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 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Tape 10 Summary
When Elli opens the clinic the first day, she is disappointed that no one is waiting. All around the neighborhood, people whisper that they need care and that they “hope Zafar brother knows what he is doing” (135). Animal watches her open the clinic each morning. One day she asks him to come in so she can examine his back. Animal at first refuses—“Angry I’m with Zafar, I like Elli doctress, but I guess as things are I should not be seen talking to her” (135)—but eventually follows her inside. He is seething in his resentment for Zafar, as the people are suffering terribly but are willing to sacrifice relief for his “mad paranoia” (135). Zafar, says Animal, is “without any proof” (136) that Elli is working for the Kampani and is “making the people suffer for nothing” (136). Animal states that the Kampani, which “does what it wants and no one can say anything to it” (137), is “stronger and cleverer” (136) than Zafar.
Elli leads him into an office. Animal is surprised to see Khã-in-the-Jar from the hospital. Khã tells Animal that the hospital learned nothing from him and asks that Animal “[b]reak the jar, with fire destroy us” (138) so they can be “free” (138). Khã begins a cryptic explanation of who he is, saying he is “the egg of nature, which ignorant and arrogant men have spoiled” (139). He tells Animal that just as he has two heads, there are two of Animal: the second Animal rises “at the point where your back bends” (139) and “stands upright and tall” (139).
Elli examines Animal. Aroused by her nearness, he at first resists undressing. As she presses her fingers to his back, she asks him what doctors have told him, tells him that “[d]octors aren’t always right” (140), and that sometimes you need even a “ninth opinion” (140). When she takes Animal’s chin in her hands and tells him to trust her, Animal suffers a breakdown: he grabs Jara, bares his teeth, rolls around on the ground, and scratches himself.
Running out the door, he encounters Dayanand the manager, who tells him he believes Somraj is behind the boycott and that “Elli madam hates that Kampani worse than they do” (141). Animal is traumatized by something he “hardly dare admit to myself” (141), which is that Elli had inspired a “terrifying thought” (141): it is “the wild, stupid, unforgivable hope that she might cure me” (141).
Tape 11 Summary
A priest arrives to escort Ma Franci to France, and Animal is distraught, for Ma Franci is one of the “[f]ew people in the world I love” (142). The priest tells her about the wonderful convent they want to send her to and all the nuns she will have to speak with there. Ma says her home is where she is and that she has her “son Animal to look after me” (143). However, she packs a bag with her few belongings and asks everyone to leave her to pray. After visits from Huriya, her granddaughter Aliya, and others, she manages to escape. Later, Animal finds Ma at Huriya’s house.
Many people desperately need medical care but resist going to Elli’s clinic because they heard she works for the Kampani. A man named Shambhu can barely breathe; his wife wants to take him to the clinic and states that if he dies, “his death will be on Zafar bhai” (148). When a man with an ulcer tells Zafar of his suffering, Zafar tells him, “Bear it a little more, for all our sakes” (148). He says he himself has not been feeling well, either. Animal is allowed to visit Elli because Zafar believes he’s spying on her.
One day, Animal tells Elli people worry she is collecting data for the Kampani. Shocked, Elli describes the government hurdles she’s overcome to set up her clinic. She also describes an upsetting conversation she’d had with a doctor friend who felt she should not concern herself with the victims of “that night” because they would have died of other ailments anyway. She is frustrated that the people of Khaufpur don’t seem to want any help. She doesn’t understand how the people “tolerate” (151) so much suffering and so many injustices. She says she “felt moved” (154) to help people and “had the skills” (154) to do it.
Animal says she and Dayanand are wrong in their belief that Somraj is behind the boycott; he also reveals that Somraj hears musical notes in frogs’ croaking. The next day, Elli confronts Somraj about his supposed opposition to the clinic. Rather than defend himself, Somraj explains why people are wary of the Kampani and of Americans. Elli denies being affiliated with the Kampani and scolds him for keeping suffering people away from the clinic without even having a conversation with her. After a coughing fit, which Elli says he should let her tend to, Somraj questions why an American woman would give up everything to come here, saying she is either “a saint, or someone with a different purpose” (160). In her anger, she references his comments about frogs. Somraj calmly ends the conversation.
Tape 12 Summary
Outside the clinic, Elli and three employees set up tables where they discuss with people illnesses the Kampani’s chemicals have caused. A few people go inside for treatment. Zafar tells Animal that Elli was seen at Zahreel Khan’s office and that he wants him to find out why she was there. Nisha tells Animal that whenever her father makes music, Elli drowns him out with her piano.
Elli has gathered signatures on a petition to ask Somraj to stop the boycott. Somraj surprises Elli by signing the petition and walking away with a smile. Elli thinks Somraj is mocking her. She tells Animal that every time she plays her piano, Somraj drowns her out with his own music.
Elli describes her meeting with Zahreel Khan. The building has dusty files everywhere, and she is kept waiting for over an hour before discovering him dozing in his chair. Elli asks him why people were staying away; the Minister says Somraj, Zafar, and the others are “[p]rofessional activists” (170). Later, Animal encounters Somraj, who rather than express anger that he’d revealed to Elli his thoughts on frogs, suppresses laughter and invites him to visit.
The next day, while taking an x-ray of his back, Elli asks Animal to take her around the poor areas of the city. He takes her to Huriya’s house first. Elli examines Aliya, who has a troubling cough; she says she has an infection and should be brought to the clinic, but her grandparents refuse, saying they “must do as Zafar asks” (182).
Elli and Animal go from house to house. People ask her to examine sick loved ones but refuse to go to the clinic. Animal says, “I understand because these are my people” (183). Elli shouts, “HEY, ANIMAL’S PEOPLE! I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND YOU!” (183).
Elli is shocked by Animal’s living conditions, saying, “Oh poor Animal, what a life!” (184). Animal says he is not bothered by the house—rather, he is “disgusted” that “outsiders” like Elli “look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice” (184). Elli asks, “Don’t people here deserve respect?” (184).
Animal explains that “people love Zafar because he’s all they have” (185); Elli says she’s there for them, too. Indicating her watch, Animal tells her “[i]n the Kingdom of the Poor, time doesn’t exist” (185) and that it’s always “now-o’clock” (185). Elli says she may not feel their suffering, but they have “simple humanity” (186) in common.
Animal takes her to the factory, where she grows emotional. Animal is desperate to make her feel better, for if she leaves, she can’t cure his back, and if his back is not cured, he can never marry Nisha. He imagines himself walking upright after an operation in America and Nisha falling in love with him. He understands that “these dreams are crap” (187), but with hope, “once it’s there it’s there” (187).
Tapes 10-12 Analysis
These tapes bring to the forefront the question of what constitutes humanity. We are offered several instances of people forming connections despite barriers of religion, language, or social status. Waiting for Ma Franci to finish praying, the priest is “charmed” when “Muslim women in burqas and Hindu women in saris” (144) visit her to say goodbye. Later, Animal discovers Ma chatting warmly with her best friend, Huriya: though they don’t understand each other—Ma talks about how she escaped the priest, while Huriya talks about her husband’s pet birds—they “sit cackling like a pair of old hens” (104), bonding over Huriya’s chai. When Animal tells Elli she can’t understand his people, she responds, “I don’t know what such suffering is like, but it doesn’t mean we’ve nothing in common. There’s simple humanity? Isn’t there?” (186). In describing his makeshift “parlor,” Animal extends his hand to his readers, telling them that “if you ever come to Khaufpur it’s where I’ll sit with you” (144). Despite superficial differences, we are all part of the human family, whether we are Hindu or Muslim, whether we speak Hindi or French, whether we are rich or poor, whether we walk on four legs or two.
Animal’s insistence that he is an animal does not convince Elli, who states, “You’re always saying that. You don’t really believe it” (167). Nor does it convince readers, who can’t help observing his depth. For example, when he imagines Ma Franci going back to France, he describes “what a wound it will leave in my life, sky rent apart, light falling so bright you can hardly look, great sheet of light lying on an ocean” (142). Animal himself says he is a “[c]heap lying bastard” (186) for telling Elli that he “long ago gave up trying to be human” (186). Perhaps nowhere is his animal identity more clearly a façade than in his breakdown in Elli’s office: when talking with Elli inspires in him “the wild, stupid, unforgivable hope that she might cure me” (141), he falls to the floor, scratching himself like a dog. Later, imagining how he will resurface in Khaufpur after surgery in America and win Nisha’s heart, he acknowledges that “these dreams are crap” (187) but such dreams are the result of hope. Identifying as an animal is a defense against hope, which in his eyes has the power only to disappoint.
Elli’s aggrieved exclamation that she doesn’t understand Animal’s people illuminates the origin of the novel’s title by suggesting that Animal represents the Khaufpuris. Just as his bent back seems symbolic of the burden carried by the people, his dehumanization reflects that his people, too, are seen as subhuman and unimportant. Zahreel Khan’s apathy and piles of abandoned medical complaint files offer a clear picture of how little effort is expended to help the suffering people. Khã-in-the-Jar is a physical manifestation of the exploitation of a people who have been sacrificed to protect a corporate bottom line, then propped up to be leered at, to boot. Elli’s conversation with her doctor friend, in which he tells her not to trouble herself over the victims because “[i]f it had not been the factory it would have been cholera, TB, exhaustion, hunger” (153), seems to encapsulate the feeling of the affluent that the poor are expendable, their lives unimportant.
Once again, Animal’s understanding of his people makes even saintly Zafar appear stubborn, and even obtuse, in contrast. In Tape 11, readers are offered a panorama of suffering, from blind Huriya to the dying Shambhu, to the old man with the ulcer who is in so much pain he can’t pray or sleep. Zafar repeatedly forbids people from relieving their suffering at the clinic; instead, he insists the people “[b]ear it a little more, for all our sakes” (148). Zafar’s comparison between his pain and the pain of the people—he reminds Nisha that he is suffering from stomach cramps, unbeknownst to him, in response to Animal’s pills—shows him to be oblivious to the true extent of the people’s suffering. Zafar shows himself to be similarly fallible in his treatment of Elli Barber who, with her determination, fearlessness, and desire to help people feel better, is proving more and more to be earnest and good. His caution, which was hitherto a sign of shrewdness and strength, appears, in these tapes, to be nothing more than “mad paranoia” (135).
Animal’s “disgust” with Elli’s “so-soft expression” and “so-pious tone” (184) is reminiscent of his resentment of the “jarnalis” who seeks to put him on display for his readers. While he acknowledges the struggles of the poor—he relates how the poor bind their bellies to stave off hunger and how you can’t “think about tomorrow when all your strength is used up trying to get through today” (185)—Animal is weary of Western paternalism, remarking that the pity in Elli’s eyes is like the pity in the eyes of the journalist and of the priest who comes for Ma Franci. Though Elli’s intentions appear to be noble, her obvious horror at his home, which “is normal” (183) to him, feels condescending and insulting.
Animal’s reunion with Khã-in-the-Jar illuminates how Khã represents the damage done by “ignorant and arrogant men” (139). By telling Animal he has a second self, which rises “at the point where your back bends” (139), Khã, himself a victim of this damage, not only alludes to the conflicting voices within Animal but also paints an image of what Animal could have been. Somraj’s comment to Elli that “Amrikans don’t have a good reputation in this town” (158) is a reminder that until she proves otherwise, Elli is, to some, associated with those “ignorant and arrogant men” (139).
