The Crow Eaters by Bapsi Sidhwa Read Free Book Online

do as you wish when I’m dead: you’ll all be rid of me soon enough. All I wish is a little peace and respect in the few years left me.’
    Freddy watched the dismal transformation with amazement. It was like the shifting of a burden from his left to his right shoulder.
    That Jerbanoo had not forgiven him was obvious. She worried him with a new and dangerous subtlety. He was compelled to put on a show of concern and commiseration. Jerbanoo would talk of death and dismals until Freddy felt a superstitious dread creep up his spine and shroud his existence.
    Within a month Freddy was looking back nostalgically upon bygone days. He definitely preferred the riotous, hedonistic hooligan of the pre-hair-snipping episode era to this lachrymose and jinxed monster.

Chapter 5
    PARSIS are a tiny community who leave their dead in open-roofed enclosures atop hills – to be devoured by vultures. The British romanticised this bizarre graveyard with the title ‘Tower of Silence’.
    Just a word or two about the Tower: the marble floor slopes towards the centre where there is a deep hollow. This receives the bones and blood. Underground ducts from the hollow lead to four deep wells outside the Tower. These wells are full of lime, charcoal and sulphur and provide an excellent filter.
    The outer rim of the floor is made up of enough marble slabs to accommodate fifty male bodies, then comes accommodation for fifty females, and the innermost space, around the hollow, is for children. It takes the birds only minutes to strip the body of all flesh.
    Now, the height of the Tower is precisely calculated. The vultures, taking off at full throttle, are only just able to clear the Tower wall. If they try to get away with anything held between their claws or beaks they invariably crash against the wall.
    Understandably, only professional pall-bearers are allowed to witness the gory spectacle inside the Tower.
    At a time when arable land was too precious to be used as a graveyard, this system was both practical and hygienic. The custom originated in the rocky terrain of Persia. Since then the Parsis have moved to the Indian sub-continent and to cities like Bombay and Karachi. Bombay, where Parsis live in substantial numbers, can boast four Towers. Parsis whochoose to settle in far-flung areas have to be content with mere burial.
    When they first came to Lahore, Jerbanoo had been mildly troubled by the discovery that there was no Tower of Silence in the city. Now that her imagined age brought her so tragically close to death, this worry became an obsession. What would happen to her remains when she died? Surely they wouldn’t allow her to be buried like a Muslim or a Christian. She told them once and for all, she absolutely refused to be shoved beneath mounds of maggot-ridden earth! By bringing her to Lahore, Putli and Freddy had damned her soul to an eternal barbecue in hell. She would not permit the sacred earth to be defiled by her remains; and though she was prepared to die for them, she would not perjure her soul for anyone! She would leave her grave, she promised Freddy, and riddled with worms and weeds, walk to the nearest Tower!
    The vision of his obese, worm-sprouting mother-in-law trekking cross-country presented so grotesque an image that Freddy turned green and vowed he’d transport her body a thousand miles to Karachi and deposit it in the Tower himself.
    Freddy preferred any conversation to this odious topic, but Jerbanoo channelled the talk with astounding versatility and persistence.
    ‘Do you remember how fond your father was of egg-plant, Putli?’ she might enquire innocently. ‘But how could you? I think you were only eight when he died. He was no beauty of course – but such a fine man!
    ‘They deposited his remains at Sanjan. What a gorgeous Tower of Silence they have there. The beauty of the estate still swims before my eyes: Ah ha! Ah ha!’ she smiled in remembered ecstasy. ‘Such an arbour of greenery. The entire hill