Animal's People

Elli tells Animal that she has received a letter from America: doctors believe “they can probably help” (246). She asks what he would like to see in America and talks about what life will be like once he stands upright.

At Chunaram’s, Animal says that Somraj thinks the world is made of music and that Elli thinks the world is made of promises, and he asks Zafar if “these worlds fit together” (248). When Zafar says music and promises are as similar as vultures and potatoes, Animal describes how vultures and potatoes are similar. He also suggests that musical notes are like promises because they are always the same distance from each other.

Animal consults Somraj, who says that “[t]he notes of the scale are all really one note, which is sa” (249) and that sa is “bent and twisted by this world and what’s in it, by grief or love or longing” (249). Therefore, “the promise is made by the singer not the notes” (250). Animal suggests to Zafar that the world functions because people keep their promises to do their jobs and that “all these sounds are fluctuating around some great sa that hums constantly in Somraj’s head, by which he tunes the universe” (250).