Free Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh Page B

them all, defeating the local pehlwans and strongmen with ease. The young landlords earned a good profit and Kalua was soon in possession of his reward. But once having gained his ox-cart, Kalua showed no further inclination to fight – which was scarcely a surprise, for he was, as everyone knew, of a shy, timid and peaceable disposition and had no greater ambition than to make a living by transporting goods and people in his cart. But Kalua could not escape his fame: word of his deeds soon filtered through to the august ears of His Highness, the Maharaja of Benares, who expressed a desire to see the strongman of Ghazipur pitted against the champion of his own court.
    Kalua demurred at first, but the landlords wheedled, cajoled and finally threatened to confiscate his cart and oxen, so to Benares theywent and there, on the great square in front of the Ramgarh Palace, Kalua suffered his first defeat, being knocked unconscious within a few minutes of the bout’s start. The Maharaja, watching in satisfaction, remarked that the outcome was proof that wrestling was a trial not just of strength, but also of intelligence – and in the latter field Ghazipur could scarcely hope to challenge Benares. All Ghazipur was humbled and Kalua came home in disgrace.
    But not long afterwards, stories began to blow back that gave a different accounting of Kalua’s defeat. It was said that on taking Kalua to Benares, the three young landlords, being seized by the licentious atmosphere of the city, had decided that it would be excellent sport to couple Kalua with a woman. They had invited some friends and taken bets: could a woman be found who would bed this giant of a man, this two-legged beast? A well-known baiji, Hirabai, was hired and brought to the kotha where the landlords were staying. There, with a select audience watching from the shelter of a marbled screen, Kalua had been led into her presence wearing nothing but a langot of white cotton around his waist. What had Hirabai expected? No one knew – but when she saw Kalua, she was rumoured to have screamed: This animal should be mated with a horse, not a woman. . .
    It was this humiliation, people said, that cost Kalua the fight at Ramgarh Palace. Thus went the story that was told in the galis and ghats of Ghazipur.
    It so happened that of all the people who could vouch for the truth of this tale, Deeti herself was one. This is how it came about: one night, after serving her husband his meal, Deeti had discovered that she had run short of water; to leave the dishes unwashed overnight was to invite an invasion of ghosts, ghouls and hungry pishaches. No matter: it was a bright, full-moon night and the Ganga was but a short walk away. Balancing a pot on her hip, she made her way through the waist-high poppies towards the silver gleam of the river. Just as she was about to step out of the poppy field, on to the treeless bank of sand that flanked the water, she heard the sound of hoofs, some distance away: looking to her left, in the direction of Ghazipur, she saw, in the light of the moon, four men on horses, trotting towards her.
    A man on a horse never meant anything but trouble for a lone woman, and where there were four, riding together, the signs of danger were all too clear: Deeti lost no time in hiding herself among the poppies. When the horsemen had approached a little, she saw that she had been mistaken in thinking that they were four in number: there were only three mounted men; the fourth was following on foot. She took this last man to be a groom but when the men had come closer still, she saw that the fourth man had a halter around his neck and was being led like a horse. It was his size that had caused her to mistake him for a horseman: she saw that he was none other than Kalua. Now she recognized the horsemen too, for their faces were well known to everyone in Ghazipur: they were the three sport-loving landowners. She heard one of them call out to the others