The Rat Eater

by Anand Ranganathan

  Principal saab, meanwhile, had taken possession of the three working microphones. He began in the customary Indian way, by thanking everyone he ever knew and sparing only the cleaning lady and the chauffeur.

  ‘…Thank you, Clement saab, vice-principal saab, the dean, the honourable bishop, Heads of the departments, my colleagues and friends. I shall call you friends, because that is precisely who you are—friends. But who is a friend? Is he someone who will stay silent while he sees you doing more harm than good? Is he to keep quiet while he sees you do immoral, unworthy things? In other words, is he supposed to be a comfortable pillow for you? Throw it away when you don’t like it anymore; when it has become hard and difficult, no longer soft and silent? No. I am not that sort of a friend…’

  Ajay was beginning to lose interest. ‘Arey Aks, this’ll go on for an hour, man.’

  Before Akhil could agree, pat came a rap on the knuckles from a young woman seated next to them. ‘Shhh! Quiet, you two.’

  Ajay ignored the put-down and consulted his watch. ‘What rotten luck.’

  Principal saab, as it transpired, had no intention of looking at his watch. ‘…and as long as you are Stephanians, you shall adhere to a code. A code of honour, a confidence to do things as they should be done, without fear of reprisals or retributions…’

  Ajay, his mind sufficiently far removed from the chatter of codes of honour, reprisals, and retributions, now remembered something important. ‘Listen, Aks. Bastard, did you lock our room?’

  ‘Saaley, I thought you did.’

  ‘Shit, ban-cho. My priceless laal-mirch pickle that mom gave...’

  ‘Shh!’

  Seeing the woman about to lose her cool again, Ajay thought it an opportune moment to get the introductions over and done with. ‘Sorry, sorry. Hi, I am Ajay—history and he is Akhil—chem.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Aparajita. Now shushhhh!’

  ‘Aparajita what?’

  Principal saab, meanwhile, was giving Nietzsche and Kant a run for their money. ‘…You may learn, when you further your education beyond this college, that there were better teaching methods available, that there were better books, that there were, indeed, better teachers. But then, you will also realise, that to better your education was not our aim to begin with.

  Education is a very abstract thing. Is it improvement or is it refinement? Is it enlightenment or is it indoctrination? Is it information or is it guidance? I shall ask of you the answer on your last day here.

  And finally, I am a terrible stickler for a few things. Attendance—minimum of eighty-five percent before I allow you to sit for your exams.

  Then, I have laws: You shall respect your teachers. You shall call a sweeper by his surname, and you shall put a mister in front of it. You shall address the college gyps as sirs. You shall attend the assembly every day. You shall form orderly queues. You shall not play in the lawns. And for those of you staying in the residences—not hostels, mind you—you shall sign the night register. You can complain about the mess food, but only through the written word.

  I shall be watching you. Closely.

  Look up, all of you. What do you see? No, don’t say a fat, middle-aged, bald man going on and on about morals…I meant look up on the wall above. Yes, the words: “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD; HE WHO FOLLOWETH ME SHALL NOT WALK IN DARKNESS BUT SHALL HAVE THE LIGHT OF LIFE”.

  Jesus was—is—the light of the world. You may follow him, or you may not. Either way, presently, it is my job to lead you out of your darkness.

  Thank you…Now, Clement saab, if we may proceed to the dining hall?’

  The discourse must have been soul-stirring, judging by the speed with which students sprang up from their seats and rushed out.

  But Ajay had not forgotten his one single aim in life. ‘Aparajita what?’

  ‘Aparajita Balasubramanian. Now quiet.’

  Ajay heard Robindro Shongeet.

  What was their first interview like? Did they fail? Did they pass? The were probably thrown out. Both of them looked so untidy, like drunkards or bouncers. Neither Jack (Nicholson) nor Gérard (Depardieu) were blessed with good looks. And Richard (Burton) didn’t even finish school. Aiyoo. And, if Amitabh (Bachchan) had applied for a job, he might have been a lower-division clerk. All their CVs would have been rejected, at the hechaar level. In the unlikely event of an alert hechaar, compliance would have dropped from above, to be pulled and placed in front of the nose to ensure breathing. Breathing is prohibited in certain areas. Cheating is not.

  And as you walk out of the gates of this grand institution, you shall be carrying the weight of not just your golf bags, you shall be carrying forth a tradition, a belief, an era, a civilisation—the hopes and dreams of millions of slaves and black people who built that house we call White. Wah, la vie est belle!

  As you, only you, the purebred among the thoroughbred know that you can tell an aristocrat from a distance—it will always be a person who boils his or her ice cubes. That kind of purity is only perceptible to the rarest of the rare, the clearest of the clear. No IIT, MIT, LSR, Oxford, not even an LSE. This Jack had so many Jills. And that Gérard fellow could only afford a bicycle. One of them speaks English with a French accent and the other looks scary in any language. As for Richard, so many marriages—untrustworthy rascal from the word go. A coal-miner’s son can never be a don. A true dawn, a breath of fresh air, a torrent of words can never flow from gutters where rats live.

  That is what education in the best of the world’s institutions does to you; you can open windows and doors for the rest of your life. You will all look alike, speak alike, like alike, dislike alike, dream alike, marry alike, bear children alike, who will marry alike despite their likes and dislikes. They will all play golf, drive similar cars and, despite being called weekend vultures for wanting to play golf with an unknown rich man so you can access his money, they will continue oblivious to the comedy. Life is a comedy, especially when it is visible to some and totally invisible to some of the cast of characters. Allez, it’s much more of a comedy especially in India where we go through so many funny contortions to hide our real selves.

  Say what is not asked. Ask what is not said. Make up the rest and then complain that you are misunderstood.

  So try this. Ask any middle-class Indian a simple question: So, what do you do? Nine out of ten will tell you where his father got his degree. My father is an IITian. So try again: So, what do you do? My father also went to IIM. Mother? She, too; a gold medallist. But sacrificed her career so she could speak about it for the rest of her life. So, what do you do? I have lived all over the world, worked in private equity and BFSI, and now I am taking courses on how to write my CV. So what do you do when you meet Attitude and Entitlement with a big A and E?

  By this time and stretch, Jack, Gérard and Richard would have been thrown out, dirty clothes and body odour included. People would have laughed at them. No CV, no manners, but boy, do they have Attitude. Would you have given Jack and Gérard a second look if they had walked into a party? Would you have noticed them on the street? But when these two cuckoos appear on screen, they transform not just themselves, but also the audience. The world’s best lawyers did not go to Yale and some of India’s top CEOs are graduates from REC Tiruchirappalli and ‘behenji’ colleges. Many of them went to Minnesota, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Anganwadis. Some didn’t even go to any school.

  What makes you a human being? Bonding in a building or plain and simple bonding with life in all its beauty and stench, grandeur and stupidity? Of daring to open all doors and windows with the courage and humility of your own hands or hanging on to non-existent coat-tails? Gas, where everyone is a CEO, an advisor, a consultant, an image guru, a value-adder—there are even classes that teach people a subject titled ‘social climbing’. Heaven must definitely be a boring place.

  Life is a CV. There is little glory in imitation, especially the kind that he
rds together for want of courage couched as parents expect, society wants, neighbours say, cousins went, father did, mother wanted, grandparents prayed. Yes, we are all born without a net. The lucky among us get to decide how and what we want to trap ourselves in and the kinds of crutches we want to build, for others, so we can be free.

  Try trapeze.

  We all write our CVs together—in fear. Fear of finding out that life invites you every day to meet yourself. Jack and Gérard and Richard and Amitabh must have figured that out differently and together. Life is a stage and not everyone is a stooge.

  1984 was written in 1948.

  9

  2003—Such a Long Journey

  With his legs perched on the wrought-iron balcony railing and his eyes scanning the unspoilt beauty of the Cornish coastline, Mattyboy was forced to contemplate life and its rewards.

  ‘Blimey Maai,’ said Matty out loud. He recalled the last time similar circumstances had thrown him in the lion’s den. He was on his honeymoon, strolling around a beach in Phuket with his arms around his missus, when he looked up at the stunning full moon and the way it was slipping in and out of clouds, and felt something inside him stir. Something disturbing. Words. Oii. Watchii. Naugh becomin’ a sissy bleedin’ poet now, aa ya, he had said to himself and gone on to press his missus and pull her down on the sand.

  ‘Fooh. That woz nice, wannay,’ mumbled Matty as he fetched his legs down. His thoughts began to wander. The open blue sea, the frothy waves, the cawing seagulls, the warm afternoon sun, his kids shouting and making sandcastles—everything receded to form a backdrop while Mattyboy walloped his head and shut his eyes. Bleedin’ cow. Now wayaa’s she ’idden me season tickee…think.

  Matthew Dearlove was twenty-six years old and worked at the passport office in Croydon. He was born and brought up in the east end of London, and there goes a story that he was snatched from the cradle within minutes of his birth by his granddad and whisked away to Upton Park for the West Ham–Newcastle Cup semi. ‘Ammers till I die’ was the family motto. Matty grew up on a staple diet of Steptoe and Delboy and Eastenders, and made many friends along the way, all of whom had also grown up on a staple diet of Steptoe and Delboy and Eastenders. His best friend was Johnnyboy, who had decided to settle in a remote place off the Cornish coast called Truro, and in whose balcony the holidaying Matty was threatened with contemplation.

  Johnny was a graphic designer, and on working days—while back in Croyden—Matty multitasked and picked BLT remnants from his teeth with the sharp end of a matchstick even as he scanned with narrowed eyes an anxious Ghanaian asylum-seeker—Johnny went fooling around Truro town under the pretense of getting fresh ideas: ‘Fresh new idears maai, no-wough-a-meen.’ His employers strained their ears and raised their antennae but failed most times to know what Johnny meant. ‘Giss on, you cockney bh-astard,’ they exhaled out of earshot.

  To sum up, both gents were happy and content with their lives, although it pained Johnny to have to watch his beloved West Ham United on Match of the Day while Matty got to see them ringside every Saturday come rain or shine—before his missus hid away his season ticket, that is.

  ‘Goddam silly cow,’ muttered Matty.

  The balcony door slid open and out came Johnny, dangling what appeared to be two beer bottles.

  ‘Iyaa—try this local stuff.’

  ‘Ta mayt, cheers...Oooooaaa. Wough the bleedin’ el was that,’ cried Mattyboy, spitting his mouthful of the bottle’s contents like an angry gargoyle on a pouring day.

  ‘The local Cornish bollocks.’

  Matty continued with the spitting. ‘Luddy el, Jonnyboy. Heh. Come back, son.’

  ‘Nough-aaf mayt, nough-aaf.’

  ‘Me serious, you wankaa…Aamin, a hundred miles ’way from civiliezayishun, least you expect’s a good bleedin’ beverage, innit. Bloody savages.’

  ‘Tell me ’bout-ee, git. As it is, the rub-a-dub downs the clangaa by effin ten.’

  ‘You kiddin. What is this plaaice?’

  Johnny answered reassuringly. ‘Still England maai, still queen mum’s pad.’

  ‘Effing el, Johnny. Well, ’pose the barmaids make up for it, aye. Aamin, phwoarrrr, aye.’

  ‘’Pends on yer orientaishun. Half the cows ’round eyaa look like bleedin’ geezaas.’

  Matty thrust his pelvis out and his crooked elbows back and repeated the workout a couple of times. ‘Djugo for those ones, then.’

  ‘You oal tossa.’

  This time around, Matty straightened the elbows and dug his hands in his pockets. He crossed his legs at the shins and struck the ballerina pose, reclining gently on the Victorian ironmongery. From the town to the gown is a short journey. ‘So…howz the muppets of Truro treatin’ ya?’

  Johnny took a swig of the Cornish medicine. ‘Doaneven bauver askin’, maai. This design company I work for...’

  ‘Sanders, intchya?’

  ‘Yiah, well tis a load of bollocks. Bleedin’ expect ya to work ya bum off all dee long. An’ tossas ’round iyaa dunno footy, no clubbin’, no chicken tikka masaala bleedin’, too. I telya maait, ’tis quite a jump from good oul Le Bow.’

  ‘Howz the missus an’ kids takin’ it, then?’

  ‘Not too bad, not too bad. But djyou know what they’s like mayt, innay. Delia-bloody-Smith, long walks, ’ome early, telly—that sough of girlie thin’.’

  Matty commiserated. ‘Yaa maai, tell me ’bau-ee. Me bird hid me ’ammers season tickey some-wiah the other nigh—the one we’d gough-un together, ’member?’

  Johnny swallowed a mouthful and waited for the poison to go down. ‘Nouuu.’

  ‘I know, mate. Said, nuff of footy. That I gaugh-oo change me life; take the kiddies out on weekends, eating out—that saugh-a stuff.’

  ‘You poor plonka.’

  ‘An’ that’s naugh-it, maai. She says, says is time to change the loca’ity, too. Says it’s too down-markay ’n like.’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Doanno ’bout you mate but that’s just ou of audaah.’

  ‘Aamin, can’t take the Del boy outta me now, can-ya?’

  ‘So, what did ya tell’er.’

  ‘Shiftin, we are, month’s time. Croydon.’

  ‘Bend down, didjya.’

  Matty tried to defend himself. ‘No mate. It’s quite sensible too innee, with me passport office nearby and Rubics, too. Woan change me club though, tould’er. ’Ammers till I die mate, yaa.’

  ‘Yaa, mayt, buh-waugh-now.’

  ‘Wadj-ya-meen?’

  ‘Aamin, with the kids-cool an’ all.’

  ‘Me in-lozz, inni—bless’em—stay stone’s throu from the new ’ome.’

  The psychoanalysis was going nowhere. Johnny consulted his watch. ‘Good, good…listen, Matt, dijya ever tell yer Chrissie ’bout our li-aa conversaishun the other nigh’?’

  ‘Why, what’s Say-raa been tellin’ ya. Carpet bombin’ like, izzi.’

  ‘Nough reely, nouu. Buh-ya-no how tis like don’t ya, maait. Aamin, she’s been actin’ a bit straaingely laytly, if ya know wough-aa-meen.’

  Matty came closer. ‘How so, mayt?’

  ‘Well, there woz the dog ‘n bone aa ceived one nigh, just as I was ’bout ta leave office—could’ve sworn that was me missus breathin’ down the receivaa.’

  ‘You’re just para maait, just para, atsawl.’

  ‘I swear she’s got an inklin’. ’eemen do maait, sixth sense an’ all…neeway, sure you didn’t mention a thing about me seccy to Chrissie—’cause they do talk on the phone, I tell ya maaiy—missus and yer Chrissie—au-wayz on the founn, they are.’

  ‘No mayit, calm down will ya? Told ya, didn’t say a word to missus. Anyway, aagough plenti on me platter too, if you no-whattameen.’

  Johnny punched his friend playfully. ‘You little bastaa. Well, you gonna tell me boutit or nouugh.’

  ‘All in good time, Johnny boy.’

  ‘Commawn you stinkin’ plonka, out with-ee.’

  ‘Tis a nice ’ittle Paki bird a
t the passport office, maait.’

  ‘No. You geezaa.’

  ‘Wears the—wough-ya-call-ee, Ji-, dhi-, hijab…Looks good on’er—if you ask me ’onest opinion.’

  ‘Well, I am asking your honest opinion, you dirty li-ul basst. ’King-ell, Chrissie don’t know-nothin’ ’bout-ee?’

  ‘Course she don’t, you plonk.’

  ‘But how can ya see’er? Aamin she covered faum ed-to-toe in a bed sheet an’all…’

  Matty tried to enlighten Johnny on the subtleties of Islamic headgear. ‘Why, you ignorant lill bastud. A hijab—don’t mean a bed sheet, you plonka. Just covers her head, ’atsall.’

  Johnny raised his hand in apology. ‘Sorry maait. Don’t knou the luddy difference, now do I.’

  ‘Yaa, how could ya. Aamin, your seccy don’t wear a hijab, does she? Just a fat, lumpy, middle-aged jersi, intshi?’

  ‘Shut-ee, you wankaa. She ain’t lumpy, and she ain’t middle-aged naaither.’

  ‘Awe-rye, awe-rye. Touched a raw nerve, did I? Did I? Way-yaa. They-yaa.’

  Johnny tried to avoid being smacked on his family jewels. ‘Piss off, you wank...’

  ‘Shh, quiet! The kid’s comin.’

  Matty switched to something more academic in a flash. ‘So, aa-ahem…what kinda graphic design jobs do ya get ’round-iyaa?’

  ‘Nothin’ much, maai...’

  A sporty, ginger-haired, baby-faced little girl came running in and tugged at Johnny’s denims. ‘Dad. Uncle Matt.’

  ‘Yes princess?’

  ‘Mum’s callin’ both of ya.’

  ‘Awe-I, daalin’. Come Matt, let’s see wauz bin brewin’ while we’ve bin chattin’ iyaa.’

  Matty leaned out beyond the railing and shouted for his kids. ‘Andeyeeeee? Maggieeeeee?...Comeon in naaow, you ear?’

  The children sprinted over and collected under the balcony. ‘Oh Dad, but we’ve just started. Maggie’s thrown me a challenge—fastest to that bowut’n back. You carry on, Dad. We’ll follow in a minute—honest.’

  ‘Awe-righty then, just ten minutes, awe-I.’

  ‘Right-o, Dad.’

  Johnny picked up the half-full beer bottles, noticing for the first time the Teutonic lettering on the label. ‘Kem on then, princess—lead us to where the ladies are, woanchya?’