Translated from the original Hindi by John Vater and Apurva Narain
‘You degenerate insect!’ one inveterate man said to another.
The second man, to prove he wasn’t an insect, clawed like a cat at the face of the man calling him one.
‘Animal!’ A new sobriquet, accompanied by a powerful slap, confirms the view that one must only behave like an animal towards animals—even if sapience were martyred in the process.
Having reached the station of ‘animal’ from ‘insect’, the man who took the slap felt slightly reassured, because the man who was calling him an animal had now come down to the level of an animal himself. The question now wasn’t of humans and animals, but of showing which of the two was the greater beast. This wasn’t so difficult; the difficulty lay in acting like a human even towards a beast. But the surprise was that between the two, neither’s attention went to this fundamental dilemma in language—that insects are also animals, as are humans. The quarrel, mainly, has to do with humanity; not with this verbal caution that man can only be called man and insect only insect. The roots of many a quarrel of ours are subtly linguistical, in the same way that the roots of many technological dangers are psychological. One secret perhaps, explaining why animal societies are more peaceful compared to our human ones, is their underdeveloped language, which simply doesn’t have enough curses to drive them to fisticuffs. These poor creatures must depend entirely on more primal reasons for fighting, which are rooted in the unavoidable struggle for their natural needs. The development of their civilization hasn’t yet reached those linguistic subtleties by which, forget profanities, even if some preferred honorific word were omitted in conversation, it could become sufficient cause for a world war.
In this context, assume that an insect had witnessed this whole showdown and understood what they were saying—do you think it would have ever liked being called ‘human’? Would its attention not have gone to this transgression, which takes inferiority and violence to be the sole preserve of animals, without fully pondering over man’s undisputed credentials? Clearly, a bug would have only watched this entire spectacle as an act of violence, and never understood that if being human wasn’t shameful, why was being a bug so?
But maybe the question there wasn’t of violence, for as soon as the slap landed, the second man not only accepted that he was an animal but also claimed he was a bigger animal, by calling the first a mere ‘son of a pig’ and overlaying two successive slaps on the same part of his face to corroborate the point.
Two slaps were not such a big deal for a man. Nor was being addressed by the wholly erroneous epithet ‘pig’. The objection perhaps arose at the word ‘son’, because immediately in response to this sally the first man leaped and latched on to the second’s throat, and shook him up with dozens of curses, in all of which he was described as the son of some well-known animal or the other.
But at the misuse of the word ‘pig’, a nearby pig, who honestly was a pig and was proud of his stock, lodged a serious complaint. He was by no means ready to accept any kinship to a species that not only despised him, but also (with the exception of one sub-group) slaughtered and gobbled him whole with wholehearted cruelty. Let humans fight—that’s their nature, and their headache—but why get the poor pig entangled in this muddle? Why accuse his clan of disrepute for nothing?
But his worry was resolved by the first man very soon, when he redoubled his clutch on the second man’s neck, and revealed a full list of his family’s combative ancestry, dubbing the second a ‘bastard’. The poor pig had no objection to this; he only didn’t want his good name dragged around in human company. If it were absolutely necessary for man to find kinship with some animal, then there were so many others—a monkey, for one. So far as the pig was concerned, he was clear: he wanted to stay as far away from humans as life would allow him, and would brook no argument to the contrary. What could any man even do about such pig-headed reasoning? After all, even animals have their way of seeing things, whether man accepts it or not. And then, what was the guarantee that man’s reasoning was infallible, or more illustrious than an animal’s? Where the question of self or species preservation is concerned, when have animals lagged behind humans? Yes, in the matter of taking life, man is certainly way ahead of the curve; and if any animal thought it could surpass man on this point, it would be one hundred per cent stupid.
A strange scene presented itself at this time. Both men had a strong grip on each other’s throats, while trying with all their might to push the other away; but it didn’t occur to either that without letting go of each other, how would they ever decouple themselves? Actually, this problem owed its origin to some complicated history of honour. It’s impossible to say why or since when, but there’s been a long human custom that if two men held each other’s throats with some deadly intent, then the one to betray that intent would get no honour in human society—although it’s not too clear who’d receive this honour if both were to honestly make good on their goal. But the deadlock didn’t end there: these poor fellows had gotten so tangled up with honour that it was now no longer enough to take the other’s honor to save one’s own—it was also vital to take the other’s life to save one’s own life. Their squabble was now at its zenith of lunacy. Curses cascaded from both sides in such a torrent that, hearing their names called out one by one, all kinds of assorted animals assembled there. It was a crowd of thousands, which peacefully watched this fight between men. No one cheered for their favourites, nor gambled on who would lose or win—they just revelled in the joy of pure ‘sports’. Both men were entirely equal in their stupidity, and in their strength. In their settlements, the animals had occasionally seen bulls lock horns, sometimes seen goats fighting, often dogs, but this fight between men was the most enthralling, because it was the most grisly, and totally to the taste of animals!
It was amidst all this that some seriously dim-witted creature asked for the reason behind this fight. The wonderstruck eyes of those thousands of animals wandered over to the donkey that had asked this ludicrous question. Not one could believe their ears that an animal could have actually had such a puerile query. The reason? To be an animal and ask for a ‘reason’—that too for a fight! Damned be its animal intelligence and the rest of its ilk which goes chasing after reasons like humans! Did this ass not grasp even this much—that fighting didn’t need a reason, only strength? Where there is strength, there is fighting; where there is reason, there is peace.
Thank goodness it was an ass who asked this question, which in any case is renowned for its thick-headedness amongst animals; and everyone acknowledged its sway for this same quality. If some wise being had raised this question before the fight, then it’s likely that all the animals would have been deprived of watching this fabulous spectacle; because to find a reason, one has to go backward, and to fight a battle, forward! And it’s not necessarily the case either that the reason one unravelled would be worth fighting for! This is why it is said: first fight, then find a reason. Second, it’s the work of the brave to fight, not to look for reasons. Only they look for reasons who can’t fight; which is why all the brave folk who graced the world kept fighting tirelessly without any reason at all, and left the work of finding reasons to historians. If they’d paused the work of fighting for even a second, then human history itself wouldn’t have been made—because history has always been of wars, not of peace.
The poor donkey didn’t know all of this, which is why he unknowingly cast doubt on the wisdom of that brawl. Consequently, he fell silent, and again wholeheartedly applied his mind to watching that contest, which was now precipitously reaching some kind of serious conclusion.
By now, both men had completely exhausted themselves. Their eyes bulged out from their sockets. The curses had ceased, and a strange ominous peace had descended all around—the sort one finds in graveyards, or at home if someone’s only child dies. For a brief moment, both men leaned against one another for support, and then, becoming lifeless, rolled on to the earth. The fight had ended because the fighters had ended!
For the first time, the animals clapped heartily and vigorously; and the entire sky resounded with their joyous applause—the loudest were the jackals.
Once the ruckus had settled down, a lion stepped forth from amidst the animal horde, and lifting up two dead hands into the air, declared the verdict, ‘That was a tie, both finished equal!’
Once more, both hands met in applause, and then there was complete peace, forever.
The job of putting down the history of this spectacular battle was assigned to the owl, sitting peaceably in feather-brained bliss on a nearby tree, so that the generations of animals to come might also draw inspiration from reading the story of that great war.
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‘Kunwar Narain: The Play of Dolls: Stories’, translated by John Vater and Apurva Narain, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Books, India.
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Kunwar Narain
An iconic figure in Indian literature, Kunwar Narain is regarded as one of the finest poets, writers and thinkers of modern times. He read widely, across literatures and disciplines, and blended an international sensibility with a grounding in Indian history and thought. He has written in diverse genres, including three epics considered classics of Indian literature, poems across eight collections, translations of poets like Cavafy, Borges, Herbert and Różewicz, short stories, criticism, essays, memoirs, and writings on world cinema and the arts. His oeuvre of seven decades since his first book in 1956 has evolved continuously and embodies, above all, a unique interplay of the simple and the complex. Widely translated, his honours include the Sāhitya Akādemī Award; Warsaw University’s medal; Italy’s Premio Feronia for distinguished world author; India’s civilian honour Padma Bhūshan; the Senior Fellowship of India’s Academy of Letters; and the Jnānpīth, India’s highest literary award. A reclusive presence, he has always published selectively.
Apurva Narain
Kunwar Narain’s son and translator into English, Apurva’s book of translations No Other World was published from India and England. His new volume of poetry translations, and a co-translated book of short stories, are due soon. His work has appeared in several literary journals. Educated in India and at the University of Cambridge, he also consults in the international development area, and has had interests in ecology, public health and ethics. Widely traveled, he writes in English.
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John Vater
John holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. He lived in India while researching Hindi literature as a Fulbright-Nehru Student Scholar, and in 2018 was selected as an emerging translator from the US to attend the Banff International Literary Translation Centre residency in Canada. His translations have appeared in Ploughshares, Words Without Borders, and The Asia Literary Review and Exchanges. He currently works as a Research Associate at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) in Singapore.
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