Sea of Poppies

Two days after her vision, Deeti’s brother-in-law arrives to inform Deeti that Hukam has fallen sick at the factory, which prompts them to seek Kalua, a low-caste ox-cart driver nearby. Realizing she has nothing with which to pay him, she breaks into her husband’s opium supply and breaks off a small piece to offer as payment.

As they depart, noticing the repairs needed in her house, she thinks back to when she was younger: “poppies had been a luxury then, grown in small clusters between the fields that bore the main winter crops,” used as seasoning or medicine when absolutely necessary; now, the English force everyone to grow poppy, leaving the community impoverished (28).

This in turn makes her think back to the last time her own roof had been thatched, which had been as part of her father’s dowry to Hukam Singh. Their match had been proposed by her brother, who had served in the military with Hukam and who had promised Hukam’s disability was small. Subedar Bhyro Singh, Hukam’s uncle, a “bull-like” figure of a man formerly of the East India Company’s army, had handled most of the arrangements. Though Hukam had been present in the negotiations, Deeti had liked “his drowsy demeanour and slow manner of speech,” which seemed “inoffensive” to her, “the kind of man who would go about his working without causing trouble” (31).

On her wedding night, however, Hukam tells her that opium is his first wife (33). She realizes it’s useless to regret what she can no longer change, and when Hukam offers to let her try smoking opium, she assents. She wakes up the next morning bloody; Hukam suggests that they had sex and that she will soon bear a child, but as she cannot remember anything and does not believe her addict husband to be capable of sexual exertion, she is suspicious of the truth of the matter, a suspicion which grows in the weeks following the wedding, as Hukam shows no interest in her (35).

To discover the truth, she begins to lace her mother-in-law’s food and drink with opium; when she sees positive effects, she begins to experiment with other combinations of drugs purchased from midwives and exorcists. Her mother-in-law eventually, in her stupors, begins referring to Deeti as “Draupadi,” who bore the children of five brothers, which confirms Deeti’s suspicion that the father of her child was her brother-in-law, Chandan (38).

A few miles short of Calcutta, the Ibis drops anchor, where it is seen by Raja Neel Rattan Halder, the zemindar of Raskhali. Neel immediately recognizes that 1) the flag of the Ibis is that of Benjamin Burnham, as his family has been doing business with Burnham for many years, and that 2) the Ibis is a new acquisition. He dispatches his assistant to find out how many officers are aboard the Ibis, then asks him to send an invitation to dinner along to Zachary and Doughty, and to make preparations for them “to be entertained as they would have been in [his] father’s day” (45). This surprises the attendant, as Neel has been far more frugal than his father was, in part because his father had essentially bankrupted them prior to his death.

Back on the Ibis, Doughty is rather excited about the dinner invitation, though his description, filled with local slang, almost entirely eludes Zachary. He notes, though, that Neel is nothing like his father was, and that he can’t abide by “a bookish native” and hints that Neel is about to befall bad fortunes (47). Zachary departs to dress for the event, for which Serang Ali provides his wardrobe for the evening, an act of which Zachary has grown tired. When he questions Serang Ali’s insistence, though, he realizes that “for Serant Ali and his men Zachary was almost one of themselves, while yet being endowed with the power to undertake an impersonation that was unthinkable for any of them,” and therefore they strongly desire to see him succeed (49). 

Kalua, the ox-cart driver, is an extremely large man—“in any fair, festival or mela, he could always be spotted towering above the crowd”—as well as extremely dark in skin color (52). It is believed that he gained his size at the expense of his mind, “which had remained slow, simple and trusting, so that even small children were able to take advantage of him” (53).

Several years ago, after his parents passed and his siblings cheated him out of his rightful inheritance, a wealthy trio of gambling-addicted brothers promised Kalua an ox-cart in exchange for his prowess as a wrestler. As he continued to win, however, he drew the attention of the Maharaja of Benares, who wished to pit him against his own champion, to whom Kalua suffered his first loss. Kalua initially came home in disgrace, but stories began to swirl that the three brothers, while in the city, had wanted to see if any woman would sleep with Kalua. The sex worker they found screamed and ran, and “it was this humiliation […] that cost Kalua the fight at Ramgarh Palace,” rather than Kalua’s own actions (54).

It so happened that Deeti had been at the river the night they returned, and she had hidden in the poppies when she heard the travelers coming. Thus, she witnessed the three brothers beat the tied-up Kalua, then force him up against one a horse’s rear until the horse defecated on Kalua. Deeti managed to scare off one of the horses, which kicked Kalua unconscious as it fled. Once the brothers ran after their horses, she cleaned Kalua the best she could, then hid back among the poppies until Kalua arose and staggered away.

In the present, Deeti and Kabutri arrive at Kalua’s; Deeti is always apprehensive around Kalua, though she believes he is unaware of her actions. She offers Kalua the opium she had taken from her husband’s supply, which Kalua feeds to his oxen. As they travel, Deeti and Kabutri sit as far from Kalua as they can due to their difference in caste, “so far apart that not even the loosest of tongues could find a word to say, by way of scandal or reproach” (59).

Closer to Calcutta, Jodu, a Muslim boatman from Naskarpara, has just buried his mother and is traveling to Calcutta to perform one last errand before seeking employment on a deep-water ship as a lascar. Jodu had spent most of his life living in Calcutta. His father had also been a boatman, and it so happened that he and his family had been nearby when a white family, the Lamberts, had needed his services to get across the river so their baby could be delivered. The woman died in childbirth, and the man, Pierre, had asked Jodu’s mother to stay on as wet nurse until he could find a replacement, “but somehow no one else ever was” (65).

The family purchased Jodu’s father a new boat, and he eventually left them to start a new family back in Naskarpara, only returning when he knew Jodu’s mother would be getting paid. Jodu and his mother continued to live with the Lamberts; Jodu and Paulette Lambert, the daughter, were raised as brother and sister, and it is strongly suggested that Pierre and Jodu’s mother were secretly in a relationship (66). After Pierre’s death, Jodu and his mother returned to Naskarpara, while Paulette was taken in by Benjamin Burnham’s family. However, shortly after, Jodu’s mother’s health declined and she died approximately a year later. As she was like a mother to Paulette, whose Bengali is better than her English, Jodu is returning to inform Paulette of his mother’s death before seeking employment on the seas.