Chankya's Chant (38 page)

The coronation of Sinharan as king of Mallayrajya was magnificent. ‘Always keep your words soft and sweet, O Sinharan. Just in case you ever have to take them back,’ advised his mentor as he blessed the new sovereign.

Sinharan knelt before his teacher and said ‘Acharya, I feel guilty about what happened to my uncle and his family. I had simply exiled him after our takeover of the kingdom, as you advised. I feel terrible that he and his family were murdered by dacoits thereafter. I fear that his death will haunt me for the rest of my life.’

‘Everyone leaves the world a better place, some merely by leaving. Your uncle was one of those!’ said a victorious Chanakya as he gloated over his memory of the events of the previous day when the inhabitants of the city had capitulated to them.

‘I do not wish to burden Sinharan with the odious task of eliminating challengers to his throne,’ he had confided to Mehir. ‘I shall ask Sinharan to banish his uncle from Mallayrajya. Our effort, Mehir, must be to ensure that the former king leaves the borders of the kingdom absolutely unharmed.’

‘But is it wise to exile him? He’s an ally of Paurus, and will flee to Kaikey with a view to raising troops. Paurus will only be too happy to support his endeavour. Afer all, Sinharan’s ascension to the throne means that Mallayrajya is no longer a vassal of Kaikey,’ Mehir had exclaimed.

‘You’re absolutely right, Mehir. And that’s why I need him eliminated—but not officially. The population of Mallayrajya must love their new ruler, Sinharan. He should appear kind, fair, just, truthful and benevolent. It’s vital that Sinharan’s uncle be seen leaving the kingdom—unharmed and unhindered—along with his family and supporters.’

‘And then?’ asked Mehir, knowing the answer and also knowing that it was an answer that would remain unspoken.

T
he suite at the Hotel Clarks in Lucknow was cool and dark. The curtains had been partly drawn to block out the harsh afternoon sun, and the airconditioning had been set to the lowest possible temperature. Sitting inside were two men—Pandit Gangasagar Mishra and Ram Shankar Dwivedi. Dwivedi was nervous. He kept adjusting his spectacles and straightening his hair. He was dressed like any other Indian politician—white homespun kurta and pyjama— but the accessories that embellished his Gandhian outfit were not all that humble. His spectacle frames were Gucci, the pen in his pocket a solid silver Mont Blanc, his wristwatch a yellow gold Rolex, and his feet were comfortably encased in Bally loafers.

Why had the party patriarch decided to call him for a one-on-one meeting in a luxury suite, he asked himself. A trickle of sweat left his upper back and dripped down his spine in spite of the freezing room. It caused him to shudder. This was not good. Pandit Gangasagar Mishra was a cold-blooded killer when it came to politics, thought Dwivedi. What did he know? Was he being called for a dressing-down by the ABNS patriarch?

Gangasagar stared at him in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Talk, damn you, thought Dwivedi to himself. Unknown to Dwivedi, Gangasagar was wearing a woollen vest inside his kurta and sat comfortably snug, unaffected by the sub-zero chill of the room.
Let him shiver
, thought Gangasagar.
If he’s cold, he’ll want to pee, and that will make him even more nervous.

‘I’m told that you’re rather sociable these days, Dwivediji,’ said Gangasagar at length. ‘Everyone I meet tells me they have visited your house.’

‘It is my misfortune that you have not had the time to be my guest, Panditji, I would love to have you over for dinner,’ replied Dwivedi anxiously.

‘Let me rephrase the statement. To be precise, twentyfour of our ABNS MLAs have been observed regularly visiting your house—and please don’t tell me that they came just for whisky and samosas!’

Dwivedi fidgeted some more. He took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m a loyal party worker, Panditji. Some disgruntled elements were trying to ignite a rebellion. I thought that it was my paramount duty to convince them otherwise.’

‘I’m proud of you, Dwivediji. I should have realised that these photos were doctored,’ declared Gangasagar as he tossed a bunch of glossy 4 x 6-inch photos on the glass coffee table before them. The colour drained from Dwivedi’s face as he stared at the obscene photographs showing him in various
Kama Sutra
-inspired positions along with Eesha. He mumbled incoherently, but no words emerged.

‘Relax, Dwivediji. Don’t worry. She said that you were quite good in bed,’ Gangasagar laughed maniacally as he went in for the kill. ‘I have forty-nine negatives with me—one for each month of the remaining term of this government. If Chandini is still chief minister in the forty-ninth month, all the negatives shall be returned to you, deal?’

Dwivedi nodded dumbly, his very life having been sucked out of him. Pandit Gangasagar Mishra got up from his chair. ‘Ah! One more request. Please remember that it’s now in your interest to ensure that this government lasts. It shall be your personal responsibility to keep me informed if there are any murmurs of dissent, is that understood?’ he demanded before walking out of the hotel suite, turning off the air conditioner as he left.

‘
Adi Shakti, Namo Namah; Sarab Shakti, Namo Namah; Prithum Bhagvati, Namo Namah; Kundalini Mata Shakti; Mata Shakti, Namo Namah
,’ he said to himself.

Chandini was devastated. Shankar had been a breath of fresh air, her only indulgence after Geoffrey. She looked at herself in the mirror, holding back tears that wanted to breach the dam. She would not cry. It seemed that it was not in her destiny to either love or be loved. She dabbed a tissue under her deep-green eyes, flushed it down the aircraft toilet and stepped out to join Gangasagar.

The flight from Lucknow to Delhi was short but uncomfortable. Take-off had been delayed by over an hour due to a faulty auxiliary power supply unit and by the time that had been rectified, air traffic control had denied permission to leave, owing to inclement weather. Gangasagar had phoned the civil aviation minister in New Delhi to have a word put in to Lucknow’s air traffic control to grant them permission to take off. The rest of the passengers on the flight were unaware that they were the lucky recipients of political largesse—a take-off that would have probably been aborted if not for the presence of Gangasagar. Chandini, Ikram, Gangasagar and Menon were seated in the front row of the aircraft. The usually grumpy airhostess had suddenly perked up and was making an extra effort to be warm and caring towards her VIP guests although her attitude of general indifference returned the moment that she reached the second row.

‘What do we expect to achieve in New Delhi?’ asked Ikram.

‘Do you remember our conversation when you had just taken over as mayor, Ikram?’ asked Gangasagar.

‘Which one? There were so many,’ joked Ikram.

‘The one when I told you that we should be dogooders because we want to win the next elections. That real power lay at state level, not in local government.’

‘Yes. I do remember.’

‘Well, I want to tell you that I was wrong.’

‘What do you mean? We hold the reigns of power in Uttar Pradesh. Our own dear Chandini is the chief minister. I, Ikram Shaikh, am mayor of Kanpur.’

‘Yes. But real power lies at the Centre in New Delhi and that’s where we’re all going to be some years from now. This is orientation week.’

‘But we could have had this discussion in Lucknow. Why are we going to Delhi to discuss these matters?’ asked Chandini.

‘To meet Major Jaspal Singh Bedi,’ replied Gangasagar.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Ikram.

‘He’s the man who will ensure that we win sixty-five out of the eighty-five Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.’

The suave and dapper Sikh was over six feet tall. He wore a navy-blue suit, and his deep crimson turban was meticulously colour-coordinated with his pocket kerchief and tie. The double cuffs of his starched white Egyptian cotton shirt peeped the correct inch from his suit sleeves and bore solid silver cufflinks emblazoned with the crest of the Indian armed forces. His salt-and-pepper beard, moustache and eyebrows were immaculately groomed, not a single hair out of place.

Major Jaspal Singh Bedi had been born to a middleclass family in Punjab and had been wild and unruly throughout his childhood and youth. He was the leader of a gang that had perfected the art of stealing sweets from unsuspecting customers just as they emerged from popular sweet shops. Jaspal’s accomplices would cause a ruckus by fighting amongst themselves. The hapless customers carrying shopping bags would attempt to intervene and resolve matters while Jaspal would courteously offer to hold their parcels for them while they did. Five minutes later the customers would have succeeded in reconciliation but Jaspal would have vanished—along with their parcels.

Jaspal’s worried father had eventually requested one of his cousins, a lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army to convince Jaspal to take up a ten-year short service commission in the army. Jaspal refused—he was having too much fun stealing sweets. The officer had called the boy to his cowshed and given him the thrashing of his life. No options were offered. Jaspal left for the Officers Training Academy in Chennai for fifty weeks the very next morning. His father hoped the army would discipline the reckless youth and give his life a sense of purpose.

It did. The discipline of army life suited Jaspal. His stint with the army empowered him with analytical thinking, planning skills, and team-playing abilities. He rapidly worked his way up from lieutenant to captain to major. Having completed his ten-year commission, he joined a small market research agency employed by the Government of India to carry out surveys of rural populations in conjunction with the ten-year population census. Jaspal had spent the next ten years mapping population demographics across India, a gargantuan task, methodically implemented by the disciplined soldier in him. He left the firm having reached the position of Country Head—Rural Research, to set up his own consultancy, which would combine two sciences that were symbiotic—polling and politics.

‘The Lok Sabha is the directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India. Five hundred and fifty-two members are directly elected by an electorate of over seven hundred million voters, an electorate larger than that of America and Europe combined,’ began Major Bedi. ‘The reason I am here with you today is that your state—Uttar Pradesh—sends eighty-five members to the Lok Sabha. That is a significant number. Why? Because if this number were to ever be controlled by a single party, that party—even if just a regional player—would play a crucial role in forming a government at the Centre.’