His account fitted almost exactly with Kamath’s: the arrival in the city without money or contacts, the passage to Matunga, the early years as a pheriwallah, the growing prosperity. There were some facts he added to the ones I already knew: he had served a term as a municipal corporator and, besides his charity work in the Tamil community in Mumbai, he was thinking of setting up a school in Coimbatore for underprivileged children. ‘By God’s grace I have made money—’
‘They say you’re a crorepati, a wealthy man,’ I interjected, but he continued smoothly on, pausing only to smile modestly.
‘I have tasted political power as a corporator, and now my only desire is to serve the people. I started with nothing—’
I didn’t know how long I had and I was getting a politician’s patter, so it was time to speed things up a little. I interrupted him.
‘Sir, is it true that you were involved in the killing of Muslims in the Bombay riots?’
Something moved, far back, in the cool impersonal gaze that Rajan had fixed on me. I had got through to him, I thought exultantly, but any advantage I might have secured was taken away immediately as Mansukhani blundered in.
‘Lies, bloody lies,’ he blustered, ‘Mind, Mr Mumbai journalist, what you say about Rajan sir. How dare you—’
Any discomfiture Rajan might have felt was gone, and he moved in calmly to defuse the tension. He put a restraining hand on Mansukhani’s shoulder, murmured, ‘Friends… friends,’ and then resumed the conversation in an unflustered tone.
‘I am a small man who is trying in his own way to do something. People will always make up stories, try to put me down, people who are envious, people who for their own reasons might think I have done them some harm, people who have nothing to do but create mischief…’
The lights came on, startling us all.
‘Sir, I have been told that on the ninth of January you were part of a Hindu mob which set fire to a Muslim man in Dharavi, while shouting slogans that this would be the fate of all Muslims in Bombay to avenge the murder of a Hindu family in Radhabai Chawl.’
I had made up the story on the spur of the moment, substituting Rajan for the thug who had been accused of the crime and whom I had interviewed for my magazine during our coverage of the riots, but to my amazement Rajan didn’t deny the allegation immediately. Wasn’t his hesitation proof of his involvement, I thought, if not in Dharavi, then somewhere else? He let the silence build for a few moments, and then said calmly, ‘Do you know, Mr Vijay (it was the first time he had addressed me formally this morning), that I personally distributed food to scores of Muslims who were affected by the riots and the bomb blasts. Muslims work in my factory, they work in my shops; I have my hair cut by a Muslim barber. How can you accuse me of harming them?’
I could have told him about the many suspected killers I had interviewed, others who had been asked to appear before a commission of inquiry, who all said much the same thing, who talked in public about their Muslim friends, lovers, colleagues, but who in private admitted that that hadn’t prevented them from murdering other Muslims.
‘There are many people who are accused of murdering Muslims who say the same thing,’ I said.
‘So you are accusing me…’
‘No, sir, all I am saying is that you are known to be close to the Shiv Sena, who were accused of systematically targeting and killing Muslims during the riots, and that your name has also come up in that connection.’
‘It is true that I am close to the Sena, but that does not mean I killed Muslims.’
‘But do you think it was right to target the Muslims in Mumbai and elsewhere in the country? They have done no wrong…’
Mansukhani, who had been restraining himself, could hold back no longer.
‘All Muslims should be sent back to Pakistan where they belong…’
‘So should you. Isn’t your ancestral homeland, Sindh, in Pakistan?’
He gave a strangled yelp. I thought I’d gone too far, I was sure to be thrown out now, but Rajan was quick to intervene. He spoke to Mansukhani, and the big man got up and left, but not before throwing me a murderous look.
‘My question, sir, is why do people like you, and the parties you belong to, target Muslims, Christians, other minorities? That is not the spirit of Hinduism?’
‘Does the spirit of Christianity allow you to kill people from another faith? Or the spirit of Islam? We Hindus have suffered at the hands of brutal rulers from these religions—do you not find that reprehensible?’
‘Of course I do, sir, any sane person would, but all that was a long time ago. The people belonging to those faiths are not responsible for what their ancestors did; that is an unreasonable argument.’
He said calmly, ‘I don’t dispute that…’ and then before I could put my next question to him, he asked me an unexpected one. ‘Are you a patriot, Vijay bhai?’
It was a question that I would have mocked in years past, it seemed such an antiquated and simple-minded way of describing oneself, but since the attack and the subsequent year at The Indian Secularist, my idea of myself had changed. And as my concern for my country and countrymen had grown, questions such as the one Rajan posed no longer seemed irrelevant. Rajan mistook my silence.
‘I see you are hesitating,’ he said, ‘and that is part of the problem with today’s youth. If we don’t feel passionately about our country, then how will it ever achieve the greatness that is written into its destiny? That is the difference between you and me, Vijay bhai.’
‘I may not call myself a patriot, sir, but I feel very deeply about my country. In fact that’s why I feel proud to be working for…’ I hadn’t been sure that my ploy of passing myself off as a Times of India journalist would work with someone as astute as Rajan, but it seemed to have done the trick, and it would be silly if I gave myself away now. Indeed, it was quite possible that our interview would be abruptly terminated if Rajan came to know that I worked for Mr Sorabjee’s magazine. Or perhaps not, you never knew with people like him, but it seemed sensible not to take the risk.
He didn’t seem to notice my slip, and continued with a smile, ‘Ah, you young people. You think patriotism is an old-fashioned word, but I don’t mind so long as you are committed to this country. Speaking for myself, I am proud to call myself a patriot. When I was around your age we were at war with Pakistan, and I wasted no time in applying to join the army. At that moment all thought of my future vanished from my head. All I wanted to do was fight for my country and if death was to be my reward, so be it. I was turned down because I failed my medical. I had a heart murmur, they said, but I would have given anything to have been sent to the border. I would die for my country, Vijay bhai, the integrity of Bharat is well worth dying for.’
‘So why are you trying to destroy it from within?’ I asked.
The smile faded, and the impassivity settled back into his eyes.
‘I don’t understand the question.’
‘I think you do, sir. You have not denied your links with right-wing Hindu parties, and you don’t seem unduly perturbed by the barbaric murders of our fellow countrymen who just happen to be Muslim, Christian or Sikh. You claim to be a patriot who is prepared to die for his country, but you do not seem to mind killing your own. That is not being a patriot in my eyes; I would prefer to think of people who think and act like that as traitors. They and anyone who associates with them are the enemy within, not the poor luckless souls they target. You should know by now that people who are trying to lead their meagre lives as best they can have no option but to fight when they are cornered. You know that the bomb blasts in Bombay would never have taken place if the riots hadn’t happened. Don’t you see that if you continue in this vein, you will have a hundred Kashmirs, a million Bombays, everywhere in the country?’
‘So you are a patriot after all. I like your spirit, bhai.’
Rajan’s reaction astonished me. I had expected him to be annoyed with me, or at the very least defensive, but he did not seem in
the least put out.
‘We need more young people like you, Vijay bhai, passionate if a little misguided. But you are quite right, if the minorities are targetted, there will in all likelihood be further casualties as and when they fight back. But I don’t agree with you that India will be finished; we will have enough people and resources to rebuild the country once peace is restored. But we must not shrink from our task because the only way to make this nation mighty is by removing things that weaken it. You look surprised, my young friend. Don’t be. I will prove to you why it is possible to be a patriot and one who craves a strong Hindu nation at one and the same time. But first put away your notebook and pen because I know who you are and what you are doing here. You do not work for the Times of India, you are employed by The Indian Secularist. I know of Mr Sorabjee, I think he’s a good man, but he will eventually pass on without having achieved any measure of success. He and people like him are largely irrelevant in today’s India. They had a small role in leading the country’s battle for independence, but today’s challenges are different. The country is poised for greatness, and the only way it will achieve this is if we are resolute and move forward in a united fashion. And that will only happen if the majority leads the way; no nation is strong that has its people pulling in all different directions. If the majority community is powerful and determined, the minorities will automatically fall into line, and then we can all coexist peacefully.’
‘That is a complete fantasy, sir. No country which targets its own people has ever prospered, and you need only to look to history to see how wrong you are. Most fundamentalist regimes have fallen sooner or later, after creating fear and mistrust, and ruining their countries—’
‘Why look to history alone, bhai, shouldn’t we look at our present situation as well? We have spent so long pandering to the minorities that we have neglected the majority community; it has been weakened, and that is why we don’t rule the world.’
I was about to remonstrate but he gestured to indicate that I wasn’t to interrupt him just yet. ‘Let me tell you a story, Vijay bhai, about an ordinary man, an inoffensive, hard-working man, the sort of person we will need to support and strengthen if we are to secure the future of this country. A man who went about his business for thirty-three years without saying an unkind word about or to anyone, who followed the dictates of his caste and religion faithfully, who was never late for work, who fulfilled all his duties as a householder. A good man, you might say, slightly dull but a man you would want at your back if you had to fight your way out of trouble. He must have had hopes and dreams when he was young—all of us, no matter how wretched our place on earth, can dream if only for a few precious moments.
‘This man’s dream ended when he was eighteen and his father died. He was suddenly responsible, as the eldest son, for seven siblings and his widowed mother. To be an eldest son is in many ways the worst possible thing that can happen to you in a country like ours. Vijay bhai, are you an eldest son? Yes, I can tell you are, I am one too, and I am sure you know exactly what I mean when I say it is a terrible thing to be an eldest son. Everyone bemoans the plight of women in our country, and I admit that the lot of women is deplorable, but I mean something different when I talk of how hard it is to be a first-born boy. I’m sure you understand, Vijay bhai, I can see you nodding, because I’m talking about the weight of expectations placed on you by your parents, your family. All through your childhood and youth you have been spoiled and exalted, even if you come from a poverty-stricken background, and then suddenly you’re an adult, and you are magically expected to turn into a mighty banyan tree under which your family can shelter for generations to come. It doesn’t happen that way, does it now? Think then of the frustration and self-loathing that it engenders in those who are placed in such a situation. But they are the lucky ones, Vijay bhai, the ones who can afford to indulge in self-loathing and whine about their bad karma. There are others who simply have to lock up their dreams in a cheap trunk and quietly get on with the business of surviving and providing for their families, with no accolades or praise or gratitude. That is what the man in my story had to do, Vijay bhai. He may have been a moderately bright student, or a dullard or a genius, no one ever knew, but I was told once that his only dream had been to earn a college degree—it was a badge of honour for men of his caste—but that didn’t happen because he had to go to work the day after his father was cremated. I suppose he was granted some small measure of luck, in that he found a job, a very small job, in a mill in Coimbatore, first as a storekeeper, then for thirty-two years as a clerk in the proprietor’s office. It was a thankless job, I’m sure, but it was a job his entire family was grateful for.
‘I have said that he was a deeply devout man, but I haven’t told you just how devout he was. Every day he would bathe early in the morning, before anyone else in the house had even woken up, and bare-chested in his wet dhoti he would perform his devotions to Lord Shiva in a corner of his tiny house that had been converted into a puja room. He would stand motionless, chanting his prayers. He was a frail man and it would have broken your heart to see his concave, almost hairless chest, everything about him was so thin and weak, yet he was determined to serve his Lord, his family. He was a man who did his dharma no matter what.
‘One day, three weeks before he was due to complete his thirty-third year with the mill, he was called into the proprietor’s office and told that he should not come to work the next day. He thought there was some festive occasion or perhaps a death in the proprietor’s family, as a result of which the mill would be closed for the day. He didn’t ask any questions, that was not his nature; he did what was asked of him, he never questioned anything, never, and I think that was his undoing. As he was leaving, the proprietor, a fat man who paraded around in a gold-bordered veshti and angavastram with rings on every finger, told him to pick up that week’s wages from the payroll office. A festival then, he thought. But when he met the accountant, he was told that the mill was being sold; it had been in the red for years and was now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
‘I wish he had shouted then, showed some vestige of manliness, stormed into the owner’s office, spat in his face, asked him whether all that he was worth after thirty-three years of service—sorry, thirty-two years, eleven months and a week of service—was eighty-two rupees, one week’s wages. Even the mill workers were better off, the union managed to get them some sort of settlement, but he was white-collar, a clerk, he had always been proud of that, and it gave him no protection when it mattered. When he returned to his house that day, he took his eldest son aside and told him that should anything happen to him, it was his dharma to look after the family, and most important to repay the seventy thousand rupees he still owed to moneylenders and various family members, money he had borrowed for the dowry and marriage expenses of his daughters. He had never been a demonstrative man, and so, even in his moment of crisis, he didn’t break down or show any form of emotion that might have been construed as a cry for help.
‘For the next two years his family watched as his dignity was eroded day by day, by the creditors who came calling, the various small-time merchants and shopkeepers who treated him like dirt just because they paid him a pittance to do their accounts for them, the members of the extended family who cut him off. He put up with it all, he would do whatever was necessary to provide for his family. He wouldn’t let his boys stop their schooling, he was determined that they should have the education he never had, and even though there was no money, the minimal fees were paid at the government school the boys attended, and textbooks were bought. His daily devotion continued, his faith in his Lord did not diminish one bit.
‘But when a man is down on his luck, nobody, not even God, has much time to spare for him. The daily jobs began to peter out and finally there wasn’t enough money to buy textbooks for the new school year. When the boys stopped going to school and the father finally had no work to do, their two-room house in a street where the open gutters flo
wed with shit grew too small for them all to be together. The boys began to roam the streets. The younger one, who was eleven, began to run with a gang of pickpockets and street urchins, but the older one tried to find work, so that at least some money found its way home. But it was never enough, and finally the man who owned the miserable house told them that if they didn’t pay the rent, they would have to leave. He was a compassionate man and they were given a month to find the money. But of course there was no miracle forthcoming, although the man’s faith in his Lord was unwavering. He had reached a stage now where I think he might even have taken a job as a sweeper or scavenger, which as you know would have been worse than death for someone of his caste, but even there the competition was too intense. So he did the only thing he could do—he died. There would be one less mouth to feed, and his wife could throw herself on the mercy of her relatives.
‘He was only fifty-three when his heart gave out on him. As he was washed and readied for cremation, his eldest boy, now nineteen, found that his father’s malnourished body was so light he could lift it without any effort whatsoever. Many years later, his mother told him that in the desperate years to keep the boys in school his father had reduced his intake of food to one small bowl of kanji a day.’
Mansukhani came up in his ponderous, flat-footed way, and told Rajan that it was time to go to his next meeting, but he was waved away.
‘I hope I’m not boring you, Vijay bhai. Let me assure you there is a point to this story and one that should answer some of your questions about me and why I do what I do.’ His mesmerizing eyes were fixed on me, there was no sign of any emotion on his face, and it wasn’t as though he were asking my permission to tell the story; it was what he intended to do, and there was no doubt in his mind that I would listen for as long as he wished.
‘It is not an uncommon story and not even an especially grim one. There are millions of stories that are worse in this country of ours—our hundreds of millions of Gods are greedy for sacrificial victims—but this story had a very powerful impact on me because, as must have become obvious by now, that man was my father. I was the nineteen-year-old boy who lit his pyre, and every decision I have taken in my life has been informed by his struggle to do his dharma, to be unwavering in his devotion to his Lord.’
The Solitude of Emperors Page 20
