Shashi Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel

Right, Ganapathi? So, we’ve got the genealogies out of the way, my progeny are littering the palace at Hastinapur, and good old Ganga Datta is still safely ensconced as regent. No, on second thoughts, you’d better cut out that adverb, Ganapathi. ‘Safely’ wouldn’t be entirely accurate. A new British Resident, successor of the bewhiskered automobilist, is in place and is far from sure he likes what is going on.

Picture the situation for yourself. Gangaji, the man in charge of Hastinapur for all practical purposes, thin as a papaya plant, already balder then than I am today, peering at you through round-rimmed glasses that gave him the look of a startled owl. And the rest of his appearance was hardly what you would call prepossessing. He had by then burned his soup-and-fish and given away the elegant suits copied for him from the best British magazines by the court master-tailor; but to make matters worse, he was now beginning to shed part or most of even his traditional robes on all but state occasions. People were for ever barging into his study unexpectedly and finding him in nothing but a loincloth. ‘Excuse me, I was just preparing myself an enema,’ he would say, with a feeble smile, as if that explained everything. In fact, as you can well imagine, it only added to the confusion.

But it was not just the Regent’s personal eccentricities that were causing alarm at the Resident’s residence across the hill from the palace. Word was beginning to get around of Gangaji’s radical, indeed one might say, dangerous, ideas about the world around him.

‘He’s renounced sex, of course, but we knew that already,’ the new representative of the King-Emperor said to his equerry one evening on his verandah, as one of my men hung from a branch above and listened. (We ‘itinerant seditious fakirs,’ as that ignorant windbag Winston Churchill once called us, had to have our sources, you understand. Not all of them were happy with the ash-smearing requirement, but they and I learned more wandering about with a staff and a bowl under the British than I did after becoming a minister in independent India.) ‘Problem is, he’s now going further. Preaching a lot of damn nonsense about equality and justice and what have you. And you tell me he cleans his own toilet, instead of letting his damn bhisti do it.’

‘ Jamadar, Sir Richard,’ the aide, a thin young man with a white pinched face, said, coughing politely. ‘A bhisti is only a water-carrier.’

‘Really?’ The Resident seemed surprised. ‘Thought those were called lotas.’

‘They are, sir.’ The equerry coughed even more loudly this time. ‘Lotas are those little pots you carry water in, I mean they carry water in, Sir Richard, whereas. .’

‘A bhisti is the kind they have to balance on their heads, I suppose,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Damn complicated language, this Hindustani. Different words for everything.’

‘Yes, sir. . I mean, no, sir,’ began the equerry, doubly unhappy about his own choice of words. He wanted to explain that a bhisti was a person, not a container. ‘What I mean is. .’

‘And different genders, too,’ Sir Richard went on. ‘I mean, is there any good reason why a table should be feminine and a bed masculine? D’you think it has to do with what you do on them?’

‘Well, no, sir, not exactly.’ The young man began his reply cautiously, unsure whether the question required one. ‘It’s really a matter of word- endings, you see, sir, and. .’

‘Ah, boy,’ said the Resident, cutting him in full flow, as a white-haired and white-shirted bearer padded in on bare feet, tray in hand. ‘About time, eh?’

It was the convivial hour. The sun had begun its precipitous descent into the unknown, and the distant sky was flaming orange, like saffron scattered on a heaving sea. In the gathering gloom the insects came into their own, buzzing, chirping, biting at the blotchy paleness of colonial flesh. This was when English minds turned to thoughts of drink. Twilight never lasts long in India, but its advent was like opening time at the pubs our rulers had left behind. The shadows fell and spirits rose; the sharp odour of quinine tonic, invented by lonely planters to drown and justify their solitary gins, mingled with the scent of frangipani from their leafy, insect-ridden gardens, and the soothing clink of ice against glass was only disturbed by the occasional slap of a frustrated palm against a reddening spot just vacated by an anglovorous mosquito.

‘Boy, whisky lao. Chhota whisky, burra water, understand? What will you have, Heaslop?’

‘A weak whisky will suit me very well, too, Sir Richard.’

‘Right. Two whiskies, do whisky, boy. And a big jug of water, understand. Not a little lota, eh? Bring it in a bhisti. Bhisti men lao.’ He smiled in satisfaction at the bearer, who gave him an astonished look before bowing and salaaming his way backwards out of the room.

‘Er. . if I might point out, sir — ’

‘Nothing to it, really,’ Sir Richard continued. ‘These native languages don’t really have much to them, you know. And it’s not as if you have to write poetry in them. A few crucial words, sufficient English for ballast, and you’re sailing smoothly. In fact,’ his voice became confidential, ‘I even have a couple of tricks up my sleeve.’ He leaned towards the young man, his eyes, mouth and face all round in concentration. ‘ “There was a banned crow,” ‘ he intoned sonorously. ‘ “There was a cold day.” Not bad, eh? I learned those on the boat. Sounds like perfect Urdu, I’m told.’ He paused and frowned. ‘The devil of it is remembering which one means, “close the door,” and which one will get someone to open it. Well, never mind,’ he said, as his companion opened his mouth in diffident helpfulness. ‘We’re not here for a language lesson. I was speaking about this damn regent we have here. What d’you make of him, eh?’

‘Well, sir, he’s very able, there’s no question about that,’ Heaslop responded slowly. ‘And the people seem to hold him in some regard.’

‘They would, wouldn’t they, with all the ideas he puts into their head. All this nonsense about equality, and toilet-cleaning. I understand he’s suggesting that caste distinctions ought to be done away with. We’ve always believed they were the foundation of Indian society, haven’t we? And now a chap comes along out of nowhere, scion of the ruling caste, and says Untouchables are just as good as he is. How does he propose to put that little idea into practice, d’you know?’

‘He seems to believe in the force of moral authority, sir. He cleans his own toilet to show that there is nothing inherently shameful about the task, which, as you know, is normally performed by Untouchables.’ Sir Richard produced a sound which might have been prompted by a winged assault on his ear, or then again by Heaslop’s implied enthusiasm for Ganga’s stand. The young man continued, carefully moderating his tone. ‘He seems to think that by getting down to their level, he will make them more acceptable to the people at large. Untouchability is no longer legal in Hastinapur, but he knows it’s still impossible for a cobbler to get into the main temple. So he makes it a point of inviting an Untouchable, or a “Child of God”, as he calls them, to his room for a meal every week. As you can imagine, sir, this gets talked about.’

‘Favourably?’

‘I’d say public opinion is divided in about equal parts of admiration and resentment, sir. The latter mainly from the upper castes, of course.’

‘Of course. And how do they take all this at the palace? Regent or no Regent, there must be many who don’t agree with his ideas. Cleaning his own toilet, indeed.’