by Akhilesh
The newly constructed house made a lot of people curious and they had similar questions – who had constructed it, who owned it? But no definite information had emerged, only gossip, opinions and differences of opinions. Someone claimed it belonged to a reputed builder and according to another, the owner was a Haryana industrialist, a prominent name in the steel industry. There were also talks that the most corrupt IAS officer in the state was the owner.
A corollary to the story was that when the chief minister had inquired about its value at the house warming ceremony, lauding its architecture, the IAS officer replied it had cost only a crore of rupees instead of the real two billion. The chief minister had handed him a cheque for a 1.25 crores and acquired the property outright. There is a canard that the cheque bounced…
These instances bring some levity to the novel and disrupt the tragic tone that the novel seems to be reaching for. Nirvasan’s story takes place in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Readers will not fail to notice that the novel itself is full of upper caste characters. The one character from a backward caste is Jagdamba who is a Kumhar and whose defining characteristic is that he farts so loud it sounds like a bomb has exploded. Even if we consider the plot, the various identifying features of his family that Ramajor Pandey had provided did not include this. Apart from that, in his Brahmin arrogance, Pandey does not even try to form any connection with Jagdamba.
Likewise, there seems to be no role for women in the novel either. Gauri, whose being insulted precipitates Suryakant’s departure from his home to Lucknow, is also educated like Suryakant – they were classmates at university. The time the novel is set in, women are very much a part of the workforce. And yet, Gauri’s only function in the novel is to read Suryakant’s Mayfair notebooks, to make him tea as he ponders over his existence, or to worry about their son Gaurav. Suryakant’s uncle renounces material comforts because his wife is shown to be an avid consumer of them. All she wants to do is go to the mall after driving all the way down from Sultanpur.
Nirvasan’s biggest quality is that it is interesting and readable. The author has focussed on keeping the narrative engaging more than on research and contemporaneity. Readers understand that the centre stage is industrialization against tradition. With the publication of Nirvasan in 2014, its publisher awarded it the Kriti Samman. The descriptions of small-town life and the persistent everyday struggles in villages that one finds in this novel are perspectives that English readers can only gain through translated texts. The novel’s appeal to English readers might be to give them an insight into the attitude of the Hindi belt towards the newly developing society, the new generation, technology, modern amenities and the effects they have on individuals and erstwhile closely-knit communities.
Prabhat Ranjan
1
THE DEATH GAG
At first, it was a just a teeny-weeny blister on his right gill.
It fondled his right gill once and then vanished. Visible for a couple of days and then clean gone. However, even its exodus had such an elephantine punch, bluster and subterfuge that Suryakant often lurched and toppled over in his struggle to move back into shape.
In this state of being and not being, he jotted down a few lines; his maiden attempt at poetry:
O stranger, you have alighted on my right gill
O indomitable baby blister
Steamrolling pleasure as well as life
With a single macerating step of yours
O indomitable petite blister
You vanquished me, knocking me down
Ruining my life and its crown
And I am neither fish
Nor fowl
No bore
No shore
And you delivered me thus
To land me in a crush
Before stepping into Bahuguna’s office he decided he would recite the poem first, and then ask: ‘What about my job?’ The reason behind the hunt for a new job at his age was not the pallid, trivial blister, but the newest octogenarian chairman.
The creature was called Sampoornanand Brihaspati. Nobody had an inkling why he had picked ‘Brihaspati’ as his nom de plume. He looked so dodderingly ancient and was so terribly influential that nobody had the nerve to ask him why he preferred Brihaspati. Still, if someone dared ask, the creature would be more than willing to gratify their curiosity. It was a different matter that his reply each time he was questioned would be so fantastic that the fog surrounding his name would grow murkier instead of splitting up.
One story making rounds was that it was his father’s name. In deference to his father, he had started appending ‘Brihaspati’ to his own name. Another legend mentioned that he had adopted it after the educator of the gods. Sometimes, he would enlighten us, saying he had been born during the Brihaspati lagna, and occasionally it was because he had been delivered to this earth on a Thursday (Brihaspativaar). Once, he said to a snooping soul, ‘I didn’t choose the sobriquet. In fact, Prabhu Swami Karpatriji Maharaj was so impressed by my erudition that he began calling me “The educator of the gods, Brihaspati”, and then it caught on.’
He had been writing books for six decades, siring thirty-three tomes and booklets so far. Most of them focused on research about the fundamental edifices of antiquated buildings. He had hit upon the ingenious idea that five hundred and one mosques in the country had originally been temples. Sampoornanand Brihaspati had declared that Lord Rama’s bow, Lord Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra and Goddess Kali’s dagger were still concealed in a secret spot somewhere in the country, and that he would reveal them to the whole wide world one fine morning. The book that contained this assertion also stated that he was willing to embark upon the holy quest of locating Lord Hanuman’s mace as well but it wasn’t worth the trouble now. There was a simple explanation for this – Lord Ram and Lord Krishna had already departed from this mortal world in their chariots, while Lord Hanuman still roamed the expanses of the earth, never letting go of his mace even for a single moment.
According to Sampoornanand Brihaspati, it was not a product of wool-gathering ingenuity; he had arrived at that well-informed conclusion only after poring over recorded history during the course of his soul-consuming research. It was nothing but humility on his part that he kept renouncing the credit of the grand discovery, saying that he had achieved enlightenment after pleasing the goddess Bhawani by observing fasts on 1440 holy navratra days – right from his birth year to his current, ninetieth year – without a single breach. He had let it slip in an interview that his father and grandfather were awestruck when he had refused to suckle his mother because her mammillae had been profaned by her perspiration and tasted saline, a lowly salt, nowhere in the league of rock salt.
There are some facts to which only a few are privy, the most outstanding of which was his singular role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. When several renowned male and female leaders – who were later taken on as ministers in the Indian Union government – were screeching slogans on the mike from the stage to incite the mob, Sampoornanand had not dawdled. He had lodged himself on the spot with abundant pouches of paan masala since daybreak. One of the journalists there had passed on to his friends that when the Babri Masjid was pulverized, Sampoornanand, who was around seventy then, had leaped up in ecstatic delirium and started cutting capers.
He was so fired up with emotion that in blissful fervour, he had started bestowing paan masala pouches upon illustrious leaders like L.K. Advaniji and Murali Manohar Joshi. The journalist also added that Advaniji had flung away the pouch indignantly, while Joshiji had put the string of pouches around his neck, complementing the ochre towel adorning the space between his head and shoulders. Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Ritambhara had accepted the pouches modestly. The two women leaders told the journalist that although they did not relish chewing gutkha, they were unable to refuse an honourable person like Brihaspatiji. The journalist also revealed that he had seen Ritambhara bowing her head reverentially to the gutkha pouches.
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sp; And now, the bum had managed to grab a spot as chairman in the Directorate of Tourism. This, in spite of the fact that the government had been formed by the former opposition party. He was also appointed advisor to the chief minister. Nobody knew how he managed to cop the posts in spite of the opposition coming to power. There were two or three lines of speculation. First, he had virtually adopted the present chief minister as his protégé, and had calculated his predictions for the next ten years on the basis of the latter’s horoscope, announcing that he would snap up the prime minister’s job within the next five years.
Another assumption was that the chief minister never indulged anyone without a reason, one must compensate him for his benignity. Sampoornanandji had landed the post because one of his followers, a reputed industrialist, had donated seven crore rupees to the chief minister’s personal coffers. A daily news analysis settled that the industrialist had been able to corner such favours with Sampoornanandji’s help in all the states like Madhya Pradesh where the chairman had followers in power.
However, the real reasons were known only to certain journalists, politicians and bureaucrats. A curious issue for the nosy employees in the tourism directorate was that Sampoornanand Brihaspati spent precious little time in his chambers in the secretariat and instead preferred the ones in the directorate. He would bob up on the stroke of ten every morning and remain fixed to his chair. This disconcerted everyone in the office, right from the director general to the humble peon, and unable to thwart it, they kept trying to divine the logic behind the pickle. Most of them were convinced there were cabalistic grounds behind the move. There then appeared a theory that it was due to his habit of masticating gutkha. Since chewing gutkha and smoking was officially frowned upon in the Vidhan Sabha, it had put him into a bind. It was a different matter that those who were in the habit of chewing gutkha did it in the Vidhan Sabha without batting an eyelid. However, such overt defiance could not be accepted as conclusive evidence. Whatever the case, the truth was that Mr Chairman Tourism Directorate cum Advisor to the chief minister, Shri Sampoornanand Brihaspati, made it a habit to blow in and plonk down in his chair in the tourism directorate every working day.
The rendezvous of Sampoornanand Brihaspati and Suryakant in his office passed in the following manner:
Suryakant entered the office accompanied by a file following the director’s request. Sampoornanand Brihaspati was lolling in his cathedra. His eyes were closed and his muzzle was open. Suryakant grew angst-ridden instantly, assuming that the gentleman had given up the ghost. But he was very much alive and soon oped his blinkers. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Sir, I’m Suryakant, deputy director.’
‘Who’re you?’ His face twisted and his ears cocked.
‘Suryakant!’ he almost yelled back.
‘Are you a non-vegetarian? Speak louder!’
‘No sir, I am a committed vegetarian,’ he shouted again.
‘Do you drink or smoke?’
‘Not at all.’ He smoked at least three cigarettes every day and drank some five to six times a month.
‘Why are you here?’
‘This file, sir.’ He parked the file in front of the chairman. ‘You made a query concerning the Mukti Path project, this is the one.’
It was the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 1857 War of Independence. It had been proposed that the route the freedom fighters had taken be developed into a tourist trail, hailed as Mukti Path. Museums on the theme of liberty should be erected at all principal spots like Lucknow and Bithoor, where pitched battles had been fought and grand, sprawling parks should be laid in the sacrosanct memory of the freedom fighters. There were umpteen other plans and projects enclosed within the loquacious confines of the file.
Sampooranand Brihaspati opened the file and started reading loudly. With each word he uttered, mixed particles of tobacco, cloves and paan masala showered profusely on the pages of the file. He picked up the pen to write something but tarried. ‘I ought to go to the crapper first.’ He got up and paddled towards the cupboard.
Suryakant’s angst went up a notch – what if he crashes into the cupboard? ‘Sir, that’s the cupboard. The toilet is the other way.’
His eyes bore a hole into Suryakant. ‘I know. I am not blind.’ He shoved his hand inside his vest to yank out one end of his janeu. A key was tied to the sacred thread; he held it with wobbling hands and unlocked the cupboard. Several sets of clothes were stacked inside. Beaming, he pulled out a kurta pyjama set. ‘Every time I go to the toilet, I take a bath. Even in the bitterest cold,’ he announced proudly, ‘and change my clothes.’ He strung the janeu over his ear and marched into the bathroom.
Suryakant waited for him to re-materialize.
In the bathroom, Sampoornanand Brihaspati’s brain hummed like a mainframe. All the vital decisions of his life, stratagems, diplomatic moves, visions and programmes and conspiracies had all burgeoned into life in some corner of a bathroom. All his schemes concerning Lord Hanuman’s mace, prayer sites and architecture were impromptu gifts of his bathroom sessions, not of study and research. Whenever he would be hit by an epiphany, he would take a divine bath and donning fresh clothes, dedicate himself to executing his bathroom visions. The moment he came out of the bathroom, his brain and tongue grew incredibly facile.
He materialized. He planted himself in the chair. Suryakant was sitting across him.
‘I am of the view that the project was conceived by the previous government. It was an absolutely corrupt government; the project was a means to cover the aforesaid corruption. How can we let our government pursue it?’
‘Sir! The freedom struggle is quite a sensitive issue.’ Suryakant was speaking loudly again so Brihaspatiji followed him without a hitch. ‘It wouldn’t be wise to abandon or interfere with this project.’
‘How about constructing monumental temples with idols of freedom fighters like Rana Pratap, Shivaji and others at every district headquarters? We would use the finest architecture in them, of the order of the temples of Meenakshipuram and Vijaynagaram; the figures would be carved by the most outstanding sculptors in the world.’
‘Sir, my modest opinion is that there are multiple spanners in the works. The first is that the illustrious fighters you have just mentioned belong to the medieval age, not to the 1857 battle. The second is that the Hindus and the Muslims had joined forces on the soil of Awadh in our UP. The construction of temples would go against the sentiments of the minorities, against the sacrifices they made. If, instead of the temples …’
‘These are facetious arguments furnished by sceptics who do not have the least understanding of the sentiments, beliefs and pride of the majority community of the nation. Wait and see, people won’t tolerate this attitude for long. If this persists, the tourism directorate will face such celestial wrath that it would sink eternally!’
‘Sure, sir.’ Suryakant was at a loss for words. He sat there for a little while, and then returned to his chamber and started poring over the files.
Every file that arrived from Sampoornand’s office was suffused with the gravelly powder of tobacco, paan masala and cloves on its pages. His hands would be soiled. In desperation, he started using a duster. Soon, he would open the pages by pinching the corner and brush them first. He was so consumed by the habit that the duster would often fly into his hand even before he touched the file.
One afternoon, the 1857 file came back from Chairman Brihaspati’s den. Suryakant opened it, dusted it robustly and leafed through it:
‘The Mukti Path project to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 1857 War of Independence would surely be the highest tribute to the valiant warriors who sacrificed their lives. However, it should be taken up by the Culture Department. The job of the Tourism Department is to develop spots and projects within the ambit of tourism to attract visitors and generate maximum revenue for the state through the tourism industry. From this viewpoint, it can be stated conclusively that the construction
and development of Mukti Path is of no use to the Tourism Department. The grounds are as follows:
The real foundations of tourism are children, youth and women. It is well known that these sections have lost interest in the history of the nation. Children are engrossed in cartoons and science, the youth are absorbed in merriment and their careers, and women are occupied with fashion and entertainment. None of the aforementioned components has been a constituent of the 1857 War of Independence.
The chief source of revenue generation through tourism is foreign tourists. What interest would they find in the 1857 battle? It might prove counterproductive and deter them because the exhibition would entail numerous legends on the massacre of the whites. It is also well known that the whites spend the most among the foreign tourists.
The enthusiasm that exists in 2007 to commemorate 1857 will not be the same in 2008 – it would diminish. It will lessen further in 2009 and will almost vanish in 2010. The pace at which our society is hurtling towards this amnesia, it would not be misplaced here to envisage that there will come a time when people will consign this history to oblivion. Therefore, merely for the sake of commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, it would not be proper for the Tourism Department to work on a project costing four hundred and twenty-five crores. Hence, the proposal for the project should be sent back to the government with the note that if deemed necessary, it should be implemented by the Culture or Education Department.