V. Naipaul - The Mystic Masseur

‘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.