Distorted Mirror

by R K Laxman

  THE UGLY POLITICIAN

  THE SITUATION in the country has become so hilarious that the dividing line between the caricature and the caricatured has almost disappeared. Alarmingly, the politicians walk, talk and behave as though they are modelling perpetually for the cartoonist. Who knows, perhaps cartoons do exercise some sort of subtle influence on their manners and even looks, reducing them to the cardboard characters they have become in real life.

  People curious about my work often ask me how I get the ideas for my cartoons. My reply usually is that the politicians work for me—or something on those frivolous lines.

  Somehow, the word ‘politician’ has come to mean anything but what he fancies himself to be: someone wise, dignified and dedicated. On the other hand, the image that actually forms in our mind is that of a somewhat pompous, comical figure more like the character in a cartoon.

  These qualities get magnified if the politician happens to be a successful one and a minister. In this role he really sweats to keep the cartoonist ceaselessly busy. The unsuccessful ones keep themselves active by holding demonstrations in front of ministers’ houses and offices shouting angry slogans, burning the effigies of men in power, going on indefinite fasts (unfortunately they are never for more than a couple of days at a stretch), gheraoing unprotected individuals, etc.

  All this is carried out, of course, to eliminate the ills in our system and bring justice to the common man. Further, they also know various other ways to hold back inflationary prices, overcome shortages of essential commodities and correct defective demarcations of their state borders. These involve smashing railway carriages, reducing buses to ashes, organizing bandhs and stoning restaurants. Such behaviour might look suspiciously like the pathetic results of deep frustration. But no; we are told it is politics at work in a true democracy.

  Since this style of opposition to the establishment has to be largely conducted under the open skies, it could be quite a trying business, especially if age and the elements are against one, as it often happens. Naturally, temptation grows steadily stronger under such conditions to defect to the tantalizing side of the rulers; there the defector always has a good chance of being received hospitably and given a berth in the Cabinet. From there he could carry out the onerous task of removing poverty and misery sitting on a plush chair in air-conditioned comfort without being baked in the sun or getting soaked in the rain.

  But, unfortunately, not all defections lead to ministership. Invisible pressures of caste, groupism, parochialism and just ordinary favouritism might stand in the way of an innocent defector becoming even a deputy minister. In such a case, he hastily does a right or left about-turn and sets about to work assiduously towards toppling the government with the hope of heading it himself. Often the tactics pay off and he starts enjoying the fruits of office till such time as he himself is toppled. As it is rather inconvenient to be thrown out of power every other day the risk is usually mitigated by the potential troublemaker being absorbed into the Cabinet quickly—and thus pleasantly silenced. But this has become very much like the attempts of a drowning man, who tries to gulp down the ocean to keep himself afloat.

  Come to think of it, there is no opposition party in this country, really! Those at the Centre seem to preserve their ‘enemies’ just to project to the world the picture of a fair-minded democratic system. That is why I always find it more fun to concentrate on people in power. They are more exposed, vulnerable, commit uproarious blunders and unabashedly get involved in scams from which they emerge cheerfully unscathed. People enjoy seeing such antics of the ministers caricatured because they get a vicarious kick out of hypocrisy and pomp ridiculed, ego punctured.

  In the early days of our Independence I was filled with tremendous hopes like everyone else for the future. Having relentlessly attacked the foreign rulers and packed them off finally, I saw, suddenly, a whole nation free from all social injustices, economic disparities, police brutality, protests and violence. I decided to treat our own men at the helm of affairs with reverence and understanding. So, while they were engaged in various nation-building activities, I settled down with my brush to help our leaders in their tasks.

  I was young. Jawaharlal Nehru, of course, was my hero. While drawing I began to bestow care on him at the risk of even sacrificing the element of satire which is the soul of the art of caricature. I used to make his lower lip less protruding in my cartoons, gave height to his stature, put the white cap at a jaunty angle and nearly succeeded in making him look a combination of Captain Marvel and Superman of comics fame. Thus I armed him to face boldly the gigantic challenges of our economic, social, political and linguistic problems of the post-Independence times. All went well for a few months.

  But gradually I began to sense the satirist in me stirring uneasily every time I saw my own cartoons in the paper whose headlines and columns screamed for an altogether different kind of reaction from the cartoonist. Nehru’s policies and utterances seemed incongruous with the saviour’s image I was trying to cast him in. The business of preserving his image, pampered and glorified, began to be embarrassingly tough. So I liberated myself one day by throwing away his famous cap and exposing his bald pate with its fringe of white hair. To his figure I added a little paunch too and, above all, became deeply indebted to him for becoming one of the staunch suppliers of ideas for me during his time.

  After the transformation of Nehru, others slid effortlessly into their places to serve me: K.M. Munshi, G.L. Nanda, Jagjivan Ram, S.K. Patil, R.A. Kidwai, etc. Particular mention here must be made of Morarji Desai and V.K. Krishna Menon for sparing no effort to help me gain some modest success and popularity in my career.

  I have often wondered why ministers look the way they do—as if they belonged to a totally different species. Luckily, I had an opportunity to examine this phenomenon at close quarters. I was a witness to the actual transformation of an ordinary, simple sort of a fellow into a minister. To the surprise, shock and despair, variously, of all who knew him, a friend of mine, a quiet, self-effacing man, became a minister.

  The very first change which was conspicuous after becoming a minister was his acquiring enormous wealth within record time. He went about his business surrounding himself with a mob of like-minded people and became quite inaccessible even to his old friends. Nevertheless, he kept in touch with the masses through his photographs in the dailies and through loudspeakers from which his voice blared from the Olympian heights of decorated platforms on which he was found at public functions day after day. The range of subjects this erstwhile jaggery merchant could hold forth on at such gatherings astonished me. He would speak with a ring of authority in his voice on subjects varying from the virtues of salted biscuits to the vulnerability of the Indian Ocean to foreign domination, from the need to remove poverty and kick the capitalist in the pants to Bharatanatyam, fertilizer and the threat of the CIA. No matter what the subject of his speech, he always managed to convey the impression at the end that he had been disappointed with the people for not sacrificing enough for the country besides frustrating his own efforts to take the nation to its salvation.

  Even his appearance changed. He became comfortably rotund and his starched cap and jacket gave him an air of superiority which began to seem misleadingly real. His eyes, which had an innocent charm and honesty in his pre-ministerial days, now remained fixed thoughtfully on the row of glittering coat buttons resting on his paunch. He was at the height of his career at this time: he looked extraordinarily prosperous, invincible, triumphant and powerful, like a conqueror. And even I, a cynical fellow, could not help but feel a twinge of inferiority in his presence.

  However, fate struck! There was a Cabinet reshuffle because of the usual petty infighting and my friend was unceremoniously dropped. It was shocking to see him literally reel under the impact of the news and suddenly shed all appearances and roll on his expensive carpet bemoaning his fate. Through tear-drenched eyes he looked at the few of us who had gathered around him and told us with
touching sincerity what a wonderful man he really was and what bloody crooks his colleagues were who were still ministers nibbling away at the opportunity to make money and more money. He held out dark threats that one day he would indeed expose the chief minister himself whom he said he had served loyally till then.

  After ranting thus for hours, he finally recovered from the blow and cheerfully declared that he was indeed happy he was out of the Cabinet and that he looked forward to living like a free man without the worries and responsibilities of a minister. He confided to me that he had modest means to support himself and his family: two cinema theatres leased out, a three-star hotel, four bungalows rented to foreign companies in his wife’s name and a few other sources of income.

  ‘You look so happy now! Supposing you are included in the second list tomorrow? Would you turn down the offer or would you sacrifice your happiness and accept a Cabinet post?’ I asked.

  He seemed confused for a moment. ‘Ah, you cannot put it that way. I will serve my country in whatever capacity I am asked to,’ he replied with a deep expression of humility, pressing his palms together humbly. That moment he was a cartoon personified!

  By and large this is the stuff the species called the minister is made of. He wants to be a minister as long as he lives. He will not step down from office under any circumstances. If, occasionally, a minister is forced to retire because of age or political expediency, you will find him biding his time in the wings exerting subtle pressures ranging from abject appeal to open blackmail to get into the Cabinet again. In extreme cases, of course, erring, irresponsible ministers are got rid of by appointing them governors of states.

  All this I view with a sense of humour as politicians provide abundant grist to the cartoonist’s mill. But there are moments when I panic: the way things are getting I fear the day is not far off when politicians will do the cartoonist out of his job by taking over the business of making people laugh directly or more likely, through a corporation.

  I can hear, at this point, the ministers protesting and saying that this is just another instance of exaggeration and misreporting by the press. I can imagine them following it up with an official denial somewhat to the effect that ‘the Government has no plans to amuse the public directly and that it would continue to do so only through the medium of the cartoonist’.

  ‘HOW I DID IT!’

  AT SCHOOL I copied ‘Jack and Jill’ in the exam from a three-year-old girl seated next to me and got promoted. At the age of seven, or maybe eight, one day I nervously pocketed the balance of a rupee after buying a packet of cigarettes for my absent-minded father. I continued to do so until the time I was old enough to qualify for the legitimate monthly allowance.

  Then, with the help of lime, paraffin oil and soap, I began to conduct messy experiments in our kitchen on used postage stamps to give them a second lease of life. After many frustrating attempts I nearly succeeded with one of them which had escaped official cancellation with barely visible marks. After my treatment it really looked as good as new and my joy knew no bounds that day. The money I would be making through this discovery of mine seemed almost limitless. But my dream was never fulfilled: I never used this stamp. After all the labour I spent on it I could not summon the little courage that was needed to cheat His Majesty’s Government even though it would not have been more than a few coppers. I gave up the stamp business.

  This slight cowardice led me away from more daring ventures like trying to make counterfeit coins and spurious drugs.

  However, at a later stage, I felt no fear of any sort when I launched out on my next project. I began to supply a local magazine in our town with short stories pilfered from an obscure book in an old Hungarian collection.

  The plot and other aspects of those stories delighted the editor and the readers. Of course, to avoid detection of their source, I localized them thoroughly by disguising the characters and the Hungarian setting. In course of time I flourished as a writer this became such a routine job that I became lazy and hardly bothered to hide the Hungarian origin of my stories. I believed that no one in my town would have a copy of this ancient moth-eaten book and continued to send my contributions and collect my cheque month after month.

  But I went cold all over and shivered in the height of summer one day when I accidentally saw in a local bookshop huge parcels containing the very same book in colourful paperback! That ended my literary career rather abruptly.

  Next, I found a job, of all places, in a firm of building contractors. They treated me with great respect because I was the only literate person in their whole set-up. I was hard-working and efficient and therefore pampered with liberal leave of absence and frequent pleasant surprises in my pay packet. On such occasions I acted out my gratitude so demonstratively that it moved the two partners greatly and I further gained their confidence.

  But the truth was that the salary they gave was not the only source of my income. The real money came from the cement bags I used to squirrel away from the firm’s godown and unload in the black market! The transactions were brisk and the fortunes large, unmanageably large, I would say! To avoid a dangerous inundation of money at home I had to buy a good deal of immovable property of all kinds and gift my wifereal diamond and gold jewellery. I was always elegantly dressed and smoked expensive cigars.

  All this was very well as far as it went but the tension and risk that my clandestine business involved began to wear me down. I lived in constant dread of being caught while delivering the stolen cement bags to my clients.

  However, it was amazing how God always took my side although my relation with Him had never been closer than that between a family and its family doctor, who never came into the picture as long as everyone enjoyed good health. As if in answer to my desperate wish I ran into a fellow whom I had always envied: he lived as well as I did but surprisingly without seeming to move a muscle in his body. It was he who revealed to me over several glasses of beer the blessings of the government’s licensing system in regard to imports of certain essential items required by various manufacturing firms in the country. My good friend taught me how to procure these licenses.

  Soon my interest in cornering cement bags vanished. Now I was busy running up to Delhi almost thrice a week to meet the officials of various ministries, their deputies, clerks and even their peons. Soon my sleek leather handbag bulged with all sorts of government licenses and permits obtained, of course, on fictitious grounds. But to those who genuinely needed them in a hurry I was a benefactor: it was easier and quicker to come to me rather than to go through the tortuous bureaucratic channels.

  Thus I became a hawker of licenses and found the occupation almost respectable and even legitimate compared to blackmarketing in cement bags.

  I needed a name for my business and after a lot of thinking chose one which had about it a ring of dignity and age. In a congested locality I hired a small room just enough for a table and couple of rickety chairs. I dumped bundles of dog-eared dummy files and nailed a signboard on the door announcing the office of the ‘Eastern Equipment and Machinery Ltd.’ I hung up cheap prints of our national leaders and heroes on the walls and garlanded them with handspun cotton yarn. In this way I succeeded in giving my place of operation an appallingly drab look. But it passed off for years of unrewarded honesty and struggle! I reinforced this impression by moving among my fellow men wearing a harried look all the time and volubly criticizing the government’s policy of stifling controls which really were my bread and butter.

  Gradually I woke up to the fact that I could move still further afield. The country bristled with shortages: foodstuffs, trucks, fertilizers, tyres, synthetic yarns, printing paper, kerosene, baby-food, sugar, drugs. Nearly every item of daily use seemed to offer me amazing gains. It would be utter stupidity, I thought, if I did not take the opportunity that the government, the producer and the consumer were bent on giving me so generously.

  Hardly a couple of months after I saw this munificent vision I was riding all
over the town in an obscenely expensive imported car. I also now possessed extensive property scattered in various parts of the country including a cottage tucked away in a tea estate in Ooty. The house I lived in was the talk of the town: its shape was abstract and futuristic as if Martian architects had been specially summoned to build it. One of the most expensive decorators in the country had attended to the interior of the house. The wizard had created sheer fantasy in chromium, plastic and velvet. I specially commissioned an artist to do a life-size portrait of Gandhiji in oils for my drawing-room.

  I despatched both my sons to the USA: one to study business management and the other to take a degree in electrical engineering. As for me, well, I had become a very important social figure.

  I spent my evening sipping whisky with an air of superior boredom at cocktail parties. Of course, my hosts and hostesses were invariably flattered by my presence. Rattling icecubes in my glass I would rub shoulders with real tycoons of industry who had ulcers caused by real worries and tensions. Occasionally, at such parties, I came across a few representatives of the people, I mean, members of parliament and state legislative assemblies, self-consciously clutching a glass of some innocuous-looking drink. Moving with them more closely I realized that getting acquainted with people in political circles was the logical next stage in the evolution of the kind of career I had carved out for myself. So I assiduously cultivated them. This automatically led to contacts with more important personalities in the political field. After that it was a quick jump to the higher circle consisting of cabinet ministers and their hangers-on. In course of time I became a close friend and confidant of most of them and even earned the privilege of calling them by their first names.