The Mystic Masseur

10. The Defeat of Narayan

‘IF I NEEDED any further proof of the hand of Providence in my career,’ Ganesh wrote in The Years of Guilt, ‘I had only to look at the incidents which led to the decline of Shri Narayan.’

In Trinidad it isn’t polite to look down on a man because you know he handles public funds unwisely. As soon as he is exposed the poor man becomes ridiculous enough, a subject for calypso. After The Dharma came out Narayan didn’t have a chance.

‘Now is your chance to finish him off, pundit,’ Beharry said. ‘Give him two three months to recover and — bam! — people stop laughing and begin to listen to him again.’

But no one could think of a plan.

Leela said, ‘I would do like my father and give him a good horse-whipping.’

Beharry suggested more lectures.

The boy said, ‘Kidnap the son of a bitch, pundit.’

Swami and Partap thought a lot but came up with nothing.

It was the Hindu wedding season and The Great Belcher was very busy.

Suruj Mooma was still thinking when Fate, unfortunately for Narayan, took a hand.

Two days after the publication of Volume One, Number One of The Dharma it was announced in the Trinidad Sentinel that a Hindu industrialist in India had offered thirty thousand dollars for the cultural uplift of Trinidad Hindus. The money was being kept in trust by the Trinidad Government until it could be handed over to a competent Hindu body.

Narayan promptly claimed that the Hindu Association, of which he had the honour to be President, was competent enough to handle the thirty thousand dollars.

Leela said, ‘They could handle a lot more, if you let them.’

‘Is God Self send this chance, pundit,’ Beharry urged. ‘But you have to act fast. Narayan Association having their second General Meeting in four weeks. You couldn’t do something there?’

‘I thinking about it all all the time,’ Ganesh said and for a moment Beharry recognized the old, pre-mystic Ganesh.

Four days later the San Fernando correspondent of the Sentinel reported that Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair of Fuente Grove was planning the formation of a representative assembly of Trinidad Hindus to be known as the Hindu League.

That day, in an interview, Narayan claimed that the Hindu Association was the only representative Hindu body in Trinidad. It had a fine record of social work, it was founded long before the League was even thought of, and it was clear to all right-thinking people that the League was being formed only with thirty thousand dollars in view.

Letters flew from both sides to the Sentinel.

Finally, it was announced that the Inaugural Meeting of the Hindu League was to be held at the residence of Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair in Fuente Grove. The meeting was to be private.

That Saturday afternoon about fifty men, most of them former clients, gathered in the ground floor of Ganesh’s house. There were solicitors and barristers among them, solicitor’s touts, taxidrivers, clerks and labourers. Leela, taking no chances, gave them diluted Coca-Cola in enamel cups.

Ganesh sat on orange cushions on a low platform below a carving of Hanuman, the monkey god. He recited a long Hindi prayer, then used a mango-leaf to sprinkle water from a brass jar over the meeting.

Partap, sitting cross-legged on a charpoy next to the boy, said in Hindi, ‘Ganges water.’

The boy said, ‘Go to France!’

Ganesh made them all swear a terrible oath of secrecy.

Then he stood up and tossed his green scarf over his shoulder. ‘What I want to say today is very simple. We want to use the money given us well, and at the same time we want to stop Narayan making more trouble. He says he is competent to handle the money. We know that.’

There was laughter. Ganesh took a sip of Coca-Cola from a prutty prutty glass. ‘To get the money, we mustn’t only remove Narayan, we must form one united Hindu body.’

There were cries of approval.

‘The Hindu Association isn’t a very large body. There are more of us here than in the Hindu Association. The Association wants to get new members and I have called you here today to beg you to form your own branches of the Hindu Association.’

Murmurings.

The boy said, ‘But I thought we was going to form the Hindu League today.’

Ganesh raised his hand. ‘I am doing this only for the sake of Hindu unity in Trinidad.’

Some people cried in Hindi, ‘Long live Ganesh!’

‘But what about the League?’ the boy said.

‘We are not going to form the League. In less than three weeks the Hindu Association is going to hold its second General Meeting. Many officers will be elected and I hope to see all of you among them.’

The meeting clapped.

Swami stood up with difficulty. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sir, may I ask how you is going to see that happen?’

The meeting clapped again and Swami sat down.

‘This is the problem: how can we win the elections at the General Meeting of the Association? The solution: by having more delegates than anybody else. How do we get delegates? By forming more branches. I expect the fifty of you here to form fifty branches. Every branch will send three delegates to the Meeting.’

Swami rose again. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sir, may I ask how you is going to give each and every one of we here three delegates, sahib?’

‘It have — there are hundreds of people who are willing to do me a favour.’

The boy got up amid applause for Swami and Ganesh. ‘All right, it sound all right. But what make you feel that Narayan not going to do the same thing as we?’

Murmurs of, ‘The boy little but he smart, man,’ and, ‘Who son he is?’

Swami got up almost as soon as he had sat down. There was more applause for him. He smiled, fingered the letter in his shirt pocket, and held up his hand for the ovation to cease. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sahib, with your permission, sahib, I is going to answer the boy question. After all, he is my own nephew, my own sister son.’

Thunderous applause. Cries of, ‘Shh! Shh! Let we hear what the man saying, man.’

‘It seem to me, Mr President Ganesh, that the boy question sort of answer itself, sahib. First, who go take Narayan serious now? Who go listen to him? Mr President Ganesh, I is the editorin-chief of The Dharma. That paper make Narayan a laughing-stock. Second point, sahib. Narayan ain’t have the brains to do anything like this.’

Laughter.

Swami held up his hand again. ‘Third and last point, sahib. The element of surprise. That is the element that go beat Narayan.’

Shouts of, ‘Long live Swami! Long live Swami’s nephew!’

Partap asked, ‘What about transport, pundit? I was thinking. I could get some vans from Parcel Post —’

‘I have five taxis,’ Ganesh said. ‘And I have many taxi-drivers who are friends.’

The taxi-drivers in the gathering laughed.

Ganesh made the closing speech. ‘Remember, is only Narayan we fighting. Remember, is Hindu unity we fighting for.’ And before the gathering broke up he rallied them with a cry, ‘Don’t forget you have a paper behind you!’

The next day, Sunday, the Sentinel reported the formation of the Hindu League. According to the President, Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair, the League already had twenty branches.

On Tuesday — the Sentinel isn’t published on Monday — Narayan said that the Hindu Association had thirty branches. On Wednesday the League said it had doubled its membership and had forty branches. On Thursday the Association had doubled its membership and had sixty. The League was silent on Friday. On Saturday the Association claimed eighty branches. Nobody said anything on Sunday.

On Tuesday Narayan stated at a press conference that the Hindu Association was clearly the competent Hindu body and was going to press for the grant of thirty thousand dollars immediately after the election of officers at its second General Meeting that Sunday.

The Hindu Association was to meet in Carapichaima at the hall of a Friendly Society, a large Mission-school-type building with pillars ten feet high and a pyramidal roof of galvanized iron. Concrete upstairs, downstairs lattice-work around the pillars. A large black and silver sign-board eloquent about the Society’s benefits, including ‘free burial of members’.

The second General Meeting of the Hindu Association was to begin at one in the afternoon but when Ganesh and his supporters arrived in taxis at about half-past one all they saw were three men dressed in white, among them a tall Negro with a long beard who looked holy.

Ganesh had warned that blows might pass and as soon as the taxi came to Carapichaima, Swami, armed with a stout poui stick, sat on the edge of his seat and began shouting, ‘Where Narayan? Narayan, where you is? I want to meet you today!’

Now he calmed down.

Ganesh’s men quickly overran the place. Partap, showing an initiative that surprised Ganesh, went with the advance party.

‘Narayan ain’t here,’ the boy said with relief.

Swami beat his stick on the dusty ground. ‘Is a trick, sahib. And today was the day I did want to meet Narayan.’

Then Partap came back with the news that the delegates of the Hindu Association were eating in a room upstairs.

Ganesh, with Swami, Partap, and the boy, walked across the dirt-and-asphalt yard to the wooden steps at the side of the building.

The boy said, ‘All you better protect me good, you hear. If I get beat up here today it go have hell to pay.’

Half-way up the steps Swami shouted, ‘Narayan!’

He was on the top landing, an old man, very small, very thin, in a soiled and clumsy white-drill suit. His face was screwed up into an expression of great pain. He looked dyspeptic. He turned away and went to lean on the half-wall of the top verandah, staring intently at the mango trees and small wooden houses across the road.

Ganesh and his men walked noisily up the steps, the boy making more noise than any.

Swami said, ‘Take my poui and hit him on he bald head while he looking over, sahib. Is the chance of a life-time.’

Ganesh said, ‘You ain’t know how right you is.’

The boy said, ‘You have three witnesses here that he just overbalance and fall down.’

Ganesh didn’t respond.

The boy said, ‘Gimme the stick. I go settle Narayan.’

Swami smiled. ‘You too small.’

Ganesh’s supporters were distributing The Dharma right and left, to people passing in the road, to the eating delegates, to the delegates walking about the yard. At first they tried to get four cents a copy but now they were just giving the paper away.

Partap said calmly, ‘You want me go and abuse Narayan now, pundit? Is the sort of thing I mad enough to do, you know.’ He suddenly became frenzied. ‘Look, all you people better hold me back before I send that thin little man to hospital, you hear. Hold me back!’

They held him back.

Narayan stopped staring across the road and walked slowly towards the landing.

Swami said, ‘You want me kick him down the steps, sahib?’

They held him back too.

Narayan glanced at them. He looked sick.

‘Leave him alone,’ Ganesh said. ‘He finish, poor man.’

The boy said, ‘He look like a wet fowl.’

They heard him going down the steps, clop by clop.

The delegates who had been eating came out to the verandah in small groups, tumbler in hand. They were remaining as calm as possible and behaved as though Ganesh and his men were not there. They washed their hands over the wall and gargled. They talked and laughed, loudly.

Ganesh’s attention was caught by a short, stout gargler at the far end of the verandah. He thought he recognized the energy with which this man was gargling and spitting into the yard; and that over-all jauntiness was definitely familiar. From time to time the gargler gave a curious little hop, and that too Ganesh recognized.

The man stopped gargling and looked around. ‘Ganesh! Ganesh Ramsumair!’

‘Indarsingh!’

He was plumper and moustached, but the weaving and bobbing, the effervescence that made him a star pupil at the Queen’s Royal College, remained. ‘Hello there, old boy.’

‘Man, you talking with a Oxford accent now, man. What happening, man?’

‘Easy, old boy. Nasty trick you’re playing against us. But you’re looking well. Demn well.’ He fingered his St Catherine’s Society tie and gave another hop.

Ganesh would have been too embarrassed to talk correctly with Indarsingh. ‘Man, I never did expecting to see you here. A big scholarship-winner like you, man.’

‘Catching hell with law, old boy. Thinking of politics. Starting small. Talking.’

‘Yes, man. Indarsingh was the champion debater at college.’

Swami and the others stood by, gaping. Ganesh said, ‘I ask the pack of all of you to stand guard over me? Where Narayan?’

‘He sitting down quiet quiet downstairs wiping he face with a dirty handkerchief.’

‘Well, go and watch him. Don’t let him start up anything funny.’

The men and the boy left.

Indarsingh took no notice of the interruption. ‘Talking to peasants now. Different thing altogether, old boy. Not like talking to the Lit. Soc. or the Oxford Union.’

‘Oxford Union.’

‘For years, old boy. Term in. Term out. Indarsingh. Three times nominated for Library Committee. Didn’t get in. Prejudice. Disgusted.’ Indarsingh’s face saddened for a moment.

‘What make you give up law so easy, man?’

‘Talking to peasants,’ Indarsingh repeated. ‘An art, old boy.’

‘Oh, it ain’t so hard.’

Indarsingh paid no attention. ‘Past few months been talking to all sorts of people. Getting practice. Bicycle clubs, football clubs, cricket clubs. No ten-minute things, old boy. Give them something different. One day, at cricket elections, talked for so long gas-lamp went out.’ He looked earnestly at Ganesh. ‘Know what happened?’

‘You light back the lamp?’

‘Wrong, old boy. Went on talking. In the dark.’

The boy ran up the steps. ‘The meeting starting to start, sahib.’

Ganesh hadn’t noticed that the garglers had left the verandah.

‘Ganesh, going to fight you, old boy. Don’t like tricks. Going to break you by talk, old boy.’ He gave a little hop.

They started down the steps. ‘Story to tell, old boy. About talking practice. Man called Ganga supported some fool for County Council elections. I supported other man. My man won. A close thing. Ganga starts row. Big row. Clamouring for recount. Talked fifteen minutes against recount. Ah, meeting starting. Lots of delegates here today, what?’

‘What happen?’

‘Oh, recount. My man lost.’

The room was crowded. There were not enough benches and many delegates had to stand up against the lattice-work. The confusion was increased by the number of wooden pillars sprouting up in odd places.

‘No room, old boy. Didn’t bargain for so many of us, what? Not going to sit with you, though. Going to squeeze in somewhere in front. No tricks, remember.’

The delegates fanned themselves with The Dharma.

Perhaps, if The Dharma had not made him so ludicrous and the thirty-thousand-dollar grant so vulnerable, Narayan would have fought back. But he was taken so completely by surprise and knew the weakness of his own position so well, everything went smoothly for Ganesh.

But there were moments when Ganesh was worried.

When Narayan, for example, sitting as President at the table draped with the saffron, white, and green Indian tricolour, asked how Mr Partap, who, he knew, worked in Port of Spain and lived in San Fernando, could represent Cunaripo, which was miles away from either place.

Ganesh at once jumped to his feet and said that Mr Partap, it was true, was an esteemed member of the Parcel Post Service in Port of Spain and belonged to an honourable family in San Fernando; but he also, no doubt for merit in some past life, owned land in Cunaripo.

Narayan looked sick. He said drily, ‘Oh, well. I suppose I represent Port of Spain although I work in Sangre Grande, only fifty miles away.’

There was general laughter. Everyone knew that Narayan lived and worked in Port of Spain.

Then Indarsingh began to make trouble. In a speech lasting almost ten minutes he wondered, in impeccable English, whether all the branches present had paid their subscriptions.

The Chief Treasurer, sitting next to Narayan, opened a blue exercise-book with a picture of King George VI on the cover. He said that many branches, particularly the new ones, hadn’t paid; but he was sure they soon would.

Indarsingh shouted, ‘Unconstitutional!’

There was silence.

He seemed to have expected a howl of protest, and the silence caught him unprepared. He said, ‘Oh, I say, what?’ and sat down.

Narayan twisted his thin lips. ‘It is a little curious, however. Let me consult the constitution!’

Swami bellowed from the back, ‘Narayan, you ain’t going to consult no constitution!’

Narayan looked miserable and pushed the booklet aside.

‘A man like you, robbing money that people scratch and scrape and save. Wanting to consult constitution!’

Ganesh stood up. ‘Mr President, sir, I call on Dr Swami to withdraw those unkind remarks.’

The meeting took up the cry. ‘Withdraw! Withdraw!’

‘All right, I withdraw. Eh, who saying, “Shut up”? He want to taste my hand.’ Swami looked menacingly around. ‘Look, I want to make we position plain. We ain’t here to fight anybody. We just want to see Hindus unite and we want to get the grant for everybody, not for one man.’

Narayan looked sicker than ever.

There was laughter, not only from Ganesh’s supporters.

Ganesh whispered to the boy, ‘How you didn’t remind me about the subscriptions, man?’

The boy said, ‘It ain’t for you, a big man, to talk to me so.’

Indarsingh was up again. ‘Mr President, this is a democratic body, and in no other body — and I have travelled — have I heard of members who haven’t paid subscriptions being allowed to vote. In fact, it is my considered opinion that, by and large —’

Narayan said, ‘Is this a motion?’

Indarsingh looked hurt. ‘It is, Mr President. A motion, certainly.’

Swami bellowed, ‘Mr President, enough of this damn nonsense motion and commotion, and listen to something sensible for a change. It is my motion that the constitution should be — be —’

‘Suspended,’ the boy prompted.

‘— be suspended, or anyway that part which say that members have to pay before they vote. Suspended for this meeting, and this meeting only.’

Indarsingh lost his temper, bared an arm, quoted Gandhi, talked about the Oxford Union, and said he was ashamed of the corruption in the Hindu Association.

Narayan looked wretched.

At a signal from Ganesh, four men rushed to Indarsingh and lifted him outside. ‘Undemocratic!’ Indarsingh shouted, ‘Unconstitutional!’ He became quiet all of a sudden.

Narayan said, ‘Who will second that motion?’

Every hand went up.

Narayan saw defeat. He took out a handkerchief and held it over his mouth.

Then the mood of the meeting changed.

The bearded Negro stood up and made a long speech. He said that he had been attracted to Hinduism because he liked Indians; but the corruption he had seen that day was entirely repugnant to him. It had, as a matter of fact, decided him to join the Muslims, and the Hindus had better look out when he was a Muslim.

The Chief Treasurer, the guardian of the blue exercise-book, a splendid figure in orange turban and silk koortah, said that Indians were bad people, and Hindus particularly bad. He had lost faith in his people and no longer thought it an honour to be Chief Treasurer of the Hindu Association. He was going to resign then and there and not offer himself for re-election.

Personal loyalties were forgotten. ‘Stay, punditji,’ the Hindu Association shouted, ‘stay.’

The Chief Treasurer wept and stayed.

Narayan looked crumpled and more miserable than ever when he rose to speak. He said — and his speech was fully reported in The Hindu — ‘Dissension and dissatisfaction prevail among the rank and file of Hindus in Trinidad today. My friends, I have caused some of that dissension and dissatisfaction. I confess it.’ He was weeping. ‘My friends, will you forgive an old man?’

‘Yes, ji,’ the audience wept back. ‘We forgive you.’

‘My friends, we are not united. And now, with your permission, I am going to tell the story of an old man, his three sons, and a bundle of sticks.’ He didn’t tell it very well. ‘United we stand, then, and divided we fall. My friends, let us fall united rather than stand united. My friends, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru never wrangled with Shri Chakravarti Rajagopalacharya or with Shri Vallabhai Patel for the Presidency of the All-India National Congress. And so too, my friends, I have no desire to be the cause of dissatisfaction and dissension among the rank and file of Hindus in Trinidad today. My friends, I only want back my self-respect and I want your respect. My friends, I withdraw from public life. I do not want to be re-elected President of the Hindu Association of Trinidad, of which I am a founder member and President.’

Narayan was cheered loud and long. Some people wept. Some shouted, ‘Long live Narayan!’

He wept too. ‘Thank you, thank you, my friends.’ And sat down to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

‘A diplomatic son of a bitch, pundit,’ the boy said.

But Ganesh was wiping away a tear.

Ganesh was the only candidate for the Presidency and was elected without any fuss at all.

Swami and Partap were among the new Assistant-Presidents. The boy was a simple Secretary. Indarsingh was offered the post of Fourth Assistant to the Chief Secretary, but declined.

Ganesh’s first act as President was to send a cable to the All-India Congress. Awkwardly, it wasn’t the occasion of any important anniversary. He cabled:

KEEP MAHATMAJI IDEALS ALIVE STOP HINDU ASSOCIATION

TRINIDAD WITH YOU INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE STOP

BEST WISHES

GANESH PRESIDENT HINDU ASSOCIATION

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO