Shabbir Hoosien: ‘Well for one thing, I haven’t been there yet.’
Bella Terrace: ‘What about India?’
Shabbir Hoosien: ‘Oh God, no! India? Have you seen their films?’
Ray Chow: ‘China is the only alternative. We have huge leverage, thanks to Mr D’Souza.’
Ray Chow left the room to attend a call, almost relieved by the event. Colleen Connor was the voice of reason. She screamed. This seemed to quieten the chaos.
Colleen Connor: ‘It’s not so difficult. We just had to do what every government, every monarch, every statesman worth his salt has done from time immemorial. We are no different from the early Ottoman empire or the Anglo-Saxons under Alfred the Great.’
Paul Huskee had become a patient man and politics had made him even more patient. But he stretched his brow in such a quizzical expression that it was made abundantly clear he had run out of epidemics.
Colleen Connor: ‘All we need to do is stall, buy time. You know, come up with a typical 5-year plan. Haven’t you all understood anything about stalling both public and payments until the next government inherits the headache? We just need to do a holding job.’
Paul Huskee: ‘Okay, holding job is fine, but these guys all had their deals with the devil. And the devil is no longer President. So naturally they want us to honour their contracts. They’re hungry and insecure, so how the hell do we stall them?’
At this point Ray Chow entered the room. From his broad smile they knew he had the answer. The smile and the fact that he was pulling on Shabbir Hoosein’s nose with great glee.
Now, dear reader, it’s time to close the story. Weave a silken thread that brings the tale to its end. Since that would require a skilled professional let’s do the next best thing—let’s examine the contracts.
The contracts with China hold the key to GYAANDOSTAAN’s future. I would share them with you, but both you and I know this would be a pointless exercise as they are written in Chinese and GYAANDOSTAANI. When Ray Chow answered the call from China, he was reminded by the lawyers from the other side (they could be from China but are lawyers truly ‘from’ anywhere?) that some of the finer points of the contract had still to be honoured. Since Ray Chow, Amama, Mr D’Souza, and the rest of the Ball and Socket gang had, in true political style, no clue of what exactly was in the contracts, he asked sheepishly for a quick reminder. I won’t bother you, dear reader, with a lot of details, as I know you need to read another book quickly to get this book out of your system, but here are the bullet points:
For the next 5 years, GYAANDOSTAAN is listed as a public limited company and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
51 percent equity is owned by China and 49 percent by the Ball and Socket Party. Thus, effectively for the next 5 years, China will own GYAANDOSTAAN.
China will now inherit GYAANDOSTAAN’s national debt which they will clear happily.
In return, all road signs will be in Chinese. Chilly chicken, chowmein, and American chopsuey will be wiped out of GYAANDOSTAAN, eradicated completely, as they are not, and never have been, a part of Chinese cuisine. Anyone found making or eating them will be shot.
All road signs will be alternately named after Sun-Yat-Sen or Chairman Mao.
GYAANDOSTAAN will be renamed Sino GYAANDOSTAAN.
Anyone not using the official name would be kept in an ice-box indefinitely.
Ice-boxes to be made in Sino GYAANDOSTAAN, not China.
Badminton to be made compulsory.
Then there were particulars about how China’s will must prevail in corporate governance, defense, and law and order. Also mundane smaller facts like ethnic GYAANDOSTAANIS should walk on the left side of the road, they mustn’t have homes above the third floor, and spitting is only allowed if done on one’s own shoes.
The Ball and Socket Party accepted these proposals especially the ones that haven’t been mentioned quite happily. Well, actually, they had accepted these terms and conditions long ago when they signed the contracts in China without reading any of them which is always the only successful way to deal with a contract in the first place.
Paul Huskee and his team soon became world celebrities, being the first country in the world to be wholly sponsored by another country. Thus, Sino GYAANDOSTAAN became the World Brand Ambassador for China. And if by this move it did nothing else but remove chilli chicken from our collective palates, then it had not to be seen as a mundane, but a positive and progressive move.
However, for GYAANDOSTAAN, sorry Sino GYAANDOSTAAN (not a big fan of living in an ice bucket), was this the end, the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, or just the middle? Only time would tell. Time which would now be read in Chinese.
Epilogue
Paul Huskee, Jay Huskee, Col. Jagee, Mr D’Souza, Ray Chow, Amama, Bella Terrace, Mr Connor... It’s been a long journey and now, dear reader, those who have been loyal must be rewarded. It is important to never leave a tale half-complete. Homer did that with the Illiad with disastrous consequences. Here quarter complete yes, but half complete never. As a school boy I spent sleepless nights wondering what happened to Achillies’ other heel? If Helen ever had children out of wedlock? And whether the usually challenged Homer was ever able to check his own spellings!
So what of Gyaandostaan? What happens to our group of intrepid and not-so-intrepid characters? Let’s look twenty years on. Now obviously to find out where everything stood, I needed to speak to a clairvoyant. But my problem with clairvoyants since my childhood seems incurable. They are just too expensive. So I spoke to my numero who, in a noble misguided effort to get rid of me from his office as soon as possible, helped me come up with the following scenario.
The following is known as ‘Twenty Years After’ and although inspired by Alexander Dumas, it has actually nothing to do with The Three Musketeers or D’artagnan.
The country of Gyaandostaan had benefitted greatly by the Chinese takeover. Manufacturing had gone through the roof. And though the bust of Alexander the Great had rather Chinese features, which made him indistinguishable from Chengiz Khan, the relationship between the GYAANDOSTAANI and the Chinese was a harmonious one.
There was a never-seen-before dynamism in the country. A new generation of entrepreneurs. From coffee to charcoal, textiles to IT, they were galloping along. The newly-discovered paper industry displaced Finland’s status in the same. Coffee productions challenged Brazil. And when it came to terra-cotton fishing nets which kept the fish warm single-handedly revived the fishing sector worldwide.
Paul Huskee and Colleen O’Connor got married and of course went on a children spree. But after adopting 5, they were quite disgruntled and switched to Doberman Pinschers.
Amama became the Finance Minister of Gyaandorstaan and then went on to serve as Ambassador to Japan where he became the only adult made to never pass the yellow belt exam in Karate despite 33 effort laden attempts.
Ray Chow whose team invented the terra- cotton fishing nets became the richest man in GYAANDOSTAAN and was in the Forbes richest list for 27 consecutive years. And surprise, surprise—his second in command was Gulu.
Bella Terrace finally married Mr D’Souza although Mr D’Souza didn’t actually propose. But phonetically there really is very little to choose from. Will you hurry please and will you marry me.
Mr D’souza found himself living with Bella Terrace and spending months at a time in Beijing where he was now China’s greatest living icon ever. By now he’d given up trying to figure out why things were happening as they did. The SWIM brothers had joined an Ashram in nearby India, but only after winning 9 reality TV shows in the same country.
Jay Huskee had joined a peace-keeping force in West Africa but fell out of a moving jeep on the Rwanda border and was not seen since.
Col. Jagee revised the genre of ‘B’ grade Martial Art films. He earned quite a name for himself, and his film Nonstop Kung Fu in which all he wore was a nan chaku was voted worst film ever by a group of a hundred of the world’s most w
ell-known film critics.
As for you, dear reader, I’m not sure what happens to you twenty years later. But I know this book has aged you as it has aged me.
Please spread the tale of Gyaandostaan—a country small in status but great in spirit and mind. A tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.
A Note on the Author
Firstly, the author, who used to be a woman, prefers the term ‘lady’, though he’d kill for ‘Dame’ and would rather be killed before he endorses ‘broad’. The author has written 437½ books, unfortunately 2 of which have been published. His last work on the electrical dynamic that is the pre-natal child care world, was incredibly rejected by this same publisher. This makes what Queen Elizabeth did to Sir Walter Raleigh into a far smaller crime. The author hates biking, riding, reading, movies, and walks on the beach. He loves working with multiple NGOs, none of whose full forms he cares to remember. His last two experiments with hygiene and fashion failed miserably. So for the sake of his two young children, Mikhaail and Maya, let’s hope this books works.
Author’s Note
The only way to explain this story is with one word. It is the same word that has been used by critics to describe Billy’s Hamlet and Homie’s Illiad. The word is ‘incomplete’. It is now both a literary and scientific fact that all great works are bound together by that one very same quality: they are all incomplete. This is why we invite you, our friendly reader (especially those who’ve been administered all their shots), to complete this tale. In order to facilitate your cooperation, we have kept plenty of space available for you to fill up on every page. Also, in case you are troubled greatly by the book, the publishers are open to the idea of sharing the author’s entire medieval history with you. But they warn me to warn you that his medieval history is both longer and funnier than this book.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my parents, all seven of them, two of whom I’m slightly more attached to. I’d also like to thank the women that inspire me, namely my cleaning lady Sushila, who ensures I raise my feet from the ground every morning for four minutes while she mistakenly cleans the floor. I’d like to thank you, and the man seated on your right. But most of all I’d like to thank the traffic in South Mumbai which has allowed me plenty of time to write.
THE BEGINNING
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EBURY PRESS
Random House Publishers India Private Limited, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon – 122 002, Haryana, India
Random House Group Limited, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA, United Kingdom
Published by Random House India in 2014
www.randomhouse.co.in
Copyright © Cyrus Broacha 2014
Illustrations © Gouri Nanda
ISBN: 978-8-184-00491-5
This digital edition published in 2014.
e-ISBN: 978-8-184-00650-6
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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