The Great Indian Novel

The Ninth Book: Him — Or, The Far Power-Villain

48

Pandu did not merely stand for the presidency in the traditional idiom — he ran for it. He waged an energetic and aggressive campaign amongst the delegates to the All-India Kaurava Committee. Those who had trudged with him through the villages, those who had stood in his orderly phalanxes of protestors to bear the bamboo blows of the British, those who had marched and sweated and suffered outside the range of the cine-cameras, at last found in him one of their own kind to vote for. The visible leadership of the party had always come from the highly educated, highly articulate stratum of lawyers and men of property, who had had themselves elected by the rest. Even Gangaji, who had broadened the party’s support and given it a mass base, had done little to change the pattern at the top, where a handful reigned, derided as ‘party bosses’ by the British and hailed as ‘people’s leaders’ by the Kauravas. (Observe, Ganapathi, how the cynic’s élite is the revolutionary’s vanguard. Your tyrant is my inspiring leader; one man’s slave is another’s disciplined adherent to the cause. So it is that democracy produces oligarchs, and mass is always ruled by class.) In the first election featuring candidates from the ranks, Gangaji’s handpicked Godchild was too obviously a stalking- horse to be convincing. The Mahaguru dropped some hints, but did not allow himself to venture too far out on a limb. As the campaign progressed the way of my pale son, Gangaji’s ‘days of silence’ increased. So Pandu, the former princeling, became the first President of the plebeians.

For a brief moment we all inhaled the whiff of revolution. Pandu made a stirring speech of acceptance, promising action in place of inaction. He was careful not to say the slightest word against the Mahaguru; indeed, he expressed his unbounded reverence for the party’s mentor and spiritual guide. But the very phrasing of his praise implied that his respect for Gangaji did not extend to his political methods. And his constant exhortations to break new ground were couched in terms that the Mahaguru’s (and Dhritarashtra’s) admirers could never accept, even if they brought sections of the crowd to their feet, clapping and whistling.

It was exhilarating, Ganapathi, but it could not last. However right Gangaji had been in the strategic sense when he implied that the presidency did not matter, he could not wish away the prominence that the position gave Pandu. The excitement of his supporters at Pandu’s election posed a threat that could not be allowed to grow. From the expressions on the faces of the others it was clear to me that Pandu’s presidency would destroy either the party or him.

The Mahaguru was never one to tolerate divisiveness. And he said as much, in one of his characteristically long and complex letters, to the new President of the Kaurava Party, who saw the text in the newspapers a day before the letter reached him.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Pandu said when he read it. ‘Which is why I would appreciate it, Gangaji, if you would urge the recalcitrant elements of the party to rally around their elected President, instead of making such divisive noises.’ He wrote that down in more diplomatic terms, posted it to the Mahaguru’s ashram and released it to the press a day later.

Gangaji didn’t particularly care for this reply. ‘The roots of division must be traced deep in the soil,’ he declared in an editorial in his weekly newspaper. ‘It will not do merely to cut off its branches.’

‘Divisiveness and disloyalty do not flourish in the bright heat of the sun,’ Pandu said sententiously to a peasant rally the following week. ‘They grow in the shade afforded them by the leafy boughs of an old banyan tree.’

The first moves had been made in an elaborate game of chess. But if chess is so much more civilized than boxing — one sport to which Indians have never taken — its attraction for us lies in the careful unfolding of calibrated stratagems, the open warnings to be on guard, the ever-present possibility of an honourable draw: the very things pugilism does not permit. The contest between Gangaji and Pandu, however, admitted of no defensive moves, no side-steps toward stalemate; from the moment it began, a knockout punch was the only objective. It was a match in which, for either side, no draw was possible.

‘There is an old Indian proverb,’ Gangaji told a blond photographer from Life magazine who was taking notes as well as snapshots of the great man. ‘It says, “United we stand, divided we fall.”’

‘But that’s an old American proverb,’ the blonde blinked.

‘Perhaps, but the Indian version is older,’ the Mahaguru replied. ‘And it goes together with another Indian proverb: always respect your elders.’

When this was published, Pandu was being interviewed by Time. ‘A young modernist poet of Lucknow expressed the attitudes and aspirations of his generation in a recent couplet, which I shall translate for you,’ he informed the journalist. ‘It goes roughly like this:

“I do not reject you; rather,

I measure the years I have grown;

I worship your grey hairs, Father,

But — I must comb my own.”’

Fallen pawns littered the edges of the board.

‘The Indian literary tradition places little value on satirical verse,’ Sarahbehn spoke for Gangaji on one of his days of silence. ‘So too, the Indian political tradition is one of utmost seriousness and respect for established institutions — provided these institutions are popularly supported and seen as reflective of the people’s will.’

Check.

‘The best reflection of the people’s will,’ declared Pandu in a speech to his supporters, ‘is the figure at the bottom of the voting tally in a democratic election.’

A daring manoeuvre, Ganapathi. But one which left a flank exposed.

‘History teaches us,’ the Mahaguru told a prayer meeting, ‘that it is always dangerous to mistake the enthusiasm of a select few for the support of the broad mass.’

That was when the castle fell. The letters began arriving at Pandu’s home and at Kaurava Party headquarters — letters from party workers and leaders across the country, bearing addresses even Pandu could not recognize. The letters deplored the party’s drift from the path of truth and moderation always espoused by Gangaji. Many of them found their way to the newspapers, colonialist and nationalist alike.

‘I’ve been President barely three months,’ mused a bewildered Pandu. ‘What drift are these people going on about?’

Two letters in the same vein appeared in Gangaji’s own paper, without accompanying editorial comment.

‘Those who welcome the new directions of the movement,’ Pandu declared defiantly to a Kaurava crowd meeting on a famous beachfront, who were more used to slogans than swimming, ‘should let their voice be heard amidst the orchestrated clamour of the die-hards. Do you all not give me your loyal support?’

‘N-o-o-o-o,’ rose the crescendo from the sands.

Shaken, Pandu wrote to his former mentor. ‘There appears to be a systematic campaign within the party to undermine me and question my leadership of the party. Such elements seem to derive solace from your silence on the matter, which could even be construed as tantamount to tolerance of anti- party activities. I shall be grateful if you would kindly lend your voice in support of my attempts to move the Kaurava party forward. A statement from you dissociating yourself from some of the excesses of those who claim to be your followers would be greatly welcome.’ He sealed the letter and marked it ‘confidential’. This time there was no copy for the press.

But now it was the Mahaguru who published the correspondence. ‘It is not for me to advise faithful servants of the Kaurava cause against acting according to the dictates of their consciences,’ Gangaji stated piously in his printed reply. ‘Leaders should never lose sight of the concerns of their followers.’

Pandu’s ranks were decimated. He attempted one last gambit at a meeting of the Kaurava Working Committee.

‘In view of the variety of attacks on my position and principles within and outside the party of late,’ he announced, ‘I should like, as party President, to seek a vote of confidence from this committee.’ He looked directly at me for a response, staking everything.

I could sense the unease of the others around the table. I felt like Caesar pushing a knife into Brutus. ‘Don’t do it, my son,’ I said, my voice hoarse. ‘Do not ask this of us.’

The look of pain that crossed his pale face still haunts me. Not to receive a vote of confidence was as bad as receiving a vote of no-confidence.

The game was over: Pandu had toppled his own crowned head. He resigned.

49

Gangaji did not make much of his victory. There were no self-congratulatory declarations, no statements to the press. His objective attained, the Mahaguru saw to it that the Untouchable defeated by Pandu was appointed Acting President by the Committee. The following year, this worthy was elected to the post in his own right — unopposed. Today, you have to turn to history books to find his name.

You seem disturbed, my dear Ganapathi. Anxiety creases your brow and narrows your eyes. Never mind, I know what is troubling you. The idea of saintly Gangaji, paragon of Truth, ruthlessly squeezing an insubordinate ward out of power sits ill with you. How could the Mahaguru, you ask yourself, the Great Teacher, a man of vaulting vision and pristine principle, conduct himself like a Tammany Hall politician? You are disappointed.

You should not be, my son. No great man ever achieved greatness by sincerity of purpose alone. If Gangaji believed in Truth, it was his Truth he believed in; and by extension the actions he undertook were founded on the same belief. Pandu, for whatever reason, represented a challenge to his unremitting quest for this Truth. ‘Trust me, my son,’ Ganga had said to him at the start of the Mango March, but Pandu had not followed; and once the agitation was called off, trust had died between the two princes of Hastinapur. The Mahaguru had chosen Dhritarashtra as his heir, and who was to gainsay his choice? Pandu could have accepted it and continued to serve the cause, following the Mahaguru and his own blind brother. He chose the path of dissent instead: the way (as the Mahaguru saw it) of untruth.

The righteous reaction was to eliminate the dissenter. Not by having him hit on the head in the dark by hired thugs, nor by cheating at the elections; Gangaji would never countenance such means to attain his ends. But dharma enjoins firmness in defence of righteousness, Ganapathi. (There is nothing particularly new, or even cynical, about that. Our own traditions prescribe such action — not just in the Machiavellian handbook for royal survivors, the Arthashastra, but in our epic political treatise the Shantiparvan of my namesake Vyasa.) The moral pressure (and mind you, the Mahaguru never thought of it as anything else) — the moral pressure he placed on Pandu to bring about my pale son’s capitulation was merely the political equivalent of the flattened tyres of Raja Salva early in our story. No violence done, no blood spilled — but oh, Ganapathi, what hurt and humiliation, what sadness and suffering can be caused in the defence of Truth!

I cannot bear to think much longer of my pale pained son, Ganapathi. I do not wish to prolong his stumbling saga through the various stages of this narrative. Let us pay the price of chronological inexactitude to follow the rest of his story now, so that I may relinquish this heavy burden of historical memory, strained by the additional weights of paternity and helplessness. Come, Ganapathi: we shall leave the others frozen in their places in time as we unravel Pandu’s destiny in the only form that suits its bathos.

50

To tell the tale of Pandu

Will not detain us long;

His slogan was a ‘can do!’

And on his lips a song.

Oh, pour some draughts of red wine

Into history’s bloody jars;

Learn there’s just a thin line

‘Twixt tragedy and farce.

When Pandu, hale and hearty

Was declared too sick to lead

He upped and quit the party

To protest the dirty deed.

‘Goodbye to all my dear friends –

I say this with a lump –

Your means justify another’s ends;

I was pushed, I did not jump.

‘Your cause and mine are noble:

To make our people free.

But one fact is simply global:

One can’t do this easily.

‘To speak, and write, and walk and fast

Will never break our shackles;

But those who still live in the past

Well, they just raise my hackles.

‘We’ve been good too long, we never fail

To play by Britain’s rules;

When we break the law, we go to jail

And bow our heads like fools.

‘The time has come, I say tonight

To cast aside our veil;

To stand like men, to arm, to fight –

To think of blood, not bail.

Tonight non-violent Pandu dies!

No more shall I be weak;

From now I toil and exercise

To be strong as Indian teak.

‘Away with Tolstoy, Ruskin, Buddha:

Their ideas just make little men littler.

No more “truth-force”, only yuddha –

It’s time to learn from that chap Hitler.’

So saying, our angry hero

Became the country’s first Fascist;

Admiring Roma’s latest Nero

He practised how to clench his fist.

Our Aryan brothers, full of go-go

Have revitalized the German nation.

As India’s SS, I announce the OO —

Short for Onward Organization.

‘Onward, my friends! our cause must march,

In discipline we must never slacken.

Our military shorts we must always starch,

For Britain’s foes will need our backing.’

Then Poland fell, and the Nazi Panzer

Overrode Chamberlain’s ‘Peace with honour’

‘Let’s join Hitler’s extravaganza –

Britain will soon have our jackboots on her!’

So saying, Pandu bought a ticket

(First-class, appearances must be kept)

To Berlin; ‘The rest of you can stick it –

Pandu acts while the Kauravas slept!’

51

But when our hero began his trip

(He’d got as far as the aerodrome)

The Brits, who’d briefly lost their grip

Declared war on Berlin, and on Rome.

Standing at the excess-baggage counter

(He’d packed too much for the winter season)

Pandu’s plans began to flounder

When he was arrested — for intending treason.

Handcuffed, the OO’s home-grown Führer

Was carted off to the central jail;

For him there’d be no judge or juror –

The Raj didn’t want him out on bail.

And there a lesser man might languish,

Rotting away behind prison bars;

His mind and spirit prey to anguish

As he mourns his lot, and curses his stars.

But our Pandu was made of sterner stuff!

He was never one to stand and gape.

Now that the Brits were playing rough

He resolved to make his own escape.

Each day he plotted his great jailbreak:

— Shall I saw? or dig? or provoke battle?

Can I get a knife in a chocolate cake?

Or pretend to faint, and flee the hospital?

His plans might well have been doomed to failure

Had the fates not played into his hands;

For a man assigned to be his jailor

Turned out to be one of the OO’s fans.

‘Honoured to meet you, Panduji, sir,’

He whispered when they were first alone.

‘As I shake your hand, I must aver

I think of you as our Saint Joan.

‘We men in khaki have had to fret and fume

At the namby-pambiness of the Kaurava Party.

Bharatmata would surely be led to its doom

Were it not for the OO and its Chakravarti.’

(The OO, Ganapathi — here I must explain –

Took its terminology from the Indian dharti:

Its men-scouts were sainiks, its HQ Ujjain,

And its Supreme Leader a Chakravarti.)

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Pandu replied,

‘We need men of spirit in jobs like yours.

But while I’m locked up, strong men have died

For the nation’s illnesses need the OO’s cures.’

He fixed his captor with an unblinking stare.

‘It’s time for you to serve the cause.

I can’t stay here when they need me there –

You must help me get out, to fight our wars.’

The jailor shuffled from foot to foot,

Looking determined and chagrined in turn.

‘From the top of my cap to the toe of my boot,

I’ve always merited the wages I earn.

‘Now you want me to be untrue to my salt.

That’s a difficult decision to make.

You know how I’ll be condemned for my fault

And the spiral my career will take.

‘I admire you, Chakravarti — this is no homily –

I wish I could help you to flee;

But I must think of my job, my wife and family

And I must do my painful duty.’

‘Yes, you must do your duty,’ said Pandu quickly,

‘But where does your duty lie?

When the nation, oppressed, was never so sickly

Can a true man just stand and sigh?’

He could see his words had won him a pause

In the train of the jailor’s thought;

The uniformed patriot guarding the laws

Was torn ‘tween the must and the ought.

‘And then, of course, there’s something, son,

Which you might well have overlooked;

When freedom comes, and the OO’s won

The rewards won’t be overbooked.

‘At that time, then, where’d you rather stand?

Among the heroes of Bharatiya Swaraj?

Or will you be counted with the shameful band

Who betrayed the foes of the Raj?’

‘Forgive me, Chakravarti,’ the jailor wept,

‘For having hesitated at all.

I don’t have the keys, but I know where they’re kept,

And I can get you over the wall.’

Though the alarm bells were rung, and every port watched,

By eagle-eyed British police,

Pandu evaded them all — this flight wasn’t botched

For they couldn’t spot the wolf through the fleece.

Yes, it was Pandu’s disguise that got him past

The checkpost — as Begum Jahan,

The fat, burqa-ed wife (ah, I see you’re aghast)

Of a fiercely possessive Pathan.

You may disapprove of our hero’s disguise

— How could a leader dress like a fool? –

But there’s no denying it evaded the eyes

Of policemen right up to Kabul.

From neutral Afghanistan, dressed well again

In battledress from the bazaar

Chakravarti booked himself on to a plane

To Berlin (cabling Adolf to send him a car).

There was a slight hitch, I’ve got to admit

For our brilliant swadeshi Caesar,

Busy ensuring his fatigues would fit,

Had forgotten he needed a visa.

Oh, the terrible ways of bureaucracy!

The airline wouldn’t take him on board –

The avatar of Indian autocracy

Explained, shouted, ranted, implored;

But ‘Sorry, sir, that’s a strict regulation,’

Said the manager (not sorry at all),

‘Try the embassy of the German nation –

And would you mind not blocking the hall?’

Defeated, at last, with one more plane missed,

Pandu went off to apply,

‘Mr Consul-General — I must insist

I can’t wait for Berlin’s reply.

‘Do you know who I am? Herr Hitler’s best friend

In the Indian sub-continent;

From Kanyakumari to London’s West End

I’m known for my Fascistic bent.’

(All this, Ganapathi, if truth be told

Was cunning deceit by my son;

He was really no Nazi, my decent cuckold,

But a patriot in search of a gun.

Oh, he’d flirted, it’s true, with Fascist ideas,

But those didn’t count in the end;

As he’d said to his wives, ‘It’s simply, my dears,

That my enemy’s enemy’s my friend.’)

‘Sehr gut, mein Herr,’ the Consul said,

‘In that case I’ll give you your visa.

Good luck — and when you see the nation’s head

Don’t forget to salute the old geezer.’

52

He remembered; first day, Pandu snapped a salute,

Palm out, in the Nazi style,

It caught the Führer right in the snoot,

And made him see stars for a while.

‘Heil — ouch! Oh, hell,’ Chakravarti said,

As the Führer winced in pain,

‘I’m sorry — I wish I were dead —’

‘You will be, if this happens again.’

An inauspicious start! — but that’s how it was

For our fighter in exile throughout;

His valiant efforts to work for the cause

Were hamstrung within and without.

‘Radio broadcasts — that’s what you can do,’

Said the Germans, when he asked for tanks;

So instead of invading, our disappointed Pandu

Made speeches to the other ranks.

Every Sunday and Thursday, on Deutsche Welle,

Chakravarti broadcast to the East;

But his stirring exhortations to march on Delhi

Came through like the yelps of a beast.

‘What’s this?’ men would say, twiddling knobs on their sets,

As an awful squawk assaulted their ears,

And whine followed squeal like the screech of ten jets,

All braking while changing their gears.

‘Can’t make out a word!’ — ‘Is it a new song?’

‘An announcement from Washington DC?’

‘No, I think it’s a girl, and she’s speaking Bong! –

Let’s get back to good old BBC.’

So Pandu’s prating received a low rating –

His oration could hardly be heard;

And the long months of waiting led him to start hating

His exile — so futile, absurd.

Then came the break! Hitler’s Nippy allies –

The Japanese in their Far Eastern sphere –

Hacking through jungles, raining death from the skies

Defeated Blimps quaking with fear.

So much, my friends, for the imperial myth –

Of ruling invincibly;

The claim that Britannia’s kin and kith

Were supreme militarily.

(In fact, Ganapathi, if truth be told

The bloody ‘white man’s burden’

Was what our coolies — cudgelled, cajoled –

Bore on their heads and cursed in.)

But when the Japs, those sturdy chaps

Gave the pinkskins their come-uppance,

Hope dawned in Indian hearts and laps

That we too could win Independence.

For the supremacist claims of colonial toasts

Stood revealed as shabby deceits:

Vainglorious boasts from undefended posts

Mocking disgraceful retreats.

‘Hooray!’ said Chakravarti, ‘Let’s fight! Let’s go!

Let’s salute the rising sun!

With the help of Japan and the noble OO

Our battle will be won.’

53

In due course (‘after uneventful trip’)

He arrived at the scene of his war

The ex-British playground, now out of their grip –

The island of Singapore.

‘Welcome, Chaklavalti,’ a young Chinese said,

‘I’m your intehpleteh tonight;’

A Japanese general then bowed deep his head:

‘Hurro, have you had a good fright?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir!’ Pandu replied

(As the Chinese had translated the greeting)

‘I’m extremely glad to be on your side –

Together we’ll give them a beating.’

‘Together?’ harrumphed his little host.

‘I’m not sure I quite understand.

The Brits here have arready given up the ghost –

And we noticed no Indians at hand.

‘In fact,’ he went on, warming to his theme,

‘The onry Indians we saw

Were fighting on their side — that’s not a dream:

Our prison camps have Indians garore.’

‘Of course,’ Pandu hastened, ‘but what could we do?

Our boys were enslaved in their ranks.

Now they’re certainly chastened, like bears in a zoo

And dissension flows in their flanks.

‘Just let me at them, just give me some time,

And I’ll deliver an army to you;

The best Indian soldiers, fighters sublime

Lined up for Tojo to view.

‘I’ll fire them with freedom and nationalist pride

Urge them to enlist in our cause;

Tell them it’s more easy with Japan on our side

To kick the oppressor outdoors.’

‘Orright,’ said the Jap, (‘All light,’ said the chap),

‘We’ll give you the access you want;

An ID card, cap, a jeep and a map,

And permission to embark on this jaunt.’

So Pandu set out, in full battledress,

His topee at a jaunty angle;

From exercise ground to officers’ mess

The spurs on his booties would jangle.

Namaskar! Sieg Heil! Now harken to me –

All you wretched P-O double-yous:

I offer the chance to save your janmabhoomi

And pay Bharatmata her dues.

‘What kind of life is this? Just sitting around

And waiting for your next dish of gruel –

When you could instead be out of this ground

And fighting the nationalist duel.

‘Or would you much rather sit and break rocks for the Japs

Doing prisoners’ won’t till you die?

Dig trenches, latrines, look for landmines and traps,

Build a bridge on the nice River Kwai?’

‘But our oaths? Our careers? We must be true to our salt,’

Ventured one or two men in doubt.

‘If the Brits couldn’t save you, it’s hardly your fault,’

Said my son: ‘What’s an oath in a rout?’

Ah, he struck a chord there, my pale son Pandu!

He knew what would appeal to the men;

If you’ve any doubt of what a golden tongue can do,

Consider his triumph again.

They flocked to him in the proverbial droves,

Proclaiming their desire to enlist;

Attracted, perhaps, by the fishes and loaves

But also by Pandu’s raised fist.

His message to them was loud, it was clear,

To soldiers in prison immersed:

‘If you fight for the freedom of your nation so dear

You’ll get your own freedom first.’

Platoons, companies, divisions were raised

Of the OO’s Swatantra Sena;

In their political harangues Hirohito was praised

But Chakravarti was the overall gainer.

How he strutted, my son, how proud he became!

You’d think he’d just won a battle.

When in fact (as the Brits would snidely claim)

His men just hung around like cattle.

Oh, they trained, and they drilled, and they marched in parade,

Their uniforms were ironed every day,

But the ex-POWs of Pandu’s brigade

On the war-front, made little headway.

The Japanese were pleased as the numbers increased

— It made very good propaganda –

But when it came to the crunch, politeness ceased,

And they spoke with ruthless candour:

‘Trust traitors? Oh, we know what you’ll say,

“They’re not traitors, but patriots and heroes” –

‘But if the oath they had sworn can be broken today,

Can’t they just as easiry break tomorrow’s?

‘We don’t blame them at all, for swallowing their pride –

Our prison camps aren’t much fun;

They make good P R, but we must set them aside

When there’s serious soldiering to be done.’

‘So I’ll wait,’ swore Pandu, ‘what the hell!

My forces will just bide their time;

And though the Japs are now doing well

Soon they’ll need us, as reason needs rhyme.’

54

But while waiting, my son was determined

Not to suffer the grim solitude

That in Berlin (with door locked, and food tinned)

He had borne with such fortitude.

So he smuggled a message to Madri

Through a Japanese network of spies:

‘Your husband needs you very badry —

Could you come? Discretion’d be wise.’

Excited and anxious, our princess

Wipes a tear of farewell from her eye;

‘Take care of my thonth’ (Kunti winces)

‘I mutht join my patideva — goodbye.’

After a journey both risky and torrid

Full of dangers (too many to relate)

Madri arrived — ‘Oh dahling, ‘twath horrid!’ –

In Singapore, to seal Pandu’s fate.

‘Overwhelmed’ would be an understatement

To describe my son’s attitude;

He beamed and glowed sans abatement

In marital beatitude.

‘Now all’s well,’ he proclaimed to his helpmeet,

‘I can bear any weight, any wait;

My companion is here to help beat

All ennui, all frustration, all hate.’

But to ease Japanese suspicions

About his commitment to the cause.

And to reaffirm his ambitions,

Pandu enrolled her in the wars.

‘Captain Madri! How you’ll impress the Japs

In your battledress of khaki!

A little tight around the chest, perhaps –

But you’ll shine in the General’s marquee!’

And indeed she looked a sight to behold

In the fatigues of the Swatantra Sena;

The cut of her shirt was not itself bold

But when she moved, no cloth could restrain her.

For years, the thought of sexual functions

Pandu had instantly banished;

As he rigorously heeded the doctor’s injunctions

All fleshly temptation had vanished.

But the iron restraint of satyagrahi life

Had grown flaccid in his forced exile

And the new proximity of his bosomy wife

Woke passions dormant the while.

For weeks Pandu continued to resist

As Madri stirred life in his loins;

But despite meditation, he could not desist

From contemplating a union of groins.

‘Oh fatal flaw! I can’t commit such a sin –

What is happening to my concentration?

The British offensive is about to begin –

And I think of the wrong kind of penetration!’

For yes, Ganapathi, the fortunes of war

Had turned; now the Japs bore the brunt:

Instead of ‘Attack India’, ‘Defend Singapore’

Became Japan’s battle-cry at the front.

At last Pandu’s man were given the chance

To fight — but the going got rough,

And his war-weary sainiks, unable to advance.

Found Pandu’s slogans no longer enough.

Oh, when it came to fighting the Brits

Or traversing the jungle terrain

Some sainiks were valiant, at least in bits

With many heroes who battled in vain.

But few soldiers can shoot at their brothers-in-arms

And Pandu’s were also thus hindered;

Under fire, forgetting his eloquent charms

They fled, or simply surrendered.

Disgraced, with defeat looming real and large,

The Japs ordered Pandu to withdraw;

In a rickety plane (he was offered that or a barge)

He left the island of Singapore.

55

As the aircraft rose with a shudder

Into the darkened tropical sky

And the pilot pushed the rudder

On a course for safe Shanghai –

Pandu looked down into the failure

Of the plans he’d left behind;

‘I couldn’t have been sillier,’

Pandu sighed. His face was lined;

There were crow’s-feet at the corners

Of his tired and bloodshot eyes,

And his pale face was like a mourner’s

(Sagging with grief, you realize).

‘I had such hopes, my dearest one

Of rising to the fore;

With the swastika, and the rising sun

I thought we’d win the war.

‘I’d hoped then to have proved my point

To the Brits and Kauravas too;

To Gangaji, who might then anoint

Me his heir and Number Two.

‘But had he not, it wouldn’t have mattered

What the non-violent ones thought;

For the people, once the Brits were battered

Would have crowned me, like as not.

‘Instead, Madri, my hopes lie shattered

In the dust under British boots;

The man who fought as the Kauravas nattered

Now flees — and who cares two hoots?

‘As I look at you, my heart fills with sorrow

At the fate that awaits you too:

There is no hope of a bright tomorrow

For the wife of brave Pandu.

‘If the Brits win, as now seems probable,

There’ll be nowhere for us to hide:

Their cops are smart, their judges not bribable,

I’ll be arrested and summarily tried.

‘There’s not much hope of escaping the rope

For inciting the men to mutiny;

I wish I believed you’d be able to cope

With the shame — and the ignominy.’

‘Don’t talk like that!’ A teardrop shone

On Madri’s glistening cheek;

‘Oh, thweetheart, I love you, the thought of you gone

Maketh me feel empty and weak.

‘My darlingeth Pandu, let me thay to you

— I thwear thith upon Vithnu and Thiv –

If anything happenth to my deareth Pandu

I thimply don’t want to live.

‘My husband, you gave me thuch wonderful joy

By calling me to your thide in your need;

Do you think I’m some thameleth Helen of Troy

To trot off on another man’th thteed?

‘No! Pandu my lord, by your thide I’ll thtay

Through thick and thin, better and worthe;

We’ll fathe the Raj, fight on night and day –

And I’ll help you, for whatever that’th worth.

‘Oh Madri!’ and here our Pandu was moved

By the sincerity of her love,

If anything, her declarations proved

She was a gift from the heavens above.

‘Oh, Madri!’ He took her in his arms

And kissed her long and wetly,

Till, attritioned by her charms,

His will collapsed completely.

‘No — Pandu — don’t!’ his loved one cried,

As his hands explored her buttons;

‘Remember the doctor — when you nearly died –

Let’th kith, but not be gluttonth!’

‘Twas of no avail, he was possessed

By a need he could not define;

After years of restraint, now obsessed

To unite with his concubine.

‘I want you!’ his hiss was urgent

As he peeled off layers of clothes;

In the cold seat, his passion emergent

Repulsed his wife’s feeble ‘No’s.

Poor Madri! Denial was not in her nature,

‘No’ was not a word she liked to speak;

Indeed (at the risk of caricature)

Her flesh was willing, and her spirit weak.

And Pandu was in no mood to be denied;

His hands moved with a probing persistence.

He caressed her: ‘I want you!’ he cried,

‘You’re the only joy left in my existence!’

In love and heat, Madri conceded defeat.

And yielded to her husband’s great ardour.

Soon, despite her fears and the tilt of the seat,

She was gasping, ‘Oh, yeth! Harder! Harder!’

‘Oh, yes!’ he breathed back in pneumatic bliss.

‘Onward! That’s my immortal credo!’

But then his lips, after a pulsating kiss,

Turned blue, and exhaled a croaking ‘O. . O. .

Tracers exploded outside in the sky

Shooting incandescent streamers of light

Across the window where our lovers lie

Entwined ‘tween the silence and night.

‘Thank you,’ Madri sighed in orgasmic relief,

‘You were wonderful — wath it good for you, too?’

Then, looking at him, almost beyond belief:

‘P. . Pandu! What hath happened to you?

‘Why are you tho limp? Why lie you tho thtill?

My huthband, my lord, king of the OO?

Pleathe rithe — pleathe thmile — oh tell me you will –

Oh my God! You’re not. .! Oh. .! Oh no. .!’

She screamed; and it was as if her heart-wrenching cry

Had carried her spirit to where his had flown:

Soaring up and across the illuminated sky

To its celestial home, where no one is alone.

For in that terrible cry of desolation

Was embodied a plea no god could deny;

Her intense refusal to accept her isolation

Carried its message to the forces on high.

Two powerful beams of terrestrial light

Criss-crossed on the wings of Pandu’s Zero;

Revealing to Madri a last vivid sight

On her breast, the beatific head of her hero.

Then she knew; and she smiled, in the stillness that followed.

The shell that was coming made scarcely a ripple.

She lifted his head, kissed him, slightly swallowed;

Then lowered him gently, his mouth to her nipple.

When the shell hit she could have sworn she felt

A life-seeking tug at her soft swollen breast;

A split-second, perhaps, and then came a pelt

Of death-dealing shrapnel that tore open her chest.

For another split second the plane hung on there

Spotlit in the beams of the gunners below;

Then it burst into a flaming ball in the air

Burning crimson, consuming my son — and widow.

As Pandu plummeted to the fiery fate

That all Hindus know as we leave this world,

Madri, his devoted (though second) mate

Kept the proud banner of Sati unfurled:

She attained eternity — an all-too-rare case –

In the glorious blaze of a purifying fire.

Finding, in the flames of the plane, her place

On her husband’s aluminium funeral pyre.

That must have made Pandu happy, Ganapathi. With all his deep delving into the scriptures, his theological sanctions for procreative cuckoldry, he must have savoured the satisfaction of going like that — burning with his dutiful wife in fulfilment of the classic ideals of marital love. It must have gladdened his atrophied heart.

When the news reached us here, it affected all of us deeply, even Dhritarash- tra, whose place at the head of his generation it made more secure. My blind son issued a touching little statement about his ‘immeasurable sadness’ and the ‘incalculable loss to the grieving nation’. He pledged to ‘keep the flame of my brother Pandu’s deep-seated patriotism aglow’. Ah, Dhritarashtra, for ever those visual metaphors.

And what of Gangaji? The Mahaguru was moved enough to sit in silence and spin for hours, talking to nobody, immersed in reflection. He presented the cloth that emerged from that session to Pandu’s surviving widow, Kunti. But it was practically unusable — the woof was all warped, or was it that the weft was not right? — which showed that for once Gangaji’s mind had not been on what he was doing. Pandu’s loss diminished us all.