The Great Indian Novel (5 page)

Heaslop seemed about to comment on this insight, then thought better of it. The Resident reached for his glass and realized he still didn’t have one. ‘Boy!’ he called out.

There was no answer. Sir Richard furrowed his florid brow. ‘And this Ganga Din, or whatever they call him,’ he snapped. ‘How does he comport himself? Has he been giving us any trouble? That’s a rather important position to leave someone of his stripe in, isn’t it? Perhaps I should be doing something about it.’

‘The Regent has always behaved very correctly, Sir Richard. In fact,’ Heaslop licked a nervous lip, ‘I believe he was our candidate for the throne once. Your predecessor was rather sorry when things took a different turn, at the time of the late Maharaja’s second marriage. But it would seem it was Ganga Datta who wanted it that way.’

‘I’ve seen the files,’ the Resident nodded. ‘What on earth has happened to our drinks? Boy! Boy!’

The elderly bearer, dusty and panting, responded at last to the summons. ‘Sahib, I coming, sahib,’ he stated, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘What the devil’s taking you so long? Where’s our whisky?’

‘I bring instantly, sahib,’ the bearer assured him. ‘I am looking for
bhisti
all this time, as sahib wanted. I now found, sahib. With great difficulty. I bring him in, sahib?’

‘Of course you can bring the water in,’ Sir Richard said crossly. A choking sound emanated from the equerry beside him.

The bearer clapped his hands. A grimy figure in a dirty undershirt and dirtier loincloth entered the verandah, carrying a black oilskin bag from one end of which water dripped relentlessly on to the tiled floor.

‘Bhisti,
sahib,’ the bearer proudly announced, like a conjuror pointing to a rabbit he has just produced out of an improbably small hat.

‘What the devil. . .?’ The Resident seemed apoplectic.

Heaslop groaned.

Back to my offspring, eh, Ganapathi? Can’t neglect the little blighters, because this is really their story, you know. Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidur: ah, how their names still conjure up all the memories of the glory of Hastinapur at that time. Their births seemed a signal for the state’s resurgence. Prosperity bloomed around the palace, Ganapathi: the harvests produced nothing short of bumper crops, the wheat gave off the scent of jasmine, and the women laughed as they worked in the fields. There were no droughts, Ganapathi, no floods either; the rains came, at just the right times, when the farmers had sowed their seeds and said their prayers, and never for longer than they were welcome. Fruit ripened in the sunshine, flowers blossomed in the gentle breeze; the birds chirped gaily as they built their nests in the shade, and aimed their droppings only at passing Englishwomen. The very cows produced a milk no
doodhwala
could bear to water. The towns and the city of Hastinapur overflowed with businessmen and shopkeepers, coolies and workmen, travelling seers and travelling salesmen. Yes, Ganapathi, the glory of those days drives me to verse:

With the birth of the boys
Flowed all the joys
Of the kingdom of Hastinapur;
The flags were unfurled
All was well with the world
From the richest right down to the poor.

(Not too good, hanh, Ganapathi? If you’d grimace a little less, though, it might get better.)

The harvests were good
There was plenty of food
The land gave a bountiful yield;
The rains came in time
To wash off the grime
And to ripen the wheat in the field.

The man at the plough
And the bird on the bough
Both sang of their peace and content;
The fruit in the trees
Flowers, sunshine and breeze
Were all on happiness intent.

(Well, you try and do better, Ganapathi. On second thoughts, don’t - you might succeed, and this is
my
memoir.)

The city was crowded
All fears were unfounded
There were money and goods in the shops;
And although the Taj
Was still ruled by the Raj
The glory of Ind came out tops.

The citizens worked hard
(And won the praise of this bard)
There was never, at all, any crime;
The piping hot curries
Removed all our worries
And prosperity reigned all the time.

Yes, the birth of the boys
Was the best of God’s ploys
To fulfil our great people’s karma;
Under their regent (a sage)
There reigned a Golden Age –
The turn of the Wheel of Dharma.

It was, indeed, Gangaji who brought up my sons - as if, I must admit, they were his own children. Though the Regent was getting more and more ascetic in his ways, he spared no extravagance in giving the boys the best education, material comforts and personal opportunities. Each developed, in his own way, into an outstanding prospect, a princely asset to Hastinapur.

Dhritarashtra was a fine-looking young fellow, slim, of aquiline nose and aristocratic bearing. His blindness was, of course, a severe handicap, but he learned early to act as if it did not matter. As a child he found education in India a harrowing experience, which was, no doubt, why he was in due course sent to Eton. The British public school system fitted the young man to a T (the finest Darjeeling, which he obtained every month from Fortnum and Mason and brewed several times a day in a silver pot engraved with the Hastinapur crest). He quickly acquired two dozen suits, a different pair of shoes for each day of the week, a formidable vocabulary and the vaguely abstracted manner of the over-educated. With these assets he was admitted to King’s College, Cambridge (there being no Prince’s); unable to join in the punting and the carousing, he devoted himself to developing another kind of vision and became, successively, a formidable debater, a Bachelor of Arts and a Fabian Socialist. I have often wondered what might have happened had he been able to see the world around him as the rest of us can. Might India’s history have been different today?

Pandu - ah, Pandu the pale, whose mother had turned white upon seeing me - Pandu never lacked in strength or courage. (Nor, unlike his half-brother, in eyesight, though he did take to wearing curious little roundish glasses that gave him the appearance of a Bengali teacher or a Japanese admiral.) What Pandu never had much of was judgement - or, as some of his admirers prefer to see it, luck. He too could have enjoyed the English education Dhritarashtra revelled in, but he did not even complete the Indian version of it. After insisting, with more pride than judgement, on pursuing his studies in India rather than in England, he was expelled from one of the country’s best colleges for striking a teacher, an Englishman, who had called Indians ‘dogs’. Yes, we Indians do have a number of dog-like characteristics, such as wagging our tails at white men carrying sticks, and our bark is usually worse than our bite. But Pandu could not resist showing his Professor Kipling one attribute of the species that most of us, including the distinguished academic, had overlooked - teeth. It was a pattern of conduct that was to last all his life.

Finally, for ever bringing up the rear (for reasons of ancestry and nothing else), came my son Vidur Dharmaputra. In intellectual gifts and administrative ability he outshone his two brothers, but knowing from the very beginning that unlike them he had no claim on a kingly throne, he developed a sense of modesty and self-effacement that would enhance his effectiveness in his chosen profession. For Vidur became that most valuable and underrated of creatures, the bureaucrat. He did brilliantly in his examination, stood First Class First throughout and, along with many of the country’s finest minds, applied for entry into the Indian Civil Service.

Queen Victoria had thrown the doors of the ICS open to ‘natives’ immediately after the 1857 revolt (which the British preferred to call a ‘mutiny’). No one was quite sure how far Britannia meant to waive the rules, but two Indians, both Bengalis, did achieve the miraculous distinction of entry - Satyendra Nath Tagore and Surendra Nath Banerjee. Indian exhilaration soon turned to resignation, however, when Banerjee was drummed out of the service a few years later, on a series of trumped-up charges. From the early years of our century, though, things began to change. When Vidur applied, there were more Indians being admitted to the civil service, adding their supposedly baser mettle to the ‘steel frame’ of the Raj. Vidur topped the written examinations to the ICS, in which one’s name did not figure on the test paper; in the interview, regrettably, the same degree of anonymity did not prevail, and he found himself rapidly downgraded, but not so far as to miss selection altogether. So he joined the ICS’s emerging administrative alloy, and before long was a rising star in the States Department, which looked after the princely states - among them Hastinapur.

You see, Ganapathi, this old man’s seed was not wasted, after all, eh? Whatever people might think. Pass me that handkerchief, will you? My eyes are misting on me.

But we must get back to our story. Where were we, Ganapathi? Ah, yes - my sons. When the three young men reached marriageable age, Gangaji summoned them to his study.

‘You are the hope of Hastinapur,’ he said sagely. ‘I have brought you up to carry on our noble line, and when you assume the responsibilities of rulers, I wish to be free to pursue other interests. But I cannot give up the regency and retreat to an ashram without first assuring not just your accession but the succession to yourselves as well. (One can never be too sure.) I have been making discreet inquiries, and I have identified three suitable ladies, of impeccable descent and highly praised beauty, with whom I intend to arrange your marriages. What do you have to say to this?’

It was Vidur who spoke first; Vidur could always be relied upon to take his cue and to say the right thing at the right time. ‘You have been both a father and a mother to us, Gangaji,’ he said dutifully. ‘You have brought us up to follow your instructions in all matters. The
shastras
say that the word of a guru is law to his disciples. Why should it be any different now? If you want us to marry these ladies of your choice, it would be an honour as well as a duty to obey you.’

Pandu gave his low-born brother an expressive look, as indeed Dhritarashtra might have, had he been able. But both remained silent, particularly since Gangaji had seized upon Vidur’s answer with barely concealed satisfaction and was already detailing his plans.

‘For you, Dhritarashtra, the eldest, I have found a girl from a very good family of Allahabad. She is called Gandhari, and I am told she has lustrous black eyes. Not,’ he added hastily, ‘that that matters, of course. No, the main attraction of this lovely lady, from our point of view, is that she hails from a most productive line. Her mother had nine children, and her grandmother seventeen. There is a story in the family that Gandhari has obtained the boon of Lord Shiva to have no less than a hundred sons.’ Seeing that Dhritarashtra appeared somewhat underwhelmed by the prospect, Gangaji spoke in a sterner tone of voice. ‘You can never be too careful with these British, my son. They have had their designs on Hastinapur for years.’

‘Whatever you say, Bhishma,’ Dhritarashtra replied, deliberately using the name that recalled Gangaji’s terrible vow of celibacy. The older man looked at him sharply, but Dhritarashtra remained expressionless behind his dark glasses.

‘For you, Pandu, I propose Kunti Yadav,’ Gangaji went on, noting with pleasure the young man’s sharp intake of breath, for the beauty of Miss Yadav was widely known across the country. And though she was a princess only by adoption, many a more important raja might not have been averse to grafting her branch on to their family tree, were it not for the faint whiff of scandal that clung to her name.

‘I’m delighted, of course,’ Pandu said, looking even paler than usual. ‘But, Gangaji -’

‘Say no more.’ The saintly loincloth-clad figure raised his hand. ‘I know what you are about to ask. And I have, of course, made inquiries.’ He settled his rimless glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose and opened a red- ribboned folder. ‘Miss Kunti Yadav has, despite her unquestioned beauty and the good name of her adoptive family, received no, repeat no, offers of marriage to date. The reason: it appears that there may have been, ah . . . a certain indiscretion in her past.’