Children of the Apokalis

Playful, pitiless and moving, Animal's People stands as a testament to the courage and resilience of India's poor

Indra Sinha
ANIMAL'S PEOPLE
374pp. Simon & Schuster. £11.99
9780 7432 5920 0

Animal's people are "the people of the Apokalis", the maimed inhabitants of Khaufpur, the site of an American-owned chemical plant which leaked poisonous gases into the city's streets sixteen years ago. Animal lost his parents on what is known as "That Night", and he bears its legacy in the twisted spine that has earned him his name. Deformed by the poisons that still taint soil, air and water, he goes about on all fours and denies his human status. Disabled and orphaned he may be, but there is nothing of the victim about this particular quadruped. Animal is not to be pitied.

After years of hustles and scams, he has found regular employment as a spy, "jamisponding" (one of the novel's delights come from Animal's mangled appropriations of Western phrases; he is regularly to be found surfing the "internest", for example) for Zafar, a highborn local who is determined to assist the sick slum-dwellers in their fight for justice. Although he is keenly aware of the sufferings of his neighbbours, Animal's intrinsic good-heartedness pulls against his baser urges – indeed, it is the demands of his lund, an awesome tool by all accounts, that drives the plot, setting into motion a chain of lies and deceit that will not end until the Apokalis descends on Khaufpur once again. The furious precision of Indra Sinha's descriptions of That Night and its aftermath cannot help but recall events in Bhopal in 1984.

On that night it was a river of people, some in their underwear, others in nothing at all, they were staggering like it was the end of some big race, falling down not getting up again, at Rani Hira Pati ka Mahal, the road was covered with dead bodies.

By inventing a fictional twin to the still beleaguered city of Bhopal, Sinha is free to heap scorn on the machinations of the "Amrikan Kampani" and the collusive Indian Government alike.

The introduction of Elli, an Amrikan doctor who has a vocation to heal Khaufpur's sick, allows Sinha to take a more subtle strike at the might of the West. Seeing his beloved city through Elli's eyes, Animal realises the wryly named Paradise Alley is "covered in shit and plastic. Truly I see how poor and disgusting are our lives". But Elli's desire to exchange "the whole hateful middle-class flapdoodle" of her life in the United States for the slums of Khaufpur questions the relative meaning of poverty. They may lack sufficient food and medicine, but in terms of friendship, culture, spirituality and, above all, language, the Khaufpuris are wealthier than Elli.

It is language that is the real hero of this Man Booker-shortlisted novel. The polyglot Animal communicates in an exhilarating torrent of words, a ridddling rush of English, French, Hindi, poems, puns, scatologically infected taunts and curses. His own uncanny ability to hear the thoughts of all creatures gives speech to insects, unborn foetuses and the dead. The effect is glorious. If the status of our humanity depends on our ability to communicate, then Animal's tongue belies the name he bears. At once playful, pitiless and moving, Animal's People stands as a testament to the courage and resilience of India's poor.

 

 

• Print
• Email
• Post to del.icio.us
• Post to newsvine
• Post to Yahoo!
• Post to Digg