The Lord of the “Galores”

My mother was a house maid in a rich, village household. The master of the house was my father.  When I was recovering from measles, she managed a bowl of smoky, warm rice and six little crunchy puti fish for me.

After a week of gulping down mere rice water, those fish were like scrumptious treasures for me. I sat by the dheki and stared at them with hungry, greedy eyes. With a pinch of salt, I arranged the fish in a row with my skeletal fingers.

I was just about to devour my first loaf of rice and fish, but I felt a kick on my face. Two of my baby teeth fell out. The stable boy kept kicking me on my face until blood spewed on the mud floor. 

The mistress tied me with a rope. I was tethered with the giant mango tree until my mother was set free from her work to attend her ill, brutally beaten son.

What was my fault? I was a bastard and bastards are forbidden to move around the dheki, the machine that removes the husks from the paddy and produce rice: the staple food.

In the morning, we discovered that we had devoured a snake, and the snake lord came to get the one who had killed his general. My mother kept on pleading and wailing as he took her away. He looked at me for a while and promised that my mother will return after her penance. He gave me five boons, what he called "Galores," for he was the Lord of the Galores. He assured mother that these Galores would take care of me. He also bestowed on me the gift of staring: anything I will look upon, will become whatever I wish.

My mother held me tight in her lap. She grabbed my hands in the evening, and we walked towards the canal. She caught an eel with her mere hands, flayed its skin off and cut it into pieces. She made fire and cooked some hotchpotch.

In the morning, we discovered that we had devoured a snake, and the snake lord came to get the one who had killed his general. My mother kept on pleading and wailing as he took her away.

He looked at me for a while and promised that my mother will return after her penance. He gave me five boons, what he called "Galores," for he was the Lord of the Galores. He assured mother that these Galores would take care of me. He also bestowed on me the gift of staring: anything I will look upon, will become whatever I wish.

"The Galores"

I was crying alone in our dark, dilapidated hut. The stable boy discovered me. He threw millipedes over me: a handful of them. I screamed at the top of my lungs and he giggled.

He kicked me straight on my chest and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I felt the millipedes coiled around my feet. In an extreme bout of hunger, I stared at them. They looked like jackfruit seeds. I put one of them inside my mouth and chewed. I ate until I was full.

I wrapped a torn saree of mother around me, and she appeared beside me.

"Why don't you command your Galores?" she asked, "They will fulfill your wishes."

She was glowing like the moon. She was so powerfully and magically transformed that it seemed all her words were true.

Hugging her I summoned my Galores and asked for the stable boy's retribution.

The next morning, I saw a crowd around the dheki ghor. The stable boy was screaming, for the millipedes went through his ear holes and laid thousands of eggs overnight. They were devouring his brain. He was stomping on the heavy wooden pestle of the dheki, for it temporarily stopped their creepy, tickling movements inside him.

The mistress pulled his head by his hair in disbelieve, but the scalp along with the crown of the skull came out and so did the hundreds and thousands of millipedes. They fell upon the dheki and scattered all over the mud floor.

From that day onwards, I was treated with fear. I fueled their frights, the fright regarding the unnatural, the fright associated with the guilt of wrong doings.

I was not alone. I had a herd of Galores as my associates who gave me innumerable power to survive in that hostile, cruel house. 

The Daughter

It was mid-autumn, and the barn was filled with the aroma of the paddy. It was the festival of pitha making. Women in the house soaked the rice overnight in water to make pitha.

This year, the age-old process was interrupted. The dheki ghor was sealed. Rice was crushed by the machine for the first time.

I went to the kitchen, and stared with my hollow, starving eyes. I spread my hands and demanded whatever they were preparing. The eldest daughter of the master handed me a bowl of sweetened rice cakes, prepared with coconut and milk. I stared straight into her eyes. 

She arrived at my hut at midnight. 

Her mother hated her. She hated all her daughters because they were not sons. Her apparently baseless hatred led the daughter to hate her mother as well. So, their hatred was mutual and reciprocal. She nodded and agreed when I asked her to be my companion.

Her family was a happy and perfect one on the surface. My job was to throw pebbles over that seemingly smooth surface and cause an everlasting ripple, a ripple that will eventually transform into a wave and drown all their happiness.

Twelve years later

My Galores have increased in numbers. They huddle compactly inside my little hut. But I can sense that they want a bigger house to spread around.

Galores are made of smoke. They are also shape-shifters, and can take any form they want. They breed fasters than humans and feed on what humans are not supposed to eat. The bones of chicken are galore food. Just eat the flesh and discard the bones. Those who devour galore food, earn their wrath.

The master's eldest daughter blooms like a night flower during her regular visits to my hut. Amongst all his children, she is the dearest to her father. According to her wishes, my father has allowed me to live here.

His wife is pregnant for the eighth time. She had a disturbing dream: a light was coming out of her belly, and the light fell upon the house like a thunderbolt.

I interpreted the dream to her eldest daughter.

The baby is a boy; the first male child of your mother after seven daughters. You have to kill him to save yourself and your sisters.

She believed me. 

"Put a red rooster in a cage, and hang it in an open space. A week later, twist its neck.  Extract the bones from it. Spread the bones under the mid-day sunlight. Within a short while, two women in burkha will appear. As soon as they start smelling the bones, call up your mother."

The girl visited my hut after a week. The job was done.

"When I screamed, mother came out of the house. She shooed the women in burkhas with a broom. Within a moment she complained about a sharp pain in her lower back. She fell down grabbing her waist. Now she is bleeding profusely. The village doctor has given her up. She will be taken to the hospital in the city tomorrow morning."

Good.

Reclaiming My Honour

The next day, her mother died along the baby inside her, before reaching the hospital. A son it was, eight months old.

The next day, my mother returned as a comely potter woman, with a basket of clay pots on her head. My father's eyes fell on her. He conjectured that his house needed a mistress, his motherless daughters needed a mother, and he required a companion to share his sorrows.

He married my mother in poise and pomp in a week. Upon reentering the house, she informed him that his eldest daughter was carrying a child.

To avoid scandal, that daughter was married off to a jobless, lazy man. This man followed some awkward principles and held an apathetic view of life. His family thought a wife would change his mind.

Within a month, her sisters were sent to various relatives' houses; after all, a girl's true house is the house of her in-laws. Indeed, one after the other, they will eventually get married and settle down within their own houses.

Instead of occasional appearances, the Lord of the Galores finally implanted himself inside my mother's husband's frame. And we lived together, happily ever after.

Sanjeeda Hossain is an assistant professor of English at the University of Dhaka. She occasionally writes for the Star Literature.