The Mystic Masseur

9. Press Pundit

GANESH FOUND HIMSELF now a philosopher and arbiter. Indian villages in Trinidad still had panchayats, councils of elders, and he was often invited by them to give judgement in a case of minor theft or assault, or to settle a quarrel between husband and wife. Often, too, he was asked to address prayer-meetings.

His arrival at such a meeting was impressive. He came out of his taxi with dignity, tossed his green scarf over his shoulder, and shook hands with the officiating pundit. Then two more taxis came up with his books. Helpers fell upon these taxis, grabbed armfuls of books, and took them to the platform. The helpers were proud and busy people then, and looked almost as solemn as Ganesh. They ran from taxi to platform and back again, frowning, never saying a word.

Seated on the platform under a tasselled red canopy, and surrounded by his books, Ganesh looked the picture of authority and piety. His gaily-dressed audience rippled out from the platform in widening circles of diminishing splendour, from well-dressed businessmen and shopkeepers just below the platform to ragged labourers at the back, from extravagantly bedecked children sleeping on blankets and cushions to naked, spidery-limbed children sprawling on sugar-sacks.

People came to hear him not only because of his reputation but also because of the novelty of what he said. He spoke about the good life, about happiness and how to get it. He borrowed from Buddhism and other religions and didn’t hesitate to say so. Whenever he wished to strengthen a point he snapped his fingers and a helper held a book open towards the audience so that they could see that Ganesh wasn’t making it all up. He spoke in Hindi but the books he showed in this way were in English, and people were awed by this display of learning.

His main point was that desire was a source of misery and therefore desire ought to be suppressed. Occasionally he went off at a tangent to discuss whether the desire to suppress desire wasn’t itself a desire; but usually he tried to be as practical as possible. He spoke with fervour about the Buddha’s Fire Sermon. Sometimes from that he moved on naturally to the war, and war in general, and to the quotation from Dickens’s Child’s History of England that ‘war is a dreadful thing’. At other times he said that happiness was only possible if you cleared your mind of desire and looked upon yourself as part of Life, just a tiny link in the vast chain of Creation. ‘Lie down on the dry grass and feel Life growing out from the rocks and earth beneath you, through you, and upwards. Look at the clouds and sky when it isn’t hot and feel that you are part of all that. Feel that everything else is an extension of you. Therefore you, who are all this, can never die.’

People sometimes understood and when they got up they felt a little nobler.

And it was precisely for this that now, in 1944, The Little Bird began attacking Ganesh. It seemed to have reconciled itself to his ‘so-called mysticism’.

The Little Bird said: ‘I am just a little birdie but I think it is surely a retrograde step for any community these days to look up to a religious visionary …’

The Great Belcher told Ganesh, ‘And, boy, Narayan start copying you. He start giving lectures now — in the towns. And he showing his own books and thing too. Something about religion and the people.’

‘Opium,’ Beharry said.

Every new revelation of The Little Bird was carefully studied in Fuente Grove.

‘It ain’t your mystical powers he jealousing now, pundit. He working for the elections in two years’ time. First election with universal adult franchise. Yes, universal adult franchise. Is what he have his eye on.’

Later issues of The Hindu seemed to show that Beharry was right. Spare inches of the magazine were no longer filled up with quotations from the Gita or the Upanishads. Now it was all: Workers’ Unite! Each One Teach One, Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, Per Ardua ad Astra, The Hindu is an Organ of Progress, I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it. The Little Bird began to agitate for A Fair Day’s Pay for a Fair Day’s Work, and Homes for the Destitute; later it announced the opening of The Hindu ‘Homes for Destitutes’ fund.

One day Leela said to Suruj Mooma, ‘I are thinking of taking up social welfare work.’

‘My dear, is the said selfsame thing that Suruj Poopa begging me to do a long long time now. But, my dear, I ain’t have the time.’

The Great Belcher was enthusiastic and practical. ‘Leela, it have nine years I know you, and is the best idea you ever have. All this food I does come here and see you throwing away, you could give to poor people.’

‘Ah, Aunt, it are not much that I does throw away. If something are not use today, well it are use tomorrow. But how I could start up with this social welfare work?’

‘I go tell you how they does do it. You just get some children together, bring them inside the restaurant, and feed them up. Or you go outside, look for children, and feed them outside. Christmas-time come round now, you pick up two three balloons and you go round giving them away.’

‘Yes, Soomintra beginning to stock a lot of prutty prutty balloons.’

And every Sunday now Leela, with the help of The Great Belcher, did social work.

Ganesh worked on, unperturbed by Narayan and The Little Bird. It was as if Narayan’s taunts had encouraged him to do just the thing for which he was attacked. In this he was far-sighted; for certainly it was the books he wrote at this time which helped to establish his reputation, not only in the country, but also in Port of Spain. He used the material of his talks for The Road to Happiness. After that came Re-incarnation, The Soul as I See It, The Necessity for Faith. These books sold regularly and well; but none of them had spectacular success.

And then, one after the other, appeared the two books that made his name a household word in Trinidad.

The first book began: ‘On Thursday, May 2, at nine o’clock in the morning, just after I had had breakfast, I saw God. He looked at me and said …’

What God Told Me must surely rank as a classic in Trinidad literature. Its stark simplicity, almost ingenuousness, is shattering. The character of the narrator is beautifully revealed, especially in the chapters of dialogue, where his humility and spiritual bewilderment counter-point the unravelling of many knotty metaphysical points. There were also some chapters of spirited prophecy. The end of the war was predicted, and the fate of certain local people.

The book set a fashion. Many people in many parts of Trinidad began seeing God. The most celebrated was Man-man of Miguel Street in Port of Spain. Man-man saw God, tried to crucify himself, and had to be put away.

And only two months after the publication of What God Told Me Ganesh scored a stupendous success of scandal. His inspiration was the musical toilet-roll rack. Because Profitable Evacuation was published during the war its title was misunderstood; fortunately, for it might not have been allowed if the authorities knew that it was concerned more or less with constipation. ‘A vital subject,’ Ganesh wrote in his Preface, ‘one that has adversely dogged human relationships since the beginning of time.’ The gist of the book was that evacuation could be made not only pleasurable but profitable, a means of strengthening the abdominal muscles. The system he recommended is roughly that which contortionists and weight-lifters call excavation.

This, printed on thick paper, with a cover of brightest yellow decorated with a lotus, established Ganesh finally, without question.

Left to himself Ganesh might not have taken any further action against Narayan. The Little Bird was only a twitter of protest amid whole-hearted and discerning applause. But people like The Great Belcher and Beharry didn’t like it.

Beharry, in particular, was upset. Ganesh had opened up to him vaster vistas of reading and knowledge; and it was because of Ganesh that he prospered. He had put up his new shop, all concrete and plaster and glass. Land-values in Fuente Grove had risen and he had profited by that too. From time to time he was asked by various Literary-Debating-and-Social-Welfare Societies to talk on aspects of Ganesh’s career: Ganesh the man, Ganesh the mystic, the contribution of Ganesh to Hindu thought. His fate was bound up with Ganesh’s and he, more than anyone, resented Narayan’s attacks.

He did what he could to encourage Ganesh to act.

‘The man attack you again this month, pundit.’

‘Gaddaha!’

‘But it does look bad bad, pundit. Especially now that Ramlogan beginning to write against you in The Hindu. Is dangerous.’

But Ganesh wasn’t worried that Narayan was preparing for the 1946 elections. ‘I ain’t burning to be one of those damn crooks who does go up for elections.’

‘You hear the latest, pundit? Narayan form a party. The Hindu Association. Is a election stunt, pundit. He ain’t have a chance to win in Port of Spain. He have to come to the country and that is where he frighten you beat him.’

‘Beharry, you and me know what sort of thing Indian associations is in this place. Narayan and those people just like little girls playing dolly-house.’

Ganesh’s judgement was sound. At the first general meeting of the Hindu Association Narayan was elected President. The following were also elected: four Assistant-Presidents, two Vice-Presidents, four Assistant Vice-Presidents; many Treasurers; one Secretary-in-Chief, six Secretaries, twelve Assistant-Secretaries.

‘You see? They ain’t leave nobody out. Look, Beharry, boy, going about talking to all these prayer-meetings, I get to know Trinidad Indians like the back of my own hand.’

But then Narayan began playing the fool. He began sending off cables to India, to Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and the All-India Congress; in addition to anniversary cables of all sorts: he noted centenaries, bicentenaries tercentenaries. And every time he sent a cable the news was reported in the Trinidad Sentinel. There was nothing to prevent Ganesh sending his own cables; but in India, where they didn’t know what was what in Trinidad, what chance would a cable signed GANESH PUNDIT MYSTIC have against one signed NARAYAN PRESIDENT HINDU ASSOCIATION TRINIDAD?

The deputation was the work of Beharry.

Two men and a boy came out one Sunday afternoon to Ganesh’s residence. One man was tall, black, and fat. He looked a little like Ramlogan; only, he was dressed in spotless white: his belly was so big it hung over his black leather belt and hid it. In his shirt pocket he carried a letter and a whole row of pens and pencils. The other man was thin, fair, and good-looking. The boy wore short trousers and his shirt-sleeves were buttoned at his wrists. Ganesh had often met the men and knew them as organizers. The boy he didn’t know.

The deputation sat down carefully on the morris chairs in the verandah and Ganesh shouted for Leela to bring put some CocaCola.

The deputation looked through the drawing-room doors and examined the pictures and the two big Coca-Cola calendars on the walls.

Then they saw Leela, thin and elegant in her sari, opening the refrigerator. The fat man nudged the boy sitting next to him on the couch; and the whole deputation stopped staring.

The fat man became businesslike. ‘Sahib, we ain’t come here to beat about the bush. Beharry and your aunt — a nice nice woman, sahib — they ask me to come because of the amount of experience I have organizing prayer-meetings and things like that —’

The Coca-Cola came. Four frosted bottles on a glass-bottomed tray. Leela sighed. ‘Wait jirst one moment. I are going to get the glasses.’

The fat man looked at the bottles. The thin fair man fingered the strip of adhesive-plaster above his left eye. The boy looked at the tassels on Ganesh’s scarf. Ganesh smiled at them all in turn and they all smiled back, except the boy.

On another glass-bottomed tray Leela brought expensive-looking glasses of great beauty, arabesqued in gold, red, and green and ringed with gold bands.

The deputation held their glasses in both hands.

There was an awkward silence until Ganesh asked the fat man, ‘What you doing these days, Swami?’

Swami took a sip of Coca-Cola, a refined lilliputian sip. ‘Jirst living, sahib.’

‘Jirst living, eh?’ Ganesh smiled.

Swami nodded and smiled back.

‘And what happen to you, Partap? I see you cut yourself, man.’

‘A little accident in Parcel Post,’ Partap said, fingering the adhesive-plaster.

Ganesh had always thought of this man as Partap of Parcel Post. He managed to bring in the Parcel Post into almost any conversation, and Ganesh knew that to annoy him you only had to suggest that he worked in the Post Office. ‘Parcel Post, please,’ he would say coldly.

Silence, for three little sips of Coca-Cola.

Swami put down his glass with decision, but with unintentioned violence, and Leela came and stood at one of the drawing-room doors. Swami took up his glass again and smiled. ‘Yes, sahib,’ he said, with great cheerfulness. ‘We ain’t come here to beat about the bush. You is the only man with authority among all Trinidad Indians to stand up to Narayan. We don’t approve of the way Narayan attacking you. We come here today, sahib’ — Swami became solemn — ‘to ask you to form up your own own association. We go make you President straightaway and — you ain’t have to look very far — you have three Assistant-Presidents sitting down quiet quiet in front of you drinking Coca-Cola.’

‘What Narayan do you so?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ Partap said surlily. ‘Nasty attack on me and my family, pundit. Accusing my own father of bribery and corruption in the local Road Board. And he always does call me a Post Office man, just for spite. I write letters, but he don’t print them.’

‘And me he accusing of robbing poor people.’ Swami looked pained. ‘Sahib, it have more than eighteen months now you know me. I organize a hundred and one prayer-meetings for you. Sahib, a man of my standing go ever rob poor people?’ Swami was a solicitor’s tout in Couva.

‘And what Narayan do the boy?’

Swami laughed and took a big gulp of Coca-Cola. The boy looked down into his glass. ‘Narayan ain’t do him anything yet, sahib. He only here for the experience.’

The boy’s face grew darker with embarrassment.

‘But he is a bright little boy, you know.’ The boy frowned into his glass. ‘My sister son. A genius, man, sahib. First shot, he get a first grade in the Cambridge School Certificate.’

Ganesh thought of his own second grade at the age of nineteen. He said, ‘Ummh,’ and took his first sip of Coca-Cola.

Partap went on, ‘It not right, sahib. Every day you open the Sentinel, two to one you find something on page three about Narayan sending off greeting cables.’

Ganesh took a long draught of Coca-Cola.

Swami said, ‘You must do something, sahib. Start up your own association. Or bring out a paper. Is another thing where I have a whole ton of experience. When I was young, man, sahib, in the nineteen-twenties, a year didn’t pass off without Swami bringing out a new paper. I had to go up to Port of Spain — law business, you know — and I went to the Registrar office. Man, it surprise me self the number of paper I bring out. But I change now. I say you must bring out a paper only when you have a good good reason.’

Everybody drank some Coca-Cola.

‘But I must stop talking about myself. This little boy here, sahib, he is a born writer. Man, if you does hear the English word he does use — word as long as my hand, man!’ Swami held out his right arm until his shirt tautened at the arm-pit.

Ganesh looked at the boy.

‘He shy today,’ Swami said.

‘But don’t let that fool you,’ Partap said. ‘He thinking all the time.’

They drank a lot more Coca-Cola and talked a lot more, but Ganesh refused to be convinced, although there was in their arguments much that attracted him. That business of bringing out his own newspaper, for example, had repeatedly crossed his mind. In fact, sometimes on Sundays he had shouted to Leela to bring him paper and red pencils and he had made up dummy issues of newspapers. He had ruled columns, indicated which were for advertisements, which for edification. But this pleasure, like that of making note-books, was a private one.

Shortly afterwards, however, two things occurred that decided him to take action against Narayan.

You might say that the first began in the offices of the London Messenger. The war ended, throwing journalists more or less upon their own resources. The Messenger flew a correspondent to South America to cover a revolution that looked promising. Considering that the only human interest story he could get there was from a woman in a night-club who said, ‘You are in bed. You hear bim-bam-bom. You say, “Revolution”, and you go to sleep again,’ the correspondent had done well. Having covered that revolution he flew back by way of Para, Georgetown, and Port of Spain, and uncovered crises in all three places. Apparently Trinidad natives were planning a revolt and British officials and their wives were taking revolvers to dances. The libel was publicity and pleased Trinidad. Ganesh was more concerned with the correspondent’s analysis of the political situation, as reported back in the Trinidad Sentinel. Narayan was described as President of the extremist Hindu Association. Narayan, ‘who received me at his party headquarters’, was the leader of the Indian community. Ganesh didn’t mind that. He didn’t mind the disparaging reference to the Hindu fanatics of South Trinidad. But he was needled when the correspondent lingered over romantic details when speaking of Narayan and described him as ‘chain-smoking, balding C. S. Narayan, veteran journalist’, and much more. He could take any amount of abuse from Narayan himself. England could, if it wished, think of Narayan as the leader of Trinidad Indians. But that England would read and remember that C. S. Narayan was chain-smoking, balding, and a veteran journalist was more than he could bear.

‘I know is unreasonable, Beharry. But is how I feel.’

Beharry sympathized. ‘A man could take big things. Is the little things like that what does cut up a man tail.’

‘Something go have to happen, and then I go do for Narayan.’

Beharry nibbled. ‘Is the way I like to hear you talk, pundit.’

And then, most opportunely, The Great Belcher brought great news.

‘Oh, Ganesh, the shame! The shame to Indians that Narayan bringing!’ She was so overcome she could only belch and ask for water. She got Coca-Cola. It made her burp between belches and she remained uncommunicative for some time. ‘I done with CocaCola,’ she said at last. ‘I ain’t modern enough for it. Next time is only water for me.’

‘What shame?’

‘Ah, boy. The Home for Destitutes Fund. You know Narayan start that?’

‘The Little Bird talking about it for months now.’

‘Home for Destitutes! As fast as the money collecting, the man buying estates. And was only by a chance I get to find out. I ain’t know if you know how hard Gowrie having it these days. She is a sort of relation to Narayan. So, when I met Gowrie at Doolarie wedding and she start this big bawling and crying about money, I say, “Gowrie, why you don’t go to Narayan and ask him? He having this fund for destitute.” She say no, she can’t go, because she got she pride and the fund still open. But I talk she into going and so when I see she yesterday at Daulatram funeral, I ask she, “You ask Narayan?” She say yes, she ask Narayan. “And what he do?” I ask. She say Narayan just begin one crying and losing his temper when she ask him, saying that everybody think that because he open one little fund he is a rich man. He say, “Gowrie, I poorer than you. How you could look at me and think I is rich? Just last week I had to buy a whole estate for fourteen thousand dollars. Where I go find all that money?” So he say and so he begin one long crying and Gowrie say in the end she feel that he was going to ask she for money.’

Throughout the long speech The Great Belcher hadn’t belched once. ‘Is the Coca-Cola, you think?’ Ganesh asked.

‘No, so it does happen when I get carry away.’

‘But how people ain’t making a row about this fund, man?’

‘Ah, boy, don’t tell me you ain’t know Trinidad. When people give money, you think they care who get it? Once they open they mouth and skin their teeth for a photo in the papers, they happy, you hear. And too besides, you believe they want this thing to come out for people to start laughing at them?’

‘It ain’t right. I ain’t saying this because I is a mystic and all that, but I think that to any outsider it can’t look right.’

‘Is just how I feel,’ The Great Belcher said.

So the deputation came again and sat, not in the verandah, but at the dining-table in the drawing-room. They looked at the pictures on the walls again. Once more Leela went through the ritual of taking out Coca-Cola from the refrigerator and pouring it into the beautiful glasses.

Swami was still dressed in white; there was the same array of pens and pencils in his shirt pocket, and the same letter. Partap had lost his adhesive plaster. The boy had discarded his short trousers for a double-breasted brown suit a size or two bigger than he required. He had a copy of Time magazine and the New Statesman and Nation.

Partap said, ‘Narayan so smart he stupid. He playing right in we hand now, pundit. He changing his name, man. With Indians he is Chandra Shekar Narayan.’

‘And with everybody else,’ Swami added, ‘Cyrus Stephen Narayan.’

Leela brought large sheets of paper and many red pencils.

Ganesh said, ‘I think over what you say, and we going to start up we own paper.’

Swami said, ‘Is just what go knock hell out of Narayan.’

Ganesh ruled out columns on the sheet before him. ‘Like in all things, we have to start small.’

The boy put Time and the New Statesman on the table. ‘These is small papers. Very small papers.’

Swami laughed. It sounded like gargling in the next room. ‘You see, sahib, the boy could talk good. And, man, he is a born writer. He know a lot more than plenty of big big man in this place.’

The boy repeated. ‘Yes, these is very small papers.’

Ganesh smiled sympathetically. ‘That go cost a lot, man. We have to start small and simple. Look at your uncle Swami. He start small when he did bringing out papers.’

Swami nodded solemnly.

‘And Partap. And me. We did all have to start small. We starting up with four pages.’

‘Only four pages?’ the boy said petulantly. ‘But that ain’t no sort of paper at all, man.’

‘Later we go build it up, man. Big big.’

‘All right, all right.’ The boy angrily pulled his chair away from the table. ‘Go ahead and make up your so-call paper. But just leave me out of it.’ He attended to his Coca-Cola.

‘First page,’ Ganesh announced. ‘Bright page. No advertisements, except in the bottom right-hand corner.’

‘I always did promise myself,’ Partap said reverently, ‘that if I did ever start up a paper, I woulda dedicate it to Mahatma Gandhi. I know a boy, if you treat him nice, could pick up a block with Gandhi picture from the Sentinel office. We could put this on the top of the front page and I could always find out some words or something to go with it.’

Ganesh marked out the space for the homage.

‘That settle,’ Swami said.

The front page going to be a page of attack, attack,’ Ganesh said. ‘Leave that to me. I working on this article exposing the Destitutes Fund and Leela busy writing a little report about the social welfare work she doing.’

Swami was so pleased he tried to cross his gargantuan legs. The chair creaked and Ganesh looked hard at him. Leela came out and swept through the room. ‘Some people look as if they are never see furnitures before. Next time I are going to bring some benches.’

Partap sat bolt upright and Swami smiled.

The boy, sitting against the wall next to the refrigerator, said, ‘Yes, the page settle. But I wonder what people go say when they see in one side the page dedication to Mahatma Gandhi and in the other side attack, attack.’

Swami said sharply, ‘Shut up, boy. Otherwise, don’t mind you big and wearing long pants, I haul you across my knee and I give you a sound sound cut-arse, right here, in front of the pundit self. And I leave you home next time and you never touch any paper I bring out. If you ain’t have nothing but suckastic remarks, keep quiet.’

‘All right, you is a big man and you go shut me up. But I want to see how all you going to full up the three other pages.’

Ganesh ignored the exchange and went on ruling columns on the inside pages. ‘Page two.’

Partap sipped some Coca-Cola. ‘Page two.’

‘Yes,’ Swami said, ‘page two.’

Partap snapped his fingers. ‘Advertisements!’

‘A whole page advertisements on page two? You see the way inexperience people does talk?’

‘Some advertisements,’ Ganesh pleaded.

‘Is what I did mean,’ Partap said.

‘Four columns on page two. Two for advertisement?’

Partap nodded.

Swami said, ‘Is how I use to do it.’

‘What you going to put in the two columns?’ The boy.

Swami turned around quickly in his chair and again it creaked dangerously. The boy was holding up Time before his face.

‘How about a little thing by you, pundit?’ Partap asked.

‘Man, already I writing up a whole front page. And I ain’t want my name to appear in the paper. I ain’t want to bring myself down to Narayan level.’

Swami said, ‘Culture, sahib. Page two is the culture page.’

Partap said, ‘Yes, culture.’

There was a long silence, broken only by the boy turning over the pages of Time with unnecessary rustle.

Ganesh tapped his pencil on the table. Swami propped his hands against his chin and leaned forward on the table, pushing it towards Ganesh. Partap crossed his arms and furrowed his brow.

‘Coca-Cola?’ Ganesh said.

Swami and Partap nodded absent-mindedly and Leela came out to do the honours. ‘I have some enamel cups, you know, if that are going to make you people any happier.’

‘Oh, we is all right,’ Partap smiled.

‘Cinema,’ the boy said, behind Time.

‘What you mean?’ Swami asked eagerly.

‘Film reviews,’ Ganesh said.

Partap said, ‘Film reviews is a first-class idea.’

Swami was enthusiastic. ‘And on that selfsame page, advertisements for films. From the Indian companies. One review for one advertisement.’

Ganesh slapped the table. ‘That self.’

The boy was humming.

The three men sipped Coca-Cola with abandon. Swami laughed and chuckled till his chair creaked.

The boy said coldly, ‘Page three.’

‘Two more columns of advertisement there,’ Ganesh said briskly.

‘And a nice big advertisement on the whole of page four,’ Swami added.

‘True enough,’ Ganesh said, ‘but why for you jumping ahead so?’

Partap said, ‘Only two more columns to full up.’

‘Yes,’ Swami said sadly, ‘two more.’

The boy walked to the table and said, ‘Feecher.’

They looked at him inquiringly.

‘Feecher article.’

‘The paper finish!’ Swami cried.

Partap said, ‘Who go write the feecher?’

Ganesh said, ‘People know my style. Is something for you people to write. Just gimme page one.’

‘Serious, religious feecher on page three,’ the boy said, ‘to make up for page one which, if I ain’t getting deaf, going to be a page of attack, attack.’

Swami said, ‘I outa practice. In the old days, man, I coulda turn out a feecher in half a hour.’

Partap said hesitantly, ‘A bright little thing about Parcel Post?’

The boy said, ‘Serious and religious feecher.’ To Swami he said, ‘But what about that one you show me the other day?’

‘Which one?’ Swami asked casually.

‘The flying one.’

‘Oh. That little thing. The boy talking, sahib, about a few words I scribble off the other day.’

Partap said, ‘I remember the one. The New Statesman send it back. Was nice, though. It prove, pundit, that in ancient India they did know all about aeroplanes.’

Ganesh said, ‘Hmmh.’ Then, ‘All right, we go put it in.’

Swami said, ‘I go have to polish it up a little bit.’

Partap said, ‘Well, I glad that settle.’

The boy said, ‘All you forgetting one thing. The name.’

The men became thoughtful once more.

Swami tinkled the ice in his glass. ‘I better say it right away, sahib. I is like that, sahib. No beating about the bush. If you can’t get a good name, blame me. I use up everything when I was a proper editor. Mirror, Herald, Sentinel, Tribune, Mail. Everything, man. Use them up, Hindu this and Hindu that.’

Ganesh said, ‘Something simple.’

Partap toyed with his glass and mumbled, ‘Something really simple.’ And before he had time to take it back Partap had said, ‘The Hindu?’

‘Damn fool!’ Swami shouted. ‘How you forgetting that that is the name of Narayan paper? Is so stupid you does get working in the Post Office?’

The chair scraped loudly on the floor and Leela rushed out in a panic. She saw Partap standing, pale and trembling, with a glass in his hand.

‘Say that again,’ Partap cried. ‘Say that again and see if I don’t break this glass on your head. Who does work in the Post Office? You could ever see a man like me licking stamps? You, a damn tout, running around licking — but I ain’t going to dirty my mouth talking to you here today.’

Ganesh had put his arm around Partap’s shoulders while Leela swiftly retrieved the glass from his hand and cleared the table of the other glasses.

Swami said, ‘I was only making joke, man. Who could look at you and say that you working in the Post Office? I could just look at you and see that you is a Parcel Post man. Parcel Post print all over you, man. Not so, boy?’

The boy said, ‘He look to me like a Parcel Post man.’

Ganesh said, ‘You see, they all say you does look like a Parcel Post man. Come on, sit down and behave like one. Sit down and take it easy and have some Coca-Cola. Eh, eh, where the glasses gone?’

Leela stamped her foot. ‘I are not going to give any of these illiterate people any Coca-Cola in my prutty prutty glasses.’

Swami said, ‘We sorry, maharajin.’

But she was out of the room.

Partap, sitting down, said, ‘I sorry, mistakes are reliable. I did just forget the name of Narayan paper for the moment, that is all.’

‘What about The Sanatanist?’ Swami asked.

The boy said, ‘No.’

Ganesh looked at the boy. ‘No?’

‘Is a easy name to twist around,’ the boy said. ‘It easy to make The Sanatanist The Satanist. And too besides, my father ain’t a Sanatanist. We is Aryans.’

So the men thought again.

Swami asked the boy, ‘You think anything yet?’

‘What you think I is? A professional thinker?’

Partap said, ‘Don’t behave so. If you think anything, don’t keep it secret.’

Ganesh said, ‘We is big men. Let we forget the boy.’

The boy said, ‘All right, stop worrying. I go ease you up. The name you looking for is The Dharma, the faith.’

Ganesh blocked out the name at the top of the front page.

The boy said, ‘It surprise me that big big men sitting down drinking Coca-Cola and talking about their experience ain’t bother to worry about the advertisements.’

Partap, still excited, grew garrulous. ‘I was talking to the Head of Parcel Post only last week and he tell me that in America and England — he was there on leave before the war — they does have big big men sitting down all day just writing off advertisements.’

Swami said, ‘I ain’t have the contacts I use to have for getting advertisements.’

Ganesh asked the boy, ‘Think we need them?’

Swami said, ‘Why for you asking the boy? If you ask me my advice, I go tell you flat that unless a paper have advertisements it does look like nothing and it go make people think nobody does read the paper.’

Partap said, ‘If you ain’t having advertisements, it mean having more columns to full up. Two and two is four, and four columns on the back page make eight columns, and one on the front —’

Ganesh said, ‘We having advertisements; and I know one man bound to want to advertise. Beharry. Beharry’s Emporium. Front Page.’

‘Who else you know?’ the boy asked.

Partap furrowed his brow. ‘The best thing would be to appoint a business manager.’

Swami smiled at Partap. ‘Very nice idea. And I think the best man for business manager is Ganesh Pundit.’

The vote was unanimous.

The boy nudged Swami and Swami said, ‘And I think we have to appoint a sub-editor. The best man for that job is this boy here.’

That was agreed. It was further agreed that, on the first page of The Dharma, Swami should appear as Editor-in-Chief, and Partap as Editor.

There were times during the next two or three weeks when Ganesh regretted his plunge into journalism. The film companies were rude. They said they had enough advertisements as it was and they doubted whether any reviews in The Dharma, however favourable, would stabilize the film industry in India. That was Ganesh’s contention. ‘The Indian film industry,’ he said, ‘isn’t as healthy as it looks. Let the effects of the war wear off and — bam! — things are going to get bad.’ The executives advised him to stick to religion and leave the film industry alone. ‘All right,’ Ganesh threatened. ‘No reviews for you. Not a single little word. The Dharma will ignore the very existence of the Indian cinema. Not a single word.’ Quick thinking had, however, shown the two culture columns on page two as a blank and he had relented. ‘I am sorry I lost my temper,’ he wrote. ‘Your treatment of me shall not influence my treatment of you.’ Still the film companies refused to issue free tickets to The Dharma and Ganesh had to pay for the boy to go and see the two films for review.

Being a business manager was embarrassing. It meant going to see a man he knew and talking about the situation in India before springing the request for an advertisement. It wasn’t very wise either, because Ganesh didn’t want it known that he was too closely associated with The Dharma.

In the end he threw up the idea of getting advertisements. He got two or three inches from those of his clients who were shopkeepers; but he decided thereafter to print unsolicited advertisements. He thought of all the shops he knew and wrote copy for them. A difficult business, since the shops were nearly all alike and it wasn’t satisfying to keep on writing ‘Best Quality Goods at City Prices’ or ‘High-Class Commodities at Competitive Prices’. Finally he became inventive. He described superlative bargains in fictitious shops in unknown villages.

Swami was pleased. ‘A master job, sahib.’

Partap said, ‘This place you mention, Los Rosales, where it is?’

‘Keskidee Bargain Shop? Brand-new place. Open only last week.’

The boy handed in libellous reviews of the films.

‘We can’t print this, man,’ Ganesh said.

‘Is all right for you to talk. You just go around getting advertisements. Me, I had to spend six whole hours watching those two pictures.’

The reviews were rewritten.

The boy said, ‘Is your paper, pundit. If you make me lie, is on your head.’

‘How about your article on the Destitutes Fund, sahib?’

‘I have it right here. It go make Narayan a laughing-stock. And printing this report by Leela next to it, Narayan go have good hell knock out of him.’

He showed the report.

‘What is all these dots over the paper?’ the boy asked.

‘Crossing out punctuation marks.’

‘Is a nice little report, man, sahib.’ Swami’s voice was mellow.

It read:

REPORT OF MY SOCIAL WELFARE WORK

by Leela Ramsumair

1. In November last year I in my very small and humble way treated 225 destitutes by way of cash and refreshments. The expenses for this treat were met by donations willingly and cheerfully given by private individual Trinidadians.

2. In December I treated 213 poor children. Expenses were met by me and my husband, Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A., Mystic.

3. In January I was approached by Dr C. V. R. Swami, the Hindu journalist and religious organizer, with a request for immediately monetary assistance. He had been organizing a seven-day prayer-meeting, feeding on an average anything up to 200 brahmins per diem, in addition to about 325 others (Dr Swami’s figures). He had run short of food. I gave him monetary assistance. Therefore he was able, on the 7th and last day of the prayer-meeting, to feed more than 500 brahmins in addition to 344 destitutes.

4. In February I visited Sweet Pastures Estate where I was met by approximately 425 children. They were all destitute. I fed them and gave 135 of the very poorest toys.

5. In March, at my residence in Fuente Grove, I treated more than 42 children of the very poorest. I think it advisable to state that while I was able to feed them all I was able to give clothes only to 12 of the very poorest.

6. In presenting this incomplete report for the inspection of the Trinidadian public, I wish to make it publicly known that I owe very much to the very many private individual Trinida-dians who willingly and cheerfully donated money to bring comfort and solace to children of the very poorest without distinction of race, caste, colour, or creed.

The Dharma went to press.

The boy handled the layout of the paper with relish. He had a banner headline on page one and another on page three. At the top of page three he had, in twenty-four point italic:

Today the aeroplane is a common or garden sight and it is commonly believed that progress in this field has only been made in the past forty years. But diligent research is proving otherwise and in this learned dispatch Dr C. V. R. Swami shows that 2,000 years ago there was –

And in huge black letters:

FLYING IN ANCIENT INDIA

He knew all about cross-headings and used them every paragraph. He put the last paragraph of every article in italic, with the last line in black letter.

Basdeo, the printer, told Ganesh afterwards, ‘Sahib, if you ever send that boy again to have anything print, I think I go wring his neck.’