The Great Indian Novel (40 page)

‘Ambassador to Outer Mongolia?’ Vyabhichar Singh’s lip curled.

‘On the other hand,’ Vidur went on, ‘if you prefer
not
to sign, the Pathans will push aside the opposition of your royal guard as if they were swatting flies, take over this palace and all within it, and conceivably string you up, Your Highness, from the nearest flagpole.’ A little shriek was stifled under the
razai.
Vidur found himself relishing every word. ‘Probably not before they have worked their gentle touch on you and any - companions and friends of yours they may find,’ he went on cruelly. ‘You know the reputation of our dear ex-countrymen from the North-West Frontier. They stay bottled up in those dry, drab hills for months on end, and then they have an opportunity to let off a little steam when someone finances a jolly little expedition like this. The kind of steam, Your Highness, that scalds rather deeply. I wouldn’t say it is such a poor choice after all.’

The Maharaja swallowed. ‘I’ll need time to think about this,’ he said.

‘Time, I’m afraid, is one thing I haven’t got, Your Highness. Even as I speak to you, my plane is warming up to fly me back to Delhi - and, if you wish, to drop you at Marmu. I am carrying in my briefcase a typed draft of the Instrument of Accession. All you have to do is put your signature to it - I shall even provide the pen - and Indian troops will begin to advance into Manimir. Otherwise, it is best I take my leave now. I have no desire to be stuck in Devpur when the Pathans get here.’

‘I -’ The Maharaja had barely begun to speak when the mound rose abruptly and the
razai
was flung back off the foot of the bed, burying him under its heavy embroidered folds. A steatopygous blonde wearing nothing but a look of panic turned to the well-swathed Maharaja.
‘Mais
c’
est
affreux,’
she exclaimed as the Maharaja struggled to free himself from his silken encumbrances.
‘Qu’est-ce
que
tu
attends?
Que
ces
Pathans
me
violent
ou
quoi?
Signe!’

She bent forward, presenting Vidur a perfectly proportioned behind, and proceeded to pummel her helpless helpmeet. Mr Z flailed his hands in a vain bid to escape from the all-embracing quilt and the relentless assault.
‘Signe!’
she screamed. ‘Sign!’ Vidur closed his eyes and tried to recall long-forgotten French lessons, but the words kept getting mixed up in his mind with his only previous recollection of a bare Caucasian behind, glimpsed during a
Folies
show at a daring private club in the country’s great eastern metropolis. ‘Oh,
Calcutta!’
he breathed. (Now you know, Ganapathi, how old that malapropism is.)

Four hours later he walked into Dhritarashtra’s study - my blind son had been up all night waiting for him, but then night and day mattered little to our Prime Minister - and flapped a piece of paper under his half-brother’s sensitive nose.

‘Here it is,’ he declared in what were to become (thanks to a pair of indiscreet biographers) the most historic words ever spoken by an Indian civil servant. ‘We’ve got Manimir. Mr Z has signed the Instrument of Accession. And now that I’ve done my job, I hope the bloody army can do theirs.’

As you can see, Ganapathi, Vidur spoke a very different language in private from that which he employed in official meetings (‘that which’ - got it? Good). But he had usually, throughout his long career, been right. What he had said to the Maharaja about the Pathans, for instance - though you would have been forgiven for thinking it was just a ploy to scare Mr Z into signing - turned out to be, in the army phrase, ‘spot on’. The Pathans believed fully in enjoying their all-expenses-paid opportunity to ‘let off steam’, and so threw away the great tactical advantage of their initial stealthy advance into Manimir. They digressed into little forays of loot, rape and pillage that diverted them from the main objectives their Karnistani paymasters had charted. As a result, an invasion that could quite conceivably have taken the Manimiri capital before the Indian troops even got under way, became stalled first at the shelves of successive shops (rapidly stripped by the raiders) and finally at a wayside convent full of German nuns and white wine (ditto) While the Pathans indulged themselves in every kind of Liebfraumilch, the First Sikh Regiment and nine metric tonnes of Indian Army
matériel
were airdropped on Devpur. When the Maharaja’s accession to India was announced, a furious Karna committed regular troops to the fray to make up for the unprofessionalism of the irregulars. The first Indo-Karnistan War had begun.

Apart from the distractability of Karna’s chosen instruments, there was one other important element in India’s favour. Sheikh Azharuddin, the Manimir National Congress leader, announced his welcome to the Indian troops early in the campaign, at a massive public rally in Devpur after the Maharaja’s flight from his palace with Vidur and his panicky companion. ‘When our friends from Karnistan are attacking and violating our sisters and our homes in the name of Islamic brotherhood,’ he declaimed passionately, ‘I say, to hell with Karnistan! The Indians have deposed the tyrant who has oppressed us for so long. They offer us the prospect of people’s rule -
our
rule - democracy. I pray for their success,’

With Azharuddin on their side, Ganapathi, the Indians had won half the battle - that crucial half which is fought in the hearts and minds of the people. There were no fifth columnists to worry about, no fear of having to defend their backs from the treachery of a resentful population. The Indian Army rolled back the invasion with panache. They were poised to push the unfirm irregulars and the uniformed regulars completely out of Manimir when they were drawn up short - several hundred miles short - by an inopportune cease-fire cast over their heads like an ill-directed fishing net. My blind and visionary son had decided to appeal to the UN.

Many of us who never forgave him for that decision found all sorts of indefensible impulses behind it. It was common talk, for instance, that Georgina Drewpad had chosen this period to visit her old dominion, and ventured a viceregal opinion to which Dhritarashtra had been unduly susceptible. Others thought that it was my son’s education that was to blame, that his mind had been formed by the very sort of people who had founded the United Nations to meddle in other people’s affairs. Still others suggested that had the Prime Minister been able to see, even just a tiny little crack, he would not have made such an obviously stupid decision. I think all these critics were overlooking one thing: that Dhritarashtra had not, after all, been the Mahaguru’s hand- picked heir for nothing. The boy had a conscience, and his conscience would not allow him to let soldiers take and lose lives for land he was certain India would regain at the conference table, in an international court of law or in a democratic referendum. Of course he was wrong, but he was wrong, Ganapathi, for the right reasons.

So Manimir remained condemned to the label of ‘disputed territory’, part of it in Karnistani hands, the bulk in ours. The state whose attachment to India was the most eloquent possible repudiation of the religious Partition paid a high price for Dhritarashtra’s idealism. To this day it is scarred by tank-tracks, amputated by cease-fire lines, exploited by rhetoricians and fanatics on both sides of the frontier who prostitute its name for their own meretricious purposes.

Yet, Ganapathi, what a story it was. A story of India: of the decadence and debauchery of princes, of the imperatives and illusions of power; of the strengths of secular politics and the weaknesses of internationalist principle. An Indian story, with so many possible preambles and no conclusion.

It was also over Manimir that Dhritarashtra first revealed the technique of political self-perpetuation that he was to develop into such a fine art in the years to come. When the first criticisms were openly raised within the Kaurava Party, Dhritarashtra silenced them promptly by offering to resign. He knew perfectly well that with Gangaji gone and Pandu dead, Karna across the new frontiers and Rafi sidelined by the fact that much of his community had suddenly become foreigners, there was no obvious alternative leader the party could find. The critics responded by muting their objections; and Dhritarashtra learned how easy it was to get his own way.

The consequences of idealism and the imposability of individual will were prime ministerial lessons also learned, and profoundly absorbed, by the dark- eyed young daughter whom the widower Prime Minister had appointed as his official hostess. Yes, Ganapathi, Priya Duryodhani listened, and watched, and imbibed tone and technique from her paternal model. With Manimir, she learned her first exercise from her father’s political primer. It was an education from which the country was never to recover.

And what of the offspring of India’s blind leader and Britain’s all-seeing Vicereine, the infant Draupadi Mokrasi?

The frail girl quickly overcame the handicaps of her premature birth, her health improving as Dhritarashtra quietly devoted a discreet eye - forgive me the expression, Ganapathi, but it was one of Dhritarashtra’s - and an equally discreet cheque-book to her welfare. It was soon clear she would grow into an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but in childhood her other traits of character were apparent in a way they would not be in later years, when her beauty too often blinded men to everything else.

One of her teachers at the time, a Professor Jennings, was asked to describe the young Draupadi. He cleared his throat in that unnecessary British way and spoke in a voice as dry as the tomes he had authored, looking through horn-rimmed glasses at a point just above the questioner’s tilted head.

‘To her exquisite looks,’ he said in a self-consciously passionless tone, as if he were describing an English breakfast, ‘she added an open manner, an ability to learn from and adapt to the conditions in which she found herself, and a willingness to play with all the children in the neighbourhood, irrespective of caste, creed or culture.

‘If Miss D. Mokrasi had a fault,’ he went on, knowing he was expected to be aware of one, ‘it was that she spoke a little too readily, in a voice that for a young girl was somewhat too loud, and in terms that ought to have been more self-restrained. She did not always eat enough, and though she studied hard she often tended to learn by rote; but that completed the list of her disabilities. While she was not always the equal to every situation with which she was confronted, she was blessed with great faith in herself. She might not always perform brilliantly, she knew; but she could always muddle through.’

A true daughter of India, little Miss Mokrasi. With her, we felt that we, too, could always muddle through.

The Thirteenth Book:
Passages Through India

A
s Draupadi Mokrasi grew up, my five grandsons the Pandavas stepped out into the world. They shared a rare heritage and an unusual education, and inevitably proved unable to shake off another inheritance: they all decided to follow their father and their teacher into politics.

Drona did not last long in government. His style was a little too idiosyncratic and his attitude to administration a little too personal for him to have been able to make a success of it. Not long after ensuring the rapid repatriation of the Englishmen in the civil service, he resigned, stating that he preferred to devote himself to ‘constructive work’ in the countryside rather than in a paper-laden office. His five students and his son immediately offered to join him. ‘Look,’ said their mentor candidly, ‘I’m not sure I want to inflict my plans on you. For Ashwathaman, of course, it’s a different matter - he’s my son. But the rest of you, princes of Hastinapur, wandering with me seeking social change in the villages - I don’t think it’s going to work. For one thing, you’ve never wandered around before. Ashwathaman and I have.’

‘We thought you said that we were all equal in your eyes as your students,’ Nakul said. He used the first person plural as a matter of habit, because he more often than not spoke for Sahadev as well.

‘Of course,’ replied Drona. ‘But education is one thing, experience another. Ashwathaman and I have had the experience. You haven’t. You’d be miserable.’

‘I think you should leave it to us to judge that, Dronaji,’ Yudhishtir said quietly. ‘We wish to go with you. Will you deny us that privilege?’

‘All right, all right,’ said Drona crossly, though he was, as you can probably imagine, Ganapathi, quite pleased by his protégés’ devotion. ‘Come along, then. But don’t tell me later I didn’t warn you.’

The five went together to take leave of Kunti. She was seated in the living- room, half-smoked Turkish cigarettes overflowing from a near-by ashtray whose silver matched the tint of the hair at her temples. Her Banaras sari, Bombay nails, Bangalore sandals and Bareilly bangles all advertised her fabled elegance - an elegance betrayed only by the strain at the corners of her red eyes and by the quick darting puffs she took through her ivory cigarette- holder.

‘Don’t tell me,’ she said as Yudhishtir stepped forward from the little group to address her. ‘Let me guess. You all remembered it’s my birthday and you have a surprise present for me.’

‘But your birthday’s next month, Mother,’ Nakul said.

‘How clever of you to remember, Sahadev,’ Kunti trilled cuttingly. ‘So it can’t be that, then. I knew! You’re all taking me to the cinema.’

Yudhishtir shifted uneasily from foot to foot. ‘No, Mother,’ he said.

‘No? Then it must be something nicer. I’ve got it! For the first time in so many years you have decided you want to spend your afternoon with me. Talking. Or playing a board game, perhaps. Have I guessed right? Scrabble? Monopoly?’ She laughed hollowly. ‘Monopoly! That would make a change from solitaire.’

Yudhishtir shuffled again, looking unhappily at the others. ‘No, Mother,’ he repeated weakly.

‘No, Mother? But how can that be? You couldn’t possibly be standing here to tell me, could you, that you have decided to leave me alone in this house and go off with that smelly wretch Drona and that scruffy son of his to do “constructive work”, whatever that means, in the dirty villages?’ She looked levelly at Yudhishtir, but her hand pulled the cigarette-holder in and out of her mouth with-the jerky speed of a wound-up marionette. ‘No, that’s simply not possible.’

‘You knew all along, Mother,’ Yudhishtir said.

Kunti ignored him. ‘I’ll tell you why it’s not possible,’ she went on. ‘It’s not possible that my five grown and nearly grown sons could be so thoughtless, so selfish, so ungrateful, as to repay all my years of devotion to them by walking out on me like that. Just like their thoughtless, selfish, ungrateful father. Leaving me,’ she added bitterly, ‘alone.’

‘Mother,’ Yudhishtir said gently, ‘you know we have never disobeyed you, in anything. If you forbid us to go we shall stay.’

‘Forbid you?’ Kunti turned her face away so that they would not see the tears come smarting to her eyes. ‘And then have you hulks moping around the house looking at me as if I have sentenced you all to death? No, Yudhishtir, don’t try and make it easy for yourself. I shall not forbid you. Go, if you want to. All of you. Go.’

They looked hesitantly at each other. ‘Mother, you will be all right, won’t you?’ Bhim asked.

‘Oh, I’ll be all right,’ Kunti replied, the sun reflecting off the moistness of her pupils. ‘As all right as I have ever been.’ She ran the back of a hand across her eyes. ‘There - that does it: I’ve smudged my eyeliner. It’s not even as if the five of you are worth it. What sort of company have you been for me, anyway? It’d be just the same whether you were here or not.’

‘Mother, I promise you,’ Yudhishtir said earnestly, ‘that we shall come back to you whenever you need us. And that we will never, ever disregard a single instruction you give. We swear never to disobey anything you say, however big or small the issue.’

The promise took on a new dimension: it was the corollary and the condition of their autonomy. Solemnly, in an instinctual ritual of affirmation that seemed to belong to another world, they each echoed the promise. It thus acquired a reality of its own, which would come back to haunt them years later.

Kunti, touched, looked up at her eldest son.

‘Will you give us your blessing, Mother?’ Yudhishtir asked. ‘Before we go?’

‘Yes,’ she said at last, wrenching the word from her heart. ‘God bless you, my sons, in whatever you do.’ She found she could not stop the tears from coming. ‘Now go. I hate you seeing me like this. For my sake, all of you, go!’

They went, slowly filing out of her presence, and when the room was empty at last she raised her tear-soaked face to the window and spoke bitterly to herself, and to the rays of the sun that streamed in to mock her misery with their brightness.

‘Why me, Lord, every time? Why must I be abandoned by every man to whom I give myself? Even by the sons I bore with such pain?’

There was, of course, no answer. But the celestial breeze that swept into the room and dried the tears upon her cheek also left the echo of an answer in her mind.
‘It
is,’
the echo whispered, ‘it
is
your
karma,
Kunti.’

But then it could as easily have been her imagination.

‘Ah, Kanika, is it you? You walk so softly I cannot always tell.’

‘Yes, Prime Minister. In fact I have left my sandals outside the door. After all the months of being cribb’d, cabin’d and confin’d in the shoes England obliges me to wear, I find even sandals too much of an imposition when I am home.’

The visitor’s padding footsteps neared him and Dhritarashtra recognized the familiar aromatic combination of Mennen after-shave (‘if they are willing to name a cologne after me, I may as well use it’) mingled with onion-and-red-chilli
samandi,
the favourite breakfast chutney of his High Commissioner in London. ‘Prime Minister, it is good to see you,’ V. Kanika Menon breathed powerfully as the two men embraced.

‘As your American friends say, likewise.’ Menon laughed: he had no American friends. The usual consequence of contact between him and ‘those of the American persuasion,’ as he liked to describe them, was apoplexy - on the part of the Americans. Kanika invariably remained his cool, acerbic self throughout these encounters, while everyone else present felt they had just been through a wringer and had come out still wet. Dhritarashtra was probably his only friend in the world.

‘How are things across the black water?’ the Prime Minister asked as his guest made himself comfortable.

‘Tolerable, though Albion remains as perfidious as ever,’ Kanika replied. ‘But let me not waste your time on petty routine. I have been debriefed - I believe that is the current expression, though I am always tempted, when I hear it, to make sure I still have my undershorts on - by the mandarins of the External Affairs Ministry.’ He shook his head expressively, a gesture wasted on his friend: how easily one forgets Dhritarashtra’s blindness, he thought. ‘I have often wondered, Prime Minister, where you pick up some of these characters. All terribly solemn fellows in elaborate three-piece suits and better accents than I am accustomed to hearing when I am summoned to Whitehall. But ask them for a decision and it’s as if you had suggested a dirty weekend. Send them a cable and they will contrive brilliantly to lose it amongst themselves. I cannot recall a single transaction with them that has not taken weeks rather than days. Are you sure, Prime Minister, that some of them haven’t misread the name of their enterprise as the Ministry of
Eternal
Affairs?’

Dhritarashtra laughed. ‘You are incorrigible, Kanika. No wonder your Russian friends think so poorly of our boys in South Block. The ideas you must put into their head!’

‘Me?’ Kanika Menon put all his injured innocence into his voice, regretfully shelving the expressive gestures for which he was famous on the international rhetorical circuit. ‘I have no Russian friends, Prime Minister, you know that. Several acquaintances, perhaps. And they don’t need
me
to tell them about our ministry. You know what the Russian ambassador said to me the other evening?’ Menon assumed a booming voice and the accent of a Volga boatman. ‘Come here, Menon, and I will tell you what they are saying in the Kremlin about your Indian diplomacy,’ he quoted. ‘They say it is like the love- making of an Indian elephant: it is conducted at a very high level, accompanied by much bellowing, and the results are not known for three years.’