Pran, however, whether he liked it or not, was what the scriptures would call a householder. He enjoyed Savita's company, he basked in her warmth and care and beauty, he looked forward to the birth of their child. He was determined not to depend on his father for financial support, although the small salary of a department lecturer zoo rupees per month - was barely enough to subsist on 'to subside on', as he told himself in moments of cynicism. But he had applied for a readership that had recently fallen open in the department; the salary attached to that post was less pitiful, and it would be a step up in terms of the academic hierarchy. Pran did not care about titular prestige, but he realized that designations helped one's designs. He wanted to see certain things done, and being a reader would help him do them. He believed that he deserved the
68job, but he had also learned that merit was only one criterion among several.
His experience of the recurrent asthmatic illness that had afflicted him since childhood had made him calm. Excitement disturbed his breathing, and caused him pain and incapacitation, and he had therefore almost dispensed with excitability. This was the simple logic of it, but the path itself had been difficult. He had studied patience, and by slow practice he had become patient. But Professor O.P. Mishra had got under his skin in a way Pran had not been able to envisage.
'Professor Mishra,' said Pran, 'I am pleased that the committee has decided to consider this proposal, and I am delighted that it has been placed second on the agenda today and has at last come up for discussion. My main argument is quite simple. You have read my note on the subject' - he nodded around the table to Dr Gupta and Dr Narayanan - 'and you will, I am sure, appreciate that there is nothing radical in my suggestion.' He looked down at the pale blue type of the cyclostyled sheets before him. 'As you can see, we have twenty-one writers whose works we consider it essential for our B.A students to read in order for them to obtain a proper understanding of Modern British Literature. But there is no Joyce. And, I might add, no Lawrence. These two writers -'
'Wouldn't it be better,' interrupted Professor Mishra, wiping an eyelash away from the corner of his eye, 'wouldn't it be better if we were to concentrate on Joyce for the moment ? We will take up Lawrence at our session next month - before we adjourn for the summer vacation.'
'The two matters are interlinked, surely,' said Pran, looking around the table for support. Dr Narayanan was about to say something when Professor Mishra pointed out :
'But not on this agenda, Dr Kapoor, not on this agenda.' He smiled at Pran sweetly, and his eyes twinkled. He then placed his huge white hands, palms down, on the table and said, 'But what were you saying when I so rudely interrupted ?'
Pran looked at the large white hands emanating from
69the grand pulp of Professor Mishra's round body, and thought, I may look thin and fit, but I am not, and this man, for all his slug-like pallor and bulk, has a great deal of stamina. If I am to get agreement on this measure I must remain calm and collected.
He smiled around the table, and said: 'Joyce is a great , writer. This is now universally acknowledged. He is, for 1 instance, the subject of increasing academic study in ] America. I do think he should be on our syllabus too.' *
'Dr Kapoor,' the high voice responded, 'each point in the universe must make up its own mind on the question of acknowledgement before acknowledgement can be considered to be universal. We in India pride ourselves on our Independence - an Independence won at great expense by the best men of several generations, a fact I need not emphasize to the illustrious son of an even more illustrious father. We should hesitate before we blindly allow the American dissertation mill to order our priorities. What do you say, Dr Narayanan ?'
Dr Narayanan, who was a Romantic Revivalist, seemed to look deep into his soul for a few seconds. 'That is a good point,' he said judiciously, shaking his head sideways for emphasis.
'If we do not keep pace with our companions,' continued Professor Mishra, 'perhaps it is because we hear a different drummer. Let us step to the music that we hear, we in India. To quote an American,' he added.
Pran looked down at the table and said quietly: 'I say Joyce is a great writer because I believe he is a great writer, not because of what the Americans say.' He remembered his first introduction to Joyce: a friend had lent him Ulysses a month before his Ph.D. oral examination at Allahabad University and he had, as a result, ignored his own subject to the point where he had jeopardized his academic career.
Dr Narayanan looked at him and came out suddenly in unexpected support. ' “The Dead”,' said Dr Narayanan. 'A fine story. I read it twice.'
Pran looked at him gratefully.Professor Mishra looked at Dr Narayanan's small, bald head almost approvingly. 'Very good, very good,' he said, as if applauding a small child. 'But' - and his voice assumed a cutting edge - 'there is more to Joyce than “The Dead”. There is the unreadable Ulysses. There is the worse than unreadable Finnegans Wake. This kind of writing is unhealthy for our students. It encourages them, as it were, in sloppy and ungrammatical writing. And what about the ending of Ulysses? There are young and impressionable women whom in our courses it is our responsibility to introduce to the higher things of life, Dr Kapoor - your charming sisterin-law for example. Would you put a book like Ulysses into her hands ?' Professor Mishra smiled benignly.
'Yes,' said Pran simply.
Dr Narayanan looked interested. Dr Gupta, who was mainly interested in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, looked at his nails.
'It is heartening to come across a young man - a young lecturer' - Professor Mishra looked over at the rank-conscious reader, Dr Gupta - 'who is so, shall I say, so, well, direct in his opinions and so willing to share them with his colleagues, however senior they may be. It is heartening. We may disagree of course; but India is a democracy and we can speak our minds….' He stopped for a few seconds, and stared out of the window at the dusty laburnum. 'A democracy. Yes. But even democracies are faced with hard choices. There can be only one head of department, for example. And when a post falls open, of all the deserving candidates only one can be selected. We are already hardpressed to teach twenty-one writers in the time we allot to this paper. If Joyce goes in, what comes out ?'
'Flecker,' said Pran without a moment's hesitation.
Professor Mishra laughed indulgently. 'Ah, Dr Kapoor, Dr Kapoor …' he intoned,
'Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have
you heard That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth
like a bird ?
7iJames Elroy Flecker, James Elroy Flecker.' That seemed to settle it in his mind.
Fran's face became completely impassive. Does he believe this ? he thought. Does he really believe what he is implying ? Aloud he said, 'If Fletcher - Flecker - is indispensable, I suggest we include Joyce as our twenty-second writer. I would be pleased to put it to the committee for a vote.' Surely, thought Pran, the ignominy of being known to have turned Joyce down (as opposed to merely having deferred the decision indefinitely) would be something that the committee would not be willing to face.
'Ah, Dr Kapoor, you are angry. Do not get angry. You want to pin us down,' said Professor Mishra playfully. He , turned his palms up on the table to display his owni helplessness. 'But we did not agree to decide the matter at 1 this meeting, only to decide whether to decide it.' 1
This was too much for Pran in his present mood, though 1 he knew it was true. j
'Please do not misunderstand me, Professor Mishra,' he ' said, 'but that line of argument may be taken by those of us not well-versed in the finer forms of parliamentary byplay to be a species of quibbling.'
'A species of quibbling … a species of quibbling.' Professor Mishra appeared delighted by the phrase, while both his colleagues looked appalled at Pran's insubordination. (This is like playing bridge with two dummies, thoughts Pran.) Professor Mishra continued: 'I will now order! coffee, and we will collect ourselves and approach the issues calmly, as it were.'
Dr Narayanan perked up at the prospect of coffee. Professor Mishra clapped his hands, and a lean peon in a threadbare green uniform came in.
'Is coffee ready ?' asked Professor Mishra in Hindi.
'Yes, Sahib.'
'Good.' Professor Mishra indicated that it should be served.
The peon brought in a tray with a coffee pot, a small jug of hot milk, a bowl of sugar, and four cups. Professor Mishra indicated that he should serve the others first. The
72-I
peon did so in the usual manner. Then Professor Mishra was offered coffee. As Professor Mishra poured coffee into his cup, the peon moved the tray deferentially backwards. Professor Mishra made to set down the coffee pot, and the peon moved the tray forward. Professor Mishra picked up the milk jug and began to add milk to his coffee, and the peon moved the tray backwards. And so on for each of three spoons of sugar. It was like a comic ballet. It would have been merely ridiculous, thought Pran, this display of the naked gradient of power and obsequiousness between the department head and the department peon, if it had only been some other department at some other university. But it was the English Department of Brahmpur University - and it was through this man that Pran had to apply to the selection committee for the readership he both wanted and needed.
This same man whom in my first term I considered jovial, bluff, expansive, charming, why have I transformed him in my mind into such a caricature of a villain ? thought Pran looking into his cup. Does he loathe me ? No, that is his strength: he doesn't. He just wants his own way. In effective politics hatred is just not useful. For him all this is like a game of chess - on a slightly vibrating board. He is fifty-eight - he has two more years until he retires. How will I be able to put up with him for so long ? A sudden murderous impulse seized Pran, whom murderous impulses never seized, and he realized his hands were trembling slightly. And all this over Joyce, he said to himself. At least I haven't had a bronchial attack. He looked down at the pad on which he, as the junior member of the committee, was taking the minutes of the meeting. It read simply :
Present: Professor O.P. Mishra (head) ; Dr R.B. Gupta; Dr T.R. Narayanan; Dr P. Kapoor.
i. The Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
73We have got nowhere, and we will get nowhere, he thought.
A few well-known lines from Tagore came into his head in Tagore's own English translation :
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into
the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening
thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
At least his own mortal father had given him principles, thought Pran, even if he had given him almost no time or company when he was younger. His mind wandered back home, to the small whitewashed house, to Savita, her sister, her mother - the family that he had taken into his heart and that had taken him into theirs; and then to the Ganges flowing close by the house. (When he thought in English, it was the Ganges, rather than the Ganga, to him.) He followed it first downstream to Patna and Calcutta, then upstream past Banaras till it divided at Allahabad; there he chose the Yamuna and followed it to Delhi. Are things as closed-minded in the capital? he asked himself. As mad, as mean, as silly, as rigid ? How will I be able to live in Brahmpur all my life? And Mishra will doubtless give me an excellent report just to see the back of me.
1.17
BUT now Dr Gupta was laughing at a remark of Dr Narayanan's, and Professor Mishra was saying, 'Consensus - consensus is the goal, the civilized goal - how can we vote when we might be divided two votes against two? There were five Pandavas, they could have voted if they chose, but even they did everything by consensus. They
74even took a wife by consensus, ha, ha, ha ! And Dr Varma is indisposed as usual, so we are only four.'
Pran looked at the twinkling eyes, the great nose, the sweetly pursed lips with reluctant admiration. University statutes required that the syllabus committee, like departmental committees of any kind, should consist of an odd number of members. But Professor Mishra, as head of the department, appointed the members of each committee within his purview in such a way as always to include someone who for reasons of health or research was likely to be indisposed or absent. With an even number of members present, committees were more reluctant than ever to bring things to the climax of a vote. And the head, with his control over the agenda and the pacing of a meeting, could in the circumstances gather even more effective power into his hands.
'I think we have, as it were, expended enough time on item two,' said Professor Mishra. 'Shall we go on to chiasmus and anacoluthia ?' He was referring to a proposal, put forward by himself, that they eliminate too detailed a study of traditional figures of speech for the paper in Literary Theory and Criticism. 'And then we have the question of symmetrical auxiliaries proposed by the junior member of the committee. Though this will, of course, depend upon other departments agreeing to our proposals. And finally, since the shades of night are falling,' continued Professor Mishra, 'I think we should, without prejudice to items five, six, and seven, wind up the meeting. We can take up those items next month.'
