The Rat Eater

by Anand Ranganathan

  ‘I said carry on.’

  ‘…Mr Apte: combined wealth—nine thousand seven hundred crores. Unpaid taxes—twelve hundred crores. Fictitious companies—forty-two. MPs in the pocket—eleven. Houses in Mumbai—seventeen. Swiss bank accounts—three. Tie-ups with MNCs—nine. Mr Apte—instigator of riots; diverter of rivers; hacker of forests; reclaimer of oceans; devourer of ground water; builder of dams; cauteriser of crops; squasher of the landless; selector of chief ministers; harbinger of wealth. Now dead. Every little helps.’

  ‘…Theyaa, thazzit.’

  Chrissie put her forefingers to either side of her considerable skull. ‘O, m-y, G-o-d—me mind’s gone numb. Who is this bloke? What’s a crore? What’s a cauteriser?’

  ‘Dee-vee jus ear that or wough. Sweet mother of cheese n’ rice.’

  ‘Aamin, this is betta than Conan the bleedin’destroyer, this.’

  Matty couldn’t agree more. ‘Naugh-aff mait. Aamin, ITV loan woov shell out a fortune for sommink like this, inni?’

  Johnny threw in the spanner. ‘Bugh wough iffits some Asian git sittin’ at Brighton beach scribblin ’way like mad an’ throwin’ the effin trash into the wough-ers?’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Come to think ’bout-ee, there’s probably tens of such bleedin’ bough-uls floatin’ round the couust. Leave it, git...’

  ‘But bugger it, Johnny–’

  ‘Leave it, I said. Lessum old tossa like you find it off effin Italian coust—awe in Zanzi-bleedin’-bar.’

  ‘But, Johnyboy, think. Whough iffits for real? Think, git. This thing’s gonna be all ouvaa the telly like a bleedin’ rash, mait.’

  ‘You reckon? Noough.’

  ‘Coarse I do. Look. Less juss ring that Trever bloke up at ITV…’

  Johnny tittered. ‘Yiah. Like you’d ’avis number an’ all.’

  ‘No, I doan mean him, you wankaa. I mean ITV propaah, inni.

  ‘Yiaa, awe-I. ’Morrow then—first thin’.’

  Matty folded the scrolls and tucked them in his back pocket. ‘Good. Well, nuff bull for the bleedin’ die. Now, woz-at pub we was talkin’ bout?’

  ‘Come on then, git. Get a move on, tis gonna close or else.’

  The men made a rush for the watering hole. ‘Seeya laytaa, girls. We off, we two.’

  But the girls had already switched on the telly and returned to George.

  ‘There was a cold day one summer evening…’ he sang as he took a shower, the bathroom door slightly ajar.

  What aadmi this, standing nanga and singing Darwaza Khol De…? Chi. Shaani. Indian, not Chinese. Chi, chi. Yellu hair and billew eyes. This angrez cannot ispeak Inglish. Vy, Vy? Kyonki they live in east Lundun. Not same as Sthoaul. Parantu, sade nal witch. Different, different. Papa told to me. I am talling you naa, not every firangi ispeak Inglish. Black ones worst. Only drugs, no brain. Nothing upstairs. All between legs only. Downstairs, downstairs. Samjhe na?

  Bugia, bugiardo, ha mentito. Mi sdario, mentite, mentiamo, mentono, tutti noi bugia—questo e una lezione di grammatico. So sweeeet—what does it mean? It sounds so cute. Like pasta, no? I also like Parmigiani. La Montre? Shit, no I mean hello ji; I mean cheese. Parmigiani is also a high-end watch. How do you mix it with pasta?

  Prejudice. How endearing it is. Helpful. Imagine how much we would have to think were it not for prejudices. Makes life easy and it is also human. How human it is. How important it is. How normal it is. To misunderstand and condemn. Bhangi. Condemn and deny. Brahmin. Deny and die. Foreigner. How often do we speak dil se?

  What would you rather have—Hindi spoken in Punjabi or Sanskrit? English from Oxford or from the East End where everyone has TB? One is an imitation. The accent, not tuberculosis, which is real, including the imitation. Imitations are more popular—they are affordable. Imitations are shiny and loud. They attract attention, usage, popularity, acceptance. Look at the French—so busy correcting everyone’s grammar they have forgotten where they started and lost ground to les Anglais. Imagine how much would be lost if a Bengali or an Italian spoke softly or if a Jat said ‘please’? What prejudice?

  Do dogs have a howling pattern? Birds have a kalarava. What do they discuss? What they have seen or not seen or heard. How do they wake up in the morning, you ullu?

  Why is the silence of corruption so loud? Porca miseria. The syntax, the grammar, the reach of long hands as deftly as across a piano? How do you say corrupt from head to toe in Turkish? Dans les pierres and sous le vent?

  If the walls of India’s offices could speak what would they say? Srutibhedam. Sa, re, da, ni, sa.

  Because in the annals of corrupt Indians, the name of Mr Apte was written in gold. He was a stronza di sorella, mangia cane di merda, maiale corrotto and he was a vergogna nazionale. Oh, so cute. Where can we find this book, please? Has it been translated? In Khan Market, Shop No 13 behind the Big Chill.

  Prejudice is so corrupt. Look at us. The world thinks we are crooked; we think they are racist. Everybody in Karnataka is lazy and had it not been for the Tamilians, the state would have drowned in the Cauvery by now. Had the Italians not built Switzerland, the country would be sitting on a mountain with a few cows and goats. Can never trust an Andhrawadu—food is very hot, like in Sicily. All thieves. Gujaratis are kanjoos, Maharashtrians with their light eyes cannot be trusted and Malayalis learn to swim in coconut oil. And the Germans are like the Sikhs—no culture, no culture. Only beer and girls and fast cars. That’s why there are no speed limits in Germany. How cute that the French can’t speak English, but it sounds so cute, na? Especially when it is in foreign. White foreign.

  Monsieur Apte. Instigateur des émeutes, derivations des rivières, pirate des forêts, récupérateur des océans, dévoreur d’eau souterraine, constructeur de barrages, cauterizeur des cultures agricôles, squasher de paysannes sans terre, sélecteur de ministres en chef, signe avant-coureur de la richesse. Maintenant morts. He was an honte nationale, soeur baiseuse, chien qui mange sa merde, cochon corrompu. Chaque petite geste compte—theyya, theyya thai. Oh, so diplomatic. French. Panghat pe aake saiyaan, marode baiyaan—Hindi in English.

  What is the language of lawlessness? Outlaws? In-laws? Lao, lao? Mr Apte: combined wealth—nine thousand seven hundred crores. Would spend some of that in Davos and in the French Riviera buying toys. Ferrari, he said when his Lambo was late. That kind of money is in another league—even God would be embarrassed. Shiny corruption, the type of loot that knows no language, no idiom, no discrimination on the basis of caste and passport. That type of money generates fear, which in turn, generates more money. Fear the laws of anything that speaks all languages, all tongues, without accents. Imagine if a horse barked or a cow hissed? Scary, no?

  But this much has to be noticed: the language of greed is democratic. It vandalises all, mutilates everything—from people to countryside to the air to the seas. It also rats on others who try to speak the same language. Do animals rat on each other? Maybe it would be more apt to say, do animals human on each other?

  Unpaid taxes—twelve hundred crore; fictitious companies—forty-two at last count. This language of extortion and corruption is what would make shame shudder, greed cower and looters cringe. Even the dreaded mafia has some rules, some honour. An omerta, a promise between two pairs of eyes when nothing is said and everything is understood. Honour among thieves is more than three words. It is a long journey across generations. MPs in the pocket—eleven; houses in Mumbai—seventeen. Feel the breeze, the sea breeze. What is the language of the waves that bring messages from distant lands?

  What is the language of the guilty? Sono innocenti? Naan thirida illai? Aiyoo, Venkataramanaa Govinda—only God knows the truth. I am honest. Suddenly words appear, in all languages. Letters pour out of pockets. The bounty and mercy of the one who knows all, sees all, speaks all, is solicited. Why bring God into the almirah? What language does God speak? Can you detect an accent or is it very upper class? Swahili?

  Swiss bank accounts—three. Nothing heard
, nothing felt, nothing seen. Language-less, shapeless, odourless and meaningless. More or less. Greed that can only be felt, not seen. When seen, it is spun, tied and dead. Tie-ups with MNCs—nine. Fiction, addiction. Addicted to money.

  Non puo fidarsi di questi Indiani. Dire de si a tutto e poi no, a poco a poco. Essi inoltre non promuovono o proteggono l’un l’altro. Molto facile divide et impera. Hanno pocco sensi di communità. Chiedere loro che cosa costruice loro carattere nazionale e serrano guardare indietro a voi. Ma sono colletivamento bravo a trovare difetti negli altri. Niente è mail copla di loro.

  Mr Apte: instigator of riots; diverter of rivers; hacker of forests; reclaimer of oceans; devourer of ground water; builder of dams; cauteriser of crops; squasher of the landless; selector of chief ministers; harbinger of wealth. Now dead. Every little helps. ‘…Theyaa, thazzit.’

  His name never came up—never, seriously. It was whispered in cabinet meetings, murmured at evening parties, hinted at underworld gatherings, gossiped at business lunches, muttered at police briefings, insinuated in the Vidhan Sabha, hushed in the Lok Sabha. At all of the above, it was also admired…

  Il suo nome non è mai venuto in su—mai seriamente. Si sussurrava nelle riunioni di gabinetto, mormorè a feste serali, hai fatto capire ai raduni malavita, pettegolozzi a pranzi di lavoro, mormoro al briefing di polizia, insinua nella Vidhan Sabha, ovattata nel Lok Sabha. A tutto quanto sopra, si è anche ammirato…Oh so cute. I heard Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha. These white foreigners, I tell you. They know so much na.

  Such a long journey. To futility.

  10

  1985—The House of Mirth

  The students of St Stephen’s college appeared at high noon, having had their fill of unaccounted bowls of rajma, over-generous dollops of aaloo-gobi and not less than ten chapattis to each man standing. Sunlight dazed them into shielding their post-orgasmic eyes even as they munched fistfuls of saunf and misri.

  The dining hall overseer, Mr Wilson, was, as usual, left inspecting his student tallies, coupons and sign-ups. How in Baby Jesus’s name can the mess expect to stay afloat under such circumstances? he lamented silently, then rushed off to the kitchen to scold the head cook, Mr Charles.

  Meanwhile, outside, the students stumbled and collapsed on the Allnutt lawns, worried they might succumb to the Curse of Wilson: acute pain in the upper intestine. They had heard from reliable sources—these were gyps bribed occasionally with quarter bottles of Old Monk—of how Wilson habitually compelled Charles to serve half-cooked chapattis that, Wilson knew, when consumed in large numbers, would aggregate in the recipient’s stomach to form a giant gooey flour ball with an insatiable appetite for water. ‘Will teach the bastards to eat less,’ was his reasoning.

  The Curse of Wilson struck with regular force at the end of the month, and it was not uncommon to see students being rushed off in rickshaws to the Hindu Rao OPD.

  And so, this afternoon, after having licked their cutlery and crockery clean, reasonably certain they had escaped the curse, Akhil and Ajay emerged from the dining hall like wounded warriors and made their way to Rohtaz’s dhaba.

  ‘Rots boss, two nimbu paani and one Panama,’ mumbled Ajay.

  Rohtaz, the eagle-eyed, Wilson-like proprietor, went down on his haunches and swung open the lid of a battered Coca-Cola ice chest. He caught the floating steel bowl and with it gave a few swirls to the stagnant nimbu pani. Once the insect carcasses and other debris had settled, he poured out two portions of his legendary beverage.

  Both Akhil and Ajay knocked back their share in one go—their Adam apples shunting back and forth—and thumped the dhaba counter with the empty glasses.

  ‘Put it in my account, Rots,’ said Ajay casually, as he and Akhil, while dividing their Panama puffs, drifted slowly beyond the Allnutt side gate and towards the busy University Road.

  ‘It’s my turn now, saaley, you have had your three drags,’ insisted Akhil.

  ‘Bastard, here. Have to shoot, anyway. Anchoring the Muk-mem,’ said Ajay.

  ‘All set?’

  ‘Kind of. I am counting on you to jump in if guys from Hindu make my life miserable.’

  ‘Which they will, you be sure of that.’

  ‘Sambhal lena, ban-cho.’

  An auto screeched to a halt beside them, catching their attention. The sudden—intentional—application of the brakes propelled the autowallah off his seat, and his seat off the engine that it was an enclosure for. A young woman struggled out from the passenger section. ‘How much, bhaiya?’ she asked the autowallah as Akhil and Ajay looked on, half-interested.

  ‘Forty rupees,’ said the man while repositioning the framed photo of Bajrangbali that had gotten jammed between the handlebar and the windshield.

  ‘How come it’s forty?’

  ‘Because I say so.’

  ‘Listen, bhaiya, I am not giving you one rupee more than twenty.’

  ‘So you have your own meter somewhere, haan. Where is it? Here? Here?’

  The woman tried to wrench her bag away from the exploring hands of the autowallah. ‘Stop. My bag!’

  ‘Oye saaley, just what do you think you are doing?’

  The autowallah turned his head around. ‘And who the ban-cho are you two? Her judwaan?’

  Akhil threw away the poor man’s cheroot and charged. ‘Why, you bastard. Ban-cho just you wait...’

  Ajay, meanwhile, entered into a conversation, picking up the pieces exactly where he had left them a year ago. ‘Oh, hi. Aparajita, isn’t it? English honours, no?’

  The woman looked at Ajay distractedly. ‘What? Yes. Look, this man here...’

  Ajay waved his hand. ‘Don’t worry, Akhil will sort him out.’

  ‘Haan, now what is it, saaley, how dare you?’

  ‘Sorry, didn’t know she was your mother.’

  ‘You ban...’

  ‘Arey leave it, ban-cho. Let go of my collar.’

  Ajay, thinking nothing of the atypical setting for chatting up a woman, continued. ‘So it is Aparajita. What are you doing at...’

  ‘What? No, I’d gone home to change. For the Muk-mem debate.’

  ‘You are participating?’

  ‘Listen, can we, maybe later—this man here...’

  ‘Arey, Aks will take care of him. I am Ajay. Ajay Biswas. You remember the name, I hope.’

  ‘Oh…ya, I seem to remember—didn’t we meet on the very first day?’

  ‘We did, indeed.’

  Meanwhile, at the business end of things: ‘Let go of my collar, you bastard.’

  ‘Ban-cho, would you like to do your searching now?’

  Aparajita showed genuine concern at the turn of events. ‘Look, I don’t know, but can you please sort this...’

  ‘Arey, Aks, what’s going on, man? You need me?’

  ‘I want my forty. I only asked her politely.’

  ‘Bastard, we saw how polite you were.’

  ‘Look, just give me my fare and I’ll be off.’

  ‘So, are you taking part...’

  ‘What...Ya, I am representing our college.’

  ‘You are? Nice.’

  Akhil shoved some money in the autowallah’s shirt pocket. ‘Here—take this fifteen and shoot.’

  ‘…Don’t know where you bastards came from...’

  ‘But how come I didn’t know? I mean, I am anchoring the show. I didn’t see any Aparajit...’

  Akhil demanded, dusting his hands. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Oh. A. Balasubramanian, isn’t it? I had forgotten your surname.’

  ‘I said, nothing. I am going.’

  ‘Yes, and see that there? That’s Maurice Nagar thana. If I ever see you again, forget the fare, you’ll be getting whipped with belts. Now get lost.’

  ‘So, are you speaking for or against the motion?’

  ‘Sorry…? Against...’

  ‘So let’s go, then. The thing starts in ten minutes…Arey Aks, you still haven’t sorted the matter or what, man?’

  Aparaji
ta turned to Akhil. ‘Is it over? The guy was...’

  ‘Gave him fifteen—there he goes.’

  ‘Thanks a ton. Hi, I am Aparajita.’

  ‘I am Akhil—second year chem.’

  ‘Oh. So you are Akhil. Aks, right? I have heard all about you.’

  ‘You have? About me?’

  ‘You have? About him?’

  ‘Well, everyone…you were the first one ever to get Kha-khao’s intro on your very first day, weren’t you?’

  ‘By everyone, you mean...’

  Ajay broke in. ‘She means the dhaba crowd.’

  ‘That’s mean of you, Ajay. And by the way, you are known as the wardrobe man.’

  Ajay broke away.

  ‘Well, anyway, thanks a ton guys. Akhil, Ajay.’

  ‘Call me AB.’

  ‘And you can call me Aps…’

  Ajay consulted his watch. ‘We should get going, too. Aks, I’ll see you there. I have to get the intro stuff from my room. See you, Aps.’

  ‘Bye, AB. Aks, you coming?’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  Aparajita and Akhil commenced their short walk to the auditorium. This was the first time Akhil had had female company during a walk, and understandably, he was just sticking to the walking.

  Aparajita sensed the coyness. She took the lead. ‘So, I take it, Aks, you are a rez?’

  ‘Yes. T-10, Muk East.’

  ‘Which block is that?’

  ‘The one next to the chapel.’

  ‘You rez guys have all the fun.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘And I have always wanted to see what your Wednesday-special dinner is like.’

  ‘It’s nothing great. Just about edible.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  ‘The paneer is the soya type.’

  ‘I’ll swallow it.’

  ‘The chapatti is like rubber.’

  ‘I’ll chew it.’

  ‘The lassi is all sour.’

  ‘I’ll drink it.’

  ‘And the saunf is always soggy.’

  ‘I’ll munch it.’

  The words dimwit, jackass, dense, ignoramus, numskull, probably have their etymology traceable to such tête-à-têtes between a young man and a young woman. And the realisation, when it comes, makes you want to offer your skull to a giant French press.