Serious Men

PART SEVEN. The Riot

THEY STOOD CLOSE together, looking blank, as if they had become a photograph. Ayyan Mani was in the best shirt he had ever worn. His feet were bare because he wanted to appear indifferent. Oja was in the sari she had worn for the quiz. She was once again forced by her husband to sacrifice lustre for the unreasonable requirements of elegance. Adi was in-between them, unhappy that he had to wear long trousers again. They were standing near the kitchen platform and staring at the door. There was a faint murmur in the air, which slowly grew. A crowd was approaching. Oja surveyed her home nervously. She spotted a strand of a cobweb under the wooden attic.

‘Is there time to clean?’ she asked.

‘Are you mad?’ Ayyan said.

‘At least the milk is boiled,’ she said, easing the creases of her sari. Ayyan tried to understand what she had said.

‘Why did you boil the milk?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘When I don’t know what to do, I boil the milk.’

Outside, on the corridor, a girl in a fitted shirt and jeans walked with an enormous man who was carrying a camera on his shoulder. Behind them was a mob. The corridor was so packed that the men and children at the edges were squeezed against the pale walls, and some fell festively into the open homes.

The girl was escorted by about a dozen men to the only shut door on the corridor. They knocked. It opened partially and the face of Ayyan tried to evaluate the situation. But the force on the door was too much for him and he yielded. The reporter and the cameraman were taken into the house by a tide of happy neighbours.

‘Not everybody,’ the girl screamed. ‘Who is Ayyan Mani?’ she asked.

Ayyan began to push the people out. ‘This is crazy. Let them do their jobs,’ he said.

‘You’ve already forgotten us, Mani,’ a tiny man said angrily, as he was being shoved outside. ‘You have become a big man, have you?’

‘You come inside then, I will go out. OK?’ Ayyan told him, with a playful slap.

It took five minutes to evict all the neighbours and shut the door. In the sudden calm, the girl turned to Oja and smiled. The cameraman looked around and decided to squeeze himself between the cupboard and the fridge. He wore a headphone and turned on a light that blinded everyone for an instant.

‘Are you ready?’ the reporter asked the family.

They nodded.

‘Answer only in Hindi. Don’t use too many English or Marathi words,’ she said.

She turned to the camera. Her face transformed. She looked alert, smart and excited. She told the camera, ‘We are inside the humble one-room home of Aditya Mani, the wonder-boy who has cleared one of the toughest exams in the world. The eleven-year-old is only an interview away from joining the postgraduate course at the Institute of Theory and Research.’

‘Stop,’ the cameraman said. ‘Too much noise outside.’ He opened the door and screamed, ‘Keep quiet.’

The crowd fell silent for an instant. Then the murmurs grew about how a stranger whom they had helped find the way was now asking them to shut up. But they calmed down eventually.

The girl repeated what she had just said. She knelt down beside Adi.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

‘I feel hungry,’ he said.

She smiled kindly at him and asked, ‘How did you manage to do this, Aditya? At such a young age. How did you do it?’

‘I knew all the answers,’ he said, and smiled at his father.

‘Of course you did,’ she said.

‘What are your future plans?’

‘I don’t know.’

After a few more questions to Adi, the girl turned to Ayyan. ‘Sir, it must be a very special day for you.’

‘It obviously is,’ he said. ‘I cannot believe this.’

‘What are your plans for him?’

‘It’s too early to say.’

‘When did you know that he was a genius?’

‘He was always a bit different. He thinks differently.’

‘Will he be wearing shorts or trousers to college?’ she asked.

‘That has not been decided,’ he said, without a smile. ‘Actually, he has not got in yet. There is an interview process.’

The girl turned to Oja Mani and said, ‘You must be a very proud mother.’

Oja laughed coyly and looked at her husband. After a brief silence, she moved closer to the mike and said, ‘I want my son to be a normal child.’ She fell silent again. Then she asked, ‘Do you want some tea?’ That made the cameraman wince.

The girl tried to extract more information from the family, and when she was satisfied she signalled to the cameraman that the session was over. Ayyan told her that he was going to hold a press conference in Minister Waman’s office on Tuesday. ‘I am making an important announcement,’ he said. ‘You will not want to miss it.’ That made her curious, but he did not divulge anything more.

The girl walked out, followed by the cameraman who had resumed shooting. The crowd, which had grown further, greeted her with a roar, and a few whistles. She was quickly engulfed by giggling men. She shoved her mike at one of them, who turned serious. She asked, ‘What do you have to say about the boy’s achievement?’

‘He has made us all proud,’ the man said, swaying in the tugs and pushes of the crowd.

The girl suddenly yelped and jumped. Someone had pinched her.

AYYAN MANI SAT behind a table crowded with mikes. Waman was by his side. The conference room of the minister’s office was packed with journalists. Photographers were kneeling in the front, near the table. Cameramen at the back were screaming at some reporters who were standing. ‘Sit, sit,’ they were saying. A disconsolate girl was telling a man who did not stop nodding, ‘You should have separate press conferences for the press and for the TV. These cameramen are animals. They are not journalists.’

Ayyan searched for a hint of fear inside him, but he felt nothing. What he had done, he himself could not believe. Adi was in every paper and on every channel. So too was Sister Chastity. And she was tirelessly recounting the boy’s extraordinary state of mind. Parents who had witnessed the quiz recalled the episode on news channels with happy inaccuracies. The whole country, it seemed, was in the trance of the Dalit genius, the son of a clerk, the grandson of a sweeper. ‘At the end of the oppressive centuries, at the end of the tunnel of time,’ Ayyan was quoted by newspapers, ‘my son has finally arrived at the edge of an opportunity.’

Waman clapped his hands and asked for attention. The room fell silent. Without a word, Waman handed a mike to the father of the genius.

‘I will certainly make a speech,’ Waman told the gathering, ‘but you will understand what I have to say only after you hear this man.’

Ayyan inhaled. The image of Oja sitting with a baffled face in front of the television crossed his mind.

‘Adi is not here because I thought his presence was not required,’ he said in Hindi. ‘My boy applied to the postgraduate course in maths in the Institute of Theory and Research. He wrote the Joint Entrance Test and he passed it. Only the interview is left. I am here to tell you that he will not be appearing for the interview. He will not be joining the Institute.’

A faint murmur arose, but it died fast.

‘There are reasons,’ Ayyan said. ‘One is that he might be very bright, but I think he has to finish school first like other boys. I think it was a mistake to let him sit the entrance exam. The other reason is …’ Ayyan looked at the minister, who patted him on his back.

‘I’ve worked as a clerk in the Institute for fifteen years,’ he said. ‘I started as an office boy and made my way up. I worked for a man, a great man called Arvind Acharya, who has now been shamed, as you all know. His life has been destroyed. He has almost gone mad. What actually went on there, most of you do not know. But I know. I have with me a CD of a recording I made which will explain exactly what happened. I was just a clerk and so nobody would have taken me seriously until this day. That’s why I have never revealed this before. I have another recording which is more shocking. Once you listen to that you will understand why I don’t want my son to be part of such an institute. It’s a scary place.’

The radio astronomers were in a sombre huddle around the low centrepiece. They were staring at the flat-screen TV on the wall near Nambodri’s desk. Someone was flicking through the news channels. They were no longer airing the poignant conversation between Oparna and Acharya. All the news channels were now playing the voices of the men in that room — their plebeian views about the intellectual limitations of Dalits, and of women, which made female reporters and presenters, of whom there were suddenly many, pass snide remarks about the kind of men who were running Indian science. Nambodri had grown silent during the last hour. The phones on his table were ringing incessantly. He had long switched off his mobile.

These men were in the misery of two distinct fears. The Oparna tape would exonerate Acharya. His return was probably imminent. Nobody was in doubt that it was her voice, though Nambodri had said earlier, before he had lost the power of speech, that they could attack the credibility of the recording. The other fear was the fear of death. Whole cities had burned when Dalits felt slighted. In a matter of hours, the Institute would be under siege. Police vans were standing sentinel at the gates, but that only made the astronomers more nervous. The first wave of protest had already arrived. The peons had gone on strike. They had stopped working and were now gathered near the main lawn. Before that they had left all the taps on and had clogged up the toilets with broken cutlery.

As the regime sat in uneasy calm, Jal steamed in holding loose sheets of paper, an envelope and a newspaper. His excitement seemed unreasonable.

‘Where have you been?’ someone asked him. ‘You know what has happened, right?’

‘I know a lot more than that,’ Jal said, stopping for an instant when he heard his voice on the television describing Dalits as genetically handicapped. He put the things he was holding on the centrepiece and rubbed his hands. ‘You will not believe this,’ he said. ‘You will not believe this.’

‘What has happened?’ Nambodri asked. There was a faint ray of hope on his face.

‘Cheer up, my friend, we are going to war. These last few days, I’ve been checking up on that guy and his son. And what I’ve found is very, very strange. Here is Adi’s answer-sheet. It’s unbelievable. He got thirty-nine.’

The answer-sheet passed from hand to hand. Jal’s enthusiasm now infected everyone in the room.

‘This means he is in the top five. A boy of eleven in the top five. Now, let me try to be coherent,’ Jal said. His glasses quivered on his nose-bridge. ‘Let me begin at the beginning. Do you remember the day when Ayyan showed us a clipping of his son winning a science contest hosted by the Swiss Consulate? I checked with the Consulate. They have never held such a contest. Never. I managed to call the reporter. His name is Manohar Thambe. He said that the news was given to him by Ayyan. Apparently, some language newspapers officially take money to cover news.’

Nambodri began to pace the floor.

‘Are you listening, Jana?’ Jal asked.

‘Go on,’ Nambodri said, beginning to understand.

‘Then I noticed something strange,’ Jal said. He looked at the television screen. A commercial was underway. So he took the remote and started flipping through the channels until he arrived at one which showed the face of Adi.

‘Look, look. Look carefully. He is wearing the hearing-aid in his left ear.’ Jal then showed the picture of the boy in The Times. ‘This picture went with the article about how he could recite the first thousand primes. His hearing-aid is in the right ear. The article clearly mentions that the boy is deaf in his right ear. But in every other image I have seen of the boy, he is wearing the hearing-aid in his left ear.’

‘What does that mean?’ Nambodri asked.

‘Think, Jana, think. How can a boy of eleven recite the first thousand primes?’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Nambodri said, sitting down slowly.

‘But what about the quiz?’ someone asked. ‘Hundreds of people saw the boy.’

‘Maybe his father had whacked the questions. Like he probably did with JET?’

‘He stole the JET, didn’t he?’ Nambodri said softly.

‘But that’s impossible,’ one of the astronomers said. A supportive murmur followed.

‘Listen to me. Listen to me,’ Jal said impatiently. ‘I called up our printers and asked them if there had been any enquiries from Aryabhata Tutorials recently. Two of them said that they didn’t know, but one of them distinctly remembered someone calling less than eight weeks ago asking when the consignment was expected to be delivered. I don’t know how he got the JET, but I tell you, he did. An eleven-year old boy cannot score thirty-nine. Come on, we have seen geniuses; we know them. We know what is possible. Put it all together, Jana. Ayyan Mani is a con. His genius son is a fraud.’

Jal then appeared thoughtful. He chuckled.

‘What is it?’ Nambodri asked.

‘But that bastard did get into Mensa.’

The door opened. The astronomers looked with the eyes of the dead as Ayyan Mani entered with some faxes. He went to Nambodri’s desk and laid them out neatly. As he walked back to the door he told Nambodri, ‘I am sorry I’m late, Sir. I had to attend a press conference.’

‘That we know,’ Nambodri said.

‘I wish I could get you coffee, Sir, but I think the peons are missing.’

‘We know that too.’

Ayyan was about to leave the room when Nambodri asked, ‘Is your son deaf in the right ear or the left?’

The astronomers held their breath. They waited to see fear on the face of Ayyan. But he smiled.

‘Both the ears, Sir,’ he said. ‘But Adi likes wearing only one hearing-aid at a time.’

Nambodri put his hands on his hips and studied the floor. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Ayyan, how did you steal the JET?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Sir.’

‘We know that he did not win any science contest. We know that your son cannot recite the first thousand primes and we know that he is no genius. If you cooperate, we will ensure that you don’t go to prison.’

‘I forgot to tell you, Sir,’ Ayyan said, looking towards the window. ‘It is not safe for you to be here. Anything can happen. I suggest you go home.’

‘We will manage, Ayyan.’

‘Do you know what is happening at the gates, Sir? I think you should look.’

Nambodri first raised his eyebrows in defiance but the defiance slowly, inexorably, became curiosity. He went to the window and looked. A mob was standing outside the gates with metal rods, sticks and banners. They were standing calmly, as if waiting for a decisive sign.

Nambodri walked back to the sofa and said, ‘We will manage this, Ayyan. Why don’t you think of yourself?’

‘I’ve always thought of myself, Sir.’

‘Let’s make a deal, Ayyan. You confess that you have cooked up these recordings and we will not press charges against you.’

‘What charges, Sir?’

‘Listen, Ayyan. If the boy is interrogated for one minute by any science graduate, it will become clear that he is no genius. I can publicly challenge him to recite the first thousand primes. The Swiss Consulate is going to make a statement this evening saying that it did not hold any contest. Your reporter Thambe has agreed to give it in writing that he was paid for the article about your son. The game is over, Ayyan. But we can help you, if you are willing to make a little confession.’

Ayyan left the room. The radio astronomers looked at each other. They were tense, but they could now see the first signs of hope. The way Ayyan had fled the room was consoling. Then he returned.

‘The minister wants to talk to you,’ he told Nambodri, handing the phone to him.

Nambodri held the instrument to his ear and said, ‘It’s a pleasure talking to you.’ He listened. Finally, he said, ‘I am sorry, this is not agreeable to me, Minister.’ He gave the phone back to Ayyan and said, ‘Ayyan, you have another five minutes to decide.’ Ayyan laughed and left the room, shaking his head in private mirth. That unsettled the astronomers.

‘He seems to know something we don’t,’ Jal said. ‘What did the minister say, Jana?’

Nambodri rubbed his nose and said, ‘He told me that if we don’t go public with what we have found out about Adi, he will promise us safety.’

‘Safety?’ Jal said nervously. ‘What did he mean by safety?’

‘Relax,’ Nambodri said. ‘I know how to play this game.’

He took out his phone and was about to dial a number when they heard a sound. The glass of the huge square window had cracked. The astronomers fell on the floor and lay on their stomachs. There was another sound and this time the window crashed. They could hear the roar of the mob down below. Five more stones landed in the room. They could hear other windows break and the sound of things being beaten to pulp, and the shrieks of women. They lay on the floor without moving. Then they heard the riot come closer. Things were exploding, men were screaming. The astronomers crawled closer to each other and stared at the door as the sound of death grew louder and louder.

The door finally burst open and about two dozen men rushed in with iron rods. They began to break everything in the room. Then they began to beat up the astronomers with the rods. The scientists screamed in mortal fear as they had never screamed before.

‘Not on the head,’ one of the goons screamed. He observed the assault keenly, academically and looked somewhat disappointed. ‘Stop,’ he screamed. The thugs stopped. There was the sound of men groaning and weeping. The leader of the raiders then placed his rod below the knee of Nambodri and told his men, ‘This is how you must do it.’

It took three hours for order to be restored in the Institute. Police carried away happy rioters who waved to the cameras. One car burned in the driveway. The windscreens of the other cars were broken. Windows dangled from the main block. Stunned inmates walked out in a silent file escorted by the police.

Across the city there were protests, but they were less violent. Later in the evening, outside the Bombay Hospital, mobs paraded an effigy that was named after Nambodri. They beat it with slippers and finally burnt it. There were reports of stray violence in other parts of the country but after two days the riots receded.

LAVANYA ACHARYA SURVEYED the room with the autocracy of a wife. The last two weeks she had supervised the resurrection of her husband’s office. The textured walls seemed too empty, but he refused to allow any adornments except the framed poster of Carl Sagan.

‘They broke everything but this?’ she asked, looking at Sagan’s charming face. ‘Arvind, can’t you let me put up at least one painting? After all, you begged me to come back.’

‘I like the walls blank,’ he said stubbornly, looking at the sea through the new window.

‘OK, then,’ she said. ‘I’m too tired to argue.’

On her way out she smiled at the clerk, who was half standing, and she said to him in Tamil, ‘Take care of him, Ayyan.’

‘I always will,’ he said, touching his chest with the tips of his fingers.

That evening, Ayyan Mani and Adi were sitting on a pink concrete bench, one of the many benches on the Worli Seaface that were dedicated to the memory of a departed member of the Rotary Club. Adi was peering into the paper cone searching for hidden peanuts at the bottom. Ayyan studied the walkers. Young women in good shoes walked in haste, as though they were fleeing from the fate of looking like their mothers; proud breasts bounced and soft thighs shuddered. Newly betrothed girls went with long strides to abolish fat before the bridal night when they might have to yield on the pollen of a floral bed to a stranger bearing K-Y Jelly. Old men went with other old men discussing the nation they had ruined when they were young. Their wives followed, talking about arthritis and other women who were not present. Then came Oja Mani, walking swiftly in slippers.

Adi started laughing. He could not bear to see his mother like this. Ayyan laughed too. She gave them a foul look and marched towards the other end of the promenade.

Adi was muttering something to himself and looking at the fluorescent shoes of the boys who were passing by.

‘Adi,’ his father said, ‘look what I have in my hand.’

The boy looked up. His father was holding a spoon.

‘Do you know that some people can bend a spoon with their minds?’

‘Really?’ Adi said.

‘Do you want to bend a spoon with your mind, Adi?’

‘Yes,’ the boy said.

‘OK, then listen to me carefully,’ Ayyan said, ‘but this is the last time. The very last time we do something like this. OK?’

They looked at each other for a moment. And how they laughed.