Balram starts to tell something about the inventions of India. He doesn’t mean inventions like the Internet, he means for example the Rooster Coop. Thousands of Chickens are kept in small cages, pecking at and shitting on each other. But they don’t try to get out of these Coops. Balram connects this story with the situation of the people in his country.
In Delhi many people work as a cycle-rickshaw. They have to deliver furniture to peoples home and then ride back to their boss and give them their money, without earning one single rupee. The life of a servant in India is the same like a chicken in a Coop. They just want to do everything for their family and earn enough money to live. Only people, who see that their family is in danger, seriously threatened by others break out of the coop.
After this mention, he continues telling his story. He remembers a sign, he saw in a zoo which reads “Imagine you being in the cage”. It was placed close to the cage of the white tiger. He thinks that he is able to do so, so he goes home to his room to give it a try. He stays a whole day in his room sitting in a mosquito net, pulled up his legs to his chest. It was like he was trapped in the Rooster Coop. As Balram stays in his room, the man with the skin disease enters and ask him, weither everything is ok.
Then Balram goes up to the apartment of his master. The Mongoose opens the door and tells him, that the father is there. It was Stork. While Balram enters the room, the Stork is sitting on the couch. Later Mr. Ashok and the Stork tell Balram, that they have contacts to the police and they told them, that nobody observed the accident. Pinky Madam gets angry, runs into her room and slams the door. A few days later, Balrams drives the Stork and the Mongoose to the railway station, to travel back to their home Dhanbad.
At night, Balram wakes up, because somebody stands in his room. It was Pinky Madam. She tells him to bring her to the airport. When they arrive a few minutes later, Pinky Madam leaves the car without saying a word.
The next morning Mr. Ashok calls Balram to his apartment and asks him, why he has not told him, that he brought his wife to the airport last night. Then Mr. Ashok grabs Balram and pushes him against the balcony. Balram gets frightened and kicks him in the chest. Mr. Ashok starts to cry and Balram runs to his room. Later the other servants ask him what happened, but Balram doesn’t answer their questions.
The next day Balram waits for the bell to ring, but nothing happens. In the afternoon he goes to the apartment and does his work. In the evening he goes to the apartment again, to see whether something happened to his masters. When Balram sees the open door, he goes into the apartment and see Mr. Ashok lying on the ground with a bottle of whiskey. He carries him into his bed. During the following days, Mr. Ashok is drunk every day. After a week, Mr. Ashok tells him, that they both have a special connection as a servant and his master.
One day, the Mongoose comes back from Dhanbad and tells, that Pinky Madam, don’t want to come back. He says that it´s the best way, when she leaves him. At the diner, the Mongoose takes a letter out of his pocket. The letter is from the granny of Balram. In the letter Kusum asks Balram for more money for the wedding of Kishan.
At the end of this chapter, Balram tells to the premier, that the Rooster Coop is doing his work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming experimenters or innovators. That‘s the sad truth in the live as a servant
What I like/dislike in this chapter?
I think it´s very hard,that the servants in India are compared with Chickens in a Rooster Coop. They have to follow the rules nobody can become an experimeter or innovator to get out of these Coops. I liked the situation,when Mr. Ashok tells Balram,that they have an important conncetion. I think it was a good idea from Pinky Madam to leave her husband. They dont fit together I think.
I found an interesting link about the Rooster Coops in India...
Here is a picture from a Coop...
See you,
Tim
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