73 pages • 2 hours read
Indra SinhaAnimal's People
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Tapes 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Tape 7 Summary
Animal dreams about Zafar struggling to bear the burden of the world on his back. Zafar continues to annoy him by “giving me chances to prove what a good-hearted trustworthy guy I was” (83). As Zafar gives him more and more important tasks, Animal performs them “with greater and greater contempt” (83).
At one of their meetings, Nisha brings a woman whose husband had worked at the factory and never recovered from illnesses sustained from the chemicals. The family grew poorer and poorer before the husband finally passed away. Now the woman is being harassed by a moneylender who has taken her belongings and continues to send men to frighten her into repaying her debts. Nisha weeps hearing the story, for the woman is Hindi and her husband was Muslim, just like Nisha and Zafar. The group collects a large sum of money for the woman, and Animal and Farouq take it to the moneylender.
On the way, Farouq teases Animal about his lust for Elli and Nisha and accuses him of claiming to be an animal so he doesn’t have to follow the “laws of society” (87). Animal explains that Farouq doesn’t understand that “when I say I’m an animal it’s not just what I look like but what I feel” (87). He also says Farouq is a hypocrite for visiting brothels. He explains that Farouq, a “roughneck” (88), has an uncle who is “a big gangster in Khaufpur” (88). Farouq helps Zafar and Nisha in their work because Zafar had helped his father receive medical treatment. Farouq often brags about walking across hot coals each year during Muharram. When Animal tells Farouq it isn’t so hard, Farouq bets he can’t do it himself. Animal accepts the bet.
The moneylender is unhappy to be paid back because now he won’t earn interest. Animal demands the moneylender give him a receipt; the moneylender responds by criticizing his attitude, threatening to beat him, and bringing two sidekicks from the back. Farouq agrees with the moneylender that Animal is disrespectful but insists if the moneylender hurts Animal, he will be forced to break his legs. When Farouq tells them who his uncle is, the moneylender gives them the receipt and promises to return the woman’s belongings. On the way back, Animal admires Farouq for his tough talk. Farouq tells Animal “you might be an okay guy, if you weren’t such a cunt” (91).
Tape 8 Summary
Elli invites Animal into her building to hear her play piano. Animal’s voices make vulgar remarks to him, and he orders them to be quiet. He finds the knowledge that he’s seen her secretly naked a “[d]irty little thrill” (94).Elli tells him she began playing piano when her mother grew ill and no longer could play. Animal probes her for questions about her past; she tells him she’s from Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Animal goes with Nisha to look Elli up on the “internest”; they had heard a rumor that she had worked in a hospital for veterans, but they are unable to find information about her. Nisha then looks up Khaufpur. Animal, who has never seen a computer before, is fascinated that the internet knows so much.
Later, Zafar insists everyone needs to boycott the clinic, which he’s convinced is connected to the Kampani. Somraj disagrees. That night, Animal finds Ma Franci raving about “The Apokalis”; Animal lights a fire and cooks for her. A few days later, Ma receives a letter: a priest is coming to send her back to France. Animal is devastated. Ma is the “old woman who calls [him] son” and “the only mother [he’s] known” (103).
One day, walking through Paradise Alley, Animal overhears Elli complaining to a government doctor about the people’s unsanitary living conditions. Looking around and “seeing it all as she does” (106), Animal suddenly realizes “how poor and disgusting are our lives” (106).
Animal follows as they encounter a young mother who tells them the poison is “in the soil, water, in our blood, it’s in our milk” (108) and that she refuses to feed her baby poison. The government doctor calls her statements “rumours” and “fairytales” (107). Animal runs to a shop to buy milk but is two rupees short. When Elli and the government doctor join him, he tells Elli that Zahreel Khan, Minister of Poison Relief, made himself vomit up a glass of well water when no one was looking. Elli pays the two rupees.
At Nisha’s, Animal challenges Zafar about the boycott, insisting Elli is “on our side” (111). Zafar reminds them what happened with “thighs-of-fate”—or Sodium Thiosulphate, a drug that improved survivors’ health until the Kampani ordered the Chief Minister to stop administering it. The group discusses how politicians have “been in the Kampani’s pocket from the beginning” (112) and how the Chief Minister is “waiting for all us victims to die” (112).
The conversation turns to sex. Zafar claims sex among the poor is better because the poor live in close quarters and the need for quiet is erotic. Animal again challenges him. Zafar annoys him by finding ways to make Animal’s counterclaims prove his own argument.
Tape 9 Summary
Animal decides to climb the frangipani tree outside Nisha’s window to see what she and Zafar do in her bedroom. He convinces himself he has a moral duty to help her “save her chastity for marriage” (115). He finds Nisha alone in her room; he watches her undress even though he has no reason to be up there now that he has ensured “her honour” (117). He worries he won’t be able to face her the next day, but “it really is not that difficult” (117). He continues to watch her from the tree. Even on nights when Zafar joins her, he does not catch them engaging in sexual activity.
Animal seeks out his scam-artist friend Faqri. He finds him in the middle of the “bird-shit scam” and recalls times he himself was arrested and beaten for performing such scams. Faqri now has a “shop,” or a roadside display of pills and powders. Animal purchases a large quality of pills that will make Zafar too sick to “get sexy” (123) with a woman.
A “big democracy”—in which, according to Animal, people debate, argue, and then do “what Zafar wants” (123)—is held in Somraj’s music room so people can discuss whether to boycott the clinic. Somraj and his friends believe there is “no proof” (125) that Elli is working with the Kampani and that “[t]he clinic is much needed” (125). Zafar believes Khaufpur has learned “that you don’t wait to be harmed before you take action to protect” (126). He is concerned that the people are close to winning compensation and that they should “dare not put that at risk” (126). Somraj, though he doesn’t support the boycott, reluctantly agrees not to oppose it.
At the end of the meeting, Animal brings Zafar some tea with one of Faqri’s pills in it. Over the next few days, Zafar continues to feel ill. Nisha tells Animal stress is making Zafar sick.
At the clinic’s opening ceremony, Zahreel Khan, the Minister for Poison Relief, attempts to give a speech praising Elli but is interrupted by Zafar and others. They ask who is funding the clinic and whether they will collect information. Elli attempts to allay their fears but falters when the people begin chanting, “Kampani out! Kampani out!” (132). That night, from the frangipani tree, Animal hears Elli playing piano; Somraj stands outside listening. Animal imagines Elli trying to sleep, “thrilled and terrified by what’s ahead” (132).
Tapes 7-9 Analysis
The irony of Animal’s insistence that he is not human is that he often demonstrates remarkable humanity, both in his actions and in his perception. He tells Farouq that he calls himself Animal because it is “what I feel” (87); he lets little Aliya ride him like “a donkey” (101). However, he helps Ma Franci when she is ill, rushing home so he can bundle her in a blanket, light a fire, and procure food for her, despite having no money. Upon hearing Ma Franci is going to be sent back to France, he is devastated. After witnessing the young mother expressing milk onto the ground because she doesn’t want to poison her baby, he without hesitation runs to purchase milk with his own money. Animal’s keen insight into people’s thoughts and motives further show him to be particularly attuned. For instance, he tells Zafar he knows Elli is “on our side” (111) because he’s “read her feelings” (111). Though he rejects Animal’s argument, even Zafar must acknowledge that Animal is “special [and] we all know it” (111).
Zafar’s resistance to Animal’s assurance that Elli’s intentions are noble demonstrates that Zafar is not as perfect as he seems. Though Zafar appears open-minded, Animal snidely observes that their “democracy” meetings always end with the people doing “what Zafar wants” (123). Their conversation about sex in Tape 8, in which Zafar goes to great lengths to defend his assertion that poor sex is best, shows him to be stubborn in his thinking. These cracks in his logic detract from his credibility.
Though Zafar has dedicated his life to helping the poor, his inflexibility brings potentially devastating consequences. His skepticism of Elli Barber inspires him to call for a boycott of her clinic, preventing people from receiving free care they desperately need. His refusal to consider the relief of his people borders on cold: when Animal tells him people “are all crying out for treatment” (111), Zafar replies that “[s]ometimes it’s necessary to do a painful thing” (111). Zafar slips yet again when, as the group watches a show about a horserace, he asks Animal, “Shall we photograph your gallop?” (115). Though Zafar apologizes, Animal notes that “even Saint Zafar forgets himself and stumbles” (115), thus showing “himself human” (115). Animal’s sensitivity to the suffering of the people and his awareness of human imperfection shows that he is perhaps more attuned to humanity even than Zafar.
Zafar’s skepticism is not, of course, unjustified. Time and time again, their government has failed to protect them against an American company indifferent to the suffering it has caused. Zafar and his friends exhibit understandable anger at a company that has bribed and threatened their politicians into doing its bidding. Animal describes to Elli how Zahreel Khan drank a glass of well water to prove to journalists it was safe, then stuck “two fingers down his throat” (110) when he thought no one was looking. An attendee at a meeting recalls how politicians “would ride in Kampani limos” (112), showing themselves to be “in the Kampani’s pockets” (112). The death and suffering in their community and the callousness with which they are treated inspires one meeting attendee to ask, “Zafar brother, why do they hate us people so much?” (113). Just as the factory is a symbol of ongoing suffering, the Kampani is a symbol of the rich and powerful, who exploit the vulnerable for their bottom line. The people’s experiences with the Kampani and with the politicians who are in its pockets make them wary of Elli, who only realizes at the opening ceremony what an uphill battle she must climb to gain their trust.
