Distorted Mirror

by R K Laxman

  We decided to go on a cruise to see coral reefs and marine life and were taken on a boat with a glass bottom. There were seashells on yellow sands to start with: little undefinable creatures, stray bits of seaweed floated by. Alarmed crabs scurried for shelter. Then came the skeleton-like formation of coral. The sea deepened; pale green bushes, slimy white blobs big as pumpkins, lobsters, slithering snaky forms.

  As the glass-bottomed boat moved further into the sea the scene below turned eerie; among the jagged rocks the coral jungle became dense and huge and was draped with a brownish moss. I saw shapeless ugly creatures crawling in the dark depths of the sea; I felt unblinking eyes watching us from below the giant mushroom-like growth all over; headless animals pretending to be plants, stuck in one place, swayed from side to side in a ghostly manner. A cold shiver ran down my spine.

  All of a sudden, standing out against the darkness, a school of fish—coloured bright lemon-yellow with black bars all along their sides—passed majestically by, cheering up the whole world of overwhelming gloom. Further on I saw the coral branches tipped with a peculiar blue light like hundreds of candles dying out; plenty of colours appeared now: violet, yellow, pink, green, postbox red. Fishes with hideous spikes all over their body, fishes with long tails, fishes with battered faces, all of them with the damned look of condemned souls, criss-crossed our path in a weird twilight against a nightmarish landscape.

  Again something appeared to relieve the gloom; a patch of what looked like a lilac garden with each flower having a dash of yellow most beautifully in the middle. But I was cautioned; these were really creatures capable of causing deadly harm to the trespasser! Familiar objects began to appear again, algae, shells, a Kleenex tissue carton! I thank my lucky stars I am not a fish!

  While fastening my seat belt on my return flight I vaguely thought of the future of Mauritius. Will it be able to preserve its pristine charm? It had no population problem with its 8,50,000 people evenly spread out all over the country. There was hardly any unemployment as people seemed to live fairly well at all levels. The government seemed aware of all these advantages but felt a certain nervousness about an economy completely dependent on a single commodity—sugar. Logically therefore it was eager that foreign entrepreneurs start their industries here.

  I conjured up the rest of the scenario. With industrial growth, the living space will shrink. Cars and trucks will increase. Roads will have to be widened to take the load. The price of land will go up and flats will appear. Cost of living, pollution, unemployment, slums, taxation, controls . . . However, an enlightened people can, of course, guide themselves away from all such evils and still preserve this paradise on earth.

  I turned hopefully to the window for the clouds to entertain me. But the sun had set. It was dark outside and I would be in India in a few hours.

  IMPRESSIONS OF KATHMANDU

  A SMALL KNOT OF PEOPLE drowsily watched the incoming passengers at Kathmandu airport. As I looked at them, my heart sank, for my friend was not among them. Before coming here, friends and well-wishers had given me a welter of contradictory advice and information: that it would be hot in Nepal, that it would be cold; that there was no need for a passport, that I had to have a passport or I would be thrown out; that the Customs would harass me, that the Customs officials were gentle and hospitable; and that I would get hepatitis the moment I landed.

  I had not bothered to sort out which was right and which wasn’t, hoping to entrust myself entirely to the care of my friend the moment I alighted from the plane and have a holiday which was both safe and enjoyable. Now I panicked as he had not come to take care of me and get me through Passport, Health, Immigration, and Customs without complications.

  Inside the airport, I was further perturbed. Near the passport section I heard the plaintive voice of an old American lady pleading, ‘But, officer, I was definitely assured that there was no need for a visa for Nepal . . .’

  The glare outside was more fierce than the sun. The airport coach lumbered slowly towards the city through a neatly sectioned carpet of lush green paddy fields. I sat back comfortably in my seat to enjoy the scenery. Far away, the mountains looked like tents in several shades of blue. But just as I was about to become poetic, dismal, ramshackle huts appeared and spoilt my mood. They huddled around brown stagnant ponds in which women were washing clothes and vessels, collecting water in pots and carrying them into their huts. A very familiar sight for one coming from India. But why here, of all places, I thought. Half a dozen rivers originate in the Himalayas and it seemed ironical that these people should depend on stagnant pools!

  I was roused from my sombre musings as a huge structure in concrete and steel aggressively came into view. It looked patently like a foreign-aid project trying to push a developing country towards modernization and better living.

  As soon as we entered the city, an enormous playground monopolized the attention of everyone in the coach. An important-looking cricket match was feverishly in progress. I felt curiously disappointed at this sight; I expected to see something out of the ordinary, something unique and romantic, and cricket came as an anti-climax. As if that were not enough, there were huge hoardings all over the place, irritatingly familiar, advertising radios, biscuits and cigarettes. I could have been in one of the minor suburbs of Bombay!

  I guess I was being too hasty in my judgement because a mile away from the hoardings, the cricket and the cars, I discovered the slumbering ancient world. The streets here dating back to the fifth century, were cobbled, very narrow and dark except for a ribbon of sunlight woven out of shimmering dust and a million swarming flies. The houses on either side were real antiques which an American collector would have taken away and placed in his drawing room, if he could. I felt that if I looked at them hard enough they would crumble into a heap of dust. In reality, they were quite sturdy, built of brick and wood, and seemed to have withstood beatings from the weather and from invaders, for centuries.

  The wooden doors and windows of even the tiniest houses bore rich carvings of Vishnu, Shiva, Buddha, grimacing dragons, snakes, mythical birds, ornate flowers and often erotic themes. The artistic exuberance of the decoration contrasted oddly with the dwellers, who looked pathetically poor and humble.

  At my approach, faces appeared, framed expensively in the doorways and windows. Their eyes fluttered in warm friendliness and their features were delicately set; I felt that the Nepalese faces were capable of no other expression except a perpetual smile.

  The people of the Himalayan Kingdom are unbelievably attractive. All the women looked like rugged beauties, carefully dressed and painstakingly made up for a movie shooting. Children, in the pink of health, shabbily dressed, their faces and hands smeared with dirt, rolled playfully with the ubiquitous mangy, pink mongrels, shouting, laughing and darting about like sparrows.

  Their charm and physical well-being seemed beyond the reach of any disease. Looking at them, I nearly lost faith in the accepted notions of hygiene and medical precautions.

  The cobbled lane led me to an open square ahead. Till I actually entered it I couldn’t guess its vastness. It was surrounded on all sides by innumerable temples and palaces of gigantic proportion. And so were the bronze bells, drums, stone lions, rhinos and carved pillars that cluttered the entire square. I stood dwarfed in amazement and wondered which mediaeval giant built this city, and am told that the entire city is in the courtyard.

  Soon I discover him, or rather his statue in bronze, perched on a tall bronze pillar genuflecting in all humility before the entrance to the temple of Shiva which he built.

  I think he had great foresight in believing in vast spaces for the survival of his glory: it would otherwise have perished without trace as several vegetable sellers, fishmongers and innumerable other vendors took over the place subsequently. They were everywhere, on the temple steps and up to the feet of the God. Dogs, of course, followed them, foraging for food. Monkeys roamed about on an equal footing with the men and seemed to stop jus
t short of transacting actual business.

  I was tickled to see a grassseller who having stuffed bundles of grass into the open mouth of a ferocious angry stone lion was comfortably reclining against its huge powerful paws. My attention was drawn to a tourist guide going on his appointed round meekly followed by dumbstruck tourists. They clicked away with their cameras greedily as if the vision in front of them would vanish in another minute. Just then I almost tripped over the outstretched legs of a hippie sitting on the ground. He and his flower-consort were reclining against a stone wall which enclosed an ornate fountain, now of course bone dry, serving as a pen for a goat seller’s capricious flock.

  The hippies wore the usual beads, Buddha medallions and mystic symbols of Tibet embossed on copper plates. They cuddled each other and gazed on the bustle and activity around them dispassionately. The far-away look is, however, merely the result of dope which is freely available and has made Nepal a haven for hippies.

  On the horizon far away I see faint chalk scribblings; snow peaks of the distant Himalayas. At this time of the year they usually remain concealed under a thick blanket of haze. To see them better I have to take a trip to a mountain top early in the morning and await the dawn and take my chance. So I hurry back to my hotel to make arrangements for a car to take me to the mountains next day.

  It is evening and all the shops are brightly lit in the main shopping centre of the city. Foreign tourists are flocking into the antique shops. I hear an European lady ask one of the shopkeepers, ‘This is Buddha. Yes?’ I look at the foot-high bronze image she is pointing to in the showcase. It is the goddess Tara sitting in the classical pose on a lotus, stripped to the waist. I suppress my laughter and go on to see what the other shops are selling.

  They are all chock-full of imported goods: transistors, tape-recorders, cosmetics and cameras and, of course, crowded with tourists from India.

  ‘Do you like Nepal?’ asks one of my countrymen.

  ‘Yes, very much,’ I reply.

  ‘Been to the casinos and night clubs?’

  ‘No, I have no time for them.

  ‘No time? Then what do you do in a place like this?’

  SKETCHES

  REMINISCENCES ON THE 1942 STRUGGLE

  MY IMPRESSIONS of our freedom struggle in 1942 are from a sick bed in my hometown in Mysore. I was fighting a battle of my own—a battle for survival, having caught a virulent type of typhoid fever about the time Mahatma Gandhi gave the Quit India call.

  One day when I hazily saw my mother peering anxiously at me, I realized that it had been more than thirty days since I had last seen her. During all that time I had been almost unconscious and only that morning did I show some hopeful signs of recovery!

  In time I got better and was soon able to pick up news titbits about the world outside, from conversations with visitors who sat and chatted around my bed. I learnt that schools and colleges were closed and that students were eagerly participating in the fight to rid the country of British rule.

  I was told that one of my closet friends had been arrested and imprisoned. I was shocked! He was a soft-spoken, mild and frail chap without a trace of aggressiveness. From kindergarten to college we had sat side by side, listening to the lectures in various classrooms, exchanging innocent jokes and comments. Now, the news of his arrest really gave me a physical jolt.

  He had joined what was known as the ‘Cycle Brigade’ which simply meant going all over the town on bicycles shouting anti-British slogans. In the beginning the police, who had no bicycles to give effective chase, found it difficult to apprehend them. Finally they tricked the ‘Brigade’ into a lane, threw a rope across it and hauled the catch off to prison!

  Some days later my friend sent me a grubby-looking postcard from prison. Two black bars censored some matter in it which the jail superintendent evidently considered offensive to His Majesty the King of England. The rest, the uncensored bits on the card, were all about the poor standard of the prison library!

  A little later another card arrived. This time my friend wrote that the inmates were fed on soup prepared out of grass and that the rice smelt of phenyl.

  Gradually, disquieting news about conditions in the prison and the treatment of the prisoners began trickling in frequently. There was talk of prison unrest and rioting, and soon everybody had heard about the boy who had died with boot marks on his chest.

  Yet throughout the period of upheaval the police force remained rigidly loyal to the British. That was, of course, understandable: after all, they were paid to keep their masters’ idea of law and order. But what was deplorable was the wanton brutality they seemed to revel in while carrying out their duty. Even nice chaps in the service, normally known for their ready, friendly smiles and pleasant natures, became instantly beastly as if transformed by an ugly witch.

  Our next-door neighbour was a chubby-looking police inspector who greeted everyone warmly, took his children to the park, and would bargain even with the vegetable vendor with a kind of winning humour and understanding. But during the days of the crisis he quickly earned a reputation: that of a mini-Hitler! The visitors at my bedside described with horror the manner in which he swung his baton and gleefully brought it down on the demonstrators, cracking the skulls of his friends and of the sons of his friends!

  More mystifying was the behaviour of the city magistrate whom we used to look upon with respect and a certain admiration. He was a man with an extremely affable nature and a philosophical turn of mind who carried himself with a dignity becoming of his qualities and attainments. This man who also must have panicked at the sight of a slogan-shouting mob gave orders to open fire which led to the death of a college student. Of course, later the magistrate justified his action to us with all the intellectual objectivity and philosophic reasoning he could muster.

  In course of time a prominent circle in one of the main thoroughfares in Mysore was named after the young man who died in police firing. We hope our friend, the magistrate, perhaps felt a twinge of guilt and awkwardness whenever he passed that way to reach his office.

  Though these stories aggravated the gloom in the sick room, yet occasionally one heard of events which were downright comic. For instance, there was this person belonging to the senior section of our college; an intelligent man; he sincerely believed, of all things, that the British were ultimately going to stay on in this country! This notion indeed put him in many odd situations. He paid a couple of visits to my bedside and I nearly split my sides listening to his crazy views on our efforts to get freedom from the British. This diversion resulted in my having a relapse; I had exerted too much, the doctor said, laughing.

  He became increasingly pro-British with the passing of each day. His cocky stance of an adversary constantly led to fierce arguments which luckily for him stopped just short of an exchange of blows. But he could not enjoy this kind of restraint on the part of his friends for long.

  Labouring under a false idea of being intellectually honest at a time when some down-to-earth common sense was needed, he began to get tactlessly bolder and louder in airing his views. In his gait, manners and accent he started modelling himself carefully after the image of the English professors and lecturers in our university. The delusion was so complete that one day he referred to Mahatma Gandhi as ‘Mr Gandhi’ with the spontaneity of Colonel Blimp. But soon after uttering that, the poor man had to flee the spot as those who heard him were now after his blood. He took refuge in one of the quarters belonging to a professor of English. There he remained, not venturing out throughout the period of the crisis, learning Milton and Macaulay at first hand from the professor. In fact, when normalcy was restored and exams resumed, he stood first in English literature!

  By and large the students who fought for Independence showed admirable grit and tenacity in pursuing their objective and facing police brutality. One of them particularly won my unqualified admiration as I heard about his exploits day after day. He had a peculiar air of casual boldness while doing even simp
le deeds. He became the natural leader of the student movement in 1942. While addressing public meetings, when he was prohibited from doing so, he sang patriotic songs in front of police barracks, asked his followers to disobey all police orders: and all this was done without theatrical gestures or delirious speeches. Perhaps even the police found it hard to hit or shout at such a man although, of course, he was marched off to the prison many a time.

  Once, when he was released after the authorities made sure it would be safe to do so, he did precisely what they had warned him not to and was whisked off to jail again, this time for a prolonged spell. After his release, he immediately dragged a huge temple chariot, with the help of his follower, into the middle of a busy road and blocked all traffic for hours. As expected, he was escorted back to his cell to serve his sentence for the many breaches of law that this one act had caused.

  Gradually the situation vis-a-vis the freedom struggle returned to normal. It took nearly a year for me to get back to college. There I noticed that the number of professors from England had dwindled and also that the brave freedom fighters of yesteryears were subdued and worried about the approaching exams and the future. Anyway, all of them passed out of college and disappeared into the wide world, looking for jobs. I have lost track of most of them. Recently, I searched the list of ‘Thamra Pathra’ recipients hoping to find one familiar name, but in vain.

  However, a few who I still keep in touch with and who had distinguished themselves in the past as heroes, are now well settled in good jobs, either heading important government departments or occupying swivel chairs as executives managing big commercial business enterprises. A couple of them who I had the honour of knowing in those days became cabinet ministers too. And even the one who threw in his lot with the British during the freedom struggle, today not only holds a prestigious position but his advice is sought on matters of national importance; he also belongs to a very busy seminar circuit.