V. Naipaul - The Mystic Masseur

‘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?’