The Rat Eater

by Anand Ranganathan

  Akhil stopped in his tracks. ‘Oh. But you are most welcome as my guest. Sorry I…this coming Wednesday?’

  ‘I’d love that.’

  ‘Great—I’ll put your name down.’

  ‘Thanks. Akhil. I need to brush up on a few things. I’ll see you inside.’

  Akhil gave a thumbs up. ‘All the best. The shield is yours.’

  Api smiled and hurried off, breaking into a jog.

  ‘Bye…’ mumbled Akhil, thinking already of Wednesday night.

  Meanwhile, inside the main hall where the prestigious debate was shortly to take place, there was pandemonium. It was difficult to point out the cheap seats. Everyone was whistling and booing. A stronger-than-usual contingent from Hindu College had already begun to debate about what kind of profanity-filled soliloquys would have the most face-contorting, nose-twitching effect on these bunch of Stephanian bastards. While they were making up their minds, Ajay, up on the dais, was trying to sweet talk them into sparing the most nauseous ones for another day.

  ‘…Please, please be seated. Yes, and you, the most wonderful people back there from Hindu College, thank–thank you. Ladies and…Please take your seats…’

  ‘Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-i-en-ji.’

  ‘Yes, thank you—please take...’

  ‘Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo. Jitegaa bhai jitegaa—Hindu jitegaa.’

  ‘Thank–thank you.’

  ‘S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-i-en-ji.’

  ‘Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘Yes, finally…thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Ajay Biswas, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this, the thirty-eighth Mukerji Memorial Debate competition, or Muk-mem, as we call it lovingly.

  ‘As you know, seventeen colleges took part in the initial rounds, and like last year, it has come down to two. Yes—Hindu and Stephen’s.

  We are honoured to have as our adjudicator today Mr V.D. Menon, the additional solicitor general of the government of India…If I may, sir, could I request you, and principal saab, and vice principal saab, to please come to the stage. Thank you…And Mr Menon is himself a Stephanian, and...’

  The picket line at the back went into action immediately.

  ‘Cheaters…cheaters…cheaters…Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘Yes thank–thank you…and a Rhodes scholar, no less. He was also the winner of Muk-mem in 1967...I now request principal sir to say a few words, and also explain the rules of the competition…Sir, please...’

  ‘Shhh!...Shhh!...’

  The prinicpal must have been feeling under the weather, for this time, he kicked off the proceedings by thanking only one person. ‘Thank you, Ajay. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Stephen’s—and you, too, sirs, in the back there. Welcome. You look just the same since I saw you last—at the interviews.’

  The barb from principal saab brought the Stephanian part of the house down. And gave fuel to the Hindu fire.

  ‘Cheaters…cheaters…cheaters…Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-i-en-ji.’

  The principal took it sportingly. ‘It is also a pleasure to welcome V.D. Menon. The country expects, and V.D. delivers. About V.D., I can go on and on, but…yes, now for the rules. Ten minutes to each contestant—no interjections allowed. The motion before the house is: “This House Believes Imperialism and the Raj Did This Country Some Good.” And please, stick to the time limit. V.D.’s time is money for the nation. Over to you, Ajay.’

  ‘…Er, thank you, principal saab. So, ladies and gentlemen, may I now call upon Mr Sameer Goel from Hindu College.’

  ‘Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo! Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘Jitegaa bhai jitegaa—Hindu jitegaa.’

  ‘…Yes, yes, please welcome Mr Goel, a second year maths honours student. Mr Goel will be speaking for the motion. Mr Goel—ten minutes.’

  The Hinduite began as most Hinduites do, with politeness and courtesy. ‘Thank you, Mr Biswas…Mr Menon, Mr Principal sir, Mr Vice Principal sir, esteemed faculty of St Stephen’s, and friends. In the next ten minutes…’

  Mr V.D. Menon was quick off the blocks. ‘Nine…that would be nine, old chap.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Menon. In the next eight minutes and forty-five seconds, I’ll try and put forth my views as to why I think the Raj did this country some good…old chap.’

  ‘Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo! Hindu Hindu Hin-doooo!’

  ‘S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-eye-en-ji.’

  With the debate now under way, the Stephen’s principal turned his attention to some urgent matters. ‘Good to see you again, V.D.’

  ‘Thank you, principal saab. It’s great to be back. Lots of shouting and screaming, haan.’

  ‘Feels like we are in a mushairaa, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Arey, but I quite like it, sir.’

  ‘You think so? At least this year Hindu has agreed to be quiet during the speeches.’

  ‘So no limericks from their end, then.’

  ‘Thank God, no.’

  As the clock ticked, Sameer began to argue heatedly, another Hinduite quality. ‘…Why? Because it’s been thirty-eight long years since Independence and what have we to show for it. Poverty? Corruption? An Emergency? A collapsed justice system? Yes, we can say proudly that we are free. But free to do what? Free to plunder the nation’s wealth? No, you say. Look at what we have achieved. Look at our colleges, our industry, our research institutions…And I hear you ask me: what was it that was better before we kicked the goras out? I’ll tell you what was better. For a start, our whole country was governed by just 15,000 Englishmen. And how many administrators do we have now? One hundred and sixteen thousand. Yes, you heard me. One one six zero zero zero. We have ten times more sahibs now—and is the country really run that much better than when it was under the firangis?

  ‘Ask your grandparents who have seen the Raj. Go ask them: Who gave us a common currency? Who brought the railways to India? Who maintained law and order? Who built the armed forces? Who established all our educational institutions? Who began the process of justice? Of courts? Who preserved our heritage? Who formed the Archaeological Survey of India? Who let C.V. Raman do his experiments in peace? Who gave him the title “Sir”? Who? The same people who we call imperialist bastards. And what did they solicit in return, you ask? What was their agenda? Well, alright, they took a little of our freedom away. Yes, they did….’

  Mr Menon was taking his duty as the adjudicator most seriously. ‘So, how’s the situation with the renovation fund, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes, V.D. In fact, that’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about. I got talking to Anirudh— you must know Anirudh?’

  ‘Foreign seccy, na.’

  ‘Yes. So, he tells me there should be no problem in getting tax-free remittances from these NRIs…’

  ‘Well, that’s great, sir. I mean…’

  ‘Precisely. V.D. Just follow up on that, will you?’

  ‘Sure, sir.’

  Sameer smacked the podium with his fist. ‘But balance it with what we got in return—and I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking: on balance—was it good?’

  ‘This chap is good sir, isn’t he. Shall I, maybe just give him a little hearing?’

  ‘By all means—you are the judge, bhai—and one day, dare I say, the Chief Justice.’

  ‘O-ho-ho, sir. That’ll be the day.’

  ‘Well, we wait for it, V.D.’

  ‘Well, thank you, sir…’

  Sameer stalled the trembling podium with his palm. ‘…Was bartering some freedom for all those things of some benefit, after all? Well, sirs and madams, I say yes it was. What use is a little freedom anyway? And talking of freedom of speech, which poor man, which Harijan, ever got heard? Which one? And freedom to vote—look where that has got us.

  ‘I say this trade-off between freedom and progress was a good thing. Yes, the peopl
e of Hong Kong can’t decide on their mayor or minister; they can’t lead a morcha like our jholawala brothers and sisters; they are forced to buy mostly British goods; and yes, a few unlucky ones got shot in a protest ten years ago. But each one of them has some bread on his plate at night. Each one has a job. Each one is able to send his kids to school.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, ponder, and realise, that those days, the days when there were only 15,000 babus, and discipline, and plenty to eat, and not much freedom to say what you wanted to say—those days were good days. Those days were grand. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.’

  The polite and courteous Hinduites all rose up in unison. ‘Wah. Fantastic saaley. Hindooooo, Hindu! Hindoooooo, Hindu!...S-S-C…sitting on a tree…eff-you-cee-kay-i-en-ji.’

  Ajay reclaimed the microphone. ‘Yes…thank…thank you, Mr Goel. That was crisp. Er, anyway, our next speaker is Miss Aparajita Balasubramanian from St Stephen’s College. Aparajita is a second-year student of English and she will be speaking against the motion…Aparajita? The floor is yours.’

  A hush descended, the kind that ensues each time a woman is being scrutinised minutely by a room full of single men with a testosterone rather than a dandruff problem.

  Time stood still as Aparajita took small and careful strides towards the stage. The audience gaped in wonder. The majestic poise, the goose pimples of thrill visible on her upper arms, the reclining bun speared with a pencil, the perfectly curving hourglass through which poetry travels, from apparition to creation, word by word.

  She was not carrying any notes.

  And when she placed her elbows on the podium and parted her lips, it was as though a veena had been stirred by galloping fingers. ‘Yes, thank you, Ajay…Mr Menon, principal sir, vice principal sir, my teachers, friends from Stephen’s, and friends from Hindu…’

  The Hinduites clapped and whistled. ‘Oye-hoay-hoay-hoay! Maar guyee baazee…thank you, thank you. Shh!! Shhh—arey quiet now saalon…Shhh!’

  ‘Let me first thank Sameer Goel for putting up a very good defence, a remarkable one. There could be some merit in going back and finding out whether his grandfather was employed in the viceroy’s bawarchikhana. And I don’t mean any disrespect for the Goel heritage when I say this, but were that to be true, I’ll certainly make him eat his words today. Not his dear grandfather, no, but Sameer himself. Yes, Sameer—the salesman, the living, breathing, gold-embroidered half-unicorn half-lion crest for that great institution, the Raj.

  ‘Sameer urges us to go and ask our grandparents, our grandfathers, about how good life was in those days. I guess he wants us to ask Lala Chattarmal who was punished with sixty lashes on his bottom for daring to defy the provincial orders that Indians be allowed to only crawl on the streets before Jallianwala. Yes, crawl—crawl in the narrow lanes, yes slither, and writhe, on their stomachs.

  ‘…Or shall we ask Chimanbhai who was thrashed and locked up for three months for taking sea water home to make his own salt after Dandi?

  ‘Those were good days, Sameer says, those days before nineteen forty-seven, those dreamy, autumn days when another grandfather, Sardar Gurbakhsh Singh piggy-backed his pregnant wife for seventy miles, all the way from Lahore to Gurdaspur, only to see her deliver his dead son. And shhh! It must be held as a tightly guarded secret that the fate of Sardar Gurbakhsh and forty-three million others was decided quietly over a cup of tea and scones by a few affable gentlemen with sky-blue chalks in their hands and a rough scrawl of the western-frontier map before them. And it must be kept secret that with one eye on the opening overs at Roshanara Club, those benign gentlemen hastily scratched and screeched and squiggled and zigzagged miles upon bloody miles of boundaries and borders. A block of land divided over tea. But what land! A jewel in the crown—a Kohinoor…’

  Principal saab was confident the shield was going nowhere. This girl was something. He resumed his chit-chat with Mr Menon. ‘Arey V.D., what news of Srinjoy?’

  ‘Srinj? Not good, sir, I’m afraid. The company made him redundant.’

  ‘Union Carbide, no?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He has filed a writ in the Supreme Court—1,500 petitioners, demanding three hundred million in compensation.’

  ‘Dear God. Dollars?’

  ‘Tushar Raghuvanshi— you know him—is on the case…One clause says Anderson himself must come to Delhi and hand over the money.’

  ‘Good luck with that, I say. What a tragedy.’

  ‘Terrible, sir. A great guy he was, too, Srinj; now without a proper home and car… Has been staying at Taj Man Singh with wife and kids for the past month, poor sod.’

  ‘Bad…’

  ‘I mean, to see him suffer like this, sir…terrible.’

  ‘Still, from such tragedies only do great men rise up…’

  ‘He said his servants, cooks, drivers, all died from the gas that night. Even his dear Panzer.’

  ‘Panzer?’

  ‘His golden retriever. I think that really did him in. He couldn’t bear the sight of his Panzer all frothing from the mouth…’

  ‘Bas bas, V.D., I know, I understand. Still, do tell him when you meet him that I had asked after him.’

  ‘Will do, sir…’

  The rest of the audience, however, was firmly in Aparajita’s grasp.

  She tightened the grip. ‘…After all, didn’t those Englishmen worry themselves sick about how and why five million emaciated Bengalis died in forty-three, just vapourised—whoosh—in the fifth-worst famine to have hit humanity? They lost their sleep, they couldn’t for the life of them understand why, when a narrow gauge track had been thumped on the barren wasteland, when there were hundreds and thousands of sacks of wheat that could be transported, why then did so many die?

  ‘But let’s keep that a secret, too. Shhh! No one but Sameer and his Englishmen must know that those trains did work, those wagons did carry, those tracks did rumble under the weight of a million starving eyes, but all the trains took to Bombay—some poor fellow must have switched the lever at the last minute, all his fault. Those trains were meant for the starving and the dying, so how could they have reached the docks, and then how could they have hopped on to giant ships, and then how could they have sailed away to the not-yet-starving-but-might-starve-soon-the-war-is-not-over-yet-you-know? Yes, contingencies have to be made for the white-skinned blood brothers of the dying brownies. Oh, but surely the dying brownies would understand. They always have.

  ‘Shh! And let us also ask grandfather Roy Emberton aka Mubisba Nkoango, the slave, now emancipated—thanks Abe, bless your heart—but now in need of some semblance of human rights. Goddamn Yankees. Now look—we have to find a place for these niggers to be dumped. They can’t stay on our land, oh no no no, siree, can’t have this American dream baloney—that’s for us, the Imperialists. Tell you what—let’s create a brand new country for Roy. Not near here, but what’s the best place…Africa, did you say? Great. So let’s make a country for them—we’ll call it Liberia. Let them have all their rights there. Oh, they’ll be happy. They always are.’

  To have reclaimed the attention of principal saab was an achievement in itself. ‘I say, V.D., this girl’s good.’

  ‘Wow. She’s packing a punch alright…’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Looks like the shield’s not going anywhere this year too, haan sir.’

  ‘Well it’s up to you, V.D., up to you.’

  ‘She’s ripping that fellow apart, isn’t she. Bit by bit.’

  ‘Haha, that she is, that she is. I wonder…Balasubra…Bala…no, sorry, can’t place her dad.’

  Aparajita gripped the podium ledge so tight the mic rattled. ‘These little after-pages of our relentlessly progressing world, don’t let them spill over on to the history books of cute little English boys and cherubic little American girls who are so happy about what their forefathers did, of how they built so many railways, so many hospitals, so many new countries. Don’t let them know of the scummy little Gurbakhsh and his pregnant wife, or
the sooty little Roy boy. Or the millions and millions around the world who paid for this champagne called imperialism.

  ‘Or of that grandfather whose job it was to poke a cotton swab in and out of his sahib’s point two-two for a whole day—and how, while the sahib perched himself up on the machaan with a thermos of chai and patties of egg, this grandfather was left to tie a goat to the tree and scamper away just in time to save his neck from Sher Khan. Somewhere in the by-lanes of Chandni Chowk, you’ll find dusty old back issues of Town and Country. And look. There you see the grandfather, standing in the ninth row, third from left, looking with trepidation at the smirking Lord McPherson, first row, sixth from left, a gun in hand and a dead Sher Khan under his foot.’

  Mr Menon extended his hand surreptitiously. ‘Well, she can’t lose now, sir; the shield is yours. Congratulations.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’

  Aparajita wasn’t done yet. No one knew if she had exceeded the time limit. No one complained.

  ‘But never mind, Sameer. The same lords also doled out a whole lot of scholarships to the needy. Sameer loves them. To him, they are philanthropists, not imperialists. People like Cecil Rhodes. Yes, what of him, Sameer? Oh, but he says, didn’t Mr Rhodes hope that his plan of bringing students from throughout the English-speaking world to study at Oxford would aid in the promotion of international understanding and peace? Such a noble cause.

  ‘Before I indulge in what will inevitably be termed as character assassination, let me clarify that I hold no grudge against the many young men and women who furthered their education through scholarships named after these mighty individuals. Their singular aim was to get to the temples of learning, to be in the midst of the best minds, to extend the frontiers of the sciences and the arts, and not worry about what route they took to get there. But for Rhodes scholars Florey or Hubble, we would never have held a vial of penicillin in our hands, or known that the universe is forever expanding. These noble ends more than justified the means and the world is a better place because of many such men and women.