The Gypsy Goddess (7 page)

Everyone appears relieved. Intoxicated by an audience that admires every word he utters, Gopalakrishna says, ‘Any case should not make us afraid. It is leadership quality. Today I have the highest number of complaints against me. Today, I scold Kerosene Govinda because he recklessly got into trouble. Tomorrow, I am the first man to help him. Why? Because I know about the Complaint Party. Police complaint, minister complaint, chief minister complaint.

There is no limit.

‘The Communists have sent sixteen petitions in the last three months. They have one department to write articles against the government, and they have another department to write memorandums to the government. I know that there are some full-timer thugs whose only job it is to write a police complaint on behalf of every Pallan and Paraiyan who walks into the party office. The English-educated lordships in our midst may fail to record the minutes of our meetings, but we should not forget that our moves are being faithfully filed away as complaints. Tomorrow, if they take away all our lands, make us beggars, throw us into prison, we cannot blame politics or policy. We have to blame our lack of paperwork.'

Srinivasa Naidu and Seshappa Iyer scribble furiously, with renewed vigour. Each of them wishes he could shift uneasily in his chair, making it easier for the reader to feel his state of discomfort, but unfortunately this is a rural novel and it is considered a sign of insolence in Tamil culture to throw your weight around. So they sit still, and wait for the tirade to end.

He picks out his last targets.

‘Look at these Brahmins in our midst. They run away at the sight of trouble. So many of them have moved out from their
agraharam
and fled to the cities. Street after exclusive street now lies deserted. They cannot face the enemy because they are too afraid. We are stronger, we are braver.
We have grown on meat, we are men. We don't have to end up in Delhi or Calcutta or London. We can stay and fight.'

At least three landlords in the room, who have been previously beaten up by him, can testify that this is Gopalakrishna Naidu at his genial best. The upbraiding and downgrading appears to have come to an end. Explanations are not sought. Or offered.

Devious like all diplomatic despots, and having injected the necessary dose of reverence, he now covers government-related safe ground: we have to oppose the new state-levied tax on irrigation because it is backbreaking to small farmers (‘They tax land, they tax water, will the party of the rising sun next tax light?'); we have to demand an official quality-control flying squad as fertilizers do not live up to their promised potency (‘These days, the companies spend more on advertising their products than on producing them'); we have to condemn the delay in plunging bore-wells in the district (‘This is a government of gravediggers. They will get to work only when they see dead people').

Tough talk coupled with liberal use of the royal plural elicits the right reaction: there is a discernible change of mood, and as tracking shots from our snack table reveal, other landlords (and their henchmen) are seen gazing in wide-eyed admiration, chuckling or looking dumbstruck at appropriate intervals, or nodding in emphatic agreement.

Now that he has successfully manufactured consent-based camaraderie, Gopalakrishna Naidu moves on to the next stage. To whip up anger, he steps up his multipronged attack on the inefficiency of the brainless and spineless government officials. The atmosphere created by the absence of the local DMK leader, Vinayagam Naidu, makes his task easier. ‘How can the price of food grain alone be forced to remain static when fertilizer prices multiply every day? Why was the planning commission's recommendation to increase the price of paddy by fifty rupees for each quintal not implemented? If we have to go to court to restore every right, why does a Madras government exist? Why do these ministers dream of cultivating a million acres in the coming crop season, and, more importantly, where are these million acres? Are they not aware of the difficulties we face? Have they forgotten how the demon of communism has laid waste to our lands? Would they care if we went without food as long as we gave up all our grain for the civil supply? If Madras was plunged into darkness like Nagapattinam, and cursed with such sporadic electricity, would they be able to live a single day? Do they think of our people as prostitutes and pimps and petty thieves who need the blackness of night to commit crimes? Has their police force ever protected us? If any khaki-clad man had been born to one father, would not he rip out his tongue and die of shame, instead of smiling when the Communists shower
abuses on the police in meeting after meeting? How can we expect protection from impotent men who cannot even protect themselves?'

You scoff at this speech and look at me as if I were his designated ghostwriter. You ask me if I made him rehearse this material with me for days. You point out that under normal circumstances, questions do not flow in such spontaneous succession.

I beg to disagree.

Now, how do I clear the air? Like all other writers before me, I ask you to trust me. Each mannerism of Gopalakrishna Naidu has been researched thoroughly and documented solely for the purpose of this novel – I could offer an accredited course about him if someone were willing to pay me to teach. In fact, this angry and ready-made rhetoric has enabled him to establish himself as a local leader. If you asked him (without sounding sarcastic or stupid) about his ability to breathlessly argue, he would be kind enough to admit that this is indeed a plus-point.

I hope this was convincing enough. Now, let me back into Ramu Thevar's living room so that I can continue reporting.

Gopalakrishna Naidu's barrage of questions is still being meticulously noted down by Seshappa Iyer, secretary of the Paddy Producers Association. Cunning by practice and advocate by profession, he will later convert every
rhetorical rigmarole that Gopalakrishna Naidu spat out into statistically substantiated, pressingly urgent, gravely important, bullet-pointed legalese that will masquerade as a memorandum of demands submitted to the government. His experience in law, the English language, and pulling the right strings makes him indispensable to the Paddy Producers Association, and Iyer, devoid of charm but aware of the influence he wields, is the only one to interrupt Gopalakrishna Naidu.

‘One doesn't lick the back of his hand when he carries honey in his palm,' he says.

‘We are not dogs to live by licking,' Gopalakrishna Naidu retorts, but picks up the proverbial cue.

Now he takes the help of a whore named History, and, girding himself for action, rushes into flashback mode with a personal tragedy: his father died of disgrace when slogan-shouting agricultural labourers organized a demonstration waving slippers in the air. Unable to come to terms with his early, unexpected death (that factually took place 713 days after the provocative procession), his mother committed suicide (on her sixth and definitive attempt) by drinking the dust of her diamond nose-ring.

‘We have made sacrifices in our struggle. We have been outnumbered by the Communists but we have managed to fight them. It is true that we have money, it is true that the politicians stand by us, but what we are doing is simply not
enough. We do not know for how long this goodwill will last. Day by day, the Communists are growing stronger. For ten rupees at Chakravarti Press, they make a thousand copies of their handbills and posters and shame us everywhere. It is our duty to protect the public interest. We should prevent Communist propaganda from seeping into us, from dividing us from our own people. Do our coolies even stop to think that their huts stand on lands that we own? Do they consider it wrong when they stake claim over our lands without realizing that they are merely men who have come to work the paddy fields for a little wage? No, they think it belongs to them! We look after them like our own family, but they consider us rivals. Communists have put dangerous ideas into the heads of the untouchables. Now, they fight elections against us. These people have been the first victims of communism because they are totally uneducated. They do not worry about the unmaskable stench of cooking snails and sweat that drowns their living quarters, making their
cheri
stink from a mile away. But they
are
fixated with the red flag.

‘Our downfall started when the first red flag went up twenty-five years ago. That's when the devil got into these people and they were brainwashed and made to believe in bloodshed.

‘They are set on the path of violence. And that is why they are our enemies. They are bastards of the British.
These comrades are wanted criminals here, but where do they get the support from? London Parliament!'

Gopalakrishna Naidu pauses and looks around. Everyone avoids his eye. ‘As it is, even our government does not deal with them with sufficient firmness and force. Only six months ago, the Communists cracked down on every village and beat up the coolies and small farmers who were loyal to us. What did the police do? What could be done anyway? They are useless. Did anyone care when the Communists killed Sub-Inspector Somasekhara Pillai? The police only beat a hasty retreat. For their own safety, they will turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Communists. We cannot entrust a nincompoop like Inspector Rajavel to protect us. We are forced to bring not only labour from outside, but also bodyguards from elsewhere.'

He stops, acknowledges with pride his agent, Murthy, who controls his finances, imports his labourers and supplies his bodyguards. Quickly making sure that the momentum has not been lost, Gopalakrishna Naidu continues his tirade. ‘These Communists are coming down upon us like the god of death – they are waging a full-fledged war. We should be strong. We should not budge from our stand. Now, they are fighting for even higher wages. Every six months they want it revised, and they are winning. We should be clear in telling them that we are not ready to be blackmailed into paying them more and more.

We should stop being scared of their strikes. Saying “no” with deep conviction is better than saying “yes” merely to avoid trouble. We should be firm. Remember, you can fine them, you can fire them. Buckling to their pressure out of fear betrays all of us.'

And to keep his Congress credentials intact, he also quotes Gandhi: ‘It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.'

Carried away, like dry leaves in a strong wind, the men in the room cannot question his call to arms. He always gets what he wants, and what he wants now is complete surrender. Ramanuja Naidu's folded hands and Ganapati Nadar's downcast eyes are demure proofs of that submission.

Gopalakrishna Naidu gets up.

He will soon drive away, leaving the other landlords shame-faced and speechless. Right now, they are all standing in silence. Not one of them can leave before their leader has left. This moment of stillness cries for closure.

So, do we drop the curtain here, on the inscrutable faces of the landlords? As you may have guessed, or possibly know from bitter experience, first-time novelists are highly predictable. It is the tedium of working in a dramatic medium. Even the few of them who have no faith in grand, delusional opening lines are suckers for sentiment when
asked to come up with exit lines for their villains. So, let us hear Gopalakrishna Naidu one last time.

Standing at the threshold, he feels the envy in their eyes burn his back. He turns around to cast a disapproving glance at his fellow landlords. Lacking a moustache to twirl, he strokes his chin and says, ‘If you can't be men, wear bangles.'

4.
Seasons of Violence

Carrying the tales of their cunts and their cuntrees and their cuntenants, women cross all hurdles, talk in circles, burst into tears, break into cheers, teach a few others, take new lovers, become earth mothers, question big brothers, breathe state secrets, fuck all etiquettes and turn themselves into the truth-or-dare pamphleteer who will interfere at the frontier. And in these rap-as-trap times, they perceive the dawn of the day and they start saying their permitted say.

So, when there is an old landowner, who is a bad money loaner, they don't sit still, they start the gossip mill. And it is the holy writ: women don't crib on shit, 'cause they don't ask for it. The logic is clear: he looked for trouble, now they'll burst his bubble. They bitch without a hitch; speak non-stop like monsoon frogs. Then they plot their foolproof plan, they make their effigy man.

This is how the season of protest began.

Now, the Nicki Minaj within the novelist must be laid to rest. When the story gets a life of its own and gallops away recklessly, one must remind her of the rules: ‘You don't try to steal in your dumbass mothafucking poetry into a goddamn historical novel, crazy bitch.' And so the critics decide that they should put certain, difficult questions before this undisciplined narrator. They act upon their urge to make the stupid hoe sit down for a Q&A session. Here is how it goes: