“Yes, Sa’ab.”
“One thing I do remember is that the U.S. Consulate is at 78 Bhulabhai Road. We go there quite often for one thing or another. I’ll write it out for you. You’ll need to give it to the taxi-driver. It’s a ways from here. It’s across town. They call it Lincoln House after Abraham Lincoln. You know who that was?”
“Yes, Sa’ab. He freed the slaves.”
“Very good! Mr. Mansfield is in the little one-story building to the left as you enter the compound of the Consulate. I’ll write that, too.”
It looked like the Consulate had surely been there during the war. Every war. And it looked like Arthur Mansfield had been sitting behind his desk in the same position during all wars that had ever been waged. “Where do your parents live, Mr. Bhavnani?”
“Neither of my parents are living, sir.”
“I’m sorry. That is a shame. If I may, what was your father’s name?”
“Bharat! He was named after the real name of India: Bharat!”
“Bharat Bhavnani?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Good. And your mother?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean; yes?”
“I had a father and a mother.”
“Good. Yes, of course. I thought so. What was her name?”
“Mary Lincoln.”
“Mary Lincoln?”
“Yes. She was named after President Abraham Lincoln’s wife.”
He nodded. “That’s unusual. That’s quite thoughtful.”
“Named after a fine woman,” Raj offered.
“That’s just odd; that’s all. I mean that very few are named after her.”
“My mother was an American, and so she was named after a fine American woman whose husband freed the slaves, you know.” After all, that particular piece of his knowledge was praised by tourists he met at the Taj, and maybe it would work as well on Arthur Mansfield, particularly because he worked in the Lincoln House of the Consulate.
“That’s very good. So that was her maiden name and then she became Mary Lincoln Bhavnani?”
“After she married my father; yes. That’s what I was told that happened. She got that last part of her name on the day she married him.”
“Well, that’s what generally happens. Now, when were you born?”
“Independence Day. August the 15th of 1947.”
Consulate Officer Arthur Mansfield looked suspicious but he didn’t care to enter an argumentative discussion with someone who was sent by Venu Ramachandra. “Wonderful!”
“On Independence Day!”
“In what city were you born?”
“Just south of Sholapur. Maybe you’ve heard of it: Vadigenahalli.”
“At the old general hospital there?”
“Then you have heard of it!”
“Oh, yes. At the old general hospital there?”
“No. At the old general railroad station there.”
“She gave birth to you in the old general railroad station?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Is there a record of that?”
“Oh, no, no. She died there giving birth to me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I was told that both my mother and father fought for independence. So I have a heritage of courage.”
“There is no record? I mean of your birth.”
“Maybe some old passengers waiting for the train remember. I don’t know. There was a doctor who was waiting for the train at the time but he’s dead now.”
“Maybe some old newspaper write-ups about it?”
“Maybe. Perhaps. I understand that allows me to be President of the United States. Is that true?”
“What do you mean?”
“If my mother was an American.”
“President?”
“There must be something I could do to become President since my mother was American.”
Arthur Mansfield had heard enough. “I don’t know. That isn’t what we take care of here. We don’t deal with the rules on presidential candidates.”
“Yes, yes. That’s what I understand. Then do you know what I will do if I become President there?”
“No, I don’t know. What?”
“I will change the official language of the States from English to Hindi.”
“That would certainly be an unusual campaign pledge for a nominee for the U.S. Presidency to promise.”
“Can Presidents do that?”
“That’s way outside our sphere of business here at the Consulate.”
“I suppose if I changed the language to Hindi that some Americans might be angry.”
“That could be.”
They stared at each other for quite a while until Raj asked, “Is that all, sir?”
“Mr. Bhavnani, you will need some papers.”
Raj Bhavnani nodded. “Can you write down the papers I will need?”
Arthur Mansfield nodded and took some Consulate stationary from his top desk drawer and a Paper-Mate ball-point pen from his shirt pocket and started writing the requirements needed. “If you don’t first have a Birth Certificate this is going to be a time-consuming procedure. You’re going to be spending time going all over Bombay dealing with this nation’s bureaucracy. You might even have to go to Delhi for some of them. I don’t know all the addresses of the places but I know the bureaus with which you’ll need to deal.”
Raj didn’t like that idea and so he found a single source from which he would receive all of his required papers including a Birth Certificate with his specified place and date of birth that he told them was as accurate as could be, and the names of his parents, Bharat and Mary Lincoln Bhavnani, as he had spelled it out and there was even a U.S. Social Security card with a number in case he should ever need it and a load of other papers stamped and pinned in batches, all of this from the beginning paper to the final pin having been attached by an old friend; a bearded “wise man”; probably a fake Sadhu, named G.K. Tarkunde who lived across the street from the Taj Mahal Hotel protected by the most north-eastern archway in the Gateway of India.
It only took Mr. Tarkunde three days to create the papers or have them made, and they only cost Raj one pair of shoes, a thin cotton blue jacket, and what appeared to be a baseball cap. That payment of goods then induced Mr. Tarkunde to add two small cloth-sided suitcases for Raj to take on his international travel.
By trading goods rather than buying his documents, Raj still had $706 of the $720 in American currency left in his pocket on his arrival at New York’s Idlewild International Airport during the late and cold and overcast Thursday afternoon of January the 19th of 1961.
For a man who had no long-time career, no savings account and no current income, he was a very wealthy man.
THEME EIGHT
ANOTHER WORLD
RAJ BHAVNANI TOOK THE AIRPORT BUS to Midtown Station in Manhattan and it was the first time in his life that he took a public transport vehicle without passengers hanging out the doors because of lack of space inside, and holding on to posts and on to one another on its roof, and on the road there were no bullock carts slowing vehicles behind them, no red-stains of betel-nut juice that had been spit out on the floor or back of seats, and for good or ill, no sacred cows that would, without exception, be granted all rights of way.
He strained to see what there was to see of the New York skyline but there was too much overcast and a disappearing late afternoon sun behind the overcast and snow falling and the aisle seat on the bus all allowing him to only see little more than dots of lights at all elevations. He was not fascinated by snow as he saw pictures of the Himalayan Mountains throughout his life and others had boasted to him that India was where snow was born.
When he reached the Midtown Station he walked from there while holding the straps of one piece of luggage in each hand then changing each hand to the other strap, in route to the easily found Algonquin Hotel on 44th Street between 5th and 6th where Venu Ramachandra, back in Bomba
y at the Taj Mahal Hotel, had lined up an accommodation for him prior to going to Rochester.
Compared to the Taj back home, this was a small hotel—but one with a very prestigious history and traditions including only one small elevator with barely enough room for two passengers and the elevator operator to ride together. Raj’s room (the lowest-cost room in the hotel) was so narrow that he needed to walk sideways around the bed to get from one side of the room to the other. He looked through the window at what he hoped would be a view of the Manhattan skyline when weather would permit but, instead, there was a view of the windows of the building next door a few feet away. And even though there was still some daylight, the view of the neighboring building was very dark with little if any brightness seeping through the shade from the adjoining buildings. Next, he tried to control the gurgling and whistling noise coming from the heater and he couldn’t control it. But all that was part of the tradition that had been born in the earliest days of the Algonquin. Any modernization by management brought protests from regular guests, leaving the management no choice but to renovate the hotel back into its eccentricities of the past.
That Thursday night at the Algonquin Raj Bhavnani sat at a small white-clothed table in the lobby with an iced Coca-Cola and a plate of cheeses with his chair very close to the Algonquin’s large oak grandfather clock that was near one of the great old and dark mahogany-lined walls. On the small table that held his Coca Cola and cheeses was a copy of “The Playgoer—The Magazine in the Theater—Camelot—Majestic Theater.” It was filled with advertisements of New York stores, restaurants, and products as well as the program, cast, scenes, acts, and staff of “Camelot.” Raj was looking at the magazine’s advertisement of the restaurant, “Top of the Sixes” with a photograph of its nighttime diners on what was written in the advertisement to be the 41st floor of a building when Raj’s solitude was interrupted by a deep voice: “Mr. Bhavnani?”
Raj Bhavnani quickly threw down the magazine as though he was guilty of reading something that was criminal, and he stood up. “Yes, sir.”
The voice who had interrupted him belonged to a gray-haired man with a friendly smile who gave a short nod. “Good! I thought it was you. May I sit with you for a moment? I’m Paul Hafetz, the general manager’s executive assistant for the Algonquin. Ben Bodne, the owner and president of the hotel, wanted to make sure you are comfortable in your room. He heard about your arrival from our friend, Venu Ramachandra at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. Mr. Bodne told us to give you a discount and he wants to make sure your stay is a pleasant one.”
“Please. Please sit down with me, sir. Do you mean that Venu Ramachandra told the owner about my arrival? The owner of this hotel is the one who gave me the discount?”
Paul Hafetz nodded as he sat, “He did. And Mr. Bodne demanded that we be nice to you!”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t be?” Raj said lightly as he sat back in his chair.
“I’m sure we would have been! Mr. Bodne is a self-made man like you. He started out in business as a newsboy when he was fourteen years old. From what Mr. Ramachandra told him, Mr. Bodne feels that you’re following in his pattern. So, you worked at the Taj Mahal Hotel! That is truly a grand hotel.”
“Yes, it is. I miss it already.”
“Of course you do. It’s your home, isn’t it?”
He nodded and his voice softened. “It is.” And then he repeated, “It is.”
Paul Hafetz looked ill at ease at what could be Raj’s emotion and he changed the conversation to something he hoped would get him out of thinking of what he left behind. “Did you see our cat?”
“Please?”
“Our cat. See him over there?” He pointed to a cat lying on a chair on the other side of the grandfather clock.
“Is it alive?”
“Of course he’s alive. He’s Hamlet. It’s a tradition here. When John Barrymore was first here he named the cat who was here at the time—Hamlet. That was back in the 1930s and we have had more Hamlets since. When we have a male it’s Hamlet and when it’s a female it’s Matilda. You are here while we are graced with another Hamlet! He is a good fellow!”
Raj smiled. “We love cats in India. You know, they’re sacred!”
“They are, aren’t they? And you have some pretty big ones, don’t you?”
“Tigers. We have tigers.”
“Of course. Well, we don’t have tigers. But we do have Hamlets and Matildas. And we do have a lot of guests that come here just to pet the Algonquin’s cat. You know, our lobby is generally packed with our guests at this time—writers, artists, dancers, musicians and actors and actresses—but a lot of them have taken leave to be in D.C.”
“To be where?”
“D.C. Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia for the inauguration of our new president tomorrow: John Kennedy. John F. Kennedy. Fitzgerald. It should be quite a day. Let’s pray for some sunshine or at least no snow there.”
“Ahh, yes, yes. Kennedy! That would be worth seeing, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course!”
“I crave to see his inaugural. It’s why I made sure I would land on the 19th, so I would be in the United States if I could just get to—to D.C.,” he lied. Raj was back to normal.
It only took a short while for an invitation from Paul Hafetz to invite Raj, not to D.C., but to the New York Athletic Club on 59th Street the following morning to watch the new President’s inauguration on the television set the Club had recently acquired. It was a marvelous invitation for Raj for two reasons: he would see an inauguration of a U.S. President as it would take place, and for the first time he would see a television set. After all, any American could get to D.C. to stand in the cold outside the U.S. Capitol Building because, Raj thought, Americans are all rich and would have warm clothes and hats, but to actually see it on an operating television set would be special.
The morning of January the 20th greeted Raj with both snow and a bright sun and his first immersion in Manhattan. He didn’t walk; he promenaded up Fifth Avenue for the major part of his morning journey to the New York Athletic Club with his sight-seeing stroll continually interrupted by his own frequent motionlessness, standing still while he stared upward at the top of buildings the likes of which he had never seen before. Some of the herd of many fast-walking pedestrians went right into him because New Yorkers believe that standing still is against the law with “standers” to be turned over to the police for quickly determined life sentences or extradition to New Jersey.
None of that bothered him. It was different from anything he had known before and everything was a gift of sight. “What clothes they wear! What coats! What things in the windows of stores! What colors! What buildings! Another world! Where’s the Empire State Building?” He slowly turned around. “There! There! It is down there! It goes into the sky! What a building! It’s there!”
“Hey, Mac! Don’t we have a sidewalk where you can move in one direction at a time?”
When Raj reached 59th street across from Central Park he started asking others where he could find the New York Athletic Club. Everyone he asked gave him directions, all of whom were wrong, but the New York City tradition is to always give directions to a stranger, with truth being an unnecessary triviality.
He ended up finding it by himself after strolling in and out of countless buildings on 59th Street.
The sign in the reception room told that “The Presidential Inauguration Event on Television for Members and Invited Guests Only” was being held in the Ninth Story Lounge. Uniquely, that was accurate as that was where it really was taking place.
The crowd of men was huge with little if any free space. There were no chairs and so everyone in the Athletic Club Lounge was standing except three men who were seated and that’s because they were in wheelchairs.
The most prominent space in the room was held by the star: the RCA television set resting on top of a high podium with a magnifying lens mounted in front of the television screen.
Although R
aj could barely see the black-and-white images between the rounded corners of the magnifying lens, and although there was no snow falling in D.C., there appeared to be snow falling on the television image. Worst of all, however, was that Raj couldn’t hear the voice of the new President very well since Raj had come in breathlessly late from his exploratory slow walk, and his tardiness guaranteed a position far from the loud- speakers of the television set and not far from the door in which he entered the room.
Somehow Raj did hear President Kennedy saying that “… the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” Raj said in a very loud voice not to anyone in particular, “Yes! Yes! He is better than Jawaharlal Nehru and Vinoba Bhave put together!”
And when President Kennedy said something about “those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,” Raj cheered and yelled to no one other than an invisible Chairman of the Soviet Union; invisible because he was not there. “Are you listening, Mr. Khrushchev?”
Then President Kennedy concluded with “God’s work must truly be our own.” And the people outside the Capitol Building in D.C. and the men in the New York Athletic Club in New York City applauded and cheered and Raj gave a short vocal phrase of esteem in Hindi: “Kennedy-ji!” Only a few heard him because the applause and cheering for the President was too loud and they probably wouldn’t have understood Raj Bhavnani even if they did hear him.
There was one exception to that who heard and did understand what Raj said. The exception, by chance, was standing in front of him and, with a big smile, that exception quickly turned around for the two to be face to face.
“Namaste!” the man said to Raj with his two hands straight up and pressed together at the tips of his fingers, and he made a slight and bowed nod of his head.
Raising the Baton Page 7