From time to time the bullock would reach the end of his rope, which signified that the bucket had emerged from the hole. The man with the bamboo cane would then shout at a couple of younger men who were dozing in the shade of the low dung rampart that surrounded the well’s opening, giving it the general appearance of a giant rugged nipple. These men would bestir themselves, scale the rampart, get a grip on the bucket, swing it off to one side, and dump a few gallons of water onto the ground. The water would embark on a senseless quest for the nearest ocean. The bullock would turn round and come back.
These people were all People (as they name themselves in their language). The bucket-emptiers belonged to a separate subcaste from the bullock-spanker, but both could trace their lineage back for a hundred generations to the same ur-Person. And even if Sword of Divine Fire had not already known as much, it could have been guessed from following a given bucket-load of water downhill, and observing the scenery on either hand. For thousands of years’ hourly bucket-emptyings had cut a meandering drainage channel into the dust. It careered and zigzagged for a mile, heading generally eastwards, until it petered out in a crazed salt-pan, which sported the locally renowned Large Hole in the Ground, and other improvements. In most places, a grown man could comfortably plant one foot on either side of the channel. In some parts one had to jump over it. In one stretch it spread out so wide that one needed a running start. Consequently the local children never wanted for sports and entertainment.
Each bank of the ditch was green from the water’s edge to the point, about an arm’s length away, where the desert took over again. Seen from the high ground at the well-mouth, it looked as if some Hindoo deity had dipped a quill in green ink and dragged it aimlessly across a blank parchment—which was not extremely far from what the People actually believed. Their king of the last two years and two hundred and forty-eight days scoffed at this creed, but since it had sustained them in adverse circumstances for a couple of thousand years, he had to admit it was no worse than any other religion.
The People furthermore believed that the same deity had divided the ditch’s length (some two thousand paces in all) into five zones, and portioned them out to the five daughters of the ur-Person, and laid down certain rules as to what should be cultivated where. These five zones had inevitably been divided and subdivided as the five subcastes spawned from the loins of the five daughters had ramified into diverse clans, which had distinguished themselves from other clans by intermarrying with groups that were viewed as higher or lower, or, in some cases, destroyed themselves by not intermarrying enough. So each of those two thousand paces, on each side of the ditch, was now spoken for by someone.
Most of the someones were present and accounted for, dressed in brilliant fabrics, and squatting behind their tiny farms—therefore, packed shoulder-to-shoulder along the banks all the way from the well to the Large Hole in the Ground. Sword of Divine Fire had come to make his monthly inspection.
Sword of Divine Fire was mounted on a donkey. His aides, bodyguards, and attendants were on foot, except for two rowzinders on horseback and one zamindar in a palanquin.
“Very well,” said Sword of Divine Fire, “which is to say, it looks the same as last time, and the time before that.”
His words were translated into Marathi by the man in the palanquin, who then said, “Shall we have a look at the Large Hole in the Ground, then, and call it a day?”
“The Large Hole in the Ground can wait. First, we will inspect our potato,” said Sword of Divine Fire.
This pronouncement, once it had been translated, touched off the most urgent conspirings and shushings among the aides, hangers-on, courtiers, camp-followers, and the khud-kashtas or head-men of the Ditch’s various segments. Sword of Divine Fire gave his donkey a few smart heel-jabs and began steering for the Fourth Meander of the Third Part of the Ditch. His zamindar shortly caught up with him—the feet of his palanquin-bearers creating bursts of dust that flourished, paled, and dissolved in the still air.
“Your majesty’s potato can hardly have changed much since the last visit. On the other hand, I am informed by the most highly placed sources that the Large Hole in the Ground is not only deeper—but wider, too!”
“We would view our potato,” the king said doggedly. They were definitely getting close—the kids tear-assing around had the high noses and elongated skulls that set Fourth Meander folk apart from the less prestigious subcastes who cultivated the left bank of the Third Part. Only last week, one of them had been made an out-caste for Jumping the Ditch, i.e., having sex with one of the hillbilly girls on the Right Bank.
“Is one potato really so different from the next?” asked his zamindar philosophically.
“In general, no—but in our jagir, there is no next!”
“And yet—assuming that some potato materializes on your plate on the day specified, does the fate of a specific potato really amount to so much?”
“You are a tax collector, not a philosopher—mind your place.”
“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, but we were philosophizing when Aristotle’s grandparents were banging rocks together.”