The Great Indian Novel

The Fourteenth Book: The Rigged Veda

82

‘Delighted to receive you, noble sirs.’ The hotelier’s brace of gold teeth gleamed in a beaming smile. ‘My good name is Purochan Lal. I am very much honoured to welcome you to my humble hostelry. Will you be staying long?’

‘A few days,’ Yudhishtir replied non-committally. ‘We have not decided yet.’ He cast a look around the premises, unimpressed.

‘Naturally, naturally.’ Purochan Lal was scrapingly obsequious. ‘It is only fit and proper that you should take your time to pronounce on the merits of our fair city. Er, town.’

‘Can you show us to the room of our mother? She is expecting us.’

‘Your mother? Most certainly.’ Purochan Lal walked behind a rudimentary counter to a well-thumbed register. ‘And what is her good name, please?’

‘Kunti Devi. She must have arrived — oh, about a day ago. From Has-tinapur.’

‘Srimati Kunti Devi! But of course!’ Purochan Lal seemed almost excited. ‘You are saying she is your mother? You are her son?’

‘Yudhishtir,’ the eldest confirmed. ‘And these are my brothers Bhim, Arjun, Nakul and Sahadev.’

‘We are pleased to meet you,’ said Nakul gravely. Arjun nodded. Bhim beamed.

‘But what an unexpected honour!’ The hotelier rubbed his hands in a combination of reverence and glee. ‘The five sons of the meritorious Pandu! Our late great Chakravarti, scourge of the British!’ He leaned over the counter in conspiratorial confession. ‘I was myself a member of the Onward Organissa-tion,’ he announced in a sibilant whisper. ‘Your wiss is my command.’

Yudhishtir looked embarrassed at the unexpected reception. ‘Our only wiss, I mean wish, is to be taken up to our rooms,’ he said. ‘We are very tired, and we want to see our mother soon, if it’s no trouble.’

‘Trouble? No trouble at all. It is my pleasure to be of service to Chakravar-tissons. My only sorrow is that my rooms are so unworthy of such distinguished visitors. Hai, hai.’ He shook his head in mournful self-reproach. Then, suddenly, his regretful face lit up. ‘But wait! I have an idea. My new house is almost ready. It is not far from here, and my family do not plan to occupy it till after Diwali. Why not you live there instead?’

‘Really, we wouldn’t dream of giving you such trouble,’ Yudhishtir said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be perfectly comfortable here.’

‘What talk is this? I am already telling you it is no trouble at all,’ Purochan Lal replied. ‘I insist. It will be honour for me and my family to have you sleep under our roof. I must go and fetch the keys. But no, first I must take you to your mother. Then you all wash and be comfortable, and within one or two hours, I shall ready the new house for you.’ He smiled and bowed and rubbed his hands again, as the three older Pandavas looked at each other and shrugged. ‘You will accept? You will stay in my house? I am truly honoured. Please follow me.’

Early the next morning, the Home Secretary in Delhi grimly studied the smudged carbon delivered to him by his staff in the cable interception service. ‘CONTACT ESTABLISHED STOP FIVE FULLY TRUSTING STOP MOVING TO PRE-TREATED HOUSE TOMORROW STOP PREPARATIONS MADE AS DISCUSSED STOP PLEASE ADVISE WHEN TO START STOP KINDLY CONTINUE REMIT FUNDS WITHOUT STOP STOP PUROCHAN LAL.’ The cable had been sent from Varanavata the previous evening. It was addressed to Priya Duryodhani.

Vidur had to buy time.

He pulled a writing-pad toward him and rapidly drafted three cables in his quick, sloping hand. Thank God his most reliable man in Varanavata was the postmaster.

‘FOR PUROCHAN LALL STOP MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP DO NOT DO ANYTHING TILL EYE TELL YOU TO START STOP CONTINUE YOUR PREPARATIONS AND DO NOT STOP STOP PLEASE DRAFT CABLES MORE CAREFULLY AND DO NOT END SENTENCES WITH STOP STOP STOP YOU SEE HOW CONFUSING THIS IS STOP FUNDS ARE MY RESPONSIBILITY AND THEY WILL NOT STOP STOP ESPECIALLY IF YOU STOP STOP STOP STOP.’

He signed that one Priya Duryodhani.

The next cable was to the postmaster, ‘DO NOT DELIVER TO PUROCHAN LAL ANY CABLE OTHER THAN THOSE BEGINNING WITH WORDS QUOTE FOR PUROCHAN LALL UNQUOTE.’ He signed his full name and title, and made sure he assigned the instruction an official reference number.

His last cable was the most difficult one to compose.

FOR YUDHISHTIR CARE GPO VARANAVATA STOP YOUR LATEST ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST STOP BE WARY TROJAN HOUSE STOP GUARD AGAINST HEADLESS PARSON STOP DONT LET ON COLON NO IMMEDIATE REARRANGED GARDEN STOP AM SENDING RABBIT TO HELP BURROW STOP TRAVEL BROADENS THE HORIZONS STOP LET STARS LIGHT YOUR PATH STOP UNCLE VIDUR.’

He re-examined the text with a critical eye. ‘Trojan house’ was a fairly obvious allusion. Had Yudhishtir done enough crosswords to deduce that ‘headless parson’ was ‘arson’ and ‘garden’ could be ‘rearranged’ as ‘danger’? He hoped so. If the superfluous punctuation and the Confucianisms of the rest of the message proved more opaque, he could not help it: there was no way he could risk being more explicit. But the meaning could be guessed at, and it was only intended to place the Pandavas on guard until his man got to Varanavata.

It was time to send for the Rabbit.

83

‘What’s this about a rearranged garden?’ Bhim asked. ‘Danger,’ Arjun said shortly.

‘I don’t see what’s dangerous about this garden,’ Bhim looked around him contemptuously at the few scraggly bushes around the perimeter of the lawn. ‘In fact it’s not much of a garden at all, if you ask me.’

‘Am sending rabbit to help burrow,’ Yudhishtir mused.

‘Burrow — that’s a hole in the ground,’ Arjun said reflectively. ‘Rabbits make them. I think Uncle Vidur is suggesting either that someone will help us find a safe hiding place, or. .’

‘. . will help us dig our way to one,’ Yudhishtir agreed. ‘Did I hear you say dig?’ Bhim asked. ‘In this garden? Forget it. You’d be lucky to get a cactus to grow here.’

‘Travel broadens the horizons?’ Yudhishtir asked.

‘I suppose that means prepare to escape. And “let stars light your path” must refer to escaping at night.’

‘Look, what are you two on about?’ Bhim, who had caught only the occasional word of their exchange, asked belligerently. ‘Sitting here talking about gardens, and digging, and looking at the stars in the night, as if we’ve got nothing more important to do! When are you going to tell Ma and me about the cable that came from Uncle Vidur?’

‘Just as soon as we’ve worked out what it means, Bhim-bhai,’ Arjun said mischievously. ‘Here — why don’t you look it over and have a try?’

Bhim took the pink form with its lines of erratically stuck strips of white paper and frowned at its contents. He raised his finger as if to scratch his head and then, realizing how the gesture might stereotype him, put it down again.

‘Well?’ asked Yudhishtir.

‘It’s in code, of course,’ replied Bhim.

‘Ten out of ten so far,’ said Yudhishtir. ‘But what does it all mean?’

‘Roughly. . We should watch out for a Trojan horse — “house” here’s just a misprint, everyone knows what a Trojan horse is. I don’t suppose he means a large wooden creature full of soldiers, but someone slipped into our company — I know! The servant maid!’

‘The maidservant! How clever of you, Bhim!’ Arjun marvelled. ‘You mean toothless, sixty-year-old Parvati is really a sinister secret agent in disguise? I’d never have worked that out by myself.’

But Bhim was too engrossed in the rest of the text to catch his younger brother’s mocking tone.’ “Guard against headless parson.” That’s more difficult. There must be a parish-priest type about who’s dangerous.’

‘And headless?’

The question threw Bhim for a moment, but he recovered quickly. ‘Certainly, you know, when he loses his head. A sort of violent, schizophrenic type. Goes crazy on full-moon nights and runs about with an axe. That sort of thing.’

‘Right, Bhim. So we’ll be on our guard against Parvati and a lunatic priest. What else?’

‘It says, “Don’t let on colon”. What part of the body is the colon, Yudhishtir?’

‘It’s the large intestine,’ replied his polymath elder brother, ‘from the caecum to the rectum.’

‘It’s also the monetary unit of El Salvador and Costa Rica,’ Arjun added helpfully.

Bhim shot him a suspicious look. ‘Are you trying to be funny, Arjun? Because this cable’s got nothing to do with El. . El Alamein and Costa Brava, or wherever. All this means is we’ve got to make sure the crazy parson never gets near our large intestines.’

‘Keep away from our caecums, we’ll say when he approaches.’

‘”No immediate,” Uncle Vidur says. An immediate no.’

‘That’s all very well, saying no and all, but Bhim, if this parson’s that crazy do you think he’ll listen?’

‘Perhaps you have a point there,’ Bhim admitted. ‘Wait — maybe that’s where the rearranged garden comes in. If we rearrange the garden, perhaps this priest will not go for our colons.’ Bhim looked around him again. ‘But I’ll say this again: there’s not much garden to rearrange.’

This might have gone on for ever, Ganapathi, were it not for a fortuitous interruption — the arrival outside of their mother. Kunti Devi, dressed in a simple cotton sari, walked to her sons with a frown on her face.

‘Tell me, boys,’ she asked with the directness for which she was known, ‘do you feel there is something strange about the house?’

Yudhishtir and Arjun exchanged glances. ‘In what way, Mother?’ the elder asked.

‘The smell,’ their mother replied. ‘I can’t explain it, but there’s something odd about the smell from the walls and floors of this house.’

‘I thought so too,’ Yudhishtir admitted, ‘but knowing it was a new house, not yet occupied, I thought it might just be fresh paint.’

‘There’s no paint on the floors,’ Kunti said, ‘but they smell the same.’

Yudhishtir looked again at the cable in his hand, and at Arjun. ‘I’ll go and set, Mother,’ Arjun said quietly.

‘Don’t just see, sniff!’ Bhim bellowed after him.

‘What are you boys discussing? Is that a telegram?’

‘It’s a telegram from Uncle Vidur,’ Bhim announced. ‘It’s in code. I was just explaining it to them.’

‘Really? From Uncle Vidur?’ Kunti seemed disturbed. ‘What does he say?’

‘Just to be careful about certain things,’ Yudhishtir said cautiously. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Mother.’

‘No,’ said Bhim reassuringly. ‘I can handle any number of schizophrenic priests and Trojan maidservants for you, Ma.’

Kunti’s startled reaction might have merited a few clarifications, but at that moment Arjun stepped out of the house wearing a grave look.

‘I think I know what it is,’ he said as he approached them.

‘The smell? What?’

‘Lac,’ Arjun replied.

‘What do you mean, lakh?’ Bhim asked. ‘That’s not a smell, it’s an amount.’

‘I didn’t say lakh, Bhim, but lac. The word’s from the same root, but this one’s a resin, produced by coccid insects on the twigs of trees. It’s transparent, so you can apply it anywhere and it won’t hide the wood or whatever surface there is beneath, though it will give it the reddish look we all noticed. Of course, its smell takes some time to disappear, as Ma has just found out.’

‘So that’s all,’ Kunti smiled, relieved. ‘Well, I’d better go and see about some tea for all of us.’

‘Wait, Ma.’ Arjun paused. ‘Keep the stove well away from the wall and the floor, and don’t stub your cigarettes out anywhere but in an ashtray. You see, there is one property of lac I haven’t mentioned yet. It’s highly inflammable. We’re living inside a petrol-can.’

84

‘Your report?’ Vidur asked, leaning back in his chair.

‘I went as instructed,’ (said the Rabbit)

‘Quite promptly — as is always my habit.

The five whom you said

Might even be dead

Had a chance — and I told them to grab it.

‘Your cables had worked very well.

Purochan was confused as hell.

With your “start” and your “stop”

You had him on the hop –

So into our little net he fell.

‘Obeying your telegrams, he’d waited.

His trap was all ready and baited.

Your nephews had no reason

To suspect him of treason;

Their extinction seemed virtually fated.

‘It just was a question of time

Before Purochan committed the crime.

A touch of the torch

To the lac-covered porch

Was all it would take to fry ‘em.

‘Of course, he had started to wonder

If Duryodhani had made a blunder,

As day after day

He was asked to delay

The deed that would cast them asunder.

‘Thank you, sir, for your delaying tactics:

Without them, we’d have been in a real fix.

But you gave us the time

To outsmart the slime

With our spades, hoes, shovels and picks.

‘As soon as I’d established contact

And confirmed that your nephews were intact,

We started to dig

A tunnel so big

It made a geological impact.

‘We all set to work with a will.

That Bhim! He’d eat his fill,

Then with enormous power

Dig out in an hour

Enough mud to form a small hill.

‘In a short while our work was complete –

A remarkable engineering feat:

A spacious tunnel

Ventilated by funnel

And insulated from the inevitable heat.

‘And all this was done surreptitiously.

(Purochan mustn’t find out adventitiously.)

The opening (quite large)

Was concealed by camouflage:

Some shrubbery — placed most judiciously.

‘At last we were ready to flee

The death-trap of Duryodhani.

Invitations were sent

For a festive event –

Dinner, offered by Kunti Devi.

‘Purochan, unsuspecting, arrived,

With those of his henchmen who’d strived

So long and so hard

And so cleverly, toward

The elimination of the Pandava Five.

‘They ate, drank and made merry

Uplifted by Kunti’s spiked sherry;

By eleven o’clock

Quite downed by the hock

They dozed on the floor, quite unwary.

‘At a signal from me, your five,

Like worker-bees fleeing the hive,

Slipped into the hole,

Each like a large mole,

And scurried to safety — alive.

‘I went on to Stage Two of the Plan.

(The Rabbit’s a reliable man.)

I touched a flame to the door

To the curtains, the floor –

And as the fire blazed, I ran.

‘So Purochan had the end he had cherished:

The fulfilment of the plot he had nourished.

His house burned as he’d planned

(With the lac, you understand)

But it was Purochan himself who perished.

‘In the meantime, under cover of night

The Pandavas made good their flight.

Guided by the stars

And the lights of passing cars

They sought refuge at another site.’

‘Thank you,’ said Vidur. I can take the story up from there.

‘The papers all spoke of disaster:

The death of the heirs of the Master.

Foul play was feared,

For Purochan had disappeared,

And his walls had been of lac, not plaster.

‘ “Heinous crime!” screamed the press.

“National disgrace! What a mess!’’

Said the P M on the morrow,

“I’m overcome with sorrow”;

And Duryodhani — well, you can guess.

‘I sent word to the boys: “Lie low.

Wait for this whole thing to blow.

Adopt a disguise,

Avoid prying eyes,

But as for coming back — no, no.”

‘So now they have started to wander.

Elegant Kunti has to cook and to launder.

From place to dim place

Across the great face

Of India, they walk, talk and ponder.

‘It is, of course, an education.

They will learn about their great nation.

Though of no fixed address

And ignored by the press,

They’ll be Indian (unlike others of their station).

‘I’ve told them it will take some time

Before they can restart their climb

To public acclaim

And national fame;

For now they must remain in the grime.

‘My nephews will travel in obscurity.

Do good work in strict anonymity.

But even if they chafe,

At least they are safe –

And not increasing too much their popularity.

‘Several birds I kill with one stone:

Duryodhani doesn’t break any bone;

Drona’s wings are clipped;

(For he’s just not equipped

Without my nephews, to succeed alone;)

‘Dhritarashtra, my brother, is pleased

That the threat in his party has ceased;

My stratagem stifles

His potential rivals;

And with everyone, my own stock has increased.’

85

‘So they will wander about, perfectly safe, and I shall be even safer? Brilliant, Vidur, simply brilliant.’ The Prime Minister’s relief shone brightly between his upturned lips. ‘You see, Kanika, how Vidur has attained all that you were advocating, without any of the terrible means you proposed? I’m so glad, Vidur, that no violence was necessary.’

‘There is, of course, Prime Minister, the slight matter of Purochan Lal and his associates,’ said Kanika Menon, who rarely hesitated to voice an inconvenient truth. (Or, indeed, a convenient falsehood.)

‘Ah. . yes.’ Dhritarashtra was briefly dampened. ‘I suppose that was unavoidable, was it, Vidur?’

‘I’m afraid so, Prime Minister.’ Vidur’s tone was neutral, professorial. The police had to find bodies, and they had not to find Purochan. This was the only way to attain both objectives. And to protect your sister-in-law and nephews, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Dhritarashtra suddenly seemed less enthusiastic. ‘But enough of all this. Divert me, Kanika. What have you been learning during this visit to our newly independent land? You must have a great deal to tell me.’

‘Where can I begin, Prime Minister? Each day I am here I discover what a priceless collection of collaborators you have surrounded yourself with. Have you heard the latest about your Defence Minister?’

‘No,’ Dhritarashtra confessed. ‘Unless it is the one about him asking for an appointment with the head of the Afghanistan Navy.’

‘Ah, the old land-locked leg-pull. But really, P M, it’s not as funny as all that — after all, even you’ve received the U S Secretary of Culture.’ Kanika advertised his prejudices like a supermarket its sales, in large red letters. ‘No, the story I had in mind originated during Sardar Khushkismat Singh’s last visit to London. You know how much he likes a good joke, even — or especially — if he can’t understand it. At a dinner in his honour, Churchill, whose standards are definitely slackening in his anecdotage, announced to the men over the port and cigars: “Gentlemen, I have a terrible confession to make.” There was, as you can well imagine, a stunned silence. “For seven years in my dissolute youth, I slept with a woman who was not my wife.” All eyes were upon him at these words, all ears strained with incredulity, none more so than Sardar Khushkismat Singh’s. Churchill timed it to perfection. “She was, of course,” he added carefully, “my mother.” The guests laughed in relief as much as appreciation, and our good Sardar, albeit a little mystified by the British sense of humour, made a mental note of what had apparently been a highly successful joke. Last week, he gave a little dinner for me with some of the resident diplomats and military attachés, and after dinner, as the saunf was brought out, he decided to try out the witticism. “Gentlemen,” he announced, “I must confess that in my dissolved youth, I slept with a woman who was not my wife.” The consternation of his guests rivalled that of those at Churchill’s party. The good Sardar practically tripped over himself in his haste to reassure them. “Not to worry, not to worry,” he waved his hand. “It was Winston Churchill’s mother.”’

Dhritarashtra was laughing helplessly. ‘Oh, Kanika, I don’t know how I manage without you in Delhi,’ he said. ‘But then I don’t know how I’d manage without you abroad. Eh, Vidur? Who’d stand up for us in the United Nations and defend us passionately over Manimir?’ His face darkened. “You know, I never thought, Kanika, that the Karnistanis would so completely turn the diplomatic tables on us as they have over Manimir. Had I known, I’d never have gone to the United Nations in the first place.’

No, Prime Minister, but they might have,’ Kanika Menon said. ‘And outsiders who know nothing of our struggle for freedom, our history, our people, would have continued to sit in judgement on us. Karnistan was created for the Muslims, most Manimiris are Muslims, ergo Manimir should be in Karnistan. That is the extent of their political geography. I, of course, stand up and tell them that India does not consider that religion should determine statehood, and that the bulk of Manimir’s Muslims were behind us when our troops marched in to protect them against the Karnistani invaders. But then they ask why, if that is the case, the most prominent of these Manimiri supporters of Indian intervention, your own friend Sheikh Azharud- din, is in jail.’

‘I had to put him there, Kanika,’ Dhritarashtra muttered unhappily. ‘He was getting out of control. Vidur will tell you.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Kanika said. ‘I know all the answers. In some cases I made them up myself. Remember I hold the record for the longest speech ever made at the United Nations, and it was on Manimir. There were a lot of answers in that speech, and a lot of counter-questions too. Would any of them in India’s place have tolerated a Sheikh Azharuddin on their most sensitive border, flirting with the idea of his state’s independence? That’s what I asked them.’

‘I know,’ Dhritarashtra said. ‘Kanika, you have done an excellent job abroad, defending and projecting India’s position before and since Independence. Now I think it is time you came home. I will find you a safe seat at the next election. I want you in politics, and I want you in my Cabinet. I have even decided which ministry to give you.’

‘The Foreign Ministry?’ Kanika asked hopefully. ‘Will you let me sink my teeth into the bloodless hounds of South Block?’

‘No,’ Dhritarashtra said. ‘You know, Kanika, that is the one ministry I have always wanted to hold myself. Foreign affairs is the only subject where it doesn’t matter that I can’t see: everything else requires an empiricism of which I’m incapable. You understand?’

‘Of course.’ Kanika’s hawk-like features concealed his disappointment. ‘But then, whose place do you intend me to take?’

Dhritarashtra smiled wickedly. ‘Sardar Khushkismat Singh’s,’ he said.

86

Travelling southwards, guided by the stars and by their own instincts, the Pandavas sought security in constant movement. At each place, they performed some good deed, much like the itinerant cowboys of the more idealistic Western films, who rode into terrorized towns, guns blazing, demolished the good, the bad and the ugly, and rode off into the sunset, leaving the populace less miserable if more mystified.

The Five found themselves performing a different if not entirely dissimilar order of service in their peregrinations. They would enter a village in which the local priest, defying the new Constitution, was refusing to allow the Untouchables, Gangaji’s Children of God, to enter the temple; or another where a landlord had evicted a pathetic family of tenants because they had been less than fully cooperative with his exactions; or a third in which a corrupt village official, a policeman or a patwari, was exploiting the poor and the illiterate for his personal profit. In each case, Yudhishtir would intervene in the name of righteousness; should his appeal fail, Arjun would attempt the method of reason; and if even this did not work, Bhim would settle the issue decisively with his highly personal techniques of persuasion, with Nakul and Sahadev standing by to pick up the pieces afterwards (and Arjun, marvellous Arjun, returning to the scene to reconcile his brothers’ victims to the new dispensation). In each case the villagers were awed and grateful and anxious to offer a permanent home to the five strangers, but the Pandavas always picked up their few belongings and moved on before the villagers’ demands became irresistible. On buses, bullock-carts, passing lorries but mainly on foot, our five heroes and their mother disappeared unobtrusively into the horizon, leaving behind, in each locality, a lesson and a legend.

Yes, Ganapathi, in villages across the alluvial trans-Gangetic heartland of India, in the dusty squares where the poor congregate to forget their misfortunes, in the twilit housefronts where old women tell the stories that their daughters and nieces will cherish and repeat and pass on like precious oral heirlooms, the legends grew of the five wanderers who came and did their good deeds and went. The stories always developed in the telling, being modified and embellished by each teller, so that eventually the details differed so greatly from one village’s version to the next’s that they might have been tales of totally different people. In one the five princes of Hastinapur became mendicants and holy men; in others their education and confidence proclaimed them quite clearly as exiles from a distant city; in some it was said that their impossible combination of attributes could only have been divinely inspired, and so they had come from Heaven to ensure that the dictates of dharma were followed in dusty Adharmapur. The ever less elegant figure of Kunti in their midst became variously that of a mother, a sister, a cook and a goddess — Shakti — in person, with her five arms in human form bringing justice to an evil world. And the legends grew, Ganapathi, even though it was not long after the Pandavas’ passage that the reforms they had wrought quietly lapsed, and their erstwhile victims, convinced the wanderers would not return, returned to their old ways with a vengeance.

No, let me not be so categorical. Of every five good deeds they performed, four did not long outlast their departure, but in about one case out of five the Pandavas left behind a true convert, an unalterable new reality or a genuine change of heart. So it was in the country as a whole, Ganapathi. As the giant that was independent India lumbered into wakefulness and slowly purposeful motion, Parliament passed laws that a few implemented and many ignored, reforms were enacted that changed the lives of the minority and were subverted by the majority, idealistic policies were framed that uplifted some and were perverted to line the pockets of others, and everywhere it was five steps forward, four steps back. But the one step that was not retraced still made a difference. That was the only way that change would come to a changeless land.

In Delhi blind Dhritarashtra ruled with Priya Duryodhani by his side, and he pledged the nation not so much to the gas and hot water of his Fabian preceptors but to the smoke and steam of the modern industrial revolution their ancestors had denied his country. So factories sprang up amidst the mud and thatch of our people’s homes; gigantic chimneys raised themselves alongside the charcoal braziers of our outdoor kitchens; immense dams arose above the wells to which our women walked to draw their clay urns full of water, India was well on the way to becoming the seventh largest industrial power in the world, whatever that may mean, while 80 per cent of her people continued to lack electricity and clean drinking water.

It was the same for the people themselves. Institutions of higher learning, colleges of technology, schools of management mushroomed in the dark humid forests of our ignorance. The British had neglected village education in their efforts to produce a limited literate class of petty clerks to turn the lower wheels of their bureaucracy, so we too neglected the villages in our efforts to widen that literate class for their new places at the top. Within a short while we would have the world’s second largest pool of scientifically trained manpower, side by side with its largest lake of educated unemployed. Our medical schools produced the most gifted doctors in the hospitals of London, while whole districts ached without aspirin. Our institutes of technology were generously subsidized by our tax revenues to churn out brilliant graduates for the research laboratories of American corporations, while our emaciated women carried pans of stones on their head to the building-sites of new institutes. When, belatedly, our universities became ‘rurally conscious’ and offered specializations in plant pathology and modern agricultural methods, their graduates were to bid a rapid farewell to the wastelands of Avadh and Annamalai and earn immense salaries for making Arab deserts bloom.

But, as usual, Ganapathi — you are not strict enough with me — I digress; my mind wanders across this vast expanse of our nation like the five heroes whose tale I am trying to relate. Yet we cannot tell it all; we must soar above the mountains and the valleys, the hillocks and the depressions of India’s geography and take the larger view of our cavalcade of characters as their wheels scratch the surface of our immense land. And occasionally we must swoop down to watch them at closer quarters, as they perform the acts and utter the words that give our geography its history.

87

Thus we spot our five in a village torn by the conflict between two landlords, Pinaka and Saranga. Pinaka, wealthy and powerful, always seen with an eagle on his shoulder, has immense holdings, farmed by battalions of tenants who are paid well for their services but have no title to the land. Saranga, an immense bear of a man, controls as big an area, but has signed over to his share-croppers the land they till, though he still exacts a tribute from them for this act of emancipation. Both landlords employ gangs of toughs armed to the teeth to protect those on their side of the divide and make menacing noises at their rivals. The Pandavas are the first people in the village who have no stake in the conflict; they arrive, they take up lodgings, they stay neutral. Both Pinaka and Saranga are suspicious, then solicitous; each assumes, the first because he is generous, the second because he is just, that the Pandavas will join his side. When they do not — for they see merit in aspects of both arguments, and are fully convinced by neither — they invite the opprobrium of both.

‘How could you refuse to condemn Saranga when his hired hoodlums beat up poor Hangari Das, molested his wife and abducted his children merely because he wanted to keep his own harvests for himself?’ Pinaka asked bitterly.

‘What good would it do to condemn him?’ Arjun replied. ‘Would it have restored his teeth, his wife’s pride or his children?’

‘How can you refuse to join me when Pinaka fails to give his tenants their land, earns so much profit and heartlessly replaces a tenant when he finds another who can produce more revenue by his work?’ Saranga was equally bitter.

‘What good would it do to join you?’ Yudhishtir replied. ‘Would it change Pinaka’s ways, give his tenants full title, and grant security to those among them who are ill or idle?’

They both went away, denouncing the Pandavas as hopeless and untrustworthy. At last, seeing that there was little they could do in this divided village, the Pandavas quietly left, abandoning both sides to their endless quarrel.

So too, Ganapathi, rising from our perch near the village of Pinaka and Saranga, we may flap our, wings above the concrete and asphalt of the nation’s capital. There, poised in the warm middle of a global cold war between the former colonizers and their allies on one side, and well-armed barbarians on the other, Dhritarashtra and Kanika evolved and elaborated the concept of ‘non-alignment’. In their articulate exegeses this emerged as a lofty refusal to take sides in an immoral and destructive competition that could enflame the world. Yes, Dhritarashtra and Kanika developed into a fine art the skill of speaking for the higher conscience of mankind. To the brash and moralistic money-makers with whom the former colonial powers were allied, India’s refusal to join the forces of God, light, and the almighty dollar was downright immoral, and Kanika Menon was portrayed on the covers of their international news-magazines — an honour even Gangaji had been denied — with his sharp face and hooded eyes drawn to resemble a poisonous cobra. To the bluff and amoral slavers and statists on the other side, India’s rhetoric was insincere, either a Brahminical ploy to conceal the brown Britishness of their language and education, or a canny camouflage for the capitalist course being pursued beneath India’s veneer of democratic socialism.

They were both right and they were both wrong, for Dhritarashtra was guilty only of the insincerity of the blind and Kanaka of the inaccuracy of the ivory-tower. Both — Dhritarashtra for idealistic reasons, Kanika for ideological ones — believed in the non-alignment they preached, but neither could control the convictions or even the conduct of those who were to implement their policies.

Nor could either control indefinitely his own desire to flex the nation’s muscles, which many outside thought to be atrophied by disuse and pacifism. Just as the loudest proponent of celibacy is most vulnerable to the temptation of easy sin — for restraint must always be ustained by lack of opportunity — so too non-violent India was being stirred into a frenzy by the provocations of a weak and wanton neighbour. This was the last remaining colonial enclave on the Indian coast, the picturesque Portuguese possession of Comea, a land of long beaches and cheap liquor, a haven for loose women and tight lipped spies from which its foreign masters obdurately refused to withdraw.

After years of gentle persuasion by Dhritarashtra and his smoothest diplomats had failed, the hawk-faced Defence Minister persuaded his Premier that it was time to embark on a new course. The armed forces of the Indian Republic would take over the defiant but ill-defended colony.

Under the two bachelor statesmen, India’s soldiers would at last enjoy their first foreign affair — and return home with a fair and fertile bride.

88

It was at this time that the Pandavas, fatigued by a long day’s marching on their passage through India, decided to settle down for the night in a wood.

It had been a tiring journey, and long before they reached the wood Kunti and the twins had felt too exhausted to carry on. Bhim lifted them up in his immense arms, but even his arborescent biceps began to feel the strain, and when they reached the first clearing in the forest Bhim simply put his burdens down and tore the private property — no trespassing sign off its post, flinging it with a crash into the bushes.

‘What the hell was that?’ asked Hidimba, a large man with a small goatee who owned the wood and the sprawling bungalow at the centre of it. He patted his enormous belly, yawned the sleep out of his colossal body and turned to his sister, who was serving him. ‘Will you go and see what that is?’ he asked. ‘If it is an animal or a gust of wind, I shall go to bed. If it is a human trespasser, I shall have some sport.’ He pushed his chair back and rose, a mountainous creature who towered over his sylph-like sibling as if he had absorbed her share of growth chromosomes in their common womb.

The girl stepped tentatively out, her fear of the darkness outweighed by her terror of her brother. A few paces into the forest brought her within sight of the clearing. She stood at its edge, saw the woman and the four youths asleep on the grass, and Bhim, sitting with his back to a tree, keeping guard. She took in the size of his chest and the strength of his arms, the straightness of his back and the solidity of his shoulders, the sinews on his neck and the subtlety in his eyes, and she fell instantly in love.

If you had seen the monstrousness of her brother Hidimba, my dear Ganapathi, you would not look so surprised.

She stepped into the clearing with her finger to her lips.

Bhim looked up at the vision of her firm and shapely hips.

‘Who are you?’ asked the girl, with a gentle winning smile;

‘Don’t you know this land is private for at least up to a mile?

My brother puts a sign up warning trespassers away;

If he finds them here he beats them like a farmer thrashes hay.

But if you’ll follow me now, I shall lead you to a spot

Where Hidimba cannot see us, and the world can be forgot.’

She swayed her hips suggestively just as she spoke that phrase.

Her eyes both misted dreamily like a cool pond in a haze.

Her fingers played seductively with the beads around her throat;

She looked at Bhim as longingly as an M P at a vote.

‘Don’t say a word,’ she whispered, as he seemed about to speak;

‘Don’t risk my brother coming to discover what I seek.

He’s a nasty, cruel monster, and he keeps me like a slave,

To cook and clean and stitch for him, heat water for his shave.

‘He doesn’t let me go out, and no one can come in;

The very thought of another is an inexcusable sin.

And if he catches someone with no business to be here,

He beats him very badly, makes him really pay dear.

I was sent to see what had made the noises in the dark;

If I tell him he will come out and eat you like a shark.

But if, my dear, you come with me, as a flame welcomes a moth,

I’ll hide you all and save you from my brother’s terrible wrath.’

She was so sweet, so lovely, from small feet to ripened breast,

That her passionate entreaties might put any man to test.

But Bhim, though not unable to enjoy a bit of fluff,

Was — even in these matters — made of much sterner stuff.

‘You are a fool, you silly girl, despite your many charms,

To think that at a time like this I’d take you in my arms,

Forgetting my first duty to my family sleeping here,

Whom I am closely guarding as the stag protects the deer.

‘And let me tell you, woman, that you can tell your brother,

I can handle his assaults as I can handle any other.

There is no man I have yet seen who ever lived or died —’

‘But you’ve not seen him!’ the girl exclaimed; and sighed;

‘. . who frightens me,’ Bhim went on, ‘upon this blessed globe!’

‘. . And you’ve not seen me,’ she said, slipping off her robe.

For a very long moment then our hero was struck dumb

As he stared at this creation whose ruby lips called, ‘Come.’

Her eyes like silver fishes flashed him signals of desire,

Her breasts like heavy conch-shells set his manliness on fire;

Her curved round brown midriff with its oval opening

Was taut like a tabla ready for a man’s drumming;

Her swaying hips and tapered thighs offset her downy jewel

Which mesmerized his malehood as if challenged to a duel.

Bhim found he could no longer speak; his throat was parched and dry,

And he might well have given in — but for a curdling cry:

‘Whore! Slut! Lustful woman!’ erupted a banshee shriek,

But it was no ghost nor female who provoked his sister’s ‘Eek!’

The gigantic man who entered, each nostril breathing fire

Left no doubt of his physical strength, and considerable ire.

Advancing with a heavy tread he raised a ham-like paw

And in an instant would have struck his sister to the floor;

But the naked girl in terror flung herself away from him

And took shelter behind the sturdy back of the startled Bhim.

‘Hold on a sec,’ our hero said, ‘what kind of man are you?

You get your kicks from bashing girls?’ (He spat:) ‘Tch-Tchoo!

If that’s the case, my outsize friend, with you I’ll pick a bone

I shall teach you, in the future, to leave the weaker sex alone.’

‘Aagh!’ screamed the tyrant in inarticulate outrage,

‘I’ll take that girl and whip her and lock her in a cage.

And as for you, fat stranger, it will be stranger still

If I don’t tear you limb from limb and leave you very ill.’

‘Why don’t you start?’ Bhim sprang up: ‘or shall we toss a coin?’

With one swift move he thrust a knee into Hidimba’s groin.

The giant screamed, and hopped about, and Bhim stepped on his toe:

And then, as Hidimba swung, nimbly evaded the blow.

As the fight began the others stirred; their sleep was now disturbed,

And what they saw, when they took it in, left them most perturbed.

(Imagine waking from your dreams to see Bhim, his trousers torn,

Grappling with a monster, while a nude girl cheers him on.)

‘Who are you, girl?’ Kunti asked, anxious to establish a nexus,

As Bhim drove a sledge-hammer fist into Hidimba’s solar plexus.

‘The monster’s sister,’ she replied, scrambling for her dress,

Which in the fight had been reduced to something of a mess.

‘My brother owns this land,’ she said, ‘in fact, this very wood;

And when he sees intruders he gets angrier than he should.’

‘I see,’ said Kunti, as the giant emitted a roar of pain,

‘My son gets angry too — oh! There he goes again!’

‘I know!’ the girl, all bright-eyed, said; ‘isn’t he terrific?

Of all the men I’ve ever seen, he really is the pick!’

‘Ah,’ said Kunti, understanding, ‘and how many have you seen?’

‘Two,’ confessed the girl, ‘and the other one’s so mean.’

Her mean brother was certainly having the worst of the fight;

Each jarring blow opened his eyes as if he was seeing the light.

‘Does that explain,’ Kunti asked, waving an embarrassed hand,

‘Your. . er. . state of dress?’ (A picture would be banned.)

‘Oh — yes.’ The girl modestly cast down her almond eyes:

‘I deeply love your son; and though I’m not his size,

I know that given half a chance I could make him very happy.

I cook, I clean, I sew and stitch, and I’m really quite snappy.

And then I think’ (she blushed at this) ‘speaking as a woman,

I believe my body pleases him’. ‘Well, yes, it’s only human.’

Hidimba’s grunts and awful groans were now too hard to bear;

‘Oh, stop it, Bhim,’ Yudhishtir called; ‘stop, and leave him there.’

‘All right,’ said Bhim, with a final punch to his rival’s groggy head;

Hidimba fell, lay still. Said Kunti: ‘Bhim, it’s time to wed.’

What?’ The strong jaw dropped; Bhim stopped like a broken carriage;

‘I can’t believe it! As I fought, you were arranging my marriage?’

It seemed somehow appropriate,’ Kunti replied, unflapped,

‘If you fight for a girl you can hardly tell her later you were trapped.

And besides, this fit young lass will be a great help to me –

You boys never think of the awful strain of your itinerary.’

‘It’s all too sudden — I’ve got to think.’ Bhim leaned against a tree;

An hour ago, I was sitting here. . it’s all too much for me.’

‘I’m not too much, am I, my dear?’ asked the girl with a gentle smile;

Her face was bright, her eyes alight, innocent of any guile.

Bhim looked at the girl, and then he thought of the woman he had seen:

The hips, the lips, the breasts, the rest, the face of a beauty queen –

A beauty she had offered him with a love transcending shame.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll marry you. Er. . what is your name?’

89

Comea had fallen. Nationalists danced in the streets at the expulsion of the last colonial power from Indian soil, the only one that had not had the intelligence or the grace to withdraw amicably in time. Kanika was a national hero for having — as Defence Minister — planned and led the decisive action It was being said that, for all his talk of peace and morality, Dhritarashtra had learned a lesson from his namby-pambiness over Manimir; there were some things for which cannons were far more effective than conferences.

To the north, however, there were frowns on the anti-colonialist faces of the mandarins of the world’s most populous tyranny, the People’s Republic of Chakra, as they contemplated the hubris of their southern neighbours.

‘They are glowing too big for their boots,’ said the Chairman, and a dozen inscrutable faces nodded as vigorously as the tight collars of their regulation tunics would allow.

The two countries had, for nearly two thousand years, been separated by the vast expanse of Tibia, a large nation of few people which had served as a willing conduit for a number of Indian religious innovations from Buddhism to Tantrism. Despite periodic ritual genuflections to the north (whenever the Chakars had a central regime strong enough to warrant Tibian circumspection), Tibia had maintained its independence till its casual conquest — in circumstances almost indistinguishable, in fact, from that of its homonym Tibet — by Sir Francis Oldwife. The British, eventually convinced it was the one place on earth to which it was not worth assigning a civil service, withdrew from Tibia not long after. But in order to feel they had got something for their pains, they took the trouble to conclude a peace treaty with their recent subjects, a document which among other things defined the border between Tibia and British India. Since it was drawn by a crusty Scot named MacDonald, the now-defined frontier came to be known as the Big Mac Line.

When Chakra’s glamorous Generalissimo gave way before the raucous regiments of the cherubic Chairman, Dhritarashtra had been amongst the first to applaud, for sound anti-imperialist, pro-socialist reasons. India’s was even the first government to accord the Communist regime the honour of formal diplomatic recognition. During the early phase of international ostracism endured by the People’s Republic, India was seen frequently by Chakra’s side, advocating its admission to various international forums, speaking regularly in favour of ‘peaceful co-existence’ with Snuping, as the capital of Chakra was then still called. As Dhritarashtra and Kanika bobbed and beamed alongside their yolk-hued counterparts for the benefit of the world’s flashbulbs, a new slogan was, with official encouragement, given wide currency in India: ‘Hindi-Chakar bhai-bhai.’ That meant that, faith and physiognomy notwithstanding, Indians and Chakars were brothers; and since ‘chakar’, carefully pronounced, also meant ‘sugar’ in Hindi, the slogan implied that sweetness infused the relationship. Little did its originators realize how easily it would soon be twisted into a pointed ‘Hindi-Chakar bye-bye’.

The problem arose on two levels. On the more elemental level the Chakars, despite their new egalitarian ideology, did not particularly care for what, to the inheritors of the Middle Kingdom, seemed the patronizing support of their ethnically inferior neighbours. And then, on the geo-political level, there was the Big Mac Line. Since the Chakars had marched into Tibia and taken it over with even less trouble than Sir Francis had, the Scot’s handiwork now represented the border between Chakra and India.

It was, from Snuping’s point of view, a most inconvenient line. For one thing, it was tainted by having been imposed by a colonial power in negotiations with a state that had ceased to exist: logic, therefore, called for it to be renegotiated with the People’s Republic. For another, MacDonald had made it inconsiderately difficult to cross from Tibia into the Chakran province of Drowniang (an activity which he may not have considered strictly necessary, given that the two did not at that time belong to the same rulers). A few border adjustments seemed, to Snuping, to be essential.

The Chakars could well have tried, Ganapathi, through amicable negotiations based on good neighbourliness and mutual realism, to come to an understanding with India. After all, not many of us — and I, don’t forget, was a Cabinet minister in Dhritarashtra’s government in those days — had any particular affection for a line drawn by a Scot, and drawn, let us face it, on the basis of mapping techniques which were so primitive as to justify revision on cartographical grounds alone. But such a procedure would have addressed only the second level of Snuping’s problem. They preferred a method which would simultaneously tackle the first — which would, in the words MacDonald might have used, give us a bloody nose, cut us down to size and put us in our place. Ironically, it was Kanika’s far-too-easy conquest of Cornea which showed them the way.

My heart still weeps at the thought of the condition of our army in those days, Ganapathi. They were cock-a-hoop, in their military lingo, after having captured an ill-defended enclave by the simple expedient of marching into it in numbers large enough to discourage any resistance. The only shot in the Comea campaign was fired by a young soldier who accidentally marched into a house of pleasure and discharged his rifle in startled excitement, bringing down a chandelier of imitation crystal on the heads of several of the territory’s Portuguese notables. He received a medal for their arrest and penicillin injections for the other consequences of his intrusion.

The major consequence of the conquest of Comea was complacency. Kanika felt vindicated in his stewardship of the Defence Ministry, and took his triumph as a licence to devote even more time to the prolix speeches and scabrous character-assassination that were his favoured pastimes. It is said that there was a report on his desk pointing out that the jawans in our mountain regiments had no all-weather rations and were obliged to wear canvas tennis-shoes in the Himalayan snow, but that he had placed it in an overflowing ‘Pending’ tray. Dhritarashtra, meanwhile, was so content with the company of his popular and successful Defence Minister that he had no desire to listen to the warnings that the few of us who cared to, dared to give him. Indeed, nor did the people at large share our misgivings. The year after Comea, Dhritarashtra went to the polls for the third time since Independence in the quinquennial exercise that affirmed our status as the world’s largest democracy, and triumphed handsomely. Kanika was returned to Parliament with a record plurality.

Imagine it, then, Ganapathi: our soldiers with their ill-clad and unprotected backs turned, warming gloveless hands before domestic stoves in the icy mountain passes, as Defence Minister Kanika Menon pirouettes on the world stage in the Kathakali mask of a confirmed conqueror, Dhritarashtra makes visionary speeches about non-aligned unity and the brotherhood of Indians and Chakars, and the massed millions of the Chakra People’s Liberation Army slant their jaundiced eyes to the sights of weapons whose gleaming barrels are pointed towards New Delhi.

90

At this very time the Pandavas, after years of promoting rural uplift, had arrived in the market town of Ekachakra, their number swollen by the birth of Bhim’s son Ghatotkach. ‘A few months of domesticity will do us all some good,’ the new father had proclaimed, to his mother’s undoubted relief, and they had taken up residence as the paying guests of a friendly Brahmin. It was in the first full flush of their indolence that word reached them of the challenge thrown down by the famed wrestling champion Bakasura, who had pitched his tent in the city.

‘We saw the posters all over the town,’ Nakul said excitedly, ‘and everyone was talking about it. Bakasura the Invincible, they call him. It seems that he has proclaimed that he will wrestle with any man in Ekachakra who puts up a hundred rupees as a deposit, and if he is defeated he will pay the winner five thousand rupees. All sorts of local pahelwans have tried, but he’s thrashed them all. Bakasura’s become richer by several hundred rupees, and the stake he’s put up remains intact. There’s even a drawing of a five-thousand rupee cheque on some of the posters.’

‘I suppose we could use the money,’ Yudhishtir said.

‘Yes, come on, Bhim, go and have a crack at this Bakasura,’ Arjun suggested, stretching a lazy leg.

‘Not today,’ the doting father replied, dandling his unpronounceable infant on his lap. ‘Today I’ve promised to play with Ghatotkach and give him his bottle — eh, my Ghatotkachy-koo? Some other time, perhaps.’

‘But today’s our only chance,’ Nakul protested. ‘Bakasura’s folding his tent and moving on to the next city in the evening. I heard them announce it. He always moves when he’s run out of opposition anywhere.’

But Bhim, chucking his son under his arrowhead-shaped chin, could not be bothered.

‘I’m planning to attend a lecture on the dharma of non-violence,’ Yudhishtir said when they looked at him instead. ‘Sorry.’

‘And I’ve just discovered a library next door,’ Arjun said. ‘I want to catch up on my reading too. Life is not all physical activity, you know.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Nakul pleaded with his three elder brothers. ‘If I hadn’t twisted my ankle running here to give you the news, I’d do it myself.’

‘Now that’s a good idea,’ Bhim said, briefly turning to them. ‘Not you, Nakul, of course, but Sahadev. I mean, with what we’ve all learned and practised over the years, any one of us should be more than able to get the better of this Bakasura.’ His words were met by a chorus of approval from three of his brothers. Even Ghatotkach gurgled his support.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sahadev dubiously, but his hesitancy was drowned out by the unthinking enthusiasm of the others.

And so it was that the brave, the strong, the wise, the gifted Pandavas sent into the ring — against a cunning and brutal champion tested and tempered by his recent triumphs over the local wrestlers — their youngest brother, a boy who had never spoken for himself and who had never needed to act alone in a situation of any seriousness.

A cheer went up from the assembled crowds as Sahadev stepped diffidently into the ring, his slim, lithe and lightly muscled figure a startling contrast to the gleaming oiled barrel of solid flesh that was Bakasura. Sahadev turned to acknowledge the cheers and heard them become a roar — a roar, though he was to realize it only later, of fear and warning. He raised his hands in a grateful and graceful ñamaste and suddenly found himself being picked up from behind, spun above Bakasura’s head like the blades of a human helicopter and flung bodily into the row of seats occupied by the judges of the contest. As he passed out amidst their screams and the splintering of chairs, the last word he heard was Bakasura’s chest-thumping snarl: ‘Next!’

‘He gave me no warning,’ Sahadev groaned later as he lay on a pallet at home and his mother applied compresses of turmeric on his rainbow of bruises.

‘There are no warnings in wrestling, silly ass,’ Arjun said. ‘No one told me the rules.’

‘You’re supposed to guess them as you go along,’ Bhim pointed out. ‘If that Bakasura were still here I’d teach him a thing or two. I have half a mind to follow him to the next town and get our own back.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’ Kunti’s eyes blazed. ‘Isn’t one lesson like this enough for you? If I had been here when you discussed your stupid plan I would never have let poor Sahadev go in the first place. How could you allow it to happen, my sons? How could you?’

91

How could you have allowed it to happen? It was a question many of us in the Kaurava Party could not resist asking Dhritarashtra when the Chakars invaded, tossed our ill-fed, ill-clad ill-shod jawans contemptuously aside and inexorably erased the Big Mac Line. By the time our panic-striken response could be organized the war was over; the Chakars had announced a unilateral cease-fire that we were in no condition to reject. In a few humiliating days they had achieved every one of their objectives: asserted their view of MacDonald’s draughtsmanship, captured enough territory to permit the construction and protection of an all-weather road linking Tibia to Drowniang, and exposed the shallowness of our international pretensions to the world. They even shook the credibility of Dhritarashtra’s non-alignment, for our blind Prime Minister panicked enough to welcome the offer of a squadron of fighter planes and pilots from the superpower whose alliances he had earlier consistently spurned. It was not, Ganapathi, a time at which we covered ourselves in glory.

Criticism in the party was vociferous and unrestrained: many of our MPs howled with the jackals of the Opposition for sacrificial blood. This time Dhritarashtra did not offer to resign, as he had so often done whenever the party had found fault with his approach to a multitude of lesser issues. He did not, because for the first time since Gangaji had brought him into politics he could not be certain that his offer would be unanimously and unhesitatingly rejected. He did the next best thing and presented the jackals with a hawk- faced head on a platter: his best friend Kanika’s. The hero of Comea resigned and was relegated to the back benches in disgrace.

That was not the most important price the nation had to pay for its defeat by the Chakars. Dhritarashtra, the Dhritarashtra of the confident rhetorical flourishes and dazzling visual metaphors, the Dhritarashtra of the original international initiatives and the high priest of proud non-alignment, would never be the same again. The military humiliation not only shattered his self- esteem; it broke his heart.

His decline was gradual but decisive. He ate little, began denying himself more and more of the little comforts we all take for granted, resigned himself to acts of painful penance. He began to sleep on the bare floor and to invent new privations for himself. He replaced his regular massages with flesh- mortifying exercises. When he had no official appointments he would be found in the woods behind his prime ministerial residence, clad in tattered rags and penitential strips of bark. ‘It is time for me,’ he said to me when I approached him sympathetically, ‘to take to the life of Vanaprastha.’

You know the ancient concept, Ganapathi, of the four ages of man: his youthful and celibate Brahmacharya when he learns what life has to offer him, his marital and parental Grihastha phase when he exercises his duties and responsibilities as householder and professional, his Vanaprastha of renunciation in the forest and, for a select few, the ultimate Sannyas of the sages. But to hear this traditionalism from the lips of the Cambridge-accented, agnostic Dhritarashtra was the final indication for me that his spirit had completely evaporated.

He did not last long after that. One morning he walked, thus attired, into the foliage of the woods. He breathed for the last time the honey-laden fragrance of the flowers, felt the warmth of the sun’s rays on his faded skin and the sharp scratches of twigs and brambles against his emaciated legs. Then he sat down in the lotus position, his bare back to a tree, facing the east, where the dawn breaks for all of us but had never done for him.

I found him there hours later, immobile in the yogic posture, perfectly still. I did not need to touch his heart.

Gently, I removed the dark glasses from his lifeless eyes and let them face the sun. Then I took away the empty bottle he had dropped near his feet. He belonged to the ages, but the instruments of his failure did not.