73 pages • 2 hours read
Animal's People
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Themes
Humanity and Humanness
Animal’s People argues that differentiation exists between the true definition of “human” and society’s definition thereof. Animal believes his walking on four feet disqualifies him from humanity; throughout the novel, Animal holds that he calls himself “Animal” because it is “not just what I look like but what I feel” (87). He defines himself as an animal “because others […] treated me like one” (209). He consistently denies his humanness, beginning in Tape 3 when he tells Zafar, “I’m not a fucking human being” (23). He says “[t]he world of humans is meant to be viewed from eye level” (2), and that he himself “used to be human once” (1).
Just as Animal feels less-than-human because he is not easily accommodated by the “world of humans,” his people—the poor, the ill, the non-Western—are dehumanized in a world whose systems benefit the rich and powerful. Their humanness is denied by the Kampani and even by their own government, which, according to Nisha, is “supposed to protect us [but] manipulates the law against us” (284). The dehumanization of the people is exemplified in the discussion of “thighs-of-fate,” or Sodium Thiosulphate, in which Zafar reminds his friends that the Kampani, to conceal the knowledge “that the illnesses could pass to future generations” (112), had ordered the Chief Minister to stop the administering of the life-saving drug to the people, thus actively bringing about the people’s deaths to preserve their bottom line. Elli witnesses the government’s indifference firsthand when she visits the office of the Minister for Poison Relief, where she finds thousands of files stacked in corners and the Minister asleep in his office.
Perhaps nowhere is the dehumanization of the poor more blatant than in a conversation Elli describes to Animal, in which a doctor friend tells her to “[l]et go” (152) of that night and that “[t]hose poor people never had a chance” (153) because “[i]f it had not been the factory it would have been cholera, TB, exhaustion, hunger” (153). That “facts,” he says, are that the victims “would have died anyway” (153). The doctor’s comments suggest that the victims are not important in society, are less than human; humanness is determined by circumstance, and as a result, their lives don’t matter. In this way, Animal’s early remarks about how people like the journalist see his people as “[e]xtras […] in his movie” (9) are confirmed. The point is reiterated when “the buffalo,” the head American lawyer, tells Zafar that his wealth and success mean he doesn’t “have to spend time justifying” (307) his harmful actions to the people.
These narrow definitions of humanity fail to capture the humanness of those they exclude. Animal’s narration is replete with tender examples of humanity. He describes how Ma Franci and Huriya, though they do not understand each other’s languages, sit chatting around the tea kettle in perfect joy and comfort. People of different religions gather during Muharram to pray and watch the coal walkers. Animal himself exhibits selflessness and kindness with Ma Franci as she descends into madness. He philosophizes with Zafar and Somraj about the connection between music and promises. He wrestles with his conscience, and he muses on the distinctions between lust and love. Further, his friends frequently reject his animal identity. Huriya scolds Aliya for asking to ride his back. Zafar, on his hunger strike, says Animal “pretend[s]” to be an animal (301). Even Farouq, Animal’s nemesis, insists Animal has no need to be an animal anymore because he’s “well enough looked after now” (209).
Indeed, as the novel progresses, Animal’s actions suggest that he himself does not fully believe he is an animal. By identifying as an animal he guards himself against rejection from society that dehumanizes him; he resorts to his animalness at the times when humanity disappoints him the most—or when he most fears being disappointed. When Elli’s suggestion that she can heal his back inspires hope in him, he falls onto the floor and scratches himself like an animal. When Nisha rejects his proposal, he sheds his clothes and runs into the forest to live in his “true state,” as an “animal returning to its truly [sic] home” (342). Interestingly, while in the forest, in his drug-induced hallucination, he apologizes to a lizard for hurting him. The lizard’s response—“You are human, if you were an animal you would have eaten me” (346)—seems an admission of Animal’s belief in his humanness.
Animal’s decision in Tape 23 to not undergo surgery and to remain four-footed forever is affirmation that one’s humanness is defined by one’s heart and not by society. Ultimately, to Animal, humanness is defined not by whether he walks upright but by the joy of his experiences. The novel thus suggests that one’s humanness is separate from whether one is accepted into humanity. Who, it asks, gets to be defined as “human”? Animal, as well as the people he represents, defies society’s definition of “human” and finds humanness within himself.
The Powerless and the Powerful
The battle between the Khaufpuris and the Kampani is representative of the larger theme of the exploitation of the powerless by the powerful. The day of the factory riot, Animal looks to the sky and sees “placid clouds drifting across the sky” (310). The sight unnerves him, for it shows him that “[o]utside of ourselves nothing cares” (310). Though the people suffer terribly, those responsible for their suffering are oblivious, or worse, indifferent. That the despairing people riot beneath a calm, cheerful sky is representative of how the Kampani goes on with its business, despite its victims’ squalor and pain.
Power in Animal’s People is often determined by money. Many Khaufpuris don’t have enough money for food or for the medicines they need to cure the illnesses they’ve suffered since that night. Activists like Zafar and Somraj run organizations to supply what help they can. Some Khaufpuris, like Animal, rely on scams or begging to survive. The people have grown accustomed to their poverty. When Elli expresses shock “[t]hat people tolerate it” (151), Animal replies, “Don’t be angry with the poor [….] Since when did they have the power to change anything?” (151).
The Kampani, on the other hand, “does what it wants and no one can say anything to it” (137). It “has everything on its side, money, powerful friends in the government and military, expensive lawyers, political masseurs, public relations men” (54). For eighteen years, the people have fruitlessly tried to force the Kampani to “pay proper compensation to those whose loved ones it killed, whose health it ruined, plus it should clean the factory and compensate the people who had been drinking its poisons” (33). Furthermore, the hospitals have failed to provide adequate free care, and “politicians [have] been in the Kampani’s pockets” (112).
Early in the novel, Zafar explains that though the people themselves “have no money for lawyer and PR, and [they] have no influential friends” (54), their having nothing makes them “invincible,” for “[h]aving nothing means [they] have nothing to lose” (54). However, as the novel progresses, even Zafar begins to grow frustrated, and Animal suspects his hunger strike is a way for him to stop fighting with honor. When Zafar dreams about the powerful company, he wakes up in despair, for “how can he win against such a foe?” (229). Despite the protests and riots, at the end of the novel, with the hearing is delayed yet again, the people are no further in their quest for justice than they had been in the beginning, suggesting that ultimately, the anger and passion of the people is not enough to enact justice against the wealthy and well-connected.
Love
The desire for sex overwhelms Animal at times, and he fixates on it almost constantly, describing the voices that whisper crude sexual jokes in his ear and the readiness of his own anatomy. He wonders if, with his injury and appearance, he will ever have sex. Love, on the other hand, is “different and more difficult” (46) and “has nothing to do with sex” (46). As opposed to lust, love happens slowly, when “[y]ou’re not even thinking about romance” (46). One begins to find beauty and comfort in the small details of a woman’s face, even if one previously thought her “plain” (46).
Love, in Animal’s view, can make people do incredible things. In his musings on the similarities between musical notes and promises, Animal determines love to be the reason “why people keep their promises” (251). Animal decides to walk over the coals during Muharram to impress Nisha. Elli’s father worked in the “hell hole” of the steel mill, willingly greeting “such danger every day out of love for her” (218). Love binds Animal to Ma Franci, for whom he learns French and whom he returns to take care of, despite valuing his freedom.
Simultaneously, however, the brain of “[a] creature in love […] is fully fucked” (214). It is love for Nisha that compels him to poison Zafar, a man for whom he feels great contempt for and frustration toward but whom he admits he might otherwise respect, saying, “[I]f I did not hate you I would love you” (212). Love for Nisha inspires him to ask the doctor in the hospital whether his back can ever be cured; though he usually shuns hope, seeking to avoid the disappointment it inevitably brings, he states the desire to walk upright has grown more and more unbearable “[e]ver since I realised my feelings for Nisha” (57). Finally, when he learns Elli was married to the American lawyer, he decides to keep this knowledge a secret, for if Elli returns to America, she can’t help him with his back, thereby ensuring he could never marry Nisha.
Despite its hardships and disappointments, and despite his uncertainty whether he ever can attain it, Animal continues to see love as a positive force, and it ultimately makes him a more sensitive, complex person. When Zafar is dying, he feels Nisha’s pain; when he finally accepts Zafar and Nisha’s marriage, “a great peace enters [his] heart” (358). Love has the power to heal and soothe; it is “sweeter by far” (72) than sex.
Western Paternalism and Exploitation of the “Other”
Western paternalism and the subjugation of the “other” is not exhibited solely by the American lawyers who, rather than commit to remedying the environmental disaster that has destroyed so many lives, hand the townspeople money and tell them, “[b]uy yourself something nice” (307). Early in the novel, Animal expresses irritation with foreigners who unwittingly exploit his people. He is wary of the Australian journalist, who “like all the others” (5) desires to “suck our stories from us” (5) so his readers can “marvel there’s so much pain in the world” (5). He believes they pretend to care about them and then “forget them,” for his people, in Western eyes, “don’t have names” (9) and “are not really people” (9). Foreigners cannot, he states, understand his people: “Have these thousands of eyes slept even one night in a place like this?” (7). He resents that his people’s suffering is the vehicle through which Westerners feel content in their own privilege, that they see his people through their own experiences, as if their “eyes were buttons and mine were buttonholes” (4).
Even Elli, despite her sacrifices and her good intentions, cannot fully understand the people’s experiences. Hearing Elli describe his beloved Paradise Alley as “an earthquake” (106), he looks around to see that it is actually “a wreckage of baked earth mounds and piles of planks” (106), rather than a place comparable to the Champs-Elysées. When Animal takes her to the poorest parts of Khaufpur, Elli expresses frustration that the people refuse free treatment. She is appalled by his living conditions, exclaiming, “Oh poor Animal, what a life!” (184). Animal tells her he is not disgusted with his home—“wherever a person lives is normal to them” (183)—but rather by the condescension of foreigners, who offer “that so-soft expression” (184) and “speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice” (184). Elli’s lack of understanding of why they “put up with so much” (151) shows that she, too, looks at the Khaufpuris through privileged Western eyes.
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