To which well gladly contribute our buckets. Frankly, while on the subject of our water problem, we need to fight fire with fire. Our a.s.sociation-we have a dream!-would be quite happy to consider your fire engines to be water tankers that will use the new cricket-stump-pipes of our energetic adolescents to pump water up to our deprived neighbours round the clock-that is, if the fire engines can ever negotiate our gates and the new parking lanes to reach the new walls.

As a citizen, I wish to know: whatever happened to the water that was freely available-to return to where we began-at TFIN Complex, which is just down the road from us and whose rich glow on its last night we sadly miss during the evenings when we lack electricity? 'Water theft, whisper the contractors who supervise here the convulsion of the structure of our lives, 'in our country, remember, we even sell cowdung. Naturally, weve discussed the subject with them in some detail and suggested that they steal some more water, which they can sell to us-we dont want them to lose in the deal, obviously-at a rate less harsh than fifteen paise per litre. Our negotiations have been significantly hindered by the lobby-a wretched breakaway group-of the denizens of the ground and first floors.

Apart from Mrs Minu Tutreja of C-308, Dr Chakki also presented with his compliments four copies of his letter to Suk.u.maran Govardhan. That is to say, he pushed them into the letter-box of the guest house of the Regional Potato Research Organization that occupied all the four flats of the top floor of the east wing of the second apartment block. Its letter-box was affixed to the wall beside the stairs on the ground floor. The guesthouse itself was cut off from the rest of the building by an iron gate at the mouth of the corridor that led to its const.i.tuent flats.

Contemporary legend had it that Govardhan had a hundred and eight residences dispersed all over the country, that number being auspicious, and that he spent an average of three and a half days in each. No one-naturally-had actually seen him on the top storey of the Aflatoon Transit Hostel but then n.o.body had spotted him anywhere else in the country either. If anyone had, he, after a few months, had changed his mind. However, the prost.i.tutes who operated out of the guesthouse did confirm that once or twice a year, those of them on duty were asked to pack up and disappear and invariably, for those few days, a handful of new, very young girls were ferried in from some dot on the map.

Govardhan moved about and in and out of the Transit Hostel-claimed the buzz-generally at dusk, when the traffic chaos was maximum. To ease his pa.s.sage, that he arranged for general power failures in the area was, as was noised about, perfectly possible.

Hed be rather disturbed, wouldnt he, debated the residents of Praj.a.pati Aflatoon amongst themselves, by these firefighting measures, these walls and pipes three feet from his bedroom window? By all reports, the flats of his guesthouse from within were quite posh and tastefully, intelligently and completely illegally inter-connected. After those decades of dealing in sandalwood and ivory, his developed aesthetic sense would surely revolt against government-inspired renovations to any building. Apart from the enhanced security threat, of course.

In the twenty-one months that the TFIN Complex took to recover from the father of all fires and the firefighting measures of the Public Works Department, the happenings of the Welfare State occurred elsewhere, in the sports stadiums, auditoriums and multi-media centres of the city, but not with the old zip and vigour. In that time, Bhuvan Aflatoon successfully fought off a threat to his Prime Ministership from an obscure ghost of the extended family, a virtually-illegitimate pretender of a third cousin who headed a splinter in the party, was a thorn in its flesh (and a b.l.o.o.d.y p.r.i.c.k to boot) and whom Bhuvan Bhai packed off to the North-East Council as its Executive Governor. He wasnt as pleased, however, with the astonishing failure of his think tank, in that year and three-quarters, to come up with a suitable, melodious, p.r.o.nounceable, Sanskrit name for TFIN Complex. He had received suggestions, certainly-Srishti, SamvadBhavan, Varta, Sanchar-but theyd all sounded unreal and alien, partly because he could barely understand Hindi, leave alone Sanskrit-though doubtless he could hardly have his ignorance of both the official language and its mother bruited about. Till the time that one of the light bulbs clicked on an acceptable name, proposed Rajani Suroor to Bhuvan Bhai, would the PM like to refer to TFIN Complex as P-C-Om? Privately, of course.

In those twenty-one months, one Aflatoon Centenary, a quiet affair in memory of Trimurti, blended into another, altogether more glorious and politically more explosive, that of Gaj.a.pati, statesman extraordinaire (to quote the blurb, crafted by him and attributed to his amanuensis, on each of the back covers of his six-volume memoirs), thinker, writer, sage, savant, philanthrope, cricket enthusiast and founding father of the Welfare State-and unfortunately for Bhuvan Aflatoon, only a distant grand-uncle of his. Try as he might, because of a handful of Aflatoons in between, Bhuvan Bhai couldnt quite get the effulgence that the centenary celebrations reflected off the immense bald dome of Gaj.a.pati to shine on him. Jayati of course hadnt been born an Aflatoon but shed become one when shed married Gaj.a.patis younger grandson, one of the continents great jerks, a polo player and a lover of horses with the mind of a thoroughbred, haughty, pure and simple. But she herself was Raw s.e.x Incarnate and Bhuvan felt warm and laughed a lot whenever he was with her. When shed suggested, smiling into his eyes, that she slip into the saddle at the Centenary, hed welcomed her with open arms, silently pointing out to himself that hed credited her with more intelligence. As a strategy for an entry into politics, Culture sucked, and while sucking, emitted wrong signals, because only the closet bis.e.xuals dipped into Culture, didnt they, because Home Affairs was far too sweaty and macho, and all the rest of the junk-Rural Development, Energy, Planning, Industry, Water Resources-simply too dry and uns.e.xy. Well, Jayatid fit in because the inner circled whispered a couple of times that she, to use the phrase that they used to giggle over in school, swung both ways and that moreover, her appet.i.te was that of a corrupt civil servant of the Welfare State, quite bottomless. But man, what a bottom.

To inaugurate the renovated TFIN Complex, a befitting event, it was felt, would be the first full-blown meeting of the Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon Centenary Celebrations Committee. To fix a date, the Secretariat of the Committee put up a file through the proper channels-to the HUBRIS Minister, Bhanwar Virbhim, who consulted his astrologer. The eighteenth of November, decreed Baba Mastram. May kindly see and approve, pleaded the Minister in a note to Madam Jayati, who did but added, May we discuss the agenda? I wanted to do something special for poor Rajani Suroor.

With reason. Much had happened to him-apart from the slide into coma-in the months between the two centenaries. Hed grown in official size, as had his...o...b..t of influence, in keeping, as it were, with the comparative stature of the two Aflatoons in question. Hed also moved laterally from Bhuvans court to Jayatis, displeasing Bhuvan not just a bit. Old bedfellows and dormitory-mates that they were, he of course didnt stop frequenting the PMs office; he simply began showing up just as often at the headquarters of the Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon Centenary Committee, exploiting to the hilt his official post of Advisor there. A busy man, using, with the industriousness of a bee, his clout to push his own theatre group into every nook, and cranny of government. His street plays were thus used by Welfare to propagate its new Integrated Female Child Nourishment Project, by Public Health for its Early Plague Detection Strategy, and by Rural Development for its revolutionary Revised Bank Soft Loan Programme. Vyatha, needless to say, performed for a pittance-and rather well. In return for board, lodging, transport and a handful of rupees, its enthusiastic amateur actors successfully concentrated their energies on spreading the messages of the Welfare State. Everyone was surprisingly happy with the arrangement-the Ministries because Vyatha, when compared to radio and TV, to which it was an inconspicuous adjunct, was a d.a.m.n sight cheaper and far more effective, Suroor because his group gained some terrific goodwill and publicity, and the actors because they travelled to, and performed in, outlandish places.

Like Madna, for example. Being quite a performer himself, Suroor journeyed with Vyatha as often as he could. Street plays helped him to unwind and rejuvenate himself. Of course, after he was knocked about on the head by Makhmal Bagais hoodlums some eleven months ago, the pace of his life had really slowed down-in fact, virtually stopped. Only his heartbeat and a couple of electronic graphs on spasmodically-functional video screens kept him away from absolute zero. For the entire period, hed been comatose in Madna and not because of the town. His body had been politicized, for Bhanwar Virbhim, on Baba Mastram and Bhupen Raghupatis counsel, refused to have him shifted out. It was Madna thatd crushed the skull of the esteemed Advisor, declaimed Bhanwar Saab at public forums and whined he before Jayati and the PM, and it should be Madna where he-the esteemed but comatose one-must recover (or rot). For political and personal reasons, Bhuvan Aflatoon agreed to let the brightest of his light bulbs rest in peace in that town. Serve the quisling right, thought he in his black moments, but whenever his heart melted and he missed his groovy, long-haired dorm-mate, hed helicopter the best specialists out to the middle of nowhere to check on the goodly frame of Rajani Suroor.

After each visit, the specialists submitted to the PMs office an impressive series of doc.u.ments, reports, a.s.sessments, charts, prescriptions and diagnoses and to their own-organizations their more modest hotel bills of the Madna International. Hes steadily improving, sir, they concluded, jargon edited to suit addressee, the b.u.mps on his headve healed completely, the spinal column now looks terrific, the collar bone, ribs and shoulder are almost as good as new, the last cat scan and cerebral angiography show nothing abnormal, his hypostatic pneumonias responded very well to our antibiotics and is now a thing of the past, he has the heart and blood pressure-if you permit-of a healthy, happy fifteen-year-old dreaming of a good game of football. All he now needs to do is to wake up. A mystery of science, really, why he doesnt.

'Perhaps hes fed up, mused Bhuvan Aflatoon, 'and needs the rest.

Along with Rajani Suroor, the portion of the Madna Civil Hospital that he inhabited, and certain parts of the town, improved too-marginally, fitfully, it is true, but improved, nevertheless. A special cubicle, for one thing, was erected for him in the corner of General Ward Two that stood furthest from the loo. Off-white distemper on its walls, disinfectant, white tiles, new wiring, tubelights that worked, scrubbed floors thatd changed colour like the sun breaking through, electricity available almost-certainly, officially-round the clock, not that he was ever dragged out of his coma by a fan that stopped whirring. Someone declogged the drains, the rat population diminished, the stink lessened. The monstrous garbage dump at the hospital gates was shifted to the lane behind the munic.i.p.al school, thus, within a week, since old habits die hard, creating two dumps in place of one. Naturally, because of the number of VIPs who streamed in and out of Madna to look in on Rajani, the two routes from the helipad and the railway station to his bed were mapped out and cleaned up, up to a point. The bedpans were removed from the corridor, but the authorities could do nothing permanent about the paan-spittle stains on the walls or the hawkers and the cattle in the lanes. Life must go on, they would have argued, no matter who slips into coma.

He was sorely missed, initially. With time, however, because he neither died nor awoke, he became just a bit boring, a fixture of the town, like the new, unfinished boundary wall of the Collectorate. At the same time, the months in a sense augmented his stature-mainly, no doubt, because of the number of his visitors, VIP pilgrims at a shrine, and made him, by a mythopoeic process, almost a figure in some h.o.a.ry tale, dormant till the magic moment broke, perhaps with a kiss or-mindful of the s.e.xual traditions of the country-even a touch, the spell that bound him.

No one, it should be clarified, kissed any part of his body even once in those eleven months. For one, he looked too grey. Besides, he had all those tubes, wires, pipes and bottles attached to him. Jayati and Daya might have, had they visited him inconspicuously, without a cortege. Jayati missed him even professionally. Hed been full of ideas. Hed known the system, where the money was, how to steal-clearly a personality who was going places even after hed arrived.

'Tell me, Jayati- to him, she was Madam only in public-'Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon officially was a great lover of Hindi, wasnt he? A motive force behind the Our-Own- Official-Language Policy, etc? Its a facet of the Great Man that the Centenary Committee could underline, highlight, whatever, because you could then lay your hands on some of the budget of the Official Language Caucus. Even five per cent would fetch you some crores . . . yes, thanks, it is quite a brainwave, isnt it? . . . we wouldnt have to do very much, I imagine, just copy what each Department does for Hindi every year. Organize a Hindi Week, in fact . . . usually in winter, out in the sun, with a public address system, really quite festive, with vendors of oranges, peanuts and aphrodisiacs mingling with the Section Officers and Senior a.s.sistants . . . all non-Hindi-walas in the central Ministries are invited-coerced to partic.i.p.ate in a Hindi essay compet.i.tion and the winner reads out his entry before his colleagues. Terrific entertainment . . . Under Secretaries rolling in the aisles, clutching their stomachs . . .

The germ of the idea of exploiting the funds of the Official Languages Wing of the parent Department of the Committee for other, officially-acceptable purposes had infiltrated Suroor rather early in his tenure as Advisor to the Committee. In his third week in his office, hed been trying to figure out anew the monstrous organizational chart under the gla.s.s top of his desk andd stopped once again at the smiling face of the Director (Official Languages), a pleasant, slippery man who, Suroor knew, reported to him but whose precise day-to-day tasks and responsibilities remained enveloped in a cloud of unknowing. The chart stated that the Director was being paid to implement in the Committee the official language policy of the Welfare State.

'Yes, but what does that mean, exactly? asked Suroor of his favourite Under Secretary, Shri Dhrubo Jyoti Ghosh Dastidar, who had nothing to do with the subject. 'This Director guy gets up in the morning, drinks two cups of tea, reads the newspapers, maybe uses the office car to slip off to the local temple to pray for his daughters success in her school exams, returns for breakfast, gobbles up his alu parathas, mango pickle and dahi, and with a mind as clean and quiet as a blackboard on the first morning of the new school term, turns up at nine forty-five at Aflatoon Bhavan to start his day-and then what? He sits at his desk, puts his lunch box on the side shelf, summons his PA to prioritize his personal work-and then? What does he do?

Sure, hed asked him directly too. The Director (Official Languages) had been quite taken aback.

'Prepare for our Hindi Week, sir, hed elaborated after a minutes thought.

'The essay, the elocution and recitation compet.i.tions, a play, film and non-film songs, and a dozen speeches for the Minister, the Chairman, the members, me and you. But the other fifty-one weeks of the year? What goes on in your room?

'Well, sir, in the time left over from preparing for the future, and a.n.a.lysing the previous, Hindi Weeks, we translate into Hindi the Parliament Questions, correspondence, orders, circulars, resolutions, notes, memorandums and Unofficial References of the Committee.

Theyd been conversing, of course, in Hindi. The Director thought it proper to speak nothing else in office In a sense, he was being paid, he reasoned with himself, to set an example, to hear himself enunciating in the official tongue. His newly-arrived temporary boss, though a bit theatrical, was perfectly fluent too-with a deep, resonant voice, moreover. They should get together in the after-hours for a poetry reading-rum, cashew nuts, kebabs, deathless Urdu couplets, that sort of thing.

'But you yourself, personally, dont do any translating, Suroord countered, a bit startled by the Directors laziness. Dammit, the b.u.g.g.e.r doesnt even have the energy to invent a set of tasks for himself. 'I see from this chart here that you have with you two Deputy Directors, four a.s.sistant Directors and six Senior Translators. What do they do? Put up for your approval their translations of memorandums?

'Yes, sir. And their ideas for Hindi Week.

'Well, Ive some too. Vyatha thus slipped into the programme that year and considerably improved it. Demure, disciplined, it was ready to shoulder all the low-profile, rural, small-town stuff. It was quite welcome, given Rajani Suroors clout. Equally naturally, once he fell into his long doze, the standing of his troupe plummeted correspondingly, particularly since itd been at one of its performances that, to use a phrase popular with the coterie, a joker of a happening had snicked Suroors b.a.l.l.s-and cracked his skull.

Headless Vyatha remained, flapping its limbs about in the corridors of Aflatoon Bhavan, wandering around in the dark, stumbling into cupboards and monkeys, looking for direction, succour, inspiration and funds. By the time that the money started flowing again-in a sad trickle, a cruel parody of the munificence of the golden age, barely enough for Raichurs phone bill and petrol costs-a few more months had pa.s.sed and the drifting about in Aflatoon Bhavan had become habit. Thus, when the Ministry began to warm up for the grand meeting of the Gaj.a.pati Centenary at TFIN Complex, and the panic started to set in, and hundreds of hands-and more important, feet-seemed to be needed every hour, to dash off to the printers, zip down to Jayati Aflatoons office, run around in circles in the city hand- delivering invitations, careen around in intersecting circles hand-delivering corrigendums, and scurry up to the Zonal Munic.i.p.al Office for permissions to put banners up across some streets, the headless staff of Vyatha came in handy. They were quite happy to be peons for the Welfare State. They were after all paid for their labours and their routine was unpredictable and undeniably dramatic-hardly routine, in fact.

Thus when Agastya Sen looked in on Shri Dhrubo Jyoti Ghosh Dastidar on official work, the Under Secretarys chamber was crowded with the amateurs of Vyatha waiting to be packed off on errands. They stood and sat about in different parts of the room with professional listlessness, like actors out of work, whod given up waiting for their cues. Raichur sat opposite Dhrubo, breathing heavily, diffusing garlic into the air. Dhrubo himself was on the phone, strongly advising his auditor against seeing some striptease show.

They were always very glad to see each other. 'Ive come with a complaint from Dr Bhatnagar. The agenda that youve sent him for your jamboree-meeting has a pale green cover. Hes discovered that youve another agenda-or rather, the same agenda with a yellowish, glittering cover, which is meant for Additional Secretaries and above. He wants that one in exchange. Hes very offended.

'The yellowish cover was supposed to be golden. It was my symbolic protest against the Centenary. All that glitters is not gold, you follow? I told the printer a hundred times, golden, golden, golden-but I hadnt reckoned with his symbolic protest. He apparently spends only his spare time at his printing press. His real vocation, profession, hobby and pa.s.sion is trading in gold, the prices of whichve fallen like a diver off a ten-metre board. We are p.i.s.sed off with his cavalier treatment of us. Ive put up a stinker of a note proposing that we blacklist the printer from all future dealings. Yellow, yellow, dirty fellow, begins my note. So howve you been? . . . Have you met Raichur-ji? The heart, soul and-I might add-breath of Vyatha . . .

'Yes, of course . . . How dyou do? . . . your rooms a bit too crowded now for your tai-chi gyrations, isnt it? What dyou do nowadays for peace of mind?

'Therell always be room for tai-chi . . . Tell me, what should we serve at our Centenary meeting? The last circular from the Finance Controller specifies two Britannia Marie biscuits and tea per head if the meeting is chaired by a Joint Secretary or above. Cashew nuts, potato chips and colas are allowed only if the diplomatic missions are invited. We havent decided yet between Bangladesh and Finland.

'Cashew nuts are good. Everyonell turn up if you mention them in your letter of invitation. Dr Bhatnagar, for example, wont have breakfast that morning. An economy measure.

'Everyoned better turn up. The invitation in fact is in the form of a veiled threat, phrased in masterly prose, if I may say so myself. You see, the meeting is a grand event for a variety of reasons. One: the re-inauguration of TFIN Complex. Two: the first reunion of the committee under Jayati Aflatoon, her coming-out occasion, as it were. Three: shes planned, with an astrologers approval, a huge cultural rite, like a religious mega-happening, for Raichurs ex-boss. Therefore, the meeting just has to be held in Hall One, which seats two thousand. It goes without saying that the auditorium has to be packed choc-a-bloc with bureaucrats taking notes, carrying files, ferrying memos; otherwise itll be a terrible insult and Bhanwar Virbhim, flattened by Jayatis vengeance, will find himself back in Madna, perhaps alongside Rajani Suroor. Whom havent we sent invitations and agendas to, thats the question. Everyones on the hit list-Energy, Rural Development, Civil Supplies, Defence Production, Parliamentary Affairs, Food Processing, Labour . . . Our own Departments unofficially shut on the eighteenth of November because everyone, absolutely everyone, has to attend the meeting. Even Ive had to change the timing of my second tai-chi session to accommodate the centenary. Would you like to be there?

'Yes, very much. Its begun to sound like our very own k.u.mbh Mela. I was riffling through the agenda on my way here. A masterpiece of bilge, if I may say so. Superb.

'Ah yes, that was necessary. The literature simply had to be as weighty as the event-the prestige of the Departments at stake, you follow. The inclusion of the unpublished poems of Rajani Suroor at Annexure B was particularly inspired, youll agree.

He would, in general for the entire doc.u.ment. It was a hundred and fifty pages of culture-related information doubled simply by having been made bilingual, a procedure urged by courtesy to the Department of Official Languages, which had agreed to give eight crores, in the first phase, to the Centenary (for a further four crores, the seminal contribution of the terrifically Anglicized Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon to the propagation of Hindi as the States official language would first be concocted, then highlighted). Each left page of the agenda was in English; the right faithlessly translated it into Hindi. Statistics, headings, figures-of expenditures proposed in the next three years on any culture-related matter by any body of either Central or regional government, of costs incurred in the last five years on seminars, conferences, publications, festivals, lectures on culture anywhere in the country-balances, amounts carried over, sums lapsed into oblivion, seemingly-relevant extracts of audit reports-all that, the very stuff of government, its records, its heart, its dugs-were slipped in whenever possible, whenever n.o.body was looking, as it were. n.o.bodyd had the time, certainly, to check the senseless repet.i.tions that bounced about on the same page and the entire lists that returned in every other chapter to tease the page-flipper, in pa.s.sing, with a sense of deja vu.

Some sections of the agendad impressed even Agastya into emitting low whistles. The Central Archives, for example, in a.s.sessing its activities in the previous financial year, had submitted that it had prepared for storage 15,612 sheets, bound 4,326 books, supplied 48,623 photocopies to scholars against a demand of 1,37,091 and answered 1,846 queries on the telephone. The printer, in disapproval perhaps at its performance, had printed the entire paragraph that dealt with the Archives upside down.

Hed objected, justifiably, in similar fashion-so Agastya had noticed as hed browsed through the pages, in a pleasant, drunken haze, in the car that had ferried him to Aflatoon Bhavan from his second lunch with Dr Kapila-to the contents of the last paragraph of the section on the activities of the National Secretariat Library. Agastya had turned the agenda around to see what he could be missing: Other recent acquisitions of the Library include Natwars Compilation of Medical Attendance Rules, Including Lists of Admissible and Inadmissible Medicines (With and Without Notes) (Five Copies) and Natwars Compendium of Rules and Regulations Regarding Office Uniforms and Office-Uniform-Related Allowances for Permanent Group C and D Employees of the Welfare State (With Notes Only) (Ten Copies).

Daya was delighted to learn that Agastya would officially be present at the Committee reunion. They spent the night before the meeting together in her hotel room. They hadnt met for some weeks. She played Heathcliff, he hard to get, she won, hands down and thighs up and all over his face. In the middle of the night, she ordered yoghurt and honey from Room Service while he smoked a terrific cigarette and marvelled at the latest Woman-to-Woman Rani Chandra ca.s.sette.

Out of the blue. 'August, would you like to meet Jayati-tomorrow evening, after that chaos finishes? Or whenever you shed your inertia?

'Is it a roundabout compliment? You give good head, so Id like to loan you out to people who matter?

'Ive already told her about your luminous intelligence-he has a good head on his shoulders, I said. After youve impressed her with it, Ill suggest to her that we open a mini- Secretariat of the Centenary in what you most appropriately and poetically call Our City, and that we post you there as Officer on Special Duty.

'Without specifying them-the special duties. Wonderful idea, Daya. But cant you swing it without my meeting Jayati-ji? I feel nervous and small in front of greatness, as under you. Not at all like Charlton Heston when hes dragged before that s.e.xbomb Egyptian queen-quite Jayati-like-in The Ten Commandments. But then I have neither his jaw nor Yul Brynners t.i.ts.

The next morning, TFIN Complex looked like the setting for a modern film epic. Clear sky, clean sun, trees rustling in the breeze, multicoloured flags, bunting and banners brightening up the enormous renovated courtyard, millions of cops just hanging around, dressed to kill in mufti but still looking like cops, hara.s.sed bureaucrats tensely waiting for either a heart attack or a flap, whichever was earlier, ghastly instrumental music-the sort that one suffered, sweating, on domestic flights before take-off-from the speakers hidden in the trees. The selection of the music had been a minor point of discord in the Secretariat. Minister Virbhim had wanted a piece quite solemn and epic, the sort that heralds the arrival of monarchs. It was to be played first for Jayati-but naturally-and then, as a sort of afterthought, for the Prime Minister, whod be inaugurating the event. That-the inauguration-had been a second minor point of discord. The debate-on how best to kick-start the occasion-had revealed deep cultural differences. Minister Virbhim-naturally-had wanted a series of symbolic rites lasting close to an hour-fire, ghee, priests with t.i.ts, bells, incense, Sanskrit, dhotis, garlands, spices, more ghee, that sort of thing. Warm but primitive, had commented Dr Harihara Kapila, the recently-appointed Princ.i.p.al Secretary to the Prime Minister, in Hindi, as usual confounding everybody with his mind that truly functioned, simultaneously and all the time, as both razor and corkscrew. Hed won, of course, and the PM would now alight, set free a white pigeon, light one lamp before Paychom-miraculously untouched by the father of all fires-a second on stage and leave.

As for the music, soft, sweet if possible, Kapilad decreed, and un.o.btrusive, something like a pleasant whine, like a beneficiary grovelling for more with a shehnai in his mouth-and as long as its switched off before anyone important arrives.

The important numbered almost two hundred. Even Dr Bhatnagar, it will be recalled, with his new agenda, had become one. Theyd been given special car pa.s.ses of different colours and could zoom right up to the grand portals of the main lobby. The pa.s.ses, like the invitation cards, were numbered, coded and strictly non-transferable-with exceptions, of course, as always in this hierarchy-sensitive system. Even a Private Secretary, for example, was known in an emergency to stand in for his Minister who couldnt make it because he had to go away-officially, of course-to the South, where hed shaved his head and was somersaulting around the perimeter of a temple atop some hillock to appease or thank one of the G.o.ds, their calls being more peremptory than the summons of the Aflatoons. Thus one explained the presence at TFIN Complex that morning of Chanakya Lala, who drove up in a sparkling cloud of perfume and glided his way from the deep aromatic recesses of his Ministers holy-white Amba.s.sador to his a.s.signed seat in the tenth row like a product on a smoothly-moving a.s.sembly line, shaking hands with and namaste-ing the waiting bureaucrats who mattered and painlessly slicing through those who didnt. A gentleman to the core of his heart, which was a five-hundred-rupee note neatly wrapped around a Parisian bottle of aftershave.

Almost all the bureaucrats who didnt matter were lowly Escort Officers charged with the responsibility of conducting the members of the Centenary Committee from their cars to their seats, in case they lost their way en route. This reception was in part a warm welcome and in part a security measure insisted on by the police, who naturally didnt want to accidentally rough up a VIP, lost and found wandering around in an insecure daze in the vast labyrinthine s.p.a.ces of the building, stammering before the unspeakable menace of the law, unable to explain who was what and thus being mistaken for an a.s.sa.s.sin or an arsonist or both. The happier Escort Officers, like Personal a.s.sistant Dharam Chand, were those who recognized their charges. Dharam Chand was to lead the living legend k.u.m k.u.m Bala Mali and show her her place. His b.u.md been twitching with excitement for a week just at the thought of swaying a foot ahead of the hips of the ex-actress for a full ten minutes.

Hed offered himself for Escort Officer duty andd specifically asked that the ageing Bharatnatyam wizard-or rather, witch-be a.s.signed to him: Now that he worked as Princ.i.p.al Private Secretary to Baba Mastram, he usually got what he wanted. He was still ascendant and had his eye on nestling up to Suk.u.maran Govardhan once his surrender was sorted out. His old friend and one-time boss, Under Secretary Dastidar, had suggested to him that since they were running short of reliable staff, could he also escort a couple of other minor headaches, Dr Bhatnagar, for example, whose office plagued him, Dastidar, four times a day to learn whom Doctor Saab should expect to find awaiting him the instant he alighted from his Amba.s.sador.

The good Doctor himself had proposed Agastya, whod parried, 'If you permit, sir, would that be in form? Seeing us together, the other bureaucrats present might construe that you and I-to quote you, sir-enjoy the same juniority.

Thus freed, Agastyad hoped to sit beside and savour the meeting with Daya. But that was not to be, at least not initially. She was important enough to be seated somewhere in the first ten rows, whereas to him was pointed out a corner of the twenty-seventh. He didnt much mind, having prepared for the meeting by smoking a killer joint and wearing new wraparound dark gla.s.ses to hide his consequent red eyes. 'Conjunctivitis, hed smile at anybody who glanced at him pointing at his goggles, raising the pale green agenda in his left hand to establish his bonafides. n.o.body gave a s.h.i.t.

He didnt smoke marijuana any more before lunch, not routinely. Middle age, no doubt. That morning was special because the night befored been remarkable, and ruminating Thinker-like on the pot at seven a.m., hed admitted to himself that he preferred a room, a day and perhaps a life with Daya in them, so how was he going to handle this mid- life crisis? Well, smoke a joint, yes, but after that?

He was surrounded by bureaucrats discussing the latest transfers, their bosses and colleagues, Jayati Aflatoon, Suk.u.maran Govardhan, the budget of the Centenary and in the agenda before them, a sub-heading that at times sounded like Beyond War and at other times like Bjorn Borg. 'This figure in the second column-is it ninety-seven crores or sixty-seven crores . . .? asked Agastyas immediate neighbour of the auditorium in general. He wore a brown safari suit and well-scrubbed tennis shoes. He began to riffle through the pages of statistics and figures with professional disdain. ' . . . Either way, the numbers are all wrong-they dont add up . . . Last years expenditure on Beyond War was Plan or Non-Plan? . . .

'I find that the best method is to take a sip of tea the moment you get the cup, very noisily; then n.o.body steals your cup, declared his colleague, seemingly in reply. He was pale, with long, slicked-back grey hair. He was using his agenda as an ashtray.

'Im quite curious, confessed the brown suit, 'to see how they interpret these statistics. Dyou see? The details, heads and descriptions of expenditure are on the left page, whereas all the columns of figures are on the right; during printing, however, the figuresve slipped one-and sometimes two-lines down.

'Non-alignment.

'A t.u.r.dle. Do you know the word? My son taught it to me. They use it in school quite often. Its short form for tremendous hurdle. I like it.

A one-armed peon sidled up to Agastya and sullenly pointed out to him a commandingly beckoning Dr Bhatnagar. Tranquil, at rest, sleepily h.o.r.n.y and stoned, Agastya didnt in the least wish to struggle up out of his chair and shuffle down to listen to and note down some utter rubbish. Which it would be, as sure as and worse than death, meant mainly to remind Dr Bhatnagar himself in a moment of stress, brought on by the presence of so many VIPs who were ignoring him, that he possessed a mind bubbling over with brilliant, viable ideas and that he, for the betterment of the world, continually needed an amanuensis or he would lose it. 'Hahn, Agastya . . . he would say, looking at him through his nostrils and at everybody else out of the corner of his eye to note how many of themd noticed how busy he was with affairs of State, ' . . . remind me to send a fax to the Commerce Secretary repeated to Industries . . .

Agastya instead decided to send Dr Bhatnagar a paper plane. He could write on it all the faxes that he wanted and fly it back to him. An economy measure, even though for Agastya, a doubtful career move. He opened his agenda to decide which page to use and was distracted for a while by the wide variety of choices. He finally settled on the Table of Contents but the plane never took off because while he was making it, all of a sudden, the buzz and murmur of fifteen hundred bureaucrats changed to an extended rustle and swish, like a breeze in a forest, for at the entry of the PM and his entourage, the entire auditorium rose.

The cortege was all in dazzling white. Agastya was reminded of the advertis.e.m.e.nt for Rin, the detergent that washes whitest. Jayatis white sari had a gorgeous maroon border. Clumsily, Bhanwar Virbhim led the PM and Jayati to the tall bra.s.s lamp stand at the left of the stage, where waited two nervous young women dressed in glorious, practically- bridal, silk. With the earthen lamps in their hands, they drew concurrent and symmetric circles of welcome in the air before the PMs and Jayatis heads, chests and for some reason, stomachs. With a sudden, convent-school curtesy, they then handed over the earthen lamps to the Aflatoons and hesitantly motioned them to step forward to the lamp stand.

Since all the eyes were on the stage, Agastya used the moment to steal away to the opposite side of the hall and settle down a couple of rows further back, right next to an unimportant-looking exit, to locate him where myopic Dr Bhatnagar, despite his contact lenses, was likely to take fifteen minutes. Ah, what have men not done for freedom? Or for love. He should send a note to Daya-whose perfect, tastefully-grey head he could glimpse, he was glad to note, a few rows ahead of Doctor Saab-informing her of his change of address. The unimportant-looking exit opened furtively and the Public Works Secretary, criminally late and therefore fl.u.s.tered, and not as marvellously coiffured as usual, slipped in and dived, virtually in one movement, like a soldier hitting the ground, into the seat beside Agastya; clearly, the stares of the auditorium were to be avoided like shrapnel.

In Agastyas lingo, a deep-s.h.i.tter was a person wallowing in it. Recognizing a mega-example in the Public Works Secretary, he smiled at the senior bureaucrats profile and to make him feel better, took off his own dark gla.s.ses. The Secretary continued to vigorously chew gum till he relaxed a bit in his chair, then, without glancing at Agastya, asked, 'We havent obviously reached Item Number Two on the agenda. Has anybody said anything so far?

'Not from the stage, sir. Agastya consulted the Table of Contents. Ah, Item Two was the vexed question of the placement of the statue of Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon in the Arabian Sea. He regarded Deep-s.h.i.tters profile with a little more interest. If what hed done to the file of the statue was any measure, Agastya was in the presence of a bowler of world- cla.s.s googlies.

For the last decade or so, certainly as long as hed been in service, the Russiansd been wanting to gift the Welfare State a hundred-metre-high granite statue of Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon which they both-the Russians and some of the living Aflatoons-wanted set in the bay just off Bhayankar. When last estimated, the operation was to have cost twenty-four crores. Agastyad seen photographs of a model of the statue; itd remarkably improved the original. More hair on the head, an intelligent, handsome expression, terrific shoulders and pectorals under the shawl, right arm raised in paternal benediction-and it had still resembled Gaj.a.pati! Great art, except that Public Works-not being confident enough of not f.u.c.king it up-simply didnt wish to be saddled with the headache. Permissions from Environment, Defence, External Affairs, Home and Petroleum were sought, the last because itd nothing to do with the subject and would therefore take the longest to reply, since the file would tour each Department and Section of its Ministry, relayed by one to the other with the terse note: Not ours. Yours perhaps? Clearing-and overriding-all those t.u.r.dles took six years. (External Affairs, for example, had battled as heroically as Porus against Alexander: This Ministry will agree to this project only if the Russians allow us to gift them in exchange a statue of comparable dimensions, sculpted by one of our best artists, of Lenin or Stalin, that would enjoy pride of place amidst the ships of one of their warm-water ports.) The Prime Ministers Office and the Cabinet Secretariat then began to lean on Public Works, the only one of the Ministries that hadnt-officially-definitively replied. They both wanted the statue to be in place and inaugurated in the centenary year.

It was then that the Secretary had asked: Is the statue to face the sea (in a confidential minute in the file) or the sh.o.r.e? If the sea, wed be symbolically declaring that Pundit Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon has turned his back on us. If the sh.o.r.e, are we not in danger of offending our neighbours across the seas by a permanent, grossly material, display of the rear of the Founding Father of the Welfare State? Public Works is not to be held responsible for the international repercussions of this subject.

Secondly: The bay at Bhayankar is one of the prettiest in the country, but its waters have helped the inhabitants of the worlds largest slum in their morning ablutions for generations. A view will have to be taken on whether we wish the statue of Pundit Aflatoon to preside every day, till the end of the world, over a million squatting figures and indeed, whether we wish its granite to be washed forever by-well-rather polluted waters.

It is suggested that the entire subject of the statue be placed before the Centenary Committee at its next meeting and a collective decision taken.

The dozen VIPs had settled down on their a.s.signed chairs on the stage and Minister Virbhim had placed himself before the state-of-the-art microphone, which was on when he loudly cleared his throat before beginning his welcome address. The impressively-magnified hawking that boomed in the hall-and that sounded like a thousand throats doing their thing in the early morning, in unison, before the sinks of some railway platform loo-served to completely unwind, amongst others, the Public Works Secretary. 'The first sounds from the stage, sir, annotated Agastya helpfully. His neighbour chuckled and nearly gagged on his chewing gum, which he then took out of his mouth. Agastya noted with interest that it wasnt chewing gum at all but a long, very curly, black, much chewed, nice and wet strand of what was definitely pubic hair. He observed the Secretarys face change and soften with the memory of a recent pleasure as he examined, played with, wound round his fingers, turned over and over, and squeezed for the feel of its wetness the strand before returning it to his mouth, lovingly and carefully, like a gem being re-imprisoned in its safe. Agastya was impressed. This is true pa.s.sion, honey, he told himself as he watched the Secretarys flaccid jaws begin again their masculation, but this time more rhythmically and contentedly, slowly. Inspired, he decided to write to Daya at once.

Im here in Seat 2901. Time is running out. Will you marry me? Please?

He folded the sheet of paper twice, wrote her name atop it, changed his mind about the name, scratched it out till it became an illegible mess, waited for the ink to dry, manfully summoned the one-armed peon with a low but carrying pssk, explained where Daya was sitting, gave him the note and asked him to hand it to her. The peon hinted at a nod; his half-shut eyes and unshaven, sullen face discouraged all but the essential communication. Agastya watched him go with the tenderness of a father bidding farewell to a son boarding a train or ship to embark on a new life. The die is cast. Im in your hands, Daya. Be kind to me. Immobilized by a mess of emotions, he observed the peon drift all the way down to Dr Bhatnagar, pa.s.s him the note, half-raise his arm to point in Agastyas direction and amble off to lean against a wall from where he could mindlessly gaze at Jayati Aflatoon.

Who rose from her chair in respect as the PM got up to walk over to the microphone to say, to quote Minister Virbhim, 'a few sweet and wise words. Agastya rose too, to sidle out of the auditorium, wander down, sh.e.l.l-shocked, to the car park, locate the office car, lean against it, roll and smoke another joint, feel better, ramble off to find the driver, run him down finally at the tea stall outside Gate Fourteen, muttering and playing cards, sweet-talk him back to work, be driven off home to pick up his trunks, then to the pool at the Royal Eastern Hotel for an hours frenzied and graceless, juggernaut-like, tidal-wave-displacing mimicry of the b.u.t.terfly and the front crawl. When he returned to TFIN Complex, well in time for pre-lunch snacks, things looked better. Dr Bhatnagar and the PM had disappeared, Jayati looked tired, hara.s.sed and more attractive, Daya was clearly visible in the seventh row and a new set of more interesting personages-Baba Mastram and the cadaverous, almost-legendary Dr Kansal recognizable among them-had replaced on the stage the old lot. The atmosphere was more relaxed, more governmental, almost chaotic; delegates drifted about apparently without purpose, officials signalled responses to one another across rows, junior bureaucrats huddled in urgent conference in corners. Agastya noticed quite a few vacant chairs-two fortunately on either side of Daya, towards whom he headed with winged feet.

'Where on earthve you been? Your hairs wet and your eyes maroon. She looked irritable and tense. Without waiting for a response, she continued, 'Im fed up. Somebody-you, for one, instead of smoking dope and whining about gas in your tummy-couldve warned me against how your meetings are run. Poor Jayatis aged dramatically in the last two hours, like a creature out of myth that makes the mistake of coming down to earth. And Im amazed-whyre they serving food to fifteen hundred people? I mean, is this a religious feast or the reunion of a committee?

'I say-whatre they serving? Wheres your plate?

'I sent it away, naturally. But dont panic. The bearersll return, in these ghastly, frayed, off-white, khadi uniforms to show off their victory-tower red turbans.

Scattered clapping from the bottom right corner of the auditorium distracted Agastya from his intention of settling down to wait for the waiters. Amidst the applauding hands stood the unsmiling speaker, much like a lighthouse amongst circling seagulls. The group was pro-or anti-PM, Agastyad forgotten which, a set of powerless but noisy parliamentarians and members of various regional a.s.semblies that had slimed its way into the Centenary Committee by sucking up to hed forgotten whom-Baba Mastram, probably.

'Secondly, continued the speaker, reading in perfectly-official Hindi, shuffling the papers in his left hand about, 'it is proposed that an extremely popular and as-yet-unnamed road in Lutyenss City be named after Rajani Suroor. I speak of the alley behind the houses on Ganapati Aflatoon Marg, in which reside, among those present here, Honourable Minister Virbhim, Honourable Madam k.u.m k.u.m Bala Mali, Honourable Dr Kansal and, when hes in the capital, Honourable Parliamentarian Bhootnath Gaitonde. On that alley-the honourable members mentioned will bear me out-stand a handful of eating houses that were once upon a time the servants quarters of Lutyenss mansions. These dhabas are illegal, cheap and extremely popular with the less privileged population of the area. Their postal address unfortunately continues to be Service Lane No 6/North/A/benind GAM. n.o.body here will deny that we all enjoy a fundamental right to a better address. How better to honour the memory of Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon than to improve the quality of life in the area around the street named after his elder brother, to make it-the area itself-sound better, and then to regularize, to make secure, the lives and vocations of those of our fellow citizens who inhabit that narrow alley, who provide necessary and cheap nourishment to the residents of the area and who are still officially described as 'illegal occupants practising an illicit trade"? I therefore propose that the Centenary Committee immediately resolve that Service Lane No 6/North/ A/behind GAM be renamed Shahid Rajani Suroor Marg.

Makhmal Bagai paused for the clapping of his myrmidons to subside. 'I take this opportunity to respond to the doubt expressed earlier this morning about the propriety of discussing the inst.i.tution of some memorials for a martyr who hasnt actually pa.s.sed away but is merely in the process of doing so. Im not surprised at this revelation of a national trait, a cultural characteristic that prefers procrastination to action, and that achieves fulfilment not in deeds done today but in fine-tuning its skills of postponement. 'Whatever cannot wait even a moment will unfortunately have to be looked at tomorrow; push the rest into the agenda for next month." Before these brakes on the nations progress, I plead: let us honour Martyr Rajani Suroor by being ready for him. If he finally decides to stop breathing, how embarra.s.sing itll be if we then a.s.semble to collectively wonder how best to honour his memory! On that occasion, when the nation whips around to ask of us, 'Whatever have you all been doing these past few months?" we, hanging our heads in shame-and noticing how our paunches hide from view our dirty toenails-will have nothing to say. On the other hand, were Shahid Suroor suddenly to wake up, this Committee would welcome him with open arms and, with tears of joy, as it were, request him to be Chief Guest at the functions thatll open to the public these memorials.

'For we propose-naturally-more than one course of action in remembrance of a multi-faceted, many-dimensional man who was, fortunately, a bachelor. Had he been married, in keeping with the great traditions of our country, his widow wouldve been rewarded with a fat sum of money. It is submitted to the Centenary Committee that that amount of compensation-whatever it might be, whether symbolic or respectable, and keeping in mind these hard times, anything symbolicd be a disgrace-be awarded at once to Vyatha, Shahid Suroors theatre group, that was to him-if one judges by the pa.s.sion that he felt for it-parent, wife, second wife, child, in-law, neighbour and keep all rolled into one.

'It is understood that the artistic community of the nation has proposed a major cultural happening on the fourth of December, the first anniversary of Shahid Suroors departure from the conscious life of the country. Our group of young, forward-looking Parliamentarians and elected members of other a.s.semblies strongly supports the event, no matter what the cost. Painters, writers, sculptors, singers, musicians, actors, directors, graphic designers, photographers, poets and other artistically-inclined souls have been invited, by the clarion call of art against politics, to the Pashupati Aflatoon Public Gardens where, from 4.46 in the morning onwards-a time auspicious for starting an invocation to the heavens, suggest the finest astrological minds of our time-they will pray, through the practice of their different arts, for the speedy and complete recovery of Shahid Suroor. That is to say-if the nitty-gritty of the happening is not yet clear to those who perhaps havent been paying attention-in different parts of the Gardens, all day on the fourth of December, till 7.13 in the evening, when the propitious hours end, singers will sing, painters paint, poets write, sculptors chip away, photographers click, potters-uh-potter about-pot-and gardeners water the lawns. Each act is holy when its impulse springs from the bottom of the cleansed heart.

'This political group urges the Centenary Committee that it be allowed to partic.i.p.ate in the happening for Shahid Suroor. We will orate. Politics is the heartbeat both of the nation and of the martyr in question. As an activist, he was unparalleled as a provocateur, as anybody whos watched his plays will know. It has even been suggested that it was their subject matter-and his rejection of the suggestion made by the prominent members of a certain caste in my native place of Madna that they be allowed to partic.i.p.ate in his productions-that offended and provoked them into arranging to teach him a lesson in the realities of castepolitik. Whatever be the truth of that theory-itll of course be improper to antic.i.p.ate the findings of the Enquiry Commission in this regard-it is a fundamental principle that the repressed castes must not be denied their right to self-expression in any happening, cultural, political, economic, religious or social. When you suppress their voice, you send the wrong signals both to Heaven and their const.i.tuencies-an axiom with which Honourable Dr Kansal up on the stage will agree, naturally. In fact, I should frankly add here that if we arent permitted to join the anniversary celebrations, well consider it to be an insult to the social interests and castes that we represent and-rest a.s.sured-well respond with appropriate measures. I pause merely to ask Honourable Dr Kansal whether he wishes to comment at this point.

Reluctantly, Dr Kansal rose from his chair. He was tall and looked taller because he was terribly thin, loose-limbed, with flapping arms and legs in a flapping safari suit. His walk to the microphone was almost directionless, as though, endowed with independent lives, his feet, knees, forearms and elbows wished to shrug off his will and wander off on their own. He was fumbling in his various pockets for inspiration when the collective attention of the bottom right section of the auditorium swivelled to the nearest door to welcome the new batch of snack-laden waiters that entered just at that point. A low, extended rumble of approval moved like a wave across the rows, a growl in the belly of some enormous dormant beast, obliterating from the air any hint of pleasure at-or any thought of-waiting for the wisdom of Dr Kansal. 'Pssst! 'Pssst! hissed out like the tongues of a hundred snakes from the agitated occupants of various seats nearest the door, commanding the burdened waiters to pivot uncertainly-as a Bharatnatyam danseuse does to convey indecision-not sure whose greed to satisfy first; greed and not hunger, because theyd already served the hissers once in their earlier round, when too theyd intended to begin with the central section of the auditorium and move back in successive trips towards the exit, but had been gobbled up at the start by the wolves at the door, these sea monsters that waited for Odyssean ships.

'Honourable Madam Chairperson, Honourable Minister Virbhim . . . started Honourable Dr Kansal in his deep and lethally slow voice, mind milky with fog, till that moment undecided what to say, but tranquilly confident that when he gave his voice the long rope, as he gave his limbs, it would deliver, and the words of wisdom emerge, all in proper order. ' . . . Culture has always needed the patronage of kings . . . The 'psssts! 'Hey yous! 'Paychos! 'Cmeres! 'Hurry ups! and 'Let them pa.s.s, Paychos! thatd now begun to pop, like toy pistols aimed at the waiters from different parts of the auditorium, didnt faze him in the least. He liked confusion. Hed spent almost forty years in churning his pa.s.sage of personal advancement through it, freshening and heaping it up in his wake. He pleasantly sensed-though one couldnt be sure-that these excited, peremptory orders being hissed and shouted by his audience were directed not at him but at the bearers, whom he was certain he knew closely as types, even though they barely existed for him as individuals. The decades that hed spent studying-amongst hundreds of others-their castes and cla.s.ses, their economic ascent, their lateral movements from village to town to megalopolis, the erosion under pressure of their caste preoccupations-those yearsd developed in him an att.i.tude towards his subject matter much like that of a feudal lord towards his lowliest subjects-of contemptuous, affectionate, intimate, paternal and parasitical disdain. Nothing that they could do would ever surprise him; when it did, the actd be ignored till it was twisted and squeezed to fit theory. ' . . .In our time, a painter has as much need of the clout of a Minister as of his brushes and oils . . . Hierarchy is fundamental to our system and even in the Welfare State, its no surprise that the unimportant are cut dead and trodden over in the race for power and privilege . . .

Practically supine in the chair alongside Daya, gorging on madly-spicy samosas, cashew nuts and Parle Monaco biscuits, dripping tomato sauce onto the makeshift tray of the open agenda on his chest, about to suggest marriage as soon as he finished eating and the mood of the object of his desire became more receptive to a proposal, Agastya realized, with stoned surprise, that he really didnt want to be anywhere else. For one, the civil war around him was extremely interesting because it was a bitter struggle over fundamentals-namely, over food in a developing country-fought, as in a model case study, under the uncaring eyes of a self-serving elite; he himself d gained his share by simply marching down to the nearest waiter and s.n.a.t.c.hing two plates off his shoulder, pointing out to himself in the process that he too was merely enacting a basic economic and social law, as it were: however could a member of the Steel Frame become a have-not?

For another, trying to follow Dr Kansals chain of thought was sure to be intellectually stimulating, like trailing a charged electron as it bounced off the knotty matter of Rajani Suroor, collided with the complexities of caste reservations in the various spheres of government and touched, en pa.s.sant, the ostensible subject of the meeting-Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon and what to do with him. As far as Agastya could sense-and tell from past experience-the last hadnt been discussed at all in the first couple of hours of the day. It wasnt really meant to be; the point was not to exchange views and reach conclusions but to a.s.semble the whole world, like a show of strength, and to allow whoever wanted to, to hold forth on whatever interested him, constrained only by the condition that he should, every now and then, like Formula One cars grazing one another on the track, touch the theme of the centenary. At the end of the day, everyone felt drained and fulfilled, as at the close of a rigorous session of scream therapy, and the implementers got on with whatever theyd decided on beforehand with the figureheads on stage.

Agastya didnt much like an agenda with dollops of sauce on some of its pages. It looked frivolous. He therefore flattened and placed his empty paper plate between the Section on the Archaeological Survey and the Statistics of the Southern States on Expenditure on the Disappearing Performing Arts in the Last Five Years, shut the book with a magisterial hand and exchanged it with its duplicate on the seat two places away, well in time before its possessor triumphantly returned with his second plate of snacks.

Magically, abruptly, leaving the very few in the auditorium whod been listening a little bewildered, Dr Kansal finished and flapped his way back to his chair. Long before the Master of Ceremonies could invite the next speaker up to the stage, and well before Makhmal Bagai could finish stuffing samosas into his mouth and start up all over again, Member of Parliament Bhootnath Gaitonde had reached one of the standing microphones that dotted-more accurately, exclamation-marked-the auditorium.

'Honourable Madam Chairperson, honourable ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends, began he in sonorous Hindi, his fluency in which-it not being his mother tongue-he was quite proud of, 'Im not the next speaker on the agenda. However, even if you dont permit, I will present my views from here, this insignificant spot in the auditorium, from amongst the audience-the people, if you wish-for this is where I belong. You would have noticed of course that I havent bothered either to register with the Committee for an official turn at the mike or to wait for Honourable Shri Makhmal Bagai to finish eating and speaking. The reason is that I simply did not want to waste any more of one of our most precious resources-namely, time.

With a kind of relaxed, collective sigh, the auditorium settled down to switch off and listen to him. It was both impossible and explosive to attempt to throttle the representatives of the people. They yelled like dementedly- hara.s.sed parents at their children if you tried. They scared even the officialdom of the Welfare State-its toughest birds too-the cops, the Income Tax people, Customs. Over the years, Bhootnath Gaitonde in particular had developed a reputation for being one of the fiercest Parliamentarians, a trailblazer, a pathfinder for the protection of their human rights. It was he, for example, whod inst.i.tutionalized the practice, sporadically isolated before him, of screaming at any policeman at any airport who, before any domestic flight, dared to frisk his person or his baggage. The argument at the core of his shrieks and threats, naturally, was the grave insult to, the questioning of, the integrity of the people as represented by his khadi-covered belly and his bags.

He was neither a member of the Centenary Committee nor a Special Invitee. Being an elected representative of the people, he was an Official Gatecrasher. They couldnt be stopped. All h.e.l.l would break loose if they were. Ditto if they werent. 'On the subject of the proposed wastage by this body of a second precious resource, namely, money, I made clear my views in Parliament a couple of months ago and I wont repeat myself here. Continually keeping in mind the importance of time, Ill therefore restrict myself only to Item Number Two on our agenda, which-Im ashamed to add-we havent yet reached even after two-and-a-half hours of debate. The item concerns the installation, at a cost of twenty-four crores, of a Russian statue of Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon in the Bay of Bhayankar. Some of you might know that Ive my roots there, in Bhayankar. I was born there-and even after I left it to pursue my calling, Ive always reserved a special place in my heart for the worlds largest slum. It-my heart-has followed with particular interest, over the years, the growth and development, the ups and downs, of my birthplace. It bled, it stopped beating, in 1980 during the communal and caste riots of March there. Do I need to remind my audience of the carnage of Bhayankar? Evidently, yes. Four thousand dead, a few hundred drowned, thousands of children orphaned, thousands more dislocated, crores of rupees of goods and property destroyed-and more than a decade after our very own holocaust, the rate of progress of our rehabilitation programme is almost as horrifying as the original event.

'Do I exaggerate? Is this the right forum where one should raise such issues? Should cultural events be held completely independent of the realities of the time? Must the show go on like a house on fire princ.i.p.ally to mirror the conflagration in the audience? I leave your consciences to decide these questions after I read out to you from one of the First Information Reports reluctantly recorded at Bhayankar Naka Police station during those two weeks of 1980, Reluctantly, of course, because the police, as always, were deep in the midst of the riots, churning up as much as calming down.

Gaitonde paused for effect. He scanned the pages in his hand, pretended to find what he was looking for and continued. 'Just to take an example, the case of Ballibaran, auto-rickshaw driver . . . On March 17, in the afternoon, his vehicle was set on fire, then his hut . . . He rushed out to face the mob-which included policemen, allege witnesses-and with folded hands begged the crowd to spare his family since it was totally innocent of the savage attack the previous evening on the row of huts in the lane behind his . . . the mob hacked off his folded hands, which fell down; it then attacked with iron rods. The family, including the four children between the ages of six and fourteen, was beaten almost to death. When they were all in a coma, they were piled one atop another, doused with kerosene and set alight. The twenty- four persons named in the report danced around the bonfire, gaily spraying the flames with kerosene, chanting slogans to the tune of popular film songs.

'Multiply the example of Ballibaran by seven thousand, spread them over fourteen days and nights, add mothers and children being waylaid and beheaded while trying to escape under cover of night, and decapitated heads being left at doorsteps, and friendly messages in human blood on the wa