The Death of A Writer - IV

(This is a fiction piece - the fourth in a series of ... many.)

(See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

(Recap: A writer and a student - who is also the narrator - make a trip to a village to investigate a curious incident involving the burning down of a landlord's house. They realise that the Naxals may have something to do with this and arrange a meeting with them. Now, they meet the Panchayat Secretary to get his sense of what is going on. This series is set during the time Gavaskar retired - late '80s/early 90s.)

The Panchayat Secretary offered tea: the writer’s broad smile suggested enthusiasm.

We were in the Panchayat office – a recently constructed one-room structure, narrow and long, like the compartment of a train. At one end was the entry door and the peon’s table. Next to it, was a sturdy wooden chair bearing the letters “PCT 02” in white paint, on its arms and legs. Cupboards bearing brown files overflowing with yellowing paper lined the walls. Paperwork was to bureaucracy what debate was to democracy: superfluous, painstaking, vital. (Surely, I thought, somewhere in there, will be a file on a list of furniture items in the office with a row marked “Peon’s Chair” and “PCT 02” written adjacent to each other). A clock that was six hours behind (six hours ahead would be incongruous in a government office) and a calendar bearing the picture of Saraswati adorned walls whose paint still gleamed.

     

The Secretary seemed distracted, drumming his hands on the table, eyebrows knotted. The writer’s gaze went from the Secretary to the spread-open sports page of the Udayavani – the Kannada daily – that lay on the Secretary’s table.

“India doing badly?”, the writer asked.

“This Kapil Dev”, the Secretary responded, “He should retire.”

“I am not sure, to be honest.”

“Why?”

“Kapil is still two players for the price of one: he’s a frontline bowler, a respectable batsman and the best outfielder in the team. That is very hard to replace.”

“Have you heard of Prashant Devadiga?”, the Secretary asked, “He bowls in the Mangalore leagues – he’s faster than Kapil and can hit just as many sixers.”

This was usually the point where a serious cricket-fan would disengage: Mr Dev and Mr Devadiga in the same sentence was a laughable construct. 

I turned away from the conversation: beyond the rusting grills of the window, across the road, I saw Cheemanna, the peon, hustling the tea-vendor. There was a touch of authority to his manner; he stood with his legs at right-angles to each other, one foot on the ground, another on a plank usually reserved for tea-drinkers (all of whom had scattered away in deference to this imposing government official and his stately leg). The road was what we called a “main road” for it connected a string of Panchayats that clung to it like leeches, sucking the fruits of new-found growth and development that trickled down – like the sparse traffic – through it. I was shaken out of my reverie by a loud exclamation from the Secretary:

“Sha!”, he said.

“No – it’s true. Devadiga is a chucker, a duckies bowler”, the writer was saying, “there’s a reason he’ll never progress beyond the Mangalore leagues.”

Instinctively (and on cue), I nodded in a manner that suggested both, sympathy and assent. The Secretary was shaking his head too – vigorously, from side to side, a Tanjavur doll on steroids.

Tea – as always, a distraction from our miseries – arrived on time.

The Secretary slurped on his tea noisily. The writer asked:

“So, what can you tell us about this whole dispute regarding the well?”

“Amicably resolved. Amicably so.”

The writer raised an eyebrow. He could not have looked more professorial.

“Well”, he said, “who did it?”

“One can only speculate – and at this stage, it would not be prudent on my part to do so. Members of the state should not air their speculations to all and sundry, especially regarding incidents bearing a distinct political nature. Furthermore, what good would it do? The dispute has been amicably resolved – the harijans are now using the well.”

Furthermore. Speculations. Prudent.

The Secretary had effortlessly slipped into officalese.  

“Do you think this has anything to do with the Naxals?”, the writer asked.

The Secretary seemed to flinch at the very mention of the word.

“I am – ”, he said and paused, searching for the right words. “I am unaware of the presence of any Naxals in the area.”

Wow, I thought, this man couldn’t lie at all. It wouldn’t have been more obvious if he’d winked.

“Can you swear on Prashant Devadiga?”, the writer persisted.

Something changed – the mildly simmering tension dissipated. The Secretary glanced around the room: at one end, Cheemanna seemed a little too engrossed in the previous week’s circular on local elections. The Secretary leaned towards us and whispered mock-conspiratorially:

“I swear on Devadiga … now that I know he is a fraud, duckies bowler!”

The writer and the Secretary burst out laughing. I forced a smile. Only Cheemanna studiously underlined parts of the circular. Suddenly, it felt like the writer and the Secretary were old friends. Gossip couldn’t be far away. 

The Secretary sighed and said:

“Of course, the Naxals burnt down the goddamn house! What else did you expect? They are pests of the highest order – they have no idea what they’re doing and have everyone pissing their pants … Do you want to hear a funny story? Ey, Cheemanna, enough with pretending to study that circular and come and tell them what happened during the last elections.”

Bringing to bear centuries of ingrained servility, Cheemanna rose and walked towards us, his hands tied behind him, his back slouched. This Cheemanna and his earlier regal self – ordering the tea-shop vendor and scaring away potential customers – seemed to bookend the spectrum.

When he began speaking, I remembered being surprised by his near-perfect teeth, unstained by that most common of sarkari afflictions: paan. It was, I would later learn, one in a series of non-conformist traits Cheemanna would possess.

“ … And in one corner of the voting booth were a series of jasmine garlands”, Cheemanna was saying.

I hastily paid attention. As he described the booth, an image took shape: a classroom, benches precariously stacked atop each other in one corner like Jenga pieces, soft morning light filtering through the windows. The election officer, a short, plump man – his paunch falling over his belt like bougainvillea over compound walls – walking, despite his weight, in that hasty sort of purposefulness characteristic of bureaucrats; a drop of sweat dangling on his brow, his oiled grey hair parted to a side, a perfectly groomed pencil-moustache signalling authority and fastidiousness at once.

He sweeps into the room. A sufficiently small-looking – but tall and reed-like – sub-officer sprints in his wake, papers and a cardboard pad in hand, a pen in his ear. Cheemanna, in a corner, suitably reverential, waits for the day to pass and voters to vote quickly, so he could enjoy his lavish government-funded lunch. As the election-officer surveys the room, his eyes take in the usual suspects: blackboards, multi-coloured chalk-pieces neatly arranged next to a duster, flakes of paint peeling off a crevice, a spider doing injustice to the 'industrious' stereotype, the grey-brown eyes of the two school-teachers anxiously awaiting his approval, a pile of garlands …

Garlands. Garlands?

“Who brought in these garlands?”, he thunders.

There’s silence.

“Were these garlands here last night?”, he asks.

No one seems to know.

One of the teachers motions to the school peon – predictably christened Raju – to have them removed. As Raju proceeds in the direction, the sub-officer whispers something into the election officer’s ear and the election officer bellows:

“STOP!”

Everyone freezes.

“What if, what if there’s a bomb there?”, the election officer asks.

No one is sure how to react: is this a joke? A bomb? In these parts? Under jasmine garlands?

The election officer takes charge, calling upon years of training. Drawing himself up to his full five-foot two-inch size, he calls out:

“Security!”

A pair of constables appears, lathis in tow. One of the two has his cap snuggled under his armpit, his gently receding hairline signalling a patient helplessness. His counterpart is tall and lanky and sports an army-man moustache.  

“Please pick up those garlands carefully and have them disposed. Be careful: there may be bombs beneath.”

“Yes, sir”, they both say, unthinkingly.

The balding constable is the first to register the election officer’s words. He pauses, eyes enlarged, and asks: “Bomb?”

“Yes. Bombs. Plural. Maybe two, maybe six or zero. You see – no one knows where these garlands came from. Who put them there? It wasn’t here last night, or even this morning. There could be a bomb within them, placed strategically by the Naxals, making good on their promise to disrupt and destroy these elections.”

The constables’ give up any pretense of professionalism. The lanky one, his eyes wide with horror, says: “Maybe we should call the bomb-squad?”

“Bomb squad?”, the election officer asks, incredulous. “In Narayanagudde? Why not? Why not call a couple of helicopters and a satellite from Sriharikota too … Donkeys. Get going – and just get those garlands out. I will be in this room. Everyone else, please clear out.”

The room empties. Cheemanna, alert as a fox, quickly makes his way around the school building and scopes out the window to the classroom with the garlands and peers in.

By now, the two constables are bathed in sweat; the election officer looks on intently, a ring-master training his wards on some new dangerous trick. The balding constable, the braver of the two, is now a mere two feet away from the garlands. He brings out his lathi, turns away, shuts his eyes tight, and gently prods in the direction of the garlands. He is too far away and he ends up parting air.

The election officer shouts: “Do it properly, you donkey!”

Still looking away, the constable tries once more and a faint rustling indicates he’s succeeded, but only just.

However, sweaty palms give way. The lathi falls to the ground with a thud that echoes around the empty school.

The tall constable gathers his wits about him and covets glory where his colleague failed. He walks in the direction of the garlands, brandishing his lathi like a sword. Unfortunately, he steps on his colleague’s fallen lathi and rolls forward before landing on his face on the pile of garlands.

In that instant, says Cheemanna, the world feels like it is dissolving away. All he sees is the tall constable: this brave man, lying prostate in a pile of garlands and thrashing wildly and roaring, as if he were swimming in a swamp of cockroaches.

Of course, there was nothing within those garlands: only layer upon layer of fresh jasmine flowers strung together, clinging to each other like refugees and giving away too strong an aroma to be deemed pleasant. “On the brighter side”, Cheemanna chuckled and said, “the tall constable didn’t need to be felicitated for his bravery; he emerged garlanded.”

*

Our laughter – like the sunlight – bounced off the walls of the Panchayat Office. The Secretary said:

“When we were young, we used to be told – eat your food or the devva will eat you up! We children had never seen this devva, but we didn't dare take a chance. The Naxals are the devvas for adults – there may be hundreds of them or none at all, but no one wants to take a chance!”

*

(To continue)