I am a master in India

Chapter 180 A Garden Full of Beasts
Kana is a small village under Mirzabur, a land of fertile soil and abundant resources.

Everywhere you look, there are lush green rice paddies, golden waves of wheat, and clear ponds.

The pond was full of lotus roots and water lilies, and water buffaloes trod through the muddy banks, chewing on lotus leaves.

Outside the village flows a small river, a tributary of the Ganges. Every week, boats sail down the river, bringing various daily necessities from the outside world.

There is also a small street in the village, which is divided in two by a dark drainage ditch.

A small market was built on the silt on both sides of the drainage ditch, with two or three small shops inside, all of which looked pretty much the same.

The same goes for the goods they sell: substandard old rice, cooking oil, kerosene, cigarettes, and palm sugar.

At the end of the market stands a conical tower with its exterior painted with whitewash.

The village lacks everything except lime.

Even the stone slabs around the tower were covered with lime powder, and at a slightly higher point, intertwined black snakes were painted.

This is the village temple, which houses a crimson half-human, half-monkey creature, the monkey god Hanuman.

He was Rama's most faithful servant and the supreme god worshipped by everyone in the village.

Hanuman, the monkey god, set an example for the villagers by serving his master with absolute loyalty, love, and dedication.

Indeed, the people in this village are born servants, and they have been burdened by the lowest caste for generations.

The lush green wheat fields belonged to the landlords, and the golden waves of wheat had nothing to do with them. They weren't even allowed to bathe in the clear pond.

"Muna! You little rascal, you're slacking off again!" The tea shop owner smacked the boy on the head with a large ladle.

Muna jolted awake, snapping his gaze away from the pond and running around the table while begging for mercy.

He had no choice but to run; wherever the spoon touched, the scalding syrup would leave its mark on him.

His ears and arms were already covered in small white spots from the burns; people who didn't know better might have thought he had vitiligo or some other skin disease.

"Sir, look, there's a new movie!" Muna, quick-witted, pointed to the bicycle that was wobbling towards them from outside.

A cardboard sign was tied to the back of the bicycle, bearing a brand-new poster of the erotic film "Pink Films".

Hey, we have some new stock!

The tea shop owner arrived at the door, and the rickshaw drivers huddled around him on the back of the rickshaw all stared wide-eyed.

The cyclist rang his bell enthusiastically and circled the teahouse three times.

The tea shop is the activity center of this village, and buses from the town stop in front of it every day at noon.

When the police come to the village to cause trouble for people, they also park their jeeps here.

In every village in Uttar Pradesh, there is a similar teahouse.

In the north, the poor drink tea, while the rich drink coffee. In the south, the poor drink coffee, while the rich drink tea.

Of course, erotic films are also an indispensable part of rural life in northern China.

What kind of traditional Indian village is it if it doesn't have a theater that shows erotic films?
There's a small cinema across the river that shows this kind of movie every night.

They were all long, two-and-a-half-hour-long, flashy feature films.

Titles like "He's a Real Man," "Who Moved Her Diary," and "The Good Deeds of Uncle" are particularly easy to remember!
The villagers are illiterate and can't remember complicated names.

Take this poster on the bicycle, for example.

Hmm, is it hard to get close to the mother?
Everyone, from the tea shop owner to the rickshaw puller, and even the young Muna, had that word pop into their heads.

This doesn't mean they knew those words, nor did it mean that the Mother of Difficulty appeared to them and silently recited her name in their hearts.

It was the woman on the poster who looked very much like Durga in the temple.

Muna recognized it immediately; there was a Temple of the Mother of Difficulty in the town, which his mother had taken him to when he was a child.

However, this difficult mother was special; her sari was soaked.

Mura heard heavy breathing and turned his head. The tea shop owner was staring intently at the poster, as if he had secretly eaten some syrup from his spoon and was desperately thirsty.

The rickshaw pullers outside weren't doing much better, constantly scratching their ears and groins.

"It's hard to get close to Mother," someone murmured, almost groaning.

Boom! It felt as if a fire had been lit in everyone's heart, and their faces turned bright red.

They stopped the cyclist and bombarded him with questions about when the movie would be shown and how much a ticket cost.

Tickets for these new movies are usually more expensive than those for old movies that have been shown countless times.

Sure enough, the cyclist made a gesture, which immediately drew a barrage of criticism.

"8 rupees! I didn't earn that much all day!"

"too expensive!"

“I bought a ticket for only 5 rupees last night.”

Muna sighed as well; the price made him hesitate.

He only earned 6 rupees a day, which he gave all to his grandmother. He didn't have a single pais for pocket money.

While the tea shop owner was asking about the movie, Muna was also staring intently at the poster.

Unable to afford a ticket, I can only admire her graceful figure to relieve my longing.

The curves beneath the wet saris captivated the eyes of everyone, including the tea drinkers.

"Beep beep!" A car is driving by.

The cyclists who had been gathered around the bicycle poster dispersed and then automatically formed a line under the shade of the canopy.

It was an Ambassador car, covered in dust. The rearview mirror glass was missing, and the front bumper was making a constant rattling sound.

The sound made the drivers uneasy, their faces filled with fear. Sitting in the carriage was Honey Badger, short and stout, impassive, with a pistol tucked into his waistband.

Honey Badger is one of the landowners in Kanah Village. He is greedy and cunning.

He exploited all the rickshaw drivers and controlled the roads. If you made a living on the roads, you had to pay him a share.

The rickshaw pullers in the teahouse, who pull the rickshaws for passengers getting off the bus, each receive a third of their earnings.

The honey badger's brother, Raven, was also sitting in the car.

His territory was a small hill nearby, covered in loose stones, unsuitable for farming. But the sheep loved to graze on the grass on the slope.

Shepherds grazing their flocks there also had to pay him a toll. If anyone refused, the crows would knock a hole in his back with a pointed stick, and that's how he got his nickname.

These two beasts live in a high-walled compound outside the village of Kana; they have their own estate. They rarely come out except to collect money.

The drivers lined up to pay, no one complained or expressed dissatisfaction, and everyone wore a fawning smile.

The honey badger is ruthless; those with meager incomes and meager contributions to the household register will be subjected to his scolding and cursing.

Muna turned back to the tea shop, picked up a large lump of coal from the corner, and smashed it with a brick, smashing it again and again, until the coal was broken into pieces.

His father used to be a rickshaw puller, but he couldn't stand the exploitation by the honey badgers and left the village.

Many men in the village also left. There was no other way; the landlord wouldn't leave, so they had to go.

Those two beasts will squeeze every last drop of profit out of the village, until they've drained it clean.

With nowhere else to turn, the villagers have no choice but to go to other places to make a living. Every year, they gather outside the tea shop to wait for the bus.

As soon as the bus arrived, they rushed on, squeezing into the carriage, holding tightly to the handrails, and climbing onto the roof, all the way to Varanasi.

Once there, they swarmed into the train station, squeezed onto the train, climbed onto the roof, and headed to Lucknow and New Delhi to find work to make a living.

A month before the rainy season, they all returned from New Delhi and Lucknow.

He became thinner and darker, and his once bloated belly was now filled with anger again, but he had a few more coins in his pocket.

The women waited for them at home, hiding behind the door. As soon as the men entered, they would jump out and shout.

Like a wildcat spotting a large lump of meat, the woman excitedly pounded on the man, wailing and screaming.

Those were also Muna's happiest times. He would run to his father, climb onto his back, and stroke his body, from his forehead to his neck.

Muna's father gradually became overworked and hunched over, and it wasn't always easy for him to find work outside.

He could only keep pedaling, pedaling to Lucknow, pedaling to New Delhi.

He was as thin as a rake, leaning forward off the seat and pedaling desperately.

At this point, the back seat of the car might be carrying a middle-class mountain of flesh and his mountain-of-flesh wife, along with a whole bunch of shopping bags.

His father was like a two-legged mule, as thin as a reed stick.

Then one day the mule vomited blood, and they had no money for treatment. Muna went to beg two beasts for help, but it was no use.

Beasts don't do unprofitable business; they know the mule will die and the high-interest loans they've made will never be recovered.

The mule could only continue vomiting blood, mouthful after mouthful, until it died.

Muna resented the beasts, but he knew how to hide himself and would even eavesdrop on their conversations.

"What do they say in Lucknow?" It was the honey badger's voice.

"Those bastards sold us out! A whole mountain, and a mine!" The crow's voice sounded angry and ashamed.

"Give them some more money; those guys' appetites are getting bigger and bigger."

"It's no use. The Varanasi people want to build a cement plant here; they've taken kickbacks from the bank."

"How much?" the honey badger asked.

“Many more than us…”

Muna didn't hear clearly because the crow lowered its voice.

"In short, I will not give up this territory; it is my property!"

The crow was furious, but Muna was secretly delighted.

The nearby hills are all crow territory, some used for grazing and others for mining.

The lime water used for the village temple came from there.

When villagers build houses, they also like to apply a layer of white lime to the mud walls, so that they look like brick walls in the city from a distance.

But the crow wouldn't allow it. Whenever he found someone's wall covered in lime, he would go and collect a share, even if the lime wasn't dug from his territory.

Muna rarely saw crows get their comeuppance, which made him much stronger when he was breaking coal.

"Muna, let's go see a movie tonight!" Raja arrived outside the teahouse.

"Where did you get the ticket?" Muna stood up in surprise.

“Grandma believed in Nankinmu the most. I told her that I was going to pray to Nankinmu to bless Lina so that she could marry into a good family. She gave me money and told me not to forget to do Puja.”

Raja is Muna's older brother and is of marriageable age. However, before that, their cousin Lina must get married first.

According to traditional Indian family customs, Raja had to hand over all his earnings before marriage.

However, today is an exception. Films telling the story of the mother of the difficult woman are a sacred thing for rural people.

Raja successfully tricked Grandma into giving him the money for two movie tickets. He had just finished working in the fields and couldn't wait to find Muna.

"Hurry up, it's getting dark, we need to grab a good spot," Raja urged his brother.

The tea shop closed early today; the owner also loves watching these kinds of movies.

(End of this chapter)