There was applause and cheering from a number of tables and booing and hissing at other tables at the Bali Hai restaurant, with both sets of occupants having found themselves at an unexpected dinner-show featuring the not necessarily cool and calm Raj Bhavnani who was surprisingly accompanied with his supporting cast who at least were still known by some of the older diners as Christopher Straw and Savannah Lane.
THEME THIRTY-SEVEN
IN MUMBAI
THE LAST TIME RAJ WENT BACK to India he landed in Calcutta at Dum Dum Airport. Now, back again, he found the city’s name was spelled Kolkata and pronounced that way and Dum Dum Airport was called Nataji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. Makes sense. Moreover, It used to be that from Dum Dum he would fly to Palam Ngurah Rai Airport in New Delhi but now the airport had been renamed Indira Gandhi International Airport and that was enough for Raj. He wouldn’t want to set foot inside the terminal of Indira Gandhi International Airport but instead he would take a flight from Kolkata directly to Bombay which was now called Mumbai where he planned landing at Santacruz International Airport but it was now called Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. Of course.
Great name. Easy to remember. Nothing stays the same. Nothing at all.
Not even a particular woman could stay the same who had been standing in a long line of those who wanted to get into the plane that was boarding but now surrendered that place in line so as to greet Raj. “Raj Bhavnani!”
“Thank you!” Raj responded with some glee. When under ordinary circumstances he would have instinctively said, “Yes?” This time he was giving away his pleasure at still being recognized by, at least, someone.
“Raj! Do you remember me? I’m Margaret Merriman! It was in the early 1960’s! Remember? My father worked at B.O.A.C. in Dehi!”
“Of course! Of course I remember! Margaret!” He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about so he improvised: “Margaret or as I sometimes called you, Marg or Peggy or—”
She interrupted, “You called me Margaret!”
“Yes! Yes! I remember.”
“Raj, you look the same. I don’t.”
Suddenly it came back to him. This was the very pretty young woman he knew in 1962 after the war in Kashmir. She was still pretty no matter the added years in, of all times, the year 2008. It was November the 26th.
He asked, ‘How is your father?”
She shook her head. “No. He passed in 1970.” She quickly asked, “Where are you coming from? Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry about your father.” He cleared his throat and answered her questions. “I’m coming from the U.S. and I‘m going to the Taj—the Taj Hotel. I used to work there a million years ago,” he said in attempt to give a thought of lightness.
Her expression changed to one of fear and realization that he didn’t know what was going on in Mumbai. “No!” she said with her voice sounding hysterical. “No, you’re not going there! You can’t! Don’t you know? Look around! This terminal is filled with people leaving Mumbai for good reason! Mumbai is being killed! We are at war in Mumbai and the hotel where you are planning on staying is one of those under heaviest attack!”
He didn’t know of such news as he had slept the latter part of the journey from his previous stops in Rangoon, Burma and then Kolkata. “What happened?”
“Everything! Everything! Get in line with me and I’ll tell you. So that you are safe you have to leave this city. Leave with me. I’m going to Delhi!”
The wait in the airport took hours with him standing in line with her while she told him in detail what she knew about the current horror or Mumbai: “It was somewhere around 9:30 tonight. It was the Lachkar-e-Taiba—they’re all Islamist Jihadist terrorists and they attacked the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel—your hotel—and the Oberoi Trident Hotel, too, and there have been terrible explosions and fires and killings of guests and workers and all kinds of things happening at both places and Mumbai is very dangerous now. They seem to want to kill tourists; Brits, Americans, and of course Hindus staying in vacation. Please! We are at war! You must come with me to Delhi if this plane ever takes off! I’ll tell you everything I know and that I’ve heard from others in this line!” And she said that someone told her there was an attack on the railroad terminal; Chhatrpati Shivaji Terminus. “A lot of fires and explosions!” she said. “The skyline is horrible. More fires than lights! The streets are empty of people unless they are running. The stadiums are empty. The theaters are empty. The hotels are empty. The fires and explosions are many. People are hiding!”
He went with her to Delhi after receiving the promise of an airport worker that his baggage would be taken from luggage in Mumbai and put on the plane to Delhi. It was of little comfort when lives themselves rather than possessions were in such jeopardy.
Margaret Merriman’s head was on his left shoulder the entire distance from Mumbai to Delhi and he remembered the aroma of her perfume from over forty years ago and he remembered her “Gawd! Oh, Gawd!” that she said anytime during their necking sessions those forty-some years ago. Not now. No “Oh, Gawd’s.”
Her apartment in Delhi was big and had many rooms. B.O.A.C. had apparently been good to her father or to her or to both of them. Raj was invited to stay there in a room she gave to him and would be his until he would know what he wanted to do. He said in the meantime all he wanted was chapatti; the bread-like food easily available in India but unavailable in most places of the world.
And what he wanted to do was written on the plane to Delhi while Martha’s head was resting on his shoulder: Call the Hyatt Hotel headquarters to insure that Venu was alright and still working in Delhi and not back to Mumbai; to call the office of the Minister of Defence A.K. Antony to offer help to the Armed Services either in Delhi or back in Mumbai in any way he could as a former Lieutenant with an Honorable Discharge and in continued good standing.
Raj called Venu and although Venu was not in the Delhi office at the moment he was still working there; not back in Mumbai, and he would be given the message of Raj’s number at Margaret’s apartment.
Raj then placed a phone call to the office of Minister of Defence A.K. Antony leaving Margaret’s phone number. The secretary at Minister Antony’s office knew all about Raj Bhavnani’s history and seemed delighted for Raj’s call. Within minutes Raj was called back. He was told that he should contact the Ashoka Hotel to be a guest of the government just as he was a guest of the government during the most recent time he was in Delhi. In addition, although his volunteerism to serve again in uniform was much appreciated, he was told there was nothing he could do in the Indian Armed Forces at this time. That message did not miss Raj’s understanding that “at this time” probably meant because of his age. He was also told that the proper radio transmission and playback equipment would be installed in his room at the Ashoka from which his radio programs for All India Radio and the Voice of America would be handled. Moreover, he was given a news report that the main entrance and the dome of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel had been detonated and so was the pool area and many guests and hotel staff were killed with the terrorists going from one guest-room to another of both the Taj and the Oberoi Trident.
Raj had known that Minister Antony, although not a member of the the Bharatiya Janata Party favored by Raj, was a unique member of the Indian National Congress Party who bravely and happily for Raj, had been in opposition to Madame Indira Gandhi.
When Raj told Margaret that he will be staying at the Ashoka and he would be broadcasting from there, she was not glad. She wanted him and all of that broadcasting ability to be located in her apartment. He shook his head saying he would like that too, but this was what the government wanted him to do.
“Will I still see you, Raj?”
“Of course. I have to be grateful to the military for all they are doing, putting me up there again, giving me the material for radio transmission and I am so grateful to you because you rescued me from Mumbai and made some marvelous food for me as well as j
ust being you. I am so grateful to you—” and he stumbled over her name and that set her laughing.
“Margaret,” she re-informed him.
“Margaret” he repeated. “And I know you are glad you will have your privacy back in this majestic apartment building.”
She gave a wide smile accenting her femininity. “Oh, no!” she said almost as she used to say, “Oh, Gawd!”
THEME THIRTY-EIGHT
EMPTY STADIUMS
ONCE BACK AT THE ASHOKA Raj received a call-back message first received on Margaret’s phone from Venu Ramachandra with that message transferred to Raj at the Ashoka. Venu’s message told Raj he was safe and in Delhi and would work out a meeting with him. Raj also received another call from the Minister of Defence’s Office giving him a report that he should know that Nariman House; a Jewish synagogue had been attacked in Mumbai with many killed and the building torn apart.
Then Raj became involved in a new kind of life that he never had before. He became a recluse. Other than his radio broadcasts that were done by radio and telephone lines in which he saw no one, he had nothing scheduled. He did not want to see anyone other than Venu but even for that Raj had no desire to travel anywhere; not even to Venu’s office at the Hyatt headquarters, leaving Venu to say that he would come to see Raj in one of the Ashoka’s dining rooms for a lunch soon and he would let him know when. There, too, were periodic and, in this case, welcome interferences of Raj’s isolation with telephone-calls from the Office of the Defence Minister. Best of all was the report from the Defence Minister’s Office on Saturday, November the 29th that the Mumbai attacks were done and most of the Lachkar-e-Taiba Moslem terrorists had been captured. Both All India Radio and Voice of America asked him to make a commentary for both Air India Radio and Voice of America highlighting excerpts from the speech of U.S. President George W. Bush that was given that Saturday:
“We pledge the full support of the United States as India investigates these attacks, brings the guilty to justice, and sustained its democratic way of life...On Thursday morning I spoke to Prime Minister Singh…Throughout the process we have kept President-Elect Obama informed…The killers who struck this week are brutal and violent but terror will not have the final word. People of India are resilient. People of India are strong. They have built a vibrant, multiethnic democracy that can withstand this trial…The leaders of India know that nations around the world support them in the face of this assault on human dignity. And as the people of the world’s largest democracy recover from these attacks, they can count on the world’s oldest democracy to stand by their side…May God bless the people of India.”
Just as Raj had insured, other than calls from Venu and government offices, no one called Raj or saw him before Tuesday, December the 16th that was finally when both Raj and Venu agreed to meet for their lunch at the Ashoka’s main luncheon dining room. For the remainder of the days leading up to that meeting, Raj’s calendar was intentionally still kept clean and empty even intermittently going on and off radio. In a sense he wanted his calendar stuffed with important decisions made by him. But in no sense at all, he did want his calendar kept clean and empty and he couldn’t figure out why he willingly retained its emptiness without current or future appointments or notations.
At last came the turn of the calendar page to December the 16th in the main luncheon dining room of the Ashoka Hotel with its prescribed involvement with civilization. He met the challenge well as though there had been no period of acting so factually as a hermit.
“Venu!”
“Lieutenant!”
“Oh no, Sa’ab. Haven’t you heard? That rank has been taken away from me by the Military.”
“What!?”
“Sorry, Sa-ab! There is no need to call me Lieutenant anymore. I know you liked doing that and I liked hearing it. But the Military has the right to take away those things they had given. The Military has that right.”
There was a short silence and then Venu shook his head and made a correction of Raj’s statement by saying, “The Military doesn’t have that right. The Military has that wrong!”
“Well, that’s kind of you. But I’m not concerned. What they did is fine.” Raj then dug in his inside jacket pocket. “Here. Take a look at what they gave me in return,” and he took three of the Military service’s five-pointed stars that were vertically assembled on cloth as symbols to be sewed onto the shoulders of a uniform. “These are for Captains. If you want, you may now call me ‘Captain.’”
Venu shook his head slowly as a wide smile emerged on his face. “At first you had to make me believe something that was not true and that would infuriate me. You couldn’t just say that the Military gave you a promotion. That’s what happened. You had to say they took away your rank of Lieutenant.”
“The Military gave me a promotion.”
“Why not just tell me that right off? Oh, God!”
“No. They cannot promote me to a God but maybe—I don’t know—maybe in the future.”
Venu nodded. “Not maybe. They will for you. Just give them enough time.”
“Time,” Raj repeated the word. “That’s what is important these days. I hate to sound morbid, Venu, but I concern myself with the matter of time a great deal lately because I don’t know how much of it is left on earth for me.”
“No one knows how much time is left for anyone.”
“I don’t mean just time before death. I mean the possible time of old age with its likely reward being survival itself and guessing and knowing what survival could entail; possibly not much more than survival. That could be a difficult course, couldn’t it?”
“Enjoy it, my friend. It’s life. The only alternative is to be frightened by the prospect of having little more than survival. Is that what you want to do? Fear? Don’t.”
“I’m with you, Venu. You are the smartest man I know. It’s what I told you before. You remind me of Gandhi—Mahatma Gandhi.”
“But it’s you who says you philosophize. You say that you are a philosopher.”
“I am. But I have run out of philosophizing.”
“No, you haven’t. You have one great, mammoth, tremendously large asset that creates your philosophizing.”
“What is it?”
“The gift of thinking. You reserve time for it, don’t you?”
“Yes. About two hours a day. I have done that for years now. Did I tell you that?”
“You didn’t have to. I can always tell the few people who reserve time to think. They are different. You are different. And you have time to take on fear and clobber it. Don’t run from it. Clobber it. Take it on. Turn away your fears by grabbing their ears and turning them upside down and clobbering your fears until they are frightened by you. They’ll run away. Once that starts you won’t have to keep clobbering them because they will be far over the horizon and scared to return.”
“I know that you are right but it isn’t just that. Other than you, today, I see no one now. I don’t want to. I want to stay alone.”
“Why?”
“Because I used to see everyone and that was because it seemed that everyone wanted to see me. Now no one wants to see me. If I went outside it would be like a soccer player or a baseball player going to a stadium to play in a game but the team isn’t there and the fans aren’t there. The stadium is empty except for him. No. I don‘t want to be in an empty stadium. That would be terrible. So these days I don’t go outside.”
“I’m glad you told me. Let’s go, Raj. Let’s go outside. Remember that medal that you received and the other honors and reception given for you at the Trivedi Club after you returned from the war up north?”
“Yes, of course. I have them all. I’ll’ never forget.”
“Let’s go to the Trevedi Club. And say that you have come by their place again because you are back in Delhi and you can’t help but go there to tell how much their kindness has meant to you and to the U.S. Government and you just want to thank them again for what they mean. No one does t
hat years later. You do it. And from there we will go to the U.S. Embassy and thank them for all they have done for you, including your position with the Voice of America for all these years. Thank everyone; anyone. I’ll go with you as your Lieutenant since you aren’t one anymore.” Then, with a nod and smile he added, “You spoiled Captains are all the same in that you always need someone to make sure you are taken care of at all moments. It’s time I was lackey for a Captain. I know when God gives me an assignment.”
Raj just stared at his friend and allowed the silence to be his instant speaker.
Venu filled the gap: “And tomorrow, rather than spending the day alone and feeling sorry for yourself, go out and grab your world importance back and this is how you do it: Go talk to your producers at All India Radio and Voice of America in person or if you have to, by phone to the Voice of America in D.C., but do it, and tell them you are feeling much better and you want to get back to work. Do this, Raj. And thank the Ashoka or whoever is the decision maker on your accommodations and equipment for radio transmission. And most important of all, Captain—most important of all—hold on to what you can grasp. Recognize that you have a great reputation built in the past and you have a great podium for your future. If you feel you need a vacation first, then ask for one—but no longer than two weeks.”
And then in a more formal tone he added, “Captain Bhavnani, your podium is the power of radio: Air India Radio and Voice of America. Use your podium. You speak to millions. You can’t see them but they can hear you. That is power. Years back I told you that leaders associate with leaders. I still believe that but let me add to remember that leaders also associate with the people—the average persons of their times—and, with hope, if they are right, those leaders have influence even after their times.”
Raising the Baton Page 27