The Girl with the Golden Parasol

TWO

Rahul had followed a peculiar career path. First he’d completed an MSc in organic chemistry. Afterward he suddenly became possessed with the idea of doing an MA in anthropology. The exact reasons for this are a bit fuzzy, but it might have had something to do with encouragement given to Rahul by a certain cousin of his, an internationally known anthropologist who nowadays was the director general of the Archaeological Survey of India. He used to visit Rahul’s village, sometimes staying at his family house for a few weeks at a time. Rahul’s father was his favorite uncle, and the two of them got along extremely well. The responsibility of looking after this cousin, Kinnu Da, fell to Rahul.

Rahul had heard that his book, published by Penguin, was about adivasis, tribals, and had caused a worldwide stir. Before the book came out, people assumed that it was only the usual cast of Brahmins, feudal landlords, business traders, Hindus, and Muslims that had been active in the fight against the British. Even contemporary historians selected their national heroes only among figures who came from these kinds of backgrounds. You could hardly find an adivasi or a Dalit untouchable in these historians’ accounts, dominated by the likes of Laxmibai, Tatya Tope, another raja here, Nana Sahib, another landowner there, Kunwar Singh, Fadnavis, Azimullah, Mangal Pandey, or some nawab. Same backgrounds, different names, when it came to twentieth-century leaders: Nehru, Gandhi, Tilak, Jinnah, Suhrawardy, Patel. Most of them were of high caste and came from rich families. Once in a blue moon Dr. Ambedkar’s name might pop up. Although he came from a Dalit caste, the man who would be called an untouchable had been handed the task of framing the constitution of independent India as recognition of his singular genius. But now he’s been made the target of a smear campaign: sometimes accused of being an agent of the English, other times portrayed as someone who wanted to wipe out Hinduism in India in favor of establishing Buddhism. In other words, more the story’s villain than its hero.

Kinnu Da’s book made such waves because, for the first time, the story was told of the role of tribal adivasi leaders in the struggle. Kinnu Da’s book contained well-documented accounts from regions like Singhbhum and Jharkhand, including Chota Nagpur, of leadership beset by great tragedy — accounts that had, until then, existed only as living folklore in the underdeveloped regions of Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa.

The more Kinnu Da spoke to Rahul, the more Rahul began to suspect organic chemistry was a waste. What would he do with this degree? He’d become a chemist in a brewery or in a food-processing plant owned by some multinational company. Or he’d get a teaching position at a college or university. When he thought about his future, Rahul saw the image of a certain type of man take shape: fat, whiny, gobbling pizza slices like a pig, gnawing on morsels of scrumptious fish marinated in yogurt and vinegar, drinking and partying with a teenage girl he was paying by the hour, enticing her with a little dance of his by shaking his pot belly and gyrating his pumpkin-sized saggy ass.

This type of man — a bottomless pit of lust and greed, a decadent cheat, gluttonous, licentious, corrupt — that’s who this country and system were set up to serve. All the shiny stores and legions of police and battalions of soldiers all exist to feed pleasure and stimulation to that man. If I work as an organic chemist, Rahul thought, I’ll spend my whole life churning out yummy, lip-smacking, good-for-you consumables for him. This life, which the compassionate creator of the universe, acting with great kindness, has given, once and only once, to most negligible me.

Holy shit! The bastard is huffing and puffing, one foot dangling in the grave, he can’t even walk right anymore he’s so fat. But he keeps on chowing down. He needs a steady stream of edible items. His taste buds long for one new flavor after the next. Scientists the world over have conscripted lab after lab in order to research how to best please the man’s palate. Each of the five senses that provide for his disgustingly doughy body require cutting-edge pleasures and never-ending kicks. His hippo-like snout eagerly sniffs for new fragrances and scents. The entire perfume industry exists in order to neutralize all malodors before they can reach his nose. If I work as an organic chemist, Rahul thought, the sum total of my creativity, talent, and knowledge will be pressed into service of satisfying the ever-growing appetite of this man’s senses, and fulfilling the sensual desires of that libertine tub.

And this is the kind of man women everywhere are ripping their clothes off for. All the beauty parlors in the city lay the women down and wax their hair off, just as shepherds used to shear their sheep for wool. Rahul watched how herds of girls like little lambs came out from their middle- or lower-middle-class homes, in city after city, town after town, lunging into beauty parlors that were sprouting up like mushrooms. They’d reemerge: oiled, lubed, dolled up. Spreading their legs, they’d climb up and straddle that man’s ample belly. These were the girls who on TV were called “the Bold and the Beautiful”; he was the flaccid, potbellied geezer known as “the Rich and the Famous.”

The man was mighty indeed. The world’s most fearsome evil masterminds had long labored to craft him from their toolkit of high-powered capital and patented processes. The introduction of new technologies was essential to his creation. We can only begin to guess at the super powers this man has at his disposal as we watch the true story of him take centuries’ worth of theories, opinions, principles, philosophies, and ideas, all carefully crafted throughout history, sweep them into a pile and, in one fell swoop, throw it onto the trash heap that lies just beyond the walls of his stately manor. Those were the principles used both as a kick when man needed a nudge to move forward, but also as the reins that kept his greed and lust from spiraling out of control.

Don’t eat more than you need, don’t make more money than necessary, do as little harm as possible, don’t sleep too much, sex has a limit, don’t dance forever. All of these principles, found in religious texts and in sociological, scientific, and political books, have been tossed wholesale into the rubbish. In the final decades of the twentieth century, this man has seized all the forces of wealth and power and technology into his hand and has declared: freedom! Freedom! he cries. Let all your desires be awakened! Let all your senses graze freely upon this earth. Whatever is in this world is yours for your enjoyment. There is neither nation nor country. The entire planet is yours. Nothing is moral, nothing is immoral. There is no sin, no act of virtue. Eat, drink, and have fun. Dance! Boogie-woogie. Sing! Boogie-woogie. Eat! Boogie-woogie. Pig out! Boogie-woogie. Make that six-figure salary! Boogie-woogie. All the earth’s commodities are yours for your consumption! Boogie-woogie. And remember to count women among those commodities. Boogie-woogie.

This mighty, swinish, lustful man proposed a new doctrine that the finance minister of India readily agreed to — and then the minister himself eagerly dove into the man’s pocket. Here was the principle: don’t stop the man from eating. As he eats and eats and begins to get full, he starts to flick off the spoiled morsels from his plate. Millions of hungry people could be fed with his rich, nutritious leftovers. And: don’t stop the man from fucking. Popping Viagra like candy, the man beds one girl after the next, readying them for the legions of unwitting Indian bachelors who, duped into believing they have landed a virgin, can then love her as their own, and start a family.

So this was the principle the man spread to the four corners of the earth using all media of communication, and in no time at all human civilization had changed. Every TV channel and computer buzzed with the broadcast of this philosophy.

Here, at the twilight of the twentieth century and the dawn of the twenty-first, even names like Gandhi, Tolstoy, Premchand, and Tagore have begun to disappear from people’s memories. The best-selling book in stores today? The Road Ahead, by Bill Gates.

The rich, potbellied man was getting a massage in an expensive island resort, surrounded by several Miss Universes from the destitute third world. Remembering something, he suddenly reached for his cell phone and dialed a number.

Miss Universe slipped him a Viagra — which he quickly swallowed — and then he gave her breast a little squeeze.

“Hallo! This is Nikhlani speaking on behalf of the IMF. Get me to the prime minister!”

“Yes, yes! Nikhlani-ji! How are you, sir? This is the prime minister speaking.”

“Stroke it gently. . rub it a bit more! Oh, that’s more like it,” that man said, sweetly teasing Miss Universe, and then returned to his cell phone. “Why have you taken so long, man? Hurry up! The power sector, IT, Food, Health, Education! Hurry up and privatize! Divest the public sector!”

“Okay, Okay, be patient. Your humble servant is doing his duty. But you know my problem. In this hodge-podge government, you can’t expect all of the dal to soften at once, Nikhlani-ji.”

“Take it in your mouth. . Lo. . my Lolita.” The Rich and the Famous geezer stroked Miss Universe’s hair, and this was followed by the sounds of slurping.

“I’m disappointed, Pandit-ji! How much money did I pump into your party funds? The donations, the direct deposits! You people move as fast as a dirty earthworm. How we gonna fix the economy at this rate? You haven’t even cut subsidies!”

“It is going forward, Nikhlani-ji! I’ve already begun the food-oil importation that wiped out the sunflower, soybean, and oilseed farmers. If we took away their subsidies now, all hell would break loose. Your instructions are being carried out, don’t worry. We’re just taking one step at a time.”

“Hurry up, Pandit-ji! I’ve got high blood pressure. This much anxiety isn’t good for my health. Let those sisterfucking farmers starve. Okay?”

The man switched off his cell phone and took a long pull of scotch. Then, again restless, he said, “Where’s that runner-up from Venezuela? Send her in.”