The Great Indian Novel

by Shashi Tharoor

  The Tenth Book:

  Darkness at Dawn

  56

  But there was no time to grieve. We all had more vital business at hand. Neither the nation nor the party had been standing still during Pandu’s years of exile. Now it was the moment to reap the bitter harvest that had been sown since our digression began. In other words, Ganapathi, this is flashback time.

  We had left the others frozen in their places when we embarked upon Pandu’s story - frozen in the aftermath of his resignation from the Kaurava presidency. Let us examine this curious tableau again. There is the Mahaguru, studiously bent over his spinning wheel, assiduous journalists at his feet; Dhritarashtra, white stick held slightly aloft, fist clenching its knob with index finger pointing towards Delhi or destiny or both; Karna, the half-moon throbbing on his forehead, declaiming in a three-piece suit to a group of Muslim notables in stuffed armchairs; the five Pandava youths, agilely imbibing their lessons from their bearded preceptor; and Duryodhani, sitting on the ground at the foot of the darkened bedside of her mother Gandhari the Grim, determinedly arranging her khadi-clad dolls in the shadows as the woman in the blindfold sinks inexorably into another world.

  ‘What are you doing, Priva Duryodhani?’

  ‘I am playing with my dolls, Mother.’

  ‘What - what are you playing with them, my child?’

  ‘I am playing family, Mother. This doll is all tied up. It is going to jail. This doll is not feeling well. It is lying down. This other doll is left to fight the nasty British all by herself. She is strong and brave and she knows she is all alone, she will always be alone, but she will win in the end . . .’

  No, Ganapathi, let us leave them there and unfreeze another section of the tableau. The five Pandavas and Drona.

  But wait! There are six boys surrounding the saffron-clad sage. Yes, the five sons of Pandu have been joined by Ashwathaman, Drona’s son. They are together as knowledge is poured into them like milk and honey: the science of history and the mysteries of science; physics and the traditional martial arts; geography and geometry; ethics and arithmetic; the vedas; classical music and folk dance; rhetoric and oratory. And then, Drona’s own ‘special skills’.

  These are special indeed, these skills. Drona has given the lads a glimpse of his abilities by his deft removal of their ball from the well. But there is so much more: unerring accuracy with ropes, strings, catapults, bows; the ability to find targets with stones arrows, and (in due course) bullets; the preparation of cocktails to which Molotov would not have been ashamed to lend his name; the uncanny knack of blocking roads, starting avalanches, demolishing bridges, just by knowing where to place a small amount of explosive. Not all of this is in the course-description that Gangaji has approved for his ward’s children; but, ‘There are many kinds of nationalism,’ says Jayaprakash Drona, ‘and I believe you must be well-versed in all of them.’

  Some, perhaps, better versed than others? As the special skills sessions increase in range and complexity, the time and individual attention Drona is able to devote to each student becomes ‘crucial to their speed and skill. Ashwathaman, who sleeps in his father’s room, gets extra lessons: ciphers and codes, powerful yogic asanas, breathing exercises. Arjun, catching on, knocks one night on his teacher’s door. ‘Dronaji, may I too sleep at your feet, that I may learn better from you at all times?’ The sage, pleased at his student’s devotion, accedes to the request. Arjun soon becomes as proficient as Ashwath- aman.

  And what proficiency! Ganapathi, you will not believe it when I tell you of the range and subtlety of Drona’s training, from dialectics to diuretics. Of his methods, by which what was taught was only as important as how it was taught. Of his convictions, whose singular angularities would be retained in different ways by each of his charges.

  Take, for instance, the time he summoned his wards and pointed out a picture on the wall, one he had torn from a magazine, an ordinary picture of a rather porcine English politician.

  ‘Imagine you are all members of an élite group of hardened revolutionaries,’ he told them. ‘Your target is that man.’ He jabbed his finger towards the florid face looking smugly down upon them from the wall. ‘You each have your favourite weapon at hand - gun, grenade, rock, bow and arrow, it doesn’t matter. Your mission is to get him. Is that clear?’

  They chorused their comprehension.

  Step forward, Yudhishtir,’ Drona declared. ‘Take up your weapon. Look at your target. What do you see?’

  ‘I see my target,’ Yudhishtir replied.

  ‘Is that all you see?’

  ‘I see an imperialist political figure,’ Yudhishtir replied, trying to guess what was required of him. ‘Born thirtieth of November 1874. Prominent family. President of the Board of Trade at thirty-four, Home Secretary at thirty-six, First Lord of the Admiralty, Colonial Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer . . .’

  ‘Go back to your place, Yudhishtir,’ Drona interjected, expressionless. ‘Nakul, you. What do you see?’

  ‘An overweight, over-the-hill and overrated politician, a teller of bad after- dinner jokes, a gasbag . . .’

  ‘Bhim?’

  ‘A fat man who seems to enjoy a good cigar. But I’ll kill him if you tell me

  to.’

  ‘Sahadev?’

  ‘A representative of the worst of British colonialism, a die-hard enemy of our people, an oppressor who conceals his racialist tyranny beneath a cloud of rhetoric about upholding freedom - the freedom of those with his colour of skin.’

  ‘Ashwathaman? Do you see all this too?’

  ‘Certainly, my father. And more.’

  ‘And Arjun? What about you, Arjun?’

  Arjun stepped forward, his eyes narrowing upon the picture. ‘I see my target,’ he said.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Nothing else. My mission is to hit this target. I see nothing else.’

  ‘His background? His biography? His position?’

  ‘I need know none of that. I see my target. I see his head. Nothing else matters.’

  Drona sighed audibly. ‘Take aim, then, Arjun. Shoot.’

  Arjun aimed his imaginary weapon, his clear eyes never wavering from his target, and a gust of wind burst into the room, ripping the picture off the wall, sending it flying in a scudding spiral into Drona’s hands.

  ‘I shall make you,’ Drona breathed, ‘the finest Indian of them all.’

  But there is one sour note. After one set of school examinations Arjun comes back with thunderclouds on his brow. He has come first; but for all his private tuition he is only joint first. And the child who has tied with him is from a lowly government school.

  ‘His name is Ekalavya,’ Arjun announces.

  ‘Ekalavya? But that is the son of one of the maidservants in the palace!’ Bhim, who knows all the maidservants, exclaims.

  The twins rush off to investigate, and return with a dark, dust-smeared little boy in a frayed shirt. He bends to touch Drona’s feet.

  ‘Stood first, eh? And who taught you what you know?’

  ‘Why, you - sir.’

  ‘Me? You are not one of my students, boy.’

  ‘Sir . . . I stood, sir, outside the door, while you were teaching the others. And I listened, sir.’

  ‘An eavesdropper, eh, boy? And a free-loader. You know what a freeloader is, boy?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s . . . it’s American, sir. Someone who doesn’t pay for what he gets. I’m . . . very sorry, sir.’

  ‘That’s right, boy. And that’s what you are. A free-loader. You have been learning from my lessons, and you haven’t paid my fee.’

  ‘Your . . . your fee, sir? I’ll gladly pay what I can.’

  ‘What you can, boy? And how much is that, I pray?’

  ‘Sir, not very much, sir. My mother is a maidservant here.’

  ‘A maidservant’s son presumes to call himself my pupil? Very well, I shall name my fee. Do you promise to pay it?’

  ‘If I can, sir, of course,’ say
s the boy, still looking down at Drona’s rough calloused feet and horny nails.

  ‘No conditions, boy. It is a fee you can pay. Will you promise to pay it?’

  The boy’s voice is soft and trembly under the intimidating line of questioning. ‘Of course, sir,’ he whispers. Yudhishtir looks troubled, but says nothing.

  ‘Good. My fee, Ekalavya, is the thumb of your right hand.’

  There is a collective gasp from the twins and Bhim. Yudhishtir starts forward, then stops, restrained by the hand of a frowning Ashwathaman. Only Arjun looks supremely untroubled, even at peace.

  ‘The . . . the . . . th . . . thumb of my hand, sir?’ asks the bewildered boy. ‘I . . . I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t understand?’ Drona bellows. ‘You come first in class, boy, and you don’t understand? You promised me my fee, if you can pay it. And I want the thumb of your right hand.’

  ‘B . . . but without my th . . . thumb, sir, I won’t be able to write again!’ The boy looks despairingly around the room, and finally at Drona, who stands impassively, his arms folded across his chest. ‘Oh, pl . . . please, sir not that! Ask me for anything else!’ The tears smart at his eyes, but he fights them back. ‘Pl . . . please sir, what have I done to deserve this punishment?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what you have done. You have intruded where you do not belong. And this is no punishment - it is my fee.’

  The boy throws himself at Drona’s feet. ‘Please, revered teacher, please forgive me,’ he blurts out. ‘If I do not do well and make a success of my studies, who will look after my poor mother when she becomes too old to work? Please do not demand this of me.’

  Drona looks down at the boy sprawled before him. ‘That is no concern of mine,’ he says brutally. ‘Will you pay my fee?’

  The boy looks disbelievingly up at him, then slowly raises himself from the floor. He stands, and for the first time he is looking the sage in the eye.

  ‘I cannot pay it,’ he says.

  ‘Cannot pay it? You call yourself my pupil, and dare to refuse me my fee?’

  The boy does not shift his gaze. ‘Yes,’ he affirms.

  Drona advances upon him, bringing his face so close to the boy’s that the hairs of his beard graze Ekalavya’s nose. ‘If you do not pay your guru the fee he seeks, you are unworthy of what he has taught you,’ he snarls, his spittle flecking the boy’s forehead.

  Ekalavya stands his ground, but swallows, his dark face burning darker in his dismay. ‘I . . I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot destroy my life and my mother’s to pay your fee,’ he says faintly but firmly.

  ‘Get out!’ Drona barks. ‘Get out, worthless brat! And if I catch you anywhere near my classes again, I shall exact my fee myself!’

  The boy steps back, looks wildly around him, and trips hastily out of the room. Drona’s uproarious laughter follows him mockingly down the stairs.

  Later, when the class resumes, Yudhishtir raises his hand. ‘If the boy had readily agreed to the fee you asked of him, guruji, would you have taken it?’

  Drona laughs shortly, waving the question away. ‘Study,’ he says, ‘study your epics, young man.’

  Next time, Arjun stands first in the examinations - alone.

  I see you are troubled, Ganapathi. I have been inflicting too many moral dilemmas on you of late, haven’t I? But there is no point turning your nose into a question-mark, Ganapathi; I am not going to resolve all your problems for you. Was Drona playing an elaborate game that none of the others was sophisticated enough to understand, or was he just doing to poor Ekalavya what Heaslop had done to him? Had the poor boy been less of a literalist and gladly stuck out his thumb as a gesture of devotion and subservience, would Drona have hacked it off with a knife or laughingly invited the lad to join his class? I do not know, Ganapathi, and the ashes of the only man who does have long since flowed down the Ganges into the sea.

  57

  But enough of such speculation; we have left too many of our dramatis personae inconveniently frozen in various parts of our tableau. There is Karna, for instance, declaiming to his party elders; let us approach him and hear what he is saying.

  ‘Gentlemen, the facts are plain. We entered these elections - the first under the new Government of India Act - as the self-proclaimed spokesmen of India’s Muslims. We contested in reserved constituencies, putting up Muslim candidates for seats only Muslims could vote for. And yet, at the end of the day, when the votes were counted, we discovered that Kaurava Muslims - followers of the underclad Mahaguru - have won more Muslim seats than we have. It is galling, but it is reality, and we must accept it.

  ‘The question obviously arises, what next? There are those amongst us who feel that all we can do is to sulk in our tents. I am not able to prescribe such a bitter pill myself. We contested the elections in search of power, and power is what we must continue to seek if we are to justify our existence as a party. There are many routes to power; in my view we must first attempt the most obvious one. We must ask to join the Kauravas in a coalition government - at least in the one province where we have done well enough to stake a claim to doing so.’

  The Muslim grandees around him nod, some vigorously, some with evident scepticism. Let the lights dim on their bobbing hennaed heads, Ganapathi, and let us turn the spot, and our attention, to our Kaurava friends who, too, have emerged from our tableau and are conversing animatedly.

  ‘But why should we?’ The voice is Dhritarashtra’s. ‘We have an absolute majority in the Northern Province ourselves - we don’t need a coalition with anybody, let alone Karna’s puffed-up little group of bigoted nobodies.’

  ‘Tactically,’ says a quiet voice, ‘and forgive me for speaking, gentlemen, since I do not, indeed, cannot belong to your party’ - it is, of course, Vidur the civil servant - ‘it would be a wise step. The British would be taken aback by a coalition of the two strongest opposing political forces in the country.’ And then he spoils his argument with bureaucratic propriety by adding: ‘But you, of course, have a political choice to make.’

  ‘Precisely,’ says the mellifluous Mohammed Rafi, a Northern Province Kaurava - and a Muslim whose aristocratic pedigree is as impeccable as his exquisitely tailored sherwani. ‘We have a political choice to make, and with all respect to Vidur-bhai, he cannot be expected to see things the same way. If we enter into a coalition with the Muslim Group, what are Kaurava Muslims like myself going to say to our supporters when they ask us to explain our supping with the Shaitaan we have just been denouncing? We have declared that the Kaurava Party is the only true national party, that we represent all groups and interests, including naturally those of Muslims. Having been elected on the strength of those beliefs, how can you ask us to cede ministerial portfolios that Kaurava Muslims might have expected, to the very people who allege we do not represent Muslims? If the Kaurava Party dispenses with our claims so lightly for mere tactical considerations, it will only confirm the Muslim Group argument that we are stooges of the Hindus, with no real power of our own in the party. No, I agree with Dhritarashtra. Let us put principles before tactics, my friends.’

  This is probably news to Dhritarashtra, whose argument has not been noticeably long on principle, but he assents vigorously. The discussion continues, and it is clear that Mohammed Rafi has made a telling point. ‘We must not,’ an elder statesman concedes, ‘win the partnership of Karna’s Group and lose the faith of our own Muslim comrades.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ murmur some; ‘Well said, V. V.,’ echo others. At last Gangaji ends the debate. ‘There will be no coalition,’ he announces in a voice wearied by conciliation.

  The spotlight shifts, for the curtain-ringer.

  ‘The bastards!’ Karna’s voice itself seems to wear gloves, but there is no mistaking the knuckledusters underneath. ‘Well, gentlemen, that is that, then. I said to you there are other routes to the acquisition of power: we shall now proceed to carve out a few of them. As far as the Kauravas are concerned, gentlemen, it is war.’
/>   58

  War - Pandu’s war - the successor to the ‘war to end all wars’ - erupted in Europe, and as German bombs exploded over Poland, the blast buffeted us in India.

  ‘Well, what’s the form, then, Sir Richard?’ asked the Viceroy at his daily meeting with his cherubic Principal Private Secretary. ‘Don the glad rags and deliver a proclamation from the steps of the viceregal palace, or does the rule- book prescribe something different?’

  ‘We don’t have many precedents for a declaration of war, Your Excellency,’ his aide admitted. ‘I could have one of our chaps look it up, but I imagine you can pretty much make up the drill as you go along.’

  ‘What did we do the last time?’ the Viceroy asked, idly toying with a thirteenth-century miniature Siva lingam that served as a paperweight.

  ‘The last time? Do you mean the fifth Afghan war, or the seventeenth campaign against the Waziris? I think we went in rather less for protocol than for powder in those engagements. In the British Indian tradition, when you wanted to declare war you tended to do it with a cannon. Unless, of course, you weren’t planning a war at all but a sort of extended picnic, like Sir Francis Younghusband, who went out one morning with five horses and a Christmas hamper and came back having annexed Tibet. It was rather embarrassing at the time, because nobody really wanted Tibet, but Sir Francis shrugged and explained that when he rode into Lhasa the local warlords got up and surrendered and he had no choice but to accept their tribute. He’d really intended just to see the tourist spots and to get a few good pictures of the Potala Palace, but one of his rifles went off accidentally and when he then saw all the notables on their knees cowering he couldn’t really disappoint them by not conquering them. I think his punishment for taking Tibet was to have to work out what to do with the place. But to return to your question, I’m afraid there was no formal declaration of war there either, Your Excellency.’