Seventy . . .

by Shobhaa De

  We drove up chatting and laughing, snacking and singing. The Mumbai goons and my problems receded into nothingness by the time we arrived at her beautiful home. ‘Stay with me in my room,’ she urged, ‘I don’t want you to be alone.’ And that’s where I healed. Felt energized. I watched Sunita cook, cut vegetables, feed her dogs, knit sweaters, tend to her garden, meet her friends, have her feet massaged three times a day, smoke in bed (horror!), chase away stray leopards from her compound wall, flirt with retired army men, laugh a lot, and nothing more was needed but her silent support and loving understanding.

  She drove me around the rugged terrain tirelessly, pointing out various peaks, as we waited for the range to emerge from the clouds. She took me to the only Mrityunjaya temple in the region, where I had a strange experience with a tantric who was meditating in one of the caves near the temple complex. He had just roasted a sweet potato on his trishul when I barged in, not knowing he was inside. He looked up like he was expecting me and gave me half the potato to eat. He said slowly and clearly, ‘There are forces working against you. The winds are strong. But you are stronger. They can’t touch you.’ How did he know what I was going through? He just knew. After that short exchange, I was dismissed. I told him I would find him at the kumbh. He laughed, ‘A sadhu cannot be found by anyone—a sadhu finds you!’ Sunita and I were stunned.

  Driving back, I told her what the pujari of my favourite Shiva temple in Mumbai had said when I had gone there during the aarti, at the height of the trouble. He had signalled to me to wait till he finished conducting the aarti. My heart was pounding, wondering what he wanted to say. The temple bells were clanging and he was blowing into the conch as the flames from the camphor on the puja thali lit up the space. Once the other devotees had left, he lowered his voice and said very sombrely, ‘Aap ki jaan khatrey mein hai. Aap apne parivar ke baarey mein sochiye.’ I asked him what he was talking about, and he placed his finger on his mouth and said, ‘You don’t know these people. They are dangerous. And you have angered them.’ I understood later that the same goons who had organized the morcha to my home were regulars at his temple and he had overheard their plans. It was a disturbing conversation. As I recounted it to Sunita, the hairs on her forearms stood on end. We drove back in silence. That night, she was extra caring over dinner, as we chatted at the dining table, and heard the howls of wild dogs in the distance. I can never forget this special time with this very special woman.

  There is a lovely Tamil word that sort of sums up my feelings towards all those who stood by me and said, ‘You know what? You’ll be fine! We love you. Who cares about those rotters?’ That Tamil word is nanri. So yes, I am filled with nanri when I look back at that black period. The overused word ‘gratitude’ really doesn’t describe the essence of this delicate emotion as evocatively.

  ‘So what can I do for you, madam?’

  Politicians are bad news. In Bollywood parlance: Mujhey unn sabse se nafrat hai. I really detest the breed. The breed detests me in return. It’s almost pathological. In all these years of neta-watching, I have yet to come across a single politician who has touched my heart. A lot of them have touched my mind—that’s not tough. They are super smart, articulate, cunning, even witty. Their job is to deploy words and the better ones do that effortlessly. But to win someone over, to earn respect—that takes much more than manipulating words and emotions. I am not even intrigued by politicians! If anything they bore me. Those devious games they play. The clever moves they make. It’s all so depressingly programmed and predictable.

  The older breed—here I am talking Morarji Desai and his generation—represented our future. India was young then, and so was I. India was filled with hope. As was I. But even at that age, the pomposity of office made the man appear puny. I felt exactly the same way when I was part of a delegation invited to meet the former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, in the Yellow Room of the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. I can understand tight security and protocol. What I don’t get is the exaggerated air of grandeur and ceremony. India is a democracy. Every individual occupying that lofty position is there because the people of the country want him/her to be there. He/she is the first citizen. The most important word is ‘citizen’. Equal to every other citizen. It is not an elected-by-the-janta position, in that sense. Our President has no real executive powers. But is supposed to inspire citizens by being a non-partisan head of the republic. A symbol of over a billion aspirations.

  The Rashtrapati Bhavan is indeed magnificent. But it has become an embarrassing anachronism. Getting an audience with the great man/woman still rates as a memorable experience. But it is only after you have made it inside the staggeringly impressive building and gone through the immense and absurd theatrics of the all-important face time with the President of India, which lasts less than sixty seconds, that you wonder—do we need this? The Raj era lives on in a ludicrous manner inside that impressive edifice. My ‘meeting’ took place bang in the middle of the searing Delhi heat—a motley group of twenty-odd people were asked to ‘rehearse’. We were herded around for this comical rehearsal before the President showed up. Rehearsal? For what? To be seated in the right order, to stand forming a perfect ‘U’. To take our fixed places in the glare of the harsh mid-afternoon sun for the official portrait. Oh yes . . . none of us could wear sunglasses even though we were all facing the sun—that was the sole prerogative of the President of India. I was sorely disappointed. I turned to a European ambassador to see his reaction. He smiled, ‘This place is much grander than the Élysée Palace.’ Take that, Napoleon!

  Whether it’s someone in that genuinely exalted position, or a maamuli MLA throwing his weight around on a flight, something awful happens to people when they taste power. They lose perspective totally. Even the educated, supposedly sophisticated, intelligent ones who start off well. In an astonishingly short period of time, they turn into insufferable idiots. Everything changes—their body language and their language. Sometimes, the dramatic transformation happens on a very public platform—television. Fumbling, uncertain, crude ‘netas’, barely able to express a single coherent thought, display a drastic ‘work in progress’ during subsequent television appearances. It starts with personal grooming—the first thing to change is the hair. From unruly and unkempt, hair undergoes noticeable alteration. It gets darkened if it’s grey. Shortened if it’s long. The facial expression alters with more control over muscles. The eyes don’t dart all over the place and teeth are rarely displayed. Overdue dental work gets fixed overnight. Women start colour-coordinating their outfits, and focus on matt make-up, so as to look less sweaty and more ‘fashionable’. So do the men, ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought sartorial flair into Parliament, his partymen seem to have engaged clones of his personal stylist and designer to create vivid colour mixes for them—pale yellow sleeveless jackets over mint-green kurtas. Both sexes learn to preen for the cameras. It’s so much fun to look at old clips of some of the prominent politicians on the national scene. Vanity is what shouts out the most. If they appear unlikeable on television, they are much worse in person.

  What gets me the most is the presumptuousness of politicians. Most assume you are dying to meet them. They really do believe in their own lies. The reason they think people want to hobnob with them is because they have such a low opinion of everyone else. To them, the world is divided into favour-seekers and bigger favour-seekers. They stare incredulously if the response to their standard question, ‘So what can I do for you, madam?’ is met with a cold stare and a curt, ‘Nothing at all! Thank you very much!’ So used are they to all sorts of people lining up for favours big and small, it is simply beyond their limited comprehension that there are loads of self-respecting citizens who would never stoop to ask for anything from their ilk. One such person was so angered when I gave him the freeze treatment that he followed me into the elevator and said snarkily, ‘You have your nose in the air. You are too uppity.’

  What gets me the most is
the presumptuousness of politicians. Most assume you are dying to meet them. They really do believe in their own lies. The reason they think people want to hobnob with them is because they have such a low opinion of everyone else. To them, the world is divided into favour-seekers and bigger favour-seekers.

  There have been several such encounters, including one with Narendra Modi, who on being introduced to me by an industrialist, just after becoming the prime minister, said sarcastically, ‘Who doesn’t know her? For years and years I have been at the receiving end of her criticism!’ For once, I was stumped. On that sardonic note, I felt emboldened enough to ask for a selfie. He readily agreed. I tried and flopped (I am still hopeless at clicking selfies). When I confessed my attempts had flopped, he gathered a few people around and said gleefully, ‘Dekha? For the first time in her life, Shobhaa Dé has failed at something.’ Touché! Not for nothing is he called one of the shrewdest, toughest, most ambitious men alive. A man who can think on his feet, fix adversaries, win over foes. And go for the kill.

  I have been a declared, vocal and very public critic. That comes with a price tag. I have paid it happily. And will continue to do so. Taking our democratic privileges and fundamental rights for granted is something I am not willing to relinquish. I am not a political activist by any description. But I am an involved and engaged citizen of a great country, who, like all other citizens, believes in the freedoms guaranteed to us in our Constitution. Till the day the Constitution remains in its present form, I will continue to fight for what I have been promised and deeply believe in—all our precious freedoms as Indians.

  Living dangerously is not such a bad thing

  Friends ask what it was like living with cops outside our door, and on the front seat of the car, for close to two years. Frankly, it was funny! And a bit of a joke. Though their duties rotated, one or two of them became family. There wasn’t a single aspect of my life they didn’t know. Some people would find this a ghastly invasion of privacy, but it didn’t bother me at all. I really don’t have anything to hide. My daily routine is pretty mundane. I didn’t care if they overheard all my conversations while travelling in the car, or witnessed me arguing with my husband, squabbling with my children, haggling with shopkeepers. They were just there, doing their jobs the best way they could.

  Initially, I used to get bothered seeing how casually they dealt with their guns—tucking them into their waistbands, or leaving them on the table in front of them while they ate their meals. The sight of loaded weapons would rattle visitors, some of whom would refuse to enter our home or sit in the same car. My children didn’t like the idea of cops being present at every family function—our daughter Arundhati’s wedding included. Maybe the kids were embarrassed? Perhaps their friends made them feel this was ‘not normal’. How many moms were under police protection? Surely, their mom must have done something wrong?

  The cops assigned to protect me were earnest and happy to hang around. Since I barely leave my home during the day, their duty was pretty easy. They’d relax, wait for their meals, watch movies on the phone, listen to music, chat with the staff. When they accompanied me, they seemed to enjoy the outings, especially if those included a glamorous evening at a posh hotel, with the odd chance of running into a Bollywood star. Not that they ever forgot what they were there to do. I often wondered why they never stared at the road ahead when we were driving to some venue, but kept looking at the side mirror almost fixedly. Finally, I asked. ‘Madam, we are trained to look out for motorcycle killers at traffic lights. Our guns are in our shoes when we get into the car. Hitmen generally approach from the back. Don’t worry! Our aim is good.’ We laughed. I did so uneasily. All the recent killings of journalists had happened in exactly the way it had been explained. These days, I look at any helmet-wearing, backpack-carrying motorcyclist who comes too close to the car with utmost suspicion and dread. Bang! Bang! And I’ll be dead. It is that easy.

  Over months, we became friends, and I got to understand more about their lives. One particular chap endeared himself to me so much, I started caring about his off-duty life and obvious concerns. We remain in touch and I am so proud of his progress. While he used to spend hours outside the front door, I would find him solving what looked like examination papers. He would be at it diligently, barely looking up, unless the visitor seemed ‘unusual’ (cops have a sixth sense about such matters). I asked him what he was studying so hard for, and he said it was to get into the Railway Police after clearing an online, competitive exam. Well, recently he sent me a cheerful WhatsApp image with the good news—he did it!

  But it’s his backstory that touched me the most. Born into a desperately poor family of bricklayers, he spent his childhood helping his father with masonry work in the village. Their family was shunned by upper-caste villagers who would refuse to serve them water during the scorching summer months. There were times when he and his two siblings didn’t have even salt to eat with dry, burnt rotis prepared by their undernourished, sickly mother. When his father decided the boy should go to school, it was a major shock to the other villagers. The boy not only went to school, he excelled! When I met him, he told me proudly he had a master’s degree. ‘Which subject?’ I asked. He blushed, ‘English literature!’ I said, ‘Wow! I have lots of wonderful books I’ll be happy to give them to you.’ He looked crestfallen. ‘But . . . I won’t be able to read them!’ I was puzzled and asked, ‘Why not?’ He kept silent. Then he confessed, that though he had a legitimate degree, he could neither speak English nor read it! Not even the headlines in the English newspapers I used to pass on to him. I was shocked. ‘So how did you get that degree? Is it fake?’ He told me how the quota system works in reality. Since he was the first boy from his village to pass out of school with reasonably good grades, he was encouraged to enrol in a local college. Once in, he was pushed ahead, year after year, till he graduated and applied for his master’s programme. ‘But didn’t you have to attend classes and write papers?’ He said he wrote in the Devanagari script, since he took notes the same way, and the teachers ‘understood’. Since it was a matter of pride to have the first graduate from the village, nobody objected. When he got into the police force, armed with his degrees, his family’s stock went up considerably. Now, whenever he returns to meet his parents, he is shown respect by the very same neighbours who had despised and humiliated all of them earlier. The best part of his story was his deep love for his parents. He sacrificed and toiled, because he had vowed to accomplish three things: get his sister married, educate his younger brother, build a pukka home for his parents. When I met him last, work had started on that promised home, his sister had been married off and his brother had passed his board exams with flying colours. ‘What about you and your life now that you have fulfilled all your duties?’ I teased him, ‘When are you inviting me to your wedding?’ He grinned, ‘I am looking for a good girl who will look after my parents . . .’

  The other cop was older, seasoned and cynical. For him this assignment was perfect. Though the two of them were supposed to take turns and be with me 24/7, I never ever kept them hanging around or insisted on night duty. After their afternoon chai paani, I would pack them off, saying, ‘Nobody is going to kill me . . . run along . . . be with your family.’ Their duty hours were so flexible, and their work so light, it was like a paid vacation for them. I rarely let them work on weekends, though they were assigned to it. People who visited felt uncomfortable to see burly black-belted cops at the door. It was funnier still if I was travelling to some event and had an armed guy occupying the front seat. I insisted they stuck to plain clothes and avoided uniforms. From time to time, their seniors would drop by to review the ‘threat perception’. We would chat in the living room, sip tea, enjoy snacks and crime-beat gossip. Sometimes they would make strange requests. One of these officers came armed with a file filled with certificates and photographs of his eligible daughters. He said to me (ingratiating smile in place), ‘Madam, you know big-big people in hi-fi society . . . p
lease find a suitable match for my daughters . . . see, see . . . they are educated, fair-complexioned and good-looking . . . we are prepared to give dowry also.’ I was caught off guard. Finally, I joked, ‘I have an unmarried daughter myself. I am also looking for a groom.’ At another ‘review’ meeting, the man brought his attractive wife along and said, ‘My missus is a fashion designer . . . can you please help her to find good clients from your circle?’ This is so us. So typical of India. And I love the informality of such peculiar requests during ‘official’ meetings ostensibly being conducted to assess whether I was on someone’s hit list!

  My last visit to the nearest police station was priceless. It was yet another ‘review’ meeting. I walked in with the older, beefier cynical cop, who was asked by a senior, ‘How many rounds are you carrying to protect Madam in case she is attacked?’ He answered carefully, ‘Sir . . . thirty.’ The senior scratched his head thoughtfully and said, ‘Not enough. I think that can be upgraded to ninety!’ My jaw dropped. But my bodyguard was cool, ‘Okay, sir, so, I will need a carbine from tomorrow . . .’ It was comical. There I was in an overcrowded cop station, with a sprawling slum across the road and several unsavoury drunks who had been picked up for a nasty brawl involving knives sitting on the floor next to me and squabbling noisily. Their womenfolk were yelling from a few feet away, ‘Maaro saalon ko . . . andar hi rakkho, saala madarchud . . .’ And here we were discussing a carbine-wielding bodyguard for me! What had I done? Tweeted! About dahi misal and vada pav. About compulsory prime-time screening of Marathi films at multiplexes. That’s it! Aaah—huge crime. How silly of me! I flatly refused and told the senior cop the old arrangement was just fine. He shrugged, ‘Madam, it is up to you. If you think there is less threat perception than we think there is, that is your decision. Don’t blame us if something happens . . .’ If something happens, my dearest fellow, I’ll be dead. I won’t be around to pin blame. But thank you very much for your concern.