s rage, so do the lawyers go about their lives of privilege and luxury even as the people they’ve hurt demand restitution.

“Nay, if Isa came and begged me to rise up, if he promised to mend my bones personally with glue and reshape my body with his own hands, if he swore to make me straight and tall, still I would tell him to fuck off because this world is too cruel, it’s too hard and no more of I do I want.” 

After Nisha rejects him, telling him she will never marry him, Animal flees, lamenting that “[i]n a single day everything I care about is lost” (334). Life to him is not worth living—at least, not life in the human world. Alone in the forest, he removes his shorts, deciding to “live as an animal, alone and free as an animal should, no master I’ll have, no work, no duty but survival” (342). Animal has hinted that his decision to identify as an animal is a defense against the pain of rejection by the world of humans. In this passage, facing the true depths of the world’s cruelty and pain, he makes a final descent into the animal world, stating that “[i]f this self of mine doesn’t belong in this world, I’ll be my own world” (350).

“If I’m an upright human, I would be one of millions, not even a healthy one at that. Stay four-foot, I’m the one and only Animal.” 

Animal reveals that he is faced with the decision whether to go to America to have surgery on his back or remain four-footed, and that he has used the experience of talking into the tapes to help evaluate his life and make this decision. He ultimately decides to remain as he is, to keep the only identity he knows. He explains that if he has the surgery, he will be weak; if he remains who he is, he can continue to have the enriching experiences that have characterized his life. Also, he appreciates his uniqueness. His decision affirms that beauty and pain are intertwined, that just as Somraj finds music in bicycle squeaks and frogs croaking, Animal finds joy and meaning in unexpected places.