On his good days, when Raghupati was being bright as a b.u.t.ton, it could be said that to him, everything sounded, looked, smelt, tasted and felt like s.e.x. Experienced subordinates, when they wished him to focus on a topic, would use an appropriate idiom: 'VDs on the rise, sir, amongst the young of Ranamati, because of the improved irrigation in the area. b.u.t.ton-bright Raghupati would correctly interpret this remark to mean: Better irrigation = richer sugarcane yield = more money = profligacy.

Aroused, keyed up, overheated, day in day out, round the clock, week upon week, like a mythic punishment that felt like a reward, a rut that had dominated him every second of his past two decades and had shattered, amongst many other things, his marriage, transforming each pore of his tingling skin-or so it seemed-into a hard-on. That is to say, twenty-three years in the service of the Welfare State had cracked him up. Its waste, inefficiency, sluggishness and futility had honed his sense of time running out at the speed of light and thereby sharpened as well his consequent excitation that was half-foreboding. Twice, sometimes three times, a day he would summon his PA Shobha just to paw her; at home, hed rub against his dog or Chamundi-hed always, with the approval of Baba Mastram, lined up someone, a sweeperess, a drivers daughter, a gardener. No backlash could sting him if he abused the right people. No backlash could sting him if he knew the right people-and indeed, himself remained one of them.

His sensualism was legend, of course, but officially, in all his years, he hadnt suffered any disciplinary action except for his frequent transfers-each to a post of substantial clout, patronage and personal gain, angled for with ferocious concentration and guile for months on end; from Deputy Director (Information and Public Relations), hed moved to being Regional Joint Secretary (Home Affairs, Police Personnel); after four crucial years as Private Secretary to the Chief Minister (the eight-month-long wheedling for which had been so intense, so focused, as to be almost s.e.xual), hed arranged to become the Managing Director of the State Industrial Development Corporation; hed spent two years as the Zonal Development Coordinator because hed needed pretexts to officially wander up and down the West Coast states looking for nice tracts of land to invest in; when hed learnt of these hectares south of Pirtana that were being developed as teak farms, hed begun lobbying to become Settlement Commissioner but just then, the government-his government-had fallen.

Totally befitting its waste and futility-Raghupatid felt when hed been Liaison Commissioner at the Centre-that the Welfare State, out of its contingency funds, had even forked out for the occasional prost.i.tute that hed slept with. Theyd been organized by his Personal a.s.sistant of those days, Satish Kalra, a Man Friday whose resourcefulness and amorality any Navi Chipra smuggler-builder wouldve been proud of. The expenditure on those encounters with the wh.o.r.es-a salesgirl from Mallika Arcade, a telephone operator from Aflatoon Bhavan, a part-time compounder from a private blood bank-had been pa.s.sed off as having been incurred on liaison meetings with other state governments, on tea, Marie biscuits and so on.

Fondling himself, Raghupati coldly recollected that the part-time compounder had hinted-simperingly, with just a veneer of obsequiousness-that shed be ready to forgo the fees for her visits of an entire year in return for permanent employment in any lowly capacity, in any of the several reserved categories of jobs, in any of the million warrens of the government.

'Dont be idiotic, I cant take a bribe from you. Outraged, yet close to laughter, and at the same time obscurely aroused by the notion that hed periodically possessed, squeezed and nibbled a body whichd all the while hidden a mind so plebeian, socially so inferior that the ultimate that it could aspire to were the drying-up dugs of the Welfare State.

Shed claimed that her name was Tina, and that she came from Mayong, in the North-East. Shed been short and cute, with wiry, shoulder-length, rather dirty hair. Shed always carried condoms in the zipped side pocket of her handbag, an indication of her preparedness that hed liked. Shed looked sceptical about his outrage and had forthwith stopped scissoring his waist (his 'solid waste is what DIPRAVED Kapila had always called it: 'learn to manage your solid waste, I say) with her shapely, hairy legs.

'Look, as per b.o.o.bZ, theres a complete ban on all new recruitment, no matter which Department or Ministry, Centre or regional government. Hed then rocked her a couple of times with his hips, to distract her from her silly conversation and get her back to work.

'No, not in all Departments-there isnt any ban on the police, or in the emergency services, hospitals, firefighting.

The Welfare State hadnt been paying her either for her views or for the mulish determination thatd changed her face, and he hadnt cared for the ease with which shed stopped calling him 'Sir or 'Saab in bed, so hed rammed into her for another fifteen seconds, and then declared in farewell, 'You know, our countrys not progressing because of people like you only.

The following week, shed sent him the first of her two anonymous letters on the subject of employment in the government. Shed signed both Tina Munim, but since that hadnt been her actual name, hed considered the pet.i.tions to be simply two more in the endless list of unsigned letters received every week in numberless offices across the land.

The language of the letter had been the usual gibberish and the matter naive suggestions on how best she herself could fill up any of the vacancies in various posts reserved for candidates from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Depressed Castes, Backward Clans, Suppressed Groups, Repressed Cla.s.ses and Other Underprivileged Phratries. Shed attached her c.v., a page of preposterous lies.

Hed been stupefied. As always at such moments, blood had rushed not to his head, but to his crotch. The pages in his lapd begun to dance in his twitching hands. Controlled by pa.s.sions larger than himself, hed unzipped his pants and tucked the sheets in between b.a.l.l.s and tool. Hed come first over the c.v. During the second coming, G.o.d had hollered in his skull, 'Yes! This, this is what youve longed to do for years on every memo, note, receipt, reminder, report, paper, statement, return, application, minute, annexure and file! Yes, blobs of s.p.u.n.k on dust and c.o.c.kroach s.h.i.t! On an obsequious, hand-written, illegible, incoherent submission of a debatable claim, supported by a sheet of lies about the claimants life! When someone grovels for your favour and you can jerk off on his entreaty-that is shakti! If there be Paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.

k.u.mari Lina Natesan and her complaint remained on Raghupatis mind all day. 'Her conduct is unbecoming of a civil servant, he grumbled to his PA Shobha. 'Please connect me to the Regional Princ.i.p.al Secretary, Personnel-and give me the line before his PA gives him the line, okay?

Dr Harihara Kapila had recently taken over as the Regional Princ.i.p.al Secretary, Personnel. Raghupati had to endure his wit for the first five minutes before he could circuitously enquire what had become of his devious efforts to have Miss Natesan transferred, however temporarily, to Madna on plague duty. His question led only to a second explosion of KJs- 'the conduct of a civil servant is unbecoming, I say, only when he cant rise to the occasion!-(a KJ was the Civil Service epithet for the Kapila Joke. Rebel wits had even mooted once, at one of the quieter meetings of the Civil Service a.s.sociation, that the State should frame a KJEA, an Endurance Allowance payable to those lionhearts who worked with Kapila).

On with the day. Raghupati summoned Moolar, one of his few a.s.sistant Commissioners, to direct him to find out everything about mobile phones and to organize two for his official use. Moolar clacked his dentures in agreement and left. He was an efficient man.

Raghupati had known him for seventeen years, from his tenure as District Development Officer in Tekdigaon, the waters of which region had been reputed to be so full of harmful minerals that no native inhabitant had retained his teeth beyond the age of thirty-five. He believed that hed never forget the vision of his first mammoth crop-cutting- training meeting there, during which, after lunch, dozens and dozens, row after row, of patwaris, Circle Inspectors, Block Development Officers and tehsildars (including Moolar), almost as one, had removed their dentures and rinsed them in the gla.s.ses of water in front of them.

'The mobile phone system hasnt yet reached Madna, sir, Moolar reported half an hour later. His upper denture threatened to leap out and he paused to restrain it. 'At present, mobile phones can be used only at the Centre and some of the regional capitals, sir.

Raghupati had always been alert to G.o.ds communications with him. Of course, you fool, youre being told to gift Baba Mastram not a phone, but a set of dentures. The present would also hopefully take care of the Babas halitosis, usually a lethal deterrent to any sustained intercourse with him. Raghupati hoped that Mastramd be pleased.

He was delighted. In return, on Thursday, just before he left for his second session with the dentist, he advised Raghupati that he could now go ahead with Chamundi.

'This week, sir, is propitious for the transfer of your heat energy to anyone with whom your skin is in physical contact. If you dont transfer, your surplus heat energy, finding no outlet, might attack your vitals.

During lunch-hour, in his puja room, naked and elated, with his tool rising like a beast from sleep, Raghupati simpered at Chamundi, grasped the nape of his neck and dragged his head down towards his crotch. The boy, quick like an eel, jerked his head away. Blood swamped Raghupatis reason. He thwacked the boys nose with the back of his hand. He was both inflamed by the jolted expression on Chamundis face and moved by the blood that began to dribble out of his nostrils. A half-thought muddled him for a second-this was karma, whatever had this jewel of the sewers done to deserve this? An arousing pity made him fumble with the b.u.t.tons of Chamundis half-pants, and then with the worn elastic of his peculiar, mustard-coloured wearunder. The boy remained will-less, spellbound like a prey before its predator while Raghupati sat down on the edge of the pedestal of an idol of Ganesh and tugged Chamundi to him by his p.e.n.i.s. A shaved p.u.b.es the colour of toffee and a black, fat tool. He tweaked back its foreskin and didnt notice the rich rings of crud beneath it before his tongue slithered out to tease the pink head.

Aaaaaarrgghhhhhhh. The pong of Chamundis p.e.n.i.s flung him back against Ganesh. Ggrrraaaaaaghhhhhhh. He wanted to vomit. His mouth, his nostrils, his tongue reeked of the acc.u.mulated s.m.e.g.m.a of weeks, months. He glanced up at the boy. Behind the blood on his face lurked a simper of nervous embarra.s.sment. While getting up, almost mechanically, Raghupati picked up the bra.s.s incense stand and lashed out at Chamundis nose. The boy staggered back, stumbled, cracked his skull against the wall and slumped to the floor, where he remained in a heap, still. Blood started to trickle out from his curly hair. Raghupati lurched out of the puja room.

In the bathroom, he gargled with Listerine for a minute or two. Bit by bit, as the smell of the mouthwash overpowered the stench of s.m.e.g.m.a and whatever-else-itd-been, his rage shrivelled up and his sanity returned to him. While contemplating himself in the mirror, instinctively pulling in his tummy and puffing out his t.i.ts, he continued to mutter to himself, 'Cleanliness before G.o.dliness . . . These leeches of the Welfare State . . . Discharge your dues to your creator . . . and other such disconnected phrases.

Exhausted, with the tang of Listerine now burning his tongue, he shambled across to his bedside table for paan masala. Abruptly, he remembered a vignette from the days when hed been a.s.sistant Collector at Koltanga. His neighbour in the Civil Lines Colony had been a doctor whose name he for the moment couldnt recall, a trainee at the local Primary Health Centre who had whiled many of their evenings away with tales of horror culled from his daily routine.

'The sarpanch swaggered into the Health Centre this morning without his goons. I was surprised to see him alone. He had two subjects to discuss with me, he said. One concerned the conduct of his cousin, a frightful drunkard who, the evening before last, had implored his wife, an Anganwadi worker and the familys single wage-earner, for some more cash for hooch andd been refused; in a frenzy, hed s.n.a.t.c.hed up their two-year-old daughter and hurled her down on the ground. The childs skulld split open like a pomegranate. The sarpanch wanted me to say in my post-mortem report that shed died of j.a.panese encephalitis. Hed already taken care of the witnesses. They wished to stay on in their village, he said.

' "Im sure that you can work out the details," he added graciously, "meanwhile, Ive this other problem-" and he lifted up his kurta, tucked it under his chin, and hoisted up both his dhoti and his drawers to exhibit to me a p.e.n.i.s the foreskin of which wouldnt retract.

'Raghupati Saab, the Welfare State must launch, on a war footing, the new IRHBTFP, Integrated Rural Hygiene Beneath the Foreskin Programme; as a.s.sistant Collector, you must propose this revolutionary scheme to both the Departments of Health and of Rural Development. The logo for the project could be the rubber nipple of an infants feeding bottle and the slogan, Are YOU Sterilized Enough to Be Sucked? Do you suppose that our Muslim brethren would protest against the programme on the grounds that itd rather shrewdly route huge funds towards non-Muslims alone? Dr Srinivas Chakki had then sighed. 'Development is a tricky business.

Just then, the Mutesh ca.s.sette ran out. Raghupati welcomed the silence because itd help him to think. He plodded back to the puja room. Chamundi hadnt stirred. The blood beneath his forehead, though, had clotted. The offending p.e.n.i.s, Raghupati noted, was now dried up, black and sad. Chamundi was innocent and sleek in coma, unless he was dead, in which case he was innocent, sleek and problematic. Should he feel his pulse, Raghupati asked himself, or his b.u.m? All at once, his bedside phone buzzed, loud and harsh; it never failed to make him jump.

He frowned, looking back through the doorway of the puja room at the phone. This was unbelievable. Hed instructed Murari and that lot a hundred times that he was never to be disturbed during his meditation. For them, never meant twice a week. The phone buzzed again. He strode across to it in a fury.

'Sorry to bother, sir, but Honourable Collector of Madna on the line, most urgent, sir. Murari pushed the extension b.u.t.ton down before Raghupati could start his abuse.

'h.e.l.lo . . . hahn . . . Mr Raghupati? . . . Good afternoon, sir, this is Agastya Sen, how are you? . . . Im sorry that I havent yet been able to call on you, sir and I was wondering if I could later this afternoon . . . How kind of you, thank you . . . nothing that cant wait-except that its driving me up the wall and preventing me from discharging my duties calmly and objectively . . . one cant, you know, from near the ceiling . . . I gather that you also handle Divisional Accounts, sir . . . its a matter of the Travelling Advance that I took from my earlier office, of two thousand rupees for the train journey to Madna . . . the Accounts Officer here at the Collectorate tells me that I have to pay back to the government the bank interest that I might have earned on the Advance for the period that I didnt use it to buy my train ticket with . . . Yes, sir, only you can waive it . . . waive sir, as in-or rather, not as in wand, sea and hair . . . would four-thirty be fine, sir? I have some kind of inspection at the Madna International Hotel at five . . . Thank you, sir . . . Good-bye.

The Magic of the.

Aflatoons.

The Madna International is a decent-enough hotel and the only fully air-conditioned one in town. Winter-when its air-conditioning is likelier to be functional because the Electricity Board traditionally restricts its nine-hour power cuts to peak summer-is usually a popular season of the year with visitors who have work in the satellite factories, quarries and paper mills that dot the district. Usually, but not this year-perhaps because of the plague. For whatever reason, Rajani Suroor and the players of Vyatha found rooms at the International quite easily, even at a concession. Its proprietor, d.i.n.kar Sathe, has always been accommodating, almost philanthropic, with all representatives of the government. Suroor was practically one-an agent, certainly, even if not an official representative-for more than one reason. The amount of money that Vyatha procured from various branches of the government, for instance, to diffuse through its street theatre diverse statements of official policy, and the ease with which it milked the State were both impressive. So was the facility, the rapidity with which doors in high places opened for Suroor. Government, of course, Sathe understood to mean power; whether legitimate or illicit didnt bother him. Its representatives therefore included any one who could wave the wand that-poof!-made obstacles disappear. Thus in his eyes, Suk.u.maran Govardhan, for example, the lord of the illegal traffic of the Madna jungles, could well be the Minister for Forests and Environment-though considerably more powerful.

Because of his faith in the wand of power, its wielders, whether permanently in office or temporarily in jail, were for d.i.n.kar Sathe akin to magicians. Illusionists, tricksters, larger-than-life distracters, the best of them were on the ball, knew exactly what was going on-who could be milked for how much and for what in return-and enacted their roles with more gusto and skill than Suroors roving players. Naturally, since they earned infinitely more for their pains.

All would agree that Madnas first magician is Bhanwar Virbhim, ex-Chief Minister of the region and soon-to-be Cabinet Minister at the Centre. d.i.n.kar Sathe has known him for about two decades, has observed him climb with mounting deference, has liberally contributed to both his personal and party coffers on more than one occasion and has received in return, over the years, diverse significant concessions and favours-the first bar licence in the town, the permission to add two floors to his hotel despite the existence of stringently prohibitive Munic.i.p.al laws, a plot of land, at a throwaway price, that had originally been reserved for a childrens park, the suppressing of an unusually accurate and dreadfully embarra.s.sing story in the local press about bonded labour on his teak farm, the protecting of his cartoonist brother from the fury of Virbhims son over a series of devastating lampoons, and so on. Even though Virbhim has performed for the past few years increasingly at the Centre, he and Sathe keep in touch, naturally, because Madna is the Ministers patrimony.

His only son too, Makhmal Bagai, is well known to Sathe and is a frequent visitor at the International. Neither father nor son has retained his original caste-revealing surname for the obvious reason that for the legerdemain of politics, one travels light. En route, they have picked up, like a thousand others before them, whichever names theyve liked the sounds of. It is standard practice in the Welfare State. Indeed, its best example would be the nations extended first family, the Aflatoons.

They arent one family at all, certainly not in the sense of being linked to one another by blood and genealogy. A couple of hundred years ago, a migrant family from the North-West-origins unknown-did settle down at Aflatoonabad and engage itself in one of the two professions traditional to that town-the confectioners, the other being, of course, the conjurors. Across the generations, some of its descendants did take to public life-the names Pashupati, Ghatotkach, Trimurti, Prabhakar, come readily to mind-but they would account for only a fraction of all the Aflatoons after whom have been named the thousands of buildings, monuments, inst.i.tutions, gardens, shopping arcades, residential areas, stadiums, community toilets and other public places of the land.

The reason is quite simple-and rather peculiar to the Welfare State. At various significant moments in the history of the nation, both before and after its cataclysmic independence from colonial rule, in different regions of the country, any able aspirant to political power, quite early in his career-and overnight-simply became an Aflatoon. Doc.u.mentation collectively being both the backbone and the memory of the Welfare State-it being altogether a different matter that individually considered, each one of those files, records, statements and accounts is as flimsy and fleeting, as fickle and provisional, as a used wrapper in a gale-doc.u.mentation being paramount, each political hopeful produced at the right time, like a rabbit out of a hat, the required proof of ident.i.ty-a hospital record, a school certificate, a Munic.i.p.al extract, a court entry. Lo and behold, yet another Aflatoon! Except that at the moment of the manifestation of the new magician, there usually stood by no audience to witness the miracle because one doesnt come by audiences that cheaply, not even in an overcrowded country. However, by the time that the parvenu Aflatoon, of whichever political hue, came to be noticed in Munic.i.p.al, district and regional circles, a decade or so would have pa.s.sed and the a.s.sumed name would have become as snug as a second skin-peelable, of course, in moments of grave crises.

Bhanwar Virbhim, for instance, had once been an Aflatoon and it was rumoured of Suk.u.maran Govardhan too (not to forget Makhmal Bagai, who a couple of times had toyed with the notion as with a gun, but had been sternly rebuked on each occasion by his father for even thinking of tarnishing a fair name by adopting it). Compelling caste factors-votes, in brief, 'national emergencies, to use Virbhims own compelling phrase-had guided him in his choice of various aliases. In general, he had picked wisely, having become Chief Minister of the regional government twice and between the two tenures, Deputy Minister for Information at the Centre.

However, ambitious and astute that he was, he did sometimes wonder whether in the long run, hed played well his cards-and indeed, whether for him the game was over-because in the seven decades since Independence, the nations sixteen Prime Ministers had all been Aflatoons.

These Aflatoons popping up, time after time, like boils all over the country-what did the original first family think of them? Not much, really. In the first place, it wasnt even certain of its own existence; however could it have the collective strength of purpose to reflect on and reject these obscure, small-town, provincial pretenders? It questioned itself but rarely; when it did, its examination was myopic. No two family members could agree on which line of descent const.i.tuted the main trunk of its tree-it couldnt possibly be Tirupatis, for instance, for his eldest had in the early twenties decamped with his Chinese ma.s.seuse and apparently died utterly content running his restaurant in Hong Kong. A trunk after all has to be rock-like, solidly respectable. We are a banyan tree, a.s.serted those of the clan that could be bothered; with the years we spread and thrust down new trunks. In the vast area that we provide shade to (and in which in general we prevent any vegetation of worth from growing), it is quite possible that now and then some b.a.s.t.a.r.d sapling, resilient, doughty, survives to attain a respectable height and indeed, with time, comes to resemble one of our offshoots. Doubtless because it has imbibed some of our qualities, some-if you permit-of our magic.

Thursday evening. In the fifty-by-forty lobby of the Madna International Hotel, the players of Vyatha, some ten in all, led by their deputy, lounge about, awaiting Rajani Suroors return from his round of the offices of some of the senior bureaucrats of the district. Headless, the players have spent the day roaming around the town, avoiding certain localities like the plague, searching for alternative sites for their shows. They now quaff tea before the TV, placed at a loose end by the day-and-night cricket match on it having been interrupted first by a duststorm and then, more permanently, by acts of arson in the stands.

Makhmal Bagai and Suroor arrive simultaneously at the hotel. Suroor is in the private taxi that hes hired for the duration of his stay in Madna, a sad, dusty, hot, noisy, off-white Amba.s.sador, Bagai in his lorry-like Tata Safari, steel- grey, black-gla.s.sed, air-conditioned, monstrous. It augurs ill for Suroor that his Amba.s.sador doesnt realize that it has to allow the Safari to precede it up the fifteen metres to the porch; Suroor moreover debouches and mounts the steps without so much as a backward glance. The third thing that puts Bagai off is that the single parking s.p.a.ce available under the porch has been taken up by the one kind of vehicle that he cannot dislodge, an official car, again an off-white Amba.s.sador but this one altogether from a different planet-gleaming, with wraparound sun gla.s.ses, an aerial, a siren and a large crimson light on its forehead.

The fourth thing that miffs Bagai is that d.i.n.kar Sathe doesnt receive him in the lobby. Indeed, no one does. In contrast, a large gang has abandoned the TV and is milling around that long-haired joker from that seedy car. 'See to things, Bagai commands one of his cohorts who, smirking in antic.i.p.ation, stalks off towards the reception counter. From where, a few minutes later, he returns, looking apprehensive.

'No ones available, Prince. The Collector of Madna dropped by on a surprise inspection and everyones scurrying around after him.

Bagai subsided into a sofa and glanced across at Suroor smiling intelligently at whatever his Deputy was telling him. On an impulse, he snapped his fingers at and beckoned to him. To his horror, Suroor, continuing to smile intelligently, snapped his fingers at and beckoned to him right back. Somewhat at a loss, Bagai then took out from his kurta pocket his fathers gun, a .22, and aimed it at Suroors face. 'Prince, no! hissed a cohort in panic. Suroor, dramatic to the last, acted out being shot and with a moan and a hand over his heart, toppled back into the sofa behind him, perhaps to avoid further conversation with the Deputy.

'Find out who he is and whether he knows who I am. Without enthusiasm, a cohort shuffled off in Suroors direction.

Bagai weighed the gun in his hand. It was terribly unmanly to take it out, wave it about and finally not to use it, particularly when everybody was gaping at it. Both depressed and nervous, he placed it between his thighs on the sofa and covered it with the end of his kurta. To the female attendant who timorously tripped up to him to repeat that the entire hotel merely awaited the Collectors departure to focus all its attention on Bagais wishes and to add that until then, whether there was anything in particular that he and his companions wanted, he calmly said, 'Ice cream.

'Of course sir. She was short, dark and pretty, in a sari of green and gold. 'Which flavours would you like?

She was not servile enough. She spoke her few English phrases too facilely. She didnt look as though she was physically being attracted to him. She was about to spark off his notorious frightening temper. 'Who are you, Madam, to ask me questions? Why do you lie when you claim to know who I am? Has not the hotel been instructed time and again to phone my house every weekend to find out whether Im free and likely to drop in with my friends for a drink, a snack or dinner? Yet n.o.body calls! He had raised his voice and begun to glare at her but he would have preferred in the circ.u.mstances to deal with a male attendant. With a man-waiter, steward or porter-bouncer-concierge-lobby manager-he could in a matter of seconds begin his reviling, his pushing in the chest and cuffing about the head, his glancing over his shoulder to see if he was impressing any females in the vicinity with his manliness, his refusal to let an imagined insult slip by, his concern for, and support of the social order.

'Tutti-frutti-vanilla, sir?

'And after the Collector leaves, whiskey, suggested Suroor, beaming with confidence in his own endearing ways. Hed returned with the cohort and stood beside Bagais sofa. He thrust out a hand. 'I had certainly been hoping to meet you during our stay in Madna.

Makhmal was confused. Almost in reflex, he lifted up his kurta and retrieved his gun. He didnt like in the least the way things were unfolding. In a typical soiree at the International, within the first fifteen minutes, after the hotel staff had scampered about enough to appease him, the beers wouldve arrived and been rejected for not being chilled-and the pakodas for not being spicy-enough; a succession of hotel staff (in increasing order of importance) wouldve tried, as in a vignette out of myth, to pacify his anger. In the midst of the mess, sullenly munching, quaffing and eyeing a female receptionist or two, stone-deaf to the entreaties of, say, a Chief Food and Beverages Manager, he, having learnt a trick or two from his father, wouldve played the caste card. It had never failed to thicken any plot. Hedve fixed his maroon eyes on the Manager of the moment and mumblingly accused some other hotel employee of having affronted his, Makhmals, caste; how would never be made clear and in the circ.u.mstances wasnt required to be. It wouldve been in very bad taste to enquire-and moreover, not of much use, since over the years, the wide canvas of politics had compelled Bhanwar Virbhim and his family to own up to, and feel responsible for, a thousand castes. I am the voice of the downtrodden, I am the soul of all the depressed, backward, repressed, suppressed and unrecognized castes. Any imagined insult to any of those millions is an arrow in my heart. No matter what that poor innocent hotel employee might have thought behind his t.i.ts or expressed in his eyes, it insulted me. I know it, because caste is in the marrow of my bones, just as it is in his and in yours. You might want to shush it away and get on with it into the next millennium, but you wont go very far without having to return for it. It is integral to our lives and our state; however can you dream of welfare without understanding caste?

'Careful with your rod, prince, warned a cohort. 'Its more potent than acid in their faces.

Makhmal giggled. He loved filthy talk. He preferred it to s.e.x. For him, in fact, filthy talk was s.e.x. Ever since that genius Rani Chandra had thought up and launched her Listen to Love series of CDs and ca.s.settes, and Bhupen Raghupati had gifted him a box set of them on his joining his fathers political party, he, Makhmal, had lost interest in ogling, abducting and molesting the women on the streets of Madna. Instead, with a Walkman in his lap and headphones in place, he, calm of mind, all pa.s.sion spent, had begun to beatifically wave, through the windows of the Tata Safari, at all the women that his motorcade had ploughed past. When the windows had been down, startled, puzzled, some of them had even waved back.

Makhmal was short, pale and soft. He had long, elaborately fluffed-up hair, hooded eyes and a thick moustache that half-hid pink lips and a gap-toothed mouth. At the age of thirteen, hed failed his Fifth Standard school exams for the third time in a row and in pa.s.sing, knifed his Social Studies teacher in the Teachers Only toilet. The Teachers Only had been the only toilet in the school with an intact mirror and young Makhmal had been in front of it, combing, inspecting and recombing his hair. For him, these moments of self-examination had always demanded extra concentration. Unfortunately-particularly for the teacher-Social Studies had peremptorily interrupted him-with a thwack on the back of his head-at the very moment when hed been trying to get a lock to swing down over his forehead and flip back across his ear.

His conduct in general was one of the reasons why his father found it crucial to have as Madnas Police Superintendent an officer that he could trust. Over the years-first, when Bhanwar Virbhim had been an intelligent, ambitious, determined, ageing, frightful hoodlum, and later, when hed risen, in stages, to become a Member of the Legislative a.s.sembly, then Member of Parliament, Regional Minister, Guardian Minister, Princ.i.p.al Minister, Chief Minister and finally Central Deputy Minister-over the years, the outrageousness of Makhmals offences against society and the law had kept pace with his fathers increasing clout. It was almost as though the insecure son needed to continually test the range of the influence of the father.

It is one of the functions of the munificence, the kindness, of the Welfare State to allow within it the worst rogues to become utterly respectable. It is the macro view, the Hindu view. All is Maya, Salvation lies in Forgiveness, Da, Dayadhvam, Damyata. Thus a murderer like Bhanwar Virbhim could rise to be Central Cabinet Minister. Thus another killer, a depraved near-rapist like Makhmal could notify his candidature for a seat in the Regional a.s.sembly from the const.i.tuency of Madna. Upon his announcement, the Dainik had asked him whether his criminal record would embarra.s.s him in his political career.

'Not at all. Why? Look at our Parliament. One hundred and seventy-four Honourable Members have criminal records. I think that you want the State to discriminate against criminals exactly the way in which it discriminates against the lower castes. What is your caste by the way, may I know? We are innocent until proved guilty. Our Freedom Fighters went to jail, so you can say that they too have criminal records. Learn to give the downtrodden a chance to rise, to make good. Only then can the nation become great. May I have your card, please . . .?

Near-rapist because Makhmal e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed too early. To prevent him from becoming depressed and therefore even more violent, wise Baba Mastram had pointed out to him that he was fortunate in that he could release his energy on all the women that he saw without being caught out by any subsequent silly medical examination of the victim. The idea elated him and kept him going for years on end. Not a thinking man. His modus operundee (a terrible, tasteless bilingual pun there, Bhupen Raghupatis, of course-rundee being Hindustani for wh.o.r.e) was to cruise the poorer quarters of Madna for flesh, s.n.a.t.c.h 'n grab off the streets, maul the mammaries of in the air-conditioned Tata Safari for half a minute or so (till he Miltoned, as it were), thrust between them a fifty- or a hundred-rupee note and shove out the possessor of a few kilometres down the road, shocked, in tears, but richer. Modus Operundee had stopped with Rani Chandra. Raghupati had suggested to Bhanwar Saab that the Ministry of Culture recommend Rani Chandra for the Revered Silver Lotus, the ninth-highest honour of the land, for her Commitment to the Improvement of the Quality of Life. Bhanwar Virbhim hadnt responded. He never did. Silence was wisdom and energy conservation and took you places.

Uncertain about whom to shoot-Rajani Suroor or the female attendant in green and gold, and tense because uncertain, diffident about whether to fire at all, unsure whether everybody in the lobby was openly or secretly laughing at him, whether hed impressed even one soul, and growing more peeved by the second, Makhmal Bagai lifted and aimed his .22 right between the faces of his two potential targets at a wall clock on a pillar some twenty feet away. He liked that Suroor had stopped smiling but nevertheless felt that that wasnt enough.

'Chocolate walnut chip, sir?

'Stop flashing your rod, Prince. I think the Collectors on his way down.

So was Makhmals gun arm when in witless relief, Suroors smirk reappeared. So Makhmal pulled the trigger. 'You rat, he grunted beneath the bang; an epitaph of sorts for a strolling player in a small town unofficially beset by the plague.

Rodents and firearms feature as well in Miss Lina Natesans memorandum, for they are equally prominent elements of the official life in Aflatoon Bhavan. We kick off at Housing Problem of her novella.

Last Wednesday, when I entered my office chamber at 8.59 a.m., I smelt a rat.

In our chamber at that time, there were two. I do not believe that Shri Dastidar and I have any quarrel with each other. On the very first day of our professional relationship, I dispatched to him a note stating my terms of reference: All communications with the undersigned, I represented to him, must of necessity be formal, official and recorded; there was neither scope nor need for informal exchanges in our chamber. I must add here that he understood my position immediately and admirably. We exchange memos infrequently but they are invariably terse and to the point. For example: To Junior Administrator (Under Training) From Under Secretary (Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon Centenary Celebrations, Our Endangered Tribal Heritage and Demotic and Indigenous Drama) Good Afternoon. While you were out for five minutes or so before lunch, I received on my extension number an obscene phone call for you. The caller was keen to have your extension number, so I gave him Nileshs. He snorted on hearing it-perhaps it was Nilesh himself. Otherwise, all is well, by the grace of Allah.

However, I should point out here that our exchanges are easier for him because he has personal staff. He just has to buzz for his peon and order him to summon his stenographer, to whom he dictates his memo. He was gracious enough in one of his very early notes to offer me the services of his personal staff, but naturally I had to refuse. The offices of the Welfare State do not run on charity. I have consistently maintained that there are limits to welfare.

In fairness to Shri Dastidar, he did formally seek my permission (in a beautifully-phrased note) before he started his tai-chi exercises in our room. I suspect that it was his tai-chi that spurred him to evict with such zeal the furniture of all our ex-colleagues from our chamber. Since Stores did not help us in the least, Shri Dastidar and his peon, a crafty, middle-aged shirker called Dharam Chand, dumped those cupboards and racks in the adjacent Gents Toilet.

The notes that we exchanged last Wednesday were, in brief, as follows: I smell a rat. Any ideas?

I smell a rat all the time. It is the odour of corruption.

Which particular file do you have in mind?

I should add here-parenthetically, as it were-that because Shri Dastidar firmly believes that every file and paper in the Welfare State stinks, he has levered out of Stores six rubber stamps to push all his official papers, memos, notes, minutes, reports, statements, doc.u.ments and files around with. They are: 1) Please examine.

2) Please re-examine.

3) Please put up.

4) Please link up with previous papers.

5) Please process 6) Please forward with compliments to- However, to continue with the events of last Wednesday. I set about whisking and rearranging the dust on my table. Pretty soon, I unearthed a dead rat the size of a small cat in the second drawer.

'A plague upon thee, Madam Junior Administrator! ran Shri Dastidars note.

For this crime and for several others, I suspect Shri Dastidars peon, Shri Dharam Chand. The fellow has no manners and does not like women. I have requested Shri Dastidar a million times (in writing, of course) to instruct him to knock on the door before he enters but to no avail. Each time, he buffets the door open; it slams against the side wall and brings down some plaster while he dramatically pauses in the doorway to leer at me before sliding in like a fat snake. I surmise that Shri Dharam Chand disapproves of me because he stood to gain in the only file that I have received in my tenure here, the proposal of which I rejected because of its patent absurdity.

The Department had mooted that seven of its peons be paid an Overtime Allowance of twenty-four rupees a day for the months of August, September and October. For what? I had asked and sent the file back.

The file returned the same afternoon (Overtime files move like lightning) with some bilge-like explanation. Shri Dharam Chand, who was the file carrier, clarified to me that after office closed at 5.30 p.m., he always drifted over to the Ministers office to help with the work there.

I cross-examined him for close to an hour and learnt that he-along with the like-minded hopefuls that wouldve benefitted from the Overtime proposal had it slipped past Ms Argus the Undersigned-had been trying for the last six months for a transfer to the Ministers office. And how had they been trying? When the Minister, along with his Private Secretary, Officer on Special Duty, Personal a.s.sistant, four Black Guard Commando Bodyguards, one daftary, one naik and three peons would debouch from his chambers to waddle the hundred feet to the lift, Shri Dharam Chand & Co., bowing and sc.r.a.ping to the Ministers heraldic peons in the first row of the cortege, would shoo stragglers out of its path even as the heralds were shooing them out of theirs. Then, with heads bowed and b.u.t.tocks projected at the right sycophantic angles, they-the Overtimers-would wait, grimacing with tension at the mere glimpse of power, beside the lifts until their doors shut. Then they would all careen down the stairs from the fourth to the ground floor to gape at the Minister and some of the riff-raff jam themselves into three white Amba.s.sador cars. Car doors slamming shut one after the other like gunfire, sirens wailing, red lights flashing on car roofs, horns honking at the heavens to command them not to dare let their attention stray, hooray, theyre off and away! Then, by degrees, a profound, welcome peace would descend on Aflatoon Bhavan. Shri Dharam Chand would blink, wake up and tot up his Overtime for that day.

I had asked Shri Dharam Chand on that occasion whether he had any idea how much the Ministers trips from his chambers to his cars alone cost the Welfare State every day and whether he, Shri Dharam Chand, felt no qualms at all about adding to that daily expenditure of over four hundred thousand rupees.

While on the subject, I should like to draw the attention of your good self to my representation at Annexure O wherein, inter alia, I have objected to the grave lapses in conduct of the Black Guard Commando bodyguards of our Minister. On more than one occasion, when I have either been striding to or coming away from the Ladies Toilet on the fourth floor, which is two doors away from the Ministers rooms, I have had them brusquely waving their automatic weapons at me. I presume that that is not their customary way of saying Good Morning. On each occasion, I have ticked them off for conduct unbecoming with, and before, a Junior Administrator of the Welfare State, but they dont seem to understand any language. Instead, they vigorously prodded me aside with their guns. Undeterred, with my back against the wall, I continued to complain as the ministerial retinue approached me and then-wonder of wonders!-pa.s.sed me by! However, I persisted in loudly pointing out to that group of processionally receding b.u.t.tocks that if it permits a lady officer to be manhandled in the corridors of power in broad daylight, if it doesnt attend to the legitimate complaint of a Junior Administrator of the Welfare State, then-well-she is left with no recourse but to formally pet.i.tion the higher authorities. My representation to the Prime Minister on the subject of the conduct of our Black Guard Commando bodyguards is at Annexure P.

Shri Dastidar frequently breakfasts in our room (He always invites me to join him but I usually decline). It is for this reason that large empty cartons of Kelloggs Breakfast Cereal (Wheatflakes. Whole Grain, Whole Nutrition) are freely available around his desk. Into one of these was stuffed the dead rat from the drawer. Shri Dharam Chand packed it quite professionally and we dispatched it to where it belonged, the office of the Munic.i.p.al Commissioner, Madna. We feel that, for the time being, it can subst.i.tute for me.

We have sound precedents for our decision. The kind attention of your good self is drawn to a news item on the plague that appeared in The State of the Times on December 3, a photocopy of which is placed at Annexure Q. The rats of Madna have not yet been tested because many of them, the newspaper reports, drowned in the recent floods. Many others have been, well, resettled along with the 1400 tonnes of garbage that is being lifted every day from the various quarters of the town. More to the point, since the hospitals, dispensaries and clinics in the district do not boast of all the medical facilities required to test for the plague and other similar epidemics, several other dead rats have been sent by post to Navi Chipra and New Killi for a.n.a.lysis. This interesting fact came to light at more than one post office in the country when, while sorting out mail, postmen began to complain of a breathtaking pong emanating from some of the packets. Several of the aggrieved postmen have gone on a lightning strike and till date, have refused to return to work until, to quote from their distributed memorandum, 'the State makes adequate provision for their welfare and safety from the plague.

On the subject of their strike, the National Inst.i.tute of Communicable Diseases has been approached by more than one newspaper to confirm whether the decision to remit by post dead rats all over the country has its approval. The Inst.i.tute, however, has been silent on this and other issues for more than one week, perhaps because all its telephone lines are dead.

I would like to submit at this juncture that the dead telephone is emblematic of the quality and extent of communication between different Departments of the Welfare State. In this regard, the attention of your good self is drawn to the news item on Housing Problem of yesterdays edition of The State of the Times ent.i.tled: Plague Patient on the Loose. I quote: A 'definite patient of pneumonic plague, according to the doctors of KLPD Hospital, is loose in the capital. He would have been in quarantine had the telephones of the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Swannsway Camp not been out of order.

A spokesman of KLPD stated last evening that a middle- aged man reported at the hospital on Sat.u.r.day with all the 'cla.s.sic symptoms of the disease. He was diagnosed as having the plague by the doctors on duty but unfortunately, ran away while arrangements were being made to transfer him to Swannsway Camp.

Very little is known about the patient. His name is Chana Jor Garam Rai; he is a labourer from Bihar; he is now footloose in the city. He arrived from Madna on the Shatabdi Express on Sat.u.r.day with a couple of friends. The train pulled in at about 7.30 p.m., that is, five hours late, so whats new. Shri Chana Jor Garam had been feverish for the past two days and was delirious for the entire train journey. A male Belgian tourist in the same compartment was galvanized into near-hysteria at the sight of the patients delirium. Suspecting the worst, he immediately dusted himself and Shri Chana Jor with Gamaxene powder. He meant well.

Shri Chana Jor collapsed on the platform. His group had intended to carry on to their village in the Champaran district of Bihar and was infuriated because its plans had to be changed. The patient was taken to KLPD in a three- wheeler. The doctors there point out that all the hospitals in the capital have received instructions from the Ministry of Public Health not to take in any plague patient but instead to immediately dispatch them to the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Swannsway Camp. Therefore, they tried to contact the IDH to direct it to send its special vehicle meant for transporting plague patients. When they couldnt get through, the Medical Superintendent of KLPD, Dr L. Majnoo, decided to transfer Shri Chana Jor Garam to Swannsway Camp in one of their own hospital ambulances. However, while the vehicle was being lined up (repair the puncture, wheres the d.a.m.n driver?, try the self, push start the Neanderthal, go fill up some diesel), the patient and his friends slunk off in the three-wheeler that had all the while been waiting outside.

After his escape, KLPD Hospital officially decided to minimize its significance. Even though plainclothes men are on a twenty-four-hour lookout for Shri Chana Jor Garam at all the railway stations, no official red alert has yet been declared. 'But that is just a matter of time a.s.serted one of the younger doctors of KLPD on the condition of anonymity, 'it cannot be otherwise; the patient had all the "cla.s.sic symptoms" of the plague and had just arrived from Madna. What more proof does one need? I will burn my degrees in public if he doesnt have the disease.

That will indeed be a small price to pay for the relief. That apart, it is needless to add here that the mood of the Emergencies Department at KLPD is feverish. With reason, since Shri Chana Jor Garam was there for some time and might well have infected anything that he touched or exhaled upon. A sobering thought. Because of an acute, yet routine, shortage of the drug, the hospital staff has been dosed with tetracycline but not the patients.

In short, even though it is clear that the matter is being hushed up to avoid 'unnecessary panic, get ready.