Vijay Nambisan

Vijay Nambisan
May this act of defiance flouting the dubious game rules of the
book publishing/ selling industry extend the reachability of Vijay
Nambisans ingenious work far and wide.
It is as much a labour of love and reverence as is the non-conformity

to unjust norms and ways that cannot be chained to rules , and may
this bring in the well-deserved attention, recognition and honour
( at least posthumously ) Indias this most reclusive poet never
craved for, but surely his work calls for it. This era and
generations to come has much to get nourished thus!
May we never have yet another forgotten genius!
May we never have more greedy booksellers inflating the book price
to unimaginable multiples riding on that reckoning remembrance of
forgetfulness and its subsequent burgeoning longing!
-ajai-
Bangalore , 17th September 2017
pilgrimhawk@gmail.com
Note : For ease of navigation bookmarks are added to this PDF document as shown below :
On the life and work of Vijay Nambisan
( A compilation of various online articles )
An ode Vijay Nambisan
Book review of First Infinities-Poetry is the only thing that matters
Reading Vijay Nambisan, Who Straddled Malayalam, Sanskrit and Urdu Poetry
Riding the horse of life to death_ Vijay Nambisan (1963-2017)
Vijay Nambisan - When poetry is everything
Scroll - Six poems by Indias most reclusive English poet
Scroll - Vijay Nambisan was a reclusive outstanding poet
Teacup in a Storm - Kindle Magazine
Vijay Nambisan - The Celebrated Poet
Vijay Nambisan, poet who saw life in everything
Without My Imaginings What Is - Remembering Vijay Nambisan
Writer, journalist and a humanist
An ode Vijay Nambisan, a poet with a schoolboy
humour
Jerry Pinto
AUGUST 10, 2017 22:4 9 IST
Vijay Nambisan | Photo Credit: Madhu Kapparath
His caring is in his poems often smeared with schoolboy humour

It was a literary festival and someone large and important was on the well-lit stage. I turned
away and saw Vijay Nambisan (gone today, born 1964, is it possible even?) lurking in the
shadows. He was smoking and drinking and giving the white-light space a measure of
compassionate attention. I thought of Dom Moraes comparing him and Jeet Thayil to
flamingos, birds of colour and elegance. Dom has called people worse things, I thought.
I hear youre translating bhakti poetry? I asked.

He nodded.
Who are you translating?
Would you know them if I told you their names? he asked. I shrugged and turned away,
thinking, Poor guys, you get stuck with Vijay Nambisan for a translator.
From behind me, Puntanam and Melpattur.
I turned and said, Ah, them. We laughed together because I liked Vijay, because there
are very few poets who are so resolute about not caring about their careers, not caring
about self-promotion, not caring about much really. I could never tell whether this was a
pose or it was camouflage. Perhaps the answer was to be found in the foreword he wrote
for his book of poems, First Infinities (Poetrywala, 2015):
Too much sensitivity always makes for bad poetry...Too much sensitivity prevents
wounds from healing also; and I must therefore thank all our political parties, and
prominent national figures, in business, journalism, publishing, the arts, sport and Hindi
cinema for contributing to the deadening, the cautery of those tendrils which demand fresh
air and love, and peace, in excess. It is a poetical mistake to use abstractions. Let me say,
then, that I thank everyone by whose means I have become so accustomed to living in this
country, on this planet, that I should be much more a misfit anywhere else.
The caring was in the poems.
I would like my poem to be

Like my grandfathers beard, to be airy
In the lean wind, to look up at the clouds
And laugh.
(Grandfathers beard.)
But even here it is carefully disguised. It is often smeared over with a schoolboy humour
which is often forgiveable because it is so clearly marked as such. There is an observers
distance between poet and subject and an arm stretches over the gap to make small scratch
marks on the wall of poetry. Nuns, puppies, manholes, pills ...the alien and the intimate get
the same treatment.
I am pouring my sorrow into a little cup,
Just to drown the gods in a libation, nothing more.
And when we are being happy and the roof is on the floor
Someone can reach out and casually drink me up.
(After six drinks)

Someone did.
Book review of First Infinities: Poetry is
the only thing that matters
"Poetry is the only thing that matters," says Vijay Nambisan, whose first collection in 22 years is evidence of
the frail hardiness of the poet who knows that his way of seeing cannot be ignored
BOOKS Updated: May 16, 2015 16:03 IST
Janice Pariat
Hindustan Times
Poetry-is-the-only-thing-that-matters-says-Vijay-Nambisan-whose-first-collection-in-22-years-First-Infinities-is-evidence-of-
the-frail-hardiness-of-the-poet-who-knows-that-his-way-of-seeing-cannot-be-ignored
First Infinities
Vijay Nambisan
Poetrywala
Pages: 106 Rs. 250
What happens to poems deferred? When they lie unshared, unseen. Do they dry up,
raisins in the sun? Fester like sores? Do they sag? Like heavy loads. Do they explode?
Rarely do they land in your hands, like Vijay Nambisan's First Infinities, beautifully
bound and produced. He isn't new on the scene. In 1988, at 24, he won a country-wide
competition organised by The Poetry Society of India and The British Council. The
winning poem, "Madras Central", displays special mastery of sparseness.
It begins with a quotidian black train pulling in at the platform - "Hissing into silence like
hot steel in water" - and comes, not to a crescendo, but what Marianne Moore calls
"merely to a close" with the description of a solitary traveller carrying "unwantedness"
from place to place. A quiet finish both vulnerable and lasting. In 1992, Nambisan's
poems appeared in Gemini, a two-poet project, which Dom Moraes called, in the
foreword, "an indication that Indian poetry, after many years of striving, ha(d) at last
arrived at maturity." Since then, there was poetic silence. Nambisan embarked upon a
distinguished career as journalist and critic - documenting his experiences of small-town
Bihar in Bihar is in the Eyes of the Beholder and arguing for the importance of written
communicative honesty and integrity in the Orwellian Language as an Ethic. Most
recently, he has translated the devotional bhakti verse of Poonthanam and Melpathur
Narayana Bhattathiri. Twenty-two years after Gemini, Nambisan delivers his first full-
length poetry collection. First Infinities is worth every minute of the wait.
"Poetry is the only thing that matters," says Vijay Nambisan (seen above at the Delhi launch of First Infinities), whose first
collection in 22 years is evidence of the frail hardiness of the poet who knows that his way of seeing cannot be ignored
In his preface, Adil Jussawalla touches upon the mystery of Nambisan's creative
diffidence - "I wondered why the fact [that he had poems waiting to be published] had
been hidden for a long time." Nambisan's foreword explains that one reason was that he
was pretty much convinced "poetry did not matter." Why then were his poems now being
cast into the world? Kavery Nambisan, his novelist spouse, shared an anecdote that
helped clarify things. They had a house guest once, she told me, who openly belittled
poetry. "What's its use?" he'd questioned. "It has no purpose. Nobody needs poetry."
"Vijay's reply was great," said Kavery.
"What did he say?"
"Poetry doesn't need you."
Explicable then that Nambisan admits, later in the foreword, that he doesn't know exactly
why but some years ago he veered to the opposite view: "Poetry is the only thing that
matters." A collection like this springs from many forms of resilience - a supportive
spouse, generous friends, a dedicated publisher, and the frail hardiness of the poet who
knows that his way of seeing cannot be ignored, and undone.
First Infinities brims with urgency from the very first piece. "Dirge", written in 2004, the
year we lost Dom Moraes, Nissim Ezekiel, and Arun Kolatkar, is a tragi-comic lament
rhymed in playful couplets. It is homage and nostalgia, scathing indictment and witty
repartee. His polemic in Language as an Ethic in pithy verse form, calling for a time
when publishers cared, and newspapers printed pieces unchanged, unlike now, with our
"wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes." Unabashedly, the speaker also
lays out his own intentions, to write poems "with a shriller pen" so they live "four score
years and ten", and if he doesn't, to blame it, delightfully, as the anaphoric line goes, on
him "taking kisses from his misses."
At the launch of First Infinities at The Toddy Shop, New Delhi, Nambisan began his
reading, appropriately, with "Dirge", and I caught myself thinking: what happens to poets
deferred? Do they too dry up, or fester? Are they burdened? Do they explode? Andrew
Motion, in A Writer's Life, his biography of Philip Larkin, speaks of how Larkin always
cultivated his privacy, declining invitations to read and discuss his work, revealing little
of his intentions. But "[b]y appearing only infrequently, his statements have a resonance
lacking in those that come from comparatively talkative writers." At the event, filled to
packing with old fans and new, Nambisan's words held the same powerful sway. A quiet
figure slowly enlivened and transformed. By the end, including a conversation with
editor/writer Supriya Nair, he flourished. He indulged Nair with a reading of "Elizabeth
Oomanchery", sang a poem song, recited "Madras Central" perfectly from memory. His
replies to her questions were characteristically self-deprecating - "No, I'm not" he said
when Nair mentioned he was an accomplished Sanskrit scholar - and laced with wry,
vitriolic humour. "I wanted to title the book The Corporate Poet but Adil and Jeet
[Thayil] disagreed violently."
"Why is it called First Infinities?" asked Nair.

"I don't know."
The audience laughed, enjoying the banter, but there was in Nambisan's words a pertinent
pointer toward his relationship with his art. Running through his poems is evenly
tempered restraint. In "Hidden Things", Cavafy hints that "from my most unnoticed
actions and my most veiled writing - from these alone will I be understood", and so too
with Nambisan's poetry. In "Aswatthama", the protagonist's (a modern-day immortal?)
"silences were different from ours." "Mind the gap", a devastating portrayal of urban
isolation, carries lines such as "each to each must forever be strange" and "our empires
are within/And must not touch each other." In "First Infinities: Drying Out", he says "My
bones are torn entire/They look at me and laugh. I am what is." Sprinkled through the
collection are also moments of lightness and humour - the hole in the earth's bowels, that
dramatic "voided ground" turns out, anticlimactically, to be a manhole. Nambisan is
skilled too at upending expectations, at infusing the mundane with epic resonance -
under-bed lint accumulates to "all of yesterday that we wished to forget."
At the end of the launch, I watched Nambisan signing copies, thinking how he, of all the
writers I've encountered, had what Joshua Rothman, contributor to The New Yorker, calls
the "artist's sense of privacy". An inner privacy which you protect not just from others'
prying eyes, but from your own. Behind Nambisan's "I don't know why's" perhaps lies a
belief that when it comes to our most abstract and spiritual intuitions looking too closely
changes what we feel. That to explain rather than leave certain things undescribed,
unspecified, and unknown is to somehow diminish them. Poetry - all writing - springs
from an innerness, a kernel of selfhood we cannot share with others. We come to know it
best, and value it, when we're forced at moments of exposure, to shield it against the
outside world. First Infinities, intact, unsullied, comes from the soul.
Novelist Janice Pariat is the author of Seahorse

9/9/2017 Reading Vijay Nambisan, Who Straddled Malayalam, Sanskrit and Urdu Poetry
X
The Wire is now in Hindi and Urdu
POLITICS
Reading Vijay
Nambisan
BY VIVEK NARAYANAN ON 11/08/2017 1 COMMENT
Nambisan, who passed away recently, channeledwith

wry con dence and clarity the worlds of Malayalam,
Sanskrit and Urdu poetry.
Vijay Nambisan. Credit: Paperwall
Its been a difficult and unsettling few weeks for Indian poetry in
English. Close on the heels of Eunice de Souzas passing comes news of
https://thewire.in/167181/vijay-nambisan-obit-indian-poetry/ 1/6
the death of Vijay Nambisan

(http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/vijay-nambisan-poet-and-writer-dead-
4790233/).
He was fifty-four, an age that no longer seems old at all to me, not least
since Nambisan had only recently begun to publish poetry again, and
only recently thanks to the cajoling of his old friend Jeet Thayil
released his extraordinary first collection. Moreover, he had begun to
write poems, so it seemed, in great spurts and with a new and
accomplished wisdom, nuance and originality.
As Nambisan explained in his foreword to that book, First Infinities

(Poetrywala, 2015), he had written and published very little over twenty
odd years because he had come to the conclusion that poetry did not
matter. Now it had recently come to him that in fact, poetry is the only
thing that matters. One could equally suggest that through much of the
late 90s and early 2000s it seemed as if there was no viable readership
or community for Indian poetry written in English, beyond a couple
incestuous pockets; now suddenly it seems to me more sophisticated
and full of possibility than ever before.
According to Thayil, Nambisan had already more or less completed a

second collection, so the appearance of a posthumous book is likely and
necessary, and will further change our picture of his work.
Before we begin reading this poet, the first things to nudge out of the
way are the various myths of personhood we cultivate to cover up our
anxieties about reading poetry. The romantic image of Nambisan as a
drunk and reclusive writer perhaps this idea had meant something to
him too, in his younger years. He tells us about it himself memorably, in
the First Infinities sequence Desperate with knowledge, opened wide
by drink, / How Ive thrown my need about the houses / Ive partied
in and yet we shouldnt forget the caveat he also offers, in another
poem, To Have Been Written in Urdu:
All the world, it seems, knows I like to drink;
How few know how well I like to be sober.
Indeed, the latter was the only side I saw. I met Nambisan only twice:
first, with Anjum Hasan when we shared a panel at a South Indian
writers festival in the early 2000s, and then in 2015, at the launch of
First Infinities, more than a decade later. Hed lived the whole
intervening time out, it seemed, in those small and mofussil towns with
his wife, the writer and doctor Kavery Nambisan. The Vijay I briefly met
the second time seemed exactly the same person Id met before, warm-
hearted and reflective, self-effacing and yet in control and
scrupulously sober. He understood hed achieved a degree of cult fame,
almost without wanting it, and he was practiced in his defenses against
flattery. In his openness and willingness to talk, he seemed not at all
like a recluse.
(https://i0.wp.com/thewire.in/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/LR_NAM
BISAN_2392880g.jpg?ssl=1)
As for the writing itself, its

never a good idea to read a
serious and ambitious poet
piecemeal, or to praise him or
her only by the poems that
are, for whatever reason, best
known. Much of Nambisans
early work betrayed an
apprentices allegiance to
mid-20th century British
poetry, especially the
Movement poets (and his
most famous poem, Madras
Central, though its
sentiments were genuine, quite obviously, to the point of pastiche, to
Eliots Prufrock).
To someone who did not know the writer, this all implied a stiff-upper
lip Anglophile, quite the opposite of the earthy Nambisan that I finally
came to meet in person. Nevertheless, this apprenticeship in language,

the emphasis on purity of diction that it brought with it, empowered
him with a deep faith in the writing act what Nambisan himself refers
to (http://www.thehindu.com/books/teri-jeet-meri-jeet/article3847606.ece) simply as
a school which trained us to put our visions on paper trustingly and
accurately. This is a ground that eventually served him well. There is a
wonderful elegance and delicacy to his mature style, channeling with
wry confidence and clarity the worlds of Malayalam, Sanskrit and Urdu
poetry, or intensely local scenarios and longings, the contemporary
landscape of Coorg.
Two poems especially from First Infinities will always stay with me. The
first, Neighbours, interestingly tells us very little about its setting,
though Id gone and imagined a post-liberalisation mofussil town, with
satellite dishes splayed from every terrace. The astronaut Sunita
Williams is being interviewed on TV; the narrator seems to be living in a
circumscribed world himself, but outer space has somehow become
terrifyingly banal, simply there for the taking those glittering worlds /
so familiar, we think of them / as just across the street. And then,
without warning, the poem turns profoundly lyrical and philosophical:
Star requires of star
Nothing but being. In some world to come
Each house shall be only the threshold of the next.
In the two halves of this poem, one dry and ironic, the other
melancholy, lyrical, and open-ended, we begin to clearly see the tension
and contradiction that Nambisan wrote out of, where poetry did not
matter and was also the only thing that mattered.
The second Im thinking of is Dvija, the longest and most powerful,

ambitious poem in First Infinities, an uncanny encounter, half
nightmare, half wrenching consolation, with the ghost of the narrators
father. I have to guess that the dream Nambisan describes in it was at
least partly real, not pure fiction, for all the startling and unpredictable
turns it takes, how it weighs the memory of the dead with a cold but not
uncompassionate eye. The poem takes a Sanskrit word as title, dvija,
but completely discards the words caste ritual-based connotation.
Instead, it uses the idea of the second birth to think about how and
under what conditions we might live on in the dreams of others.
The idea of conditional knowledge here is important. It brings a faith to

the act of reading. At the innermost heart of the work of Indian English
poets like Eunice de Souza, Gieve Patel, Siddhartha Menon and Vijay
Nambisan, we find not rapturous feelings or unacknowledged
legislation but an ethics: language itself as an ethic, to borrow from the
title of one his prose books. Far from being an outmoded approach, this
issue has become even more relevant in the era of ubiquitous fake news,
no longer just a philosophical question. Its something we should
perhaps keep in mind as a specific contribution of the much-ridiculed
Indian English poetry to our cultural landscape, even as our poetry, and
our English, transforms in the coming years into something vast,
diverse and almost completely unforeseen.
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Anil Maheshwari a month ago

The obit of Vijay Nambisan is incomplete without reference to his
engaging book " Bihar in the eyes of the Beholder", an impressionistic
account of the sixteen months he spent in a small town in Bihar and
succeeded brilliantly to discover the forces that drive or thwart the
most populous and the most damned state in the country.
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Riding the horse of life to death: Vijay Nambisan (1963-2017)

The only place the poet Vijay Nambisan could be himself and nd a transcendental value was in the world of words.
BOOKS (HTTP://WWW.HINDUSTANTIMES.COM/BOOKS/) Updated: Aug 10, 2017 21:14 IST
CP Surendran
Hindustan Times
Poet Vijay Nambisan died of cancer on August 10, 2017. He was 54. (Photo courtesy: Mayank Austen Soo)
In the early 1990s in Bombay, poetry, or prose for that matter, was not about getting prizes. Or even being recognized in a
bookshop or a restaurant. It was a deant and dangerous personal vocation. Something like the helpless inner voice that
urges a prospective Christ to climb his cross as a matter of course, and drive the rst nail with his free hand.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/riding-the-horse-of-life-to-death-vijay-nambisan-1963-2017/story-VTJ3FSHMuhrXJKRw0nv9KI.html 1/8
Poetry was a romantic, seemingly interminable act of self sacrice. First it required a measure of self abuse. Then with luck
words came. And they would sound real. For better or worse, that has changed . Writing is a career now. A performance. A
mime of the self. A frantic if studied method to hang on to what may not be there anytime now: an award, a fellowship, a
ung nickel, an air ticket. And it involves one of the most tiring tasks an intelligent human can embark on: self promotion.
Vijay Nambisan was capable of neither. In one of Vijays prose works, Language as Ethic, he argues from the heartand
shores up those arguments from his phenomenal intellect that at the core of communication is not even words and
images, but integrity. Devoid of it, language assumes a political and manipulative nature. On the surface of it, the premise
sounds like the plea of an honest man to all to be good. But it explains, typical of Vijays work, as in a ash, why a whole
culture is incapable of facing up to truth at just about every level. And a peoples proneness to collective delusions.
In the Bombay of the 90s there was a bunch of people from different generations who, more or less, spoke the then young
Vijays alien language: poetry. Dom Moraes, Arun Kolatkar, Adil Jussawalla, Nissim Ezekiel, Eunice De Souza, Jeet Thayyil to
name a few. In my perception, at that time, among the senior poets Dom was closer to youngsters like us than the others.
Dom was particularly encouraging of Jeet, Vijay, and me, regular visitors to Doms residence in Sargent House, Allana Road,
Colaba.
In the Bombay of the 90s there was a bunch of people from different generations like writer-poet Dom Moraes (left) and publisher David Davidar who, more or less, spoke the then young Vijays alien
language: poetry.
Dom had written, perhaps excessively kind, introductions and blurbs for the three of us, and recommended us to David
Davidar, who published the now landmark Penguin Gemini series. As far as I can recall and there is not much I am able to
forget most of us were on some mood altering substance or the other most of the time, and had a certain contempt for
what Vijay described as the Corporate Poet. And he did not mean just poet. He was against suits, boots, hats. And an equal
measure of contempt for time; why else would we all try so desperately to fast-forward our clocks?
One of the accidental meeting points of the younger lot of poets was the Debonair magazine, whose ofce then was in Worli,
housed in an unpretentious building. It would be always hot inside. And then there would be areas where it was wintry. The
air conditioning was uneven. At the time, Anil Dharker was running it, and, like a classic literary editor, he was open to new
writers. The poetry editor for a while, if I recall correctly, was Imtiaz Dharker.
When Dharker quit, Adil Jussawalla took over. It was at this time that I rst met Vijay. I had gone there, mid-morning, to
follow up on an article; Vijay was in Adils cabin. He saw me and came out, grinning like he had met a cousin long lost. We
went down to the bar round the corner and had a few. Sometime in the twilight hours, we parted, and all I could take away
from that meeting was that I was supposed to meet him the next morning, at his paying guest room, close by.
I went, nursing the by now familiar hangover, and knocked on the door. Vijay opened it, but his face had undergone drastic
restructuring. The night before he had fallen at down the stairs on his chin, and was lighter for three or four teeth. There
was blood on the stairs. I went back, in search of phantoms similar to Vijay. But could not nd too many even over the
years.
I mention
these details
of the inner
workings in
the literary
alleys of
Bombay of
that rather
unchronicled
decade
because
Vijay stuck
to that life,
took several
more falls.
Lost more
than his
teeth.
The others
moved on or
Adil Jussawalla (in picture) took over as the poetry editor of the Debonair magazine after Imtiaz Dharker quit in the 90s. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)
tried to move
from that unforgiving, transgressive life, in which words had to be bought with a little bit of life in exchange, an
unsustainable trade.
Vijay bought into solitude, sometimes hating it, sometimes, choice-less, loving it. It gave him, I imagine, a martyrs identity.
He was the knight of poetry, and he was going to ride the horse of life to death. The smarter among his friends veered away
from that track.
Through it all, Vijay wrote. Not much, but a little that said a lot. For him it was hard to separate a way of living from a way of
writing. To create, he had to destroy. And his own body seemed the closest at hand.
He knew what he was doing. And, to me, it felt like a kind of vengeance. I was not sure vengeance against what. Most likely
against himself. Between suicide and murder, he would choose the rst. He knew his ways of life hurt people who loved him
the most; his family; his very caring wife, Dr Kaveri Nambisan, a ne novelist herself. A few times, he went off alcohol; but
he unerringly came back to, as he puts in a different contest, in Reminders of Gain : The call of the arrow/Summons the
bow//
There are the usual articles doing the rounds that Vijay was a recluse. That word is a much-prostituted one in literary
descriptions because it is used as if reclusion is a kind of extreme glamour of the eccentric. But then this is a place where the
press described him as the rst all India poetry champion in 1988.
The truth was that Vijay was dysfunctional. The only place he could be himself and nd a transcendental value was in the
world of words. He was close to a few people. That kept shifting. For a while, or so I think, he was quite my comrade in arms;
in alms, too. The early years in Bombay for instance. Then we drifted. In his later phase, he was perhaps close to Jeet.
In between, I
moved to
Pune to head
the Times of
Indias
edition
there. Vijay
and Kaveri
had taken up
a house in
Lonavla,
where he
said the
clouds
passed
through his
head, if he
opened the
window. I
never did
make it to Vijay Nambisan was close to poet and writer Jeet Thayil. (Pradeep Gaur/Mint)
Lonavla.
In the car from ofce to my house once, Vijay said, You have become a different man. All the while I wondered how to tuck
him in bed, given his slightly accusatory mood. This was around the time he had done a rare, cadenced translation of
selected portions of Poonthanams Jnana Paana, (Song of Wisdom).
Poonthanam was a great 16th century Bhakti poet who more or less wrote the rules of the Malayalam language and
literature. He was a devotee of Krishna, especially after the accidental death of his infant child. Poothanams rival in Krishna
bhakti was Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, a rather superior he was one of Indias rst astronomers, and he was a great
mathematician and linguist as well brahmin who wrote, Narayaneeyam in Sanskrit. Poothanams work made literature
accessible to the Malayalee non-brahmin. One of the great questions in Malayalam literature has been: Which work is
better? Or which works better?
When Vijay said he was going to translate these ancient poets to English, I remember asking him, whos going to read it.
Vijay asked for some salt. Because he sweated a lot, he would mix salt in alcohol. It was all quite scientic at one level. I got
him salt. He blew some smoke in my direction and grinned his famous grin. He didnt care. Thats what he meant. The
market did not enter into the world of his words. His integrity was a voice that he could ever rely on to impel him to triumphs
and disasters.
Later, he said the translation was no easy job. Though Vijay, like quite a few IIT-ians, had a photographic memory, he was
not uent in reading or writing Malayalam, even though he asserted his provenance and ethnicity wherever possible.
What he did was to ask his father who, when I met him once at his home in Bangalore, seemed both proud and worried
about his prodigal son for literal translations and then trans-created it beautifully into rhythmic wisdom.
Consider the opening lines of his work: O yesterday the things we did not know would come!/And O the things we do not
know will come today!/Now we behold those soon pass away!/ We are not told how long theyll stay with us.
There is a touch of Hamlet here: Theres a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, tis not to come. If it be
not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come the readiness is all.
At the time when the book came out, it was mostly criticized for his self-confessed ignorance of the vernacular, and his own
agnosticism. To my mind, it was a spectacular act of literary courage, though not easy to distinguish from self indulgence,
and dare.
Through it all Vijay drank. Went into detox. Came out. Wrote. Smoked. He smoked, I had often thought, as an antidote to
alcohol. It was a break from what he was doing to his liver. For this, he had to destroy his throat and lungs. Either way, he
would pay a price.
Read more
Mumbai bids adieu to teacher, poet Eunice de Souza (http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/mumbai-bids-

adieu-to-teacher-poet-eunice-de-souza/story-ECVm8sP0wADEiaypHWcOLN.html)
Book Excerpt: Crime thriller Bombay Fever, by author Sidin Vadukut (http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/book-
excerpt-crime-thriller-bombay-fever-by-author-sidin-vadukut/story-P68o6Qey7qi4NqGemX5e1L.html)
He paid it. Because the rest of the world of his 90s had changed. They had become gentried. All the more reason he had to
stay the course. He was the last man standing. What he thought of the change he said a few years ago in Outlook: Eighteen
of the happiest months in my life were spent in rural Bihar. It may sound like reverse snobbery, but I cant help that. My wife
and I were honoured members of the community, no one tried or wanted to shoot us, and the nuns looked after us like
friends. What more could we want? A Learjet?
This was the stay that went into the writing of his funny and insightful work: Bihar is in the Eye of the Beholder. It
explained, as perhaps only a poet could, the intricate workings of a place that failed to work. And still survived like a trick
that explained the tawdry magic of India. This book too was commissioned by David Davidar of Penguin, with whom Vijay
had a productive relationship.
Thats saying a lot. Vijays ties changed with the tides of his mind. People betrayed him, by just not calling him up. In his
mind, and I believe he is right, he was one of the few genuine artistes who deserved recognition, but would do nothing
outside the covers of his books, to wangle it.
His latest collection, which was released last year, First Innities, has some remarkable poems. It was perhaps justly brought
out by an alternative publishing house, Hemant Diwates Poetrywala. Some of the poems suffer from a certain vulnerability
to fall into the rhymes and rhythms, which take the poet away from the place he intended to end up in when he set out. But
more often than not, the music ends in notes you did not think resided in them. Its only the ne permutation of the words
that makes possible a beauty which was not there till Vijay thought it up:
Snow
Crisp in the winters morning,
Softly all through the night,
What is this without warning,
Falling and white?
I have never seen snow
But I can imagine it quite
Not how it tastes, but I know
It falls and is white.
One morning Ill open the door
To bring in the mornings milk,
And all around therell be snow
Fallen and still.
How Ill roll in the stuff!
How Ill tumble and spin!
Until the neighbours cry, Enough!
And send me back in.
These are times when people die to live. Vijay lived to die. And write. I am glad I walked part of the way with him. He was the
light. And he burnt furiously while he was there.
C P Surendran is a poet, novelist, and journalist.
9/9/2017 Scroll - Six poems by Indias most reclusive English poet
POETRY PICKS
Six poems by Indias most reclusive English poet

It isnt often that Vijay Nambisan publishes his remarkable poetry. His new collection, First Infinities,
is a treat.
by Vijay Nambisan
Published Apr 26, 2015 06:00 am
Chandigarh Literature Festival
When Vijay Nambisans poems appeared in a two-poet volume in 1992, Dom Moraes said the work was
an indication that Indian poetry, after many years of striving, ha(d) at last arrived at maturity. That
volume is now out of print. More than two decades later, Nambisan delivers his first full-length collection,
in which learning and insight are animated by lightness of touch and an unmistakeable tone.
Snow
Crisp in the winters morning,

Softly all through the night,
Falling and white?
I have never seen snow
https://scroll.in/article/print/723339 1/8
But I can imagine it quite

One morning Ill open the door

To bring in the mornings milk,
And all around therell be snow
Fallen and still.
How Ill roll in the stuff!

How Ill tumble and spin!
Until the neighbours cry, Enough!
And send me back in.
Nila in flood time

Nia is a local name for the Bhratapuzha, which flows across north-central Kerala to the Arabian Sea
Mornings in late July

Stern in the steel-grey skies
Warnings of thunder cried
Reminders of gain
Looked at the hard earth which

Spoke of our dearth, and rich
Smoke curled over the bridge
Praying for rain.
Nila lay cold and stark

Silver though was her spark
Filament of the dark
Thread in the sun
River so kind and cool

Reliever of summer's rule
Giver when to our cruel
Loom she be spun.
Who shall applaud her now?

When in thrall this is how
The call of the arrow
Summons the bow:
In coil on coil the snake

Steels all her strength to make
Always without mistake
That one springing blow.
Slowly she rose above

Lowly reef, spit and cove
Flowed to that one remove
Beneath the town
Then broke the waters pent

One stroke the pattern rent
Dark cloaked the firmament
The rain came down.
Rising to embrace us
Twining through embrasures
Smiling she increases
Giver of wealth
Winding where she pleases

Minding no man-measures
Why should she displace us
But for our health.
Swelling a mile each way

Felling the palms to lie
Telling their tales to grey
Unmannered sky
Motionless in her sweep

Ocean is not more deep
Chosen secrets to keep
Than this of eye.
Blood and bone cannot stand

Flood and famine at hand
Rudely we understand
The day is now
One hour from the end

All ours may pretend
But powers of a friend
Have become foe.
How she batters the wall!

How she gathers her all
Howling the southwest falls
Upon a shore
That yesterday was ours

That festival and flowers
And arrested lovers
Kept tame ever more.
Lashing our flesh with cane

Smashing to mud again
Cash and the hoarded grain
And our tall walls
Believe, animals yet

Relive, or else forget
To scrive the alphabet
At that one call.
Goddess or madness, this

Glorious gladness is
Tore from us anxieties
Living a lie
Storm and suddenness shook

Form from fate, eye from look
Dormant the master woke
O thus to die.
Brown corpses rent across

Town, village counted loss
Blown and battered alas
We are still here
River we worshipped once

Stealer of spoiled sons
Deceiver, while she runs
What should we fear.
Fever of sacrifice:
Ever the victim vies
With the haruspices'
Vision of time:
Grey water running free

Straight to tomorrow's sea
Faith that I cannot keep
Go, and keep mine.
Dirge
The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side,
Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide.
How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-Anglian tongue
Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the world was young.
Ill live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis;
And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis.
Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed to care;
Then calls for cheques of last years owing did not fall on empty air.
Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them unchanged; and paid;
But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty trade.
In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes,
I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis.
They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead how to speak.
They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique.
But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen
My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years and ten.
And if it prove my prime is over, if Ive no chance at wordly bliss
Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis.
This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a friend.
Ive a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end.
So Arun and Dom and Nissim I will shun their hard-earned grief
And much though I will always miss em, in softer shadows find relief.
And when Im ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more than this
I will answer, But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis.
Ducks
They hammered in the stakes and wound the long nets round,
Blue nets of nylon, about as high as where
They wound their dhotis, and I wondered as
I sat by the raining window what the blue meant,
The blue circles in the wet square of pasture.
Then at evening the boys drove up the ducks

From the river, squat and uncomplaining,
They herded them here and prisoned them in the
Blue cages. Then they went away. The rain
Sobbed till nightfall in the tamarind trees.
When the rain stopped the ducks began their noise,

Hoarse-throated, full-chested, and we heard them
Away in the big house, after dinner, and my niece
Asked, Are they bullfrogs? I said yes, or perhaps birds.
But I knew all the time they were only ducks.
Their noise is incessant, like frogs or crickets.

And sometimes to me it is like the river
A mile or two away, groaning of its strength.
Or like the rain as it winds the teak groves through.
Or sometimes, to me, like the song of birds.
I am still wondering what theyre doing there,

Whats being done to them. As I write
Again the rain is washing the still morning small
And the ducks are silent, not at all thinking
What manner of beast creates these hours of sleep.
The deserted temple

(rvaabagoa)
The god is gone. His cave is bare.

In shadow from the sun
The clotted bats hang from the roof.

Below, the scorpions run
And pious folk no longer come
Lest evil should be done.
Ruins of flowers on the floor

Bear imprints of his feet.
They point through the door into
The many-miraged heat.
His voice was heard. His fragrance kept
This prisoned air once sweet.
His voice was heard: It told his tribe

To leave this sun-cursed hill.
They went, and left his dwelling here.
They went; it was his will.
Who piled these stones knows when he comes
And where he stays until.
A little better
A little water trickled down a little pipe

Left leaning by the wall when the roofers
Had laid the guttering. It went along
The earth, asking until it was needed.
Now
There is a little green thing there, hardly
A plant, come of a seed which lay in wait,
And whether it has leaves or feathers or
Wings, I must wait to discover.
It is
Not a green I care for: not a green I use
In crayon, or in cloth: too rich, too loud
With treasure, too pleased with itself.
How
Theyd laugh, the harvesters outside
In the fields damp with paddy, their fingers
Clutching goodness, if I showed them such a yield!
The land is rank with rice this year, the price
Is down.
And so this little greenling sits
In the sun, satisfied with itself,
Whatever it is.
Whatever it is,
It cannot make things as they are any worse,
And nobody is the poorer for its pleasure.
Excerpted with permission from First Infinities, Vijay Nambisan, Poetrywala.
2017 Scroll.in
9/9/2017 Scroll - Vijay Nambisan 19652017 was a reclusive outstanding poet. This is what he wrote about Malayalam
LANGUAGE DIVIDE
Vijay Nambisan (1965-2017) was a reclusive,

outstanding poet. This is what he wrote about
Malayalam
He wrote his poetry in English, but he was deeply interested in all languages.
by Vijay Nambisan
Published Aug 11, 2017 08:30 am
Until well after the Cakam or Sangam era (up to about 400 CE), what is now Kerala was a part of
Tamizhakam the Tamil country culturally even when not politically. Many literary works which are
part of classical Tamil literature were composed by writers from this western region. The Tamil
masterpiece Silappatikram is said to have been written by a Kerala prince, Iako-Aika, but its date as
a Sangam work is disputed. The Tamil spoken in Kerala slowly evolved into a distinct form. After all,
much of the boundary between the two territories is marked by high hills with few passes, and once an
independent political power established itself in Kerala the cultural differences became more
pronounced.
Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, a curious new literary

language developed in Kerala.
Called Maipravam, it was, very roughly, half Tamil and half Sanskrit. The earliest Kerala literature
which was not Tamil was composed in Manipravalam, and it continued to evolve. Perhaps this was for
political reasons. Through most of the eleventh century, the Ca empire which was the dominant force
in the Tamil country was at war with the Cras or Kulakharas in the west. The war ravaged Kerala;
the whole economy and society were geared for armed conflict. At the end of the century, by processes
which are not quite clear, the Namptiris held the balance of cultural power in Kerala.
The Namputiris (pronounced and usually spelled, as a surname, Namboodiri) are generally supposed to
be the Aryan brahmins who settled in Kerala, probably well before the Christian era began. According
to legend, St Thomass earliest converts were the members of one hundred (or four hundred)
Namputiri families. That was in the first century, and the descendants of that congregation are what
came to be called the Syrian Christians.
At the beginning of the twelfth century, the Chera empire was fragmented; but the kingdoms of Kerala
were also free forever of Tamil suzerainty. However, the society and economy were drastically altered.
The janmi system of landowning was in force, and the Namputiris were the biggest landowners in the
country. (They remained so in Travancore until a strong king, Mrta Varma, centralised power in the
second half of the eighteenth century, and in the rest of Kerala until the redistribution of land in the
late 1950s by a communist government headed by a Namputiri, EMS. Namboodiripad.) The Namputiris
were the arbiters of all moral and religious and often political issues. Among non-brahmins,
marumakkattyam, or the system of inheritance by the sisters son, was the dominant social dynamic.
The Namputiris remained patrilineal, that is, the eldest son inherited from the father. To avoid the
partition of their extensive estates, the younger sons were not encouraged to marry in their own caste.
Instead, they formed the custom of sambandham, or non-matrimonial conjugal alliances, with the
matrilineal high castes, especially the Nyars (usually nowadays spelled Nair). Their children were
brought up in the Nayar households.
There was no stigma attached to this practice, which continued until the uniform Hindu Civil Code was
enacted fifty years ago. In principle, the Nayar woman had perfect freedom to agree to a sambandham,
and to dissolve it when she chose. The father of her child had visiting rights, often spending every night
with her. Thus the Namputiris were connected to and had influence over the ruling clans.
The vara or caste system, of which Tamizhakam had as a whole been relatively free (see below), was
enforced by the Namputiris dominance. The coexistence of patrilineal and matrilineal systems, and
the alliances which continued to be formed across the varna divide, led to a bewildering proliferation
of castes and sub-castes in late medieval Kerala. It was with good reason that Vivekananda referred to
the province as a veritable madhouse of castes.
Ancient Tamil scripture | Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The brahmins of Tamizhakam the Iyengars and Iyers have had a

profound influence on Tamil culture, but relatively little upon the
language.
Perhaps this is because Tamil was a fully formed literary and popular language even before the
brahmins came so far south. In Kerala, however, the rise of brahmin power coincided with the
development of an indigenous language. Hence, perhaps, the high proportion of Sanskrit words in
Malayalam.
Its Tamil antecedents are very clear from its structure, its inflections and from many thousands of
roots. Some appear to have disappeared, in popular usage, from the mother language. (Some,
bewilderingly, which are in current use in Tamil are archaisms in Malayalam.) The script too the old
vaezhuttu or round-letter script was early discarded in favour of the Grantha used in south India for
writing Sanskrit has distinct similarities with the Tamil. But the vocabulary is highly Sanskritised, so
much so that, even today, practically any Sanskrit word may be used in the literary language.
Until well into the eighteenth century, Sanskrit was the court language of the largest Kerala kingdoms,
Travancore (Tiruvitnkzh) and Cochin (Kocci). The late OV Vijayan has said that he only really became
proficient in Malayalam in his twenties, in college. As a result his written Malayalam has a highly
Sanskritic flavour, which lends to it that complexity, or that quirkiness, which makes it so highly
acclaimed by those who read it in translation and such a whetstone for the wits of native speakers.
There is a small but appreciable fraction of Malayalam words that cannot be traced to either Tamil or
Sanskrit. It is of course probable that some are indigenous, but modern research indicates that many
derive from the Jain Prkts. Sravanabelagola in Hassan district of Karnataka is not very far from the
Kerala border, and the emperor Chandragupta Maurya followed his preceptor, the Jain saint
Bhadrabhu, to ritually starve himself to death there in the late fourth century BCE. The Jains travelled
all over south India searching for retreats, and incidentally making converts. It is well established that
many currently Hindu temples in Kerala were once Jain or Buddhist shrines, and the same has been
shown of the Tamil country.
Malayalam is one of the youngest Indian literatures.

Yet it is about twice as ancient as the earliest readily comprehensible form of English. Puntanam was
born seventeen years before Shakespeare. His texts are easier of access to the lay Malayali than
Shakespeare is to the lay Englishman.
To say this is not to beat the patriotic drum. I have had more vitriol flung in my face than any of my
peers who writes in English, for my insistence that English is an Indian language. I am placing
sixteenth-century Kerala literature in context, in so far as my limited scholarship allows. Puntanams
scholarship was limited too. In his very simplicity, it can be argued, lies his enduring appeal.
(Shakespeare was no scholar either: He had little Latin, and less Greek. There is a subaltern triumph
here which I am too poor a scholar to crow over successfully.)
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
What makes a language sacred?

What gives it that quality of holiness when to use it is to profane it? Age, usually, and otiosity.
The earliest Vedic hymns are living, breathing poems because they were composed in a living,
breathing tongue. The Vedic people had, as far as we know, no other language. The speech of their
magic and ritual was also that of daily use. There was really no distinction between the religious and
the secular when all the world was new.
But the language fossilised as old customs must even when they are good. Younger, more muscular
Prakrits the various vernaculars which evolved all over India either from the degeneration of
Sanskrit itself or from a fusion of older local languages with the more accessible reaches of Sanskrit,
and over the centuries developed into our forty-odd modern north Indian languages sprang up for
the expression of living, breathing people, and Sanskrit became unspoken, even unnecessary. (It was
also a storehouse of knowledge, but of knowledge that could not be changed or adapted.) It is more
than two and a half millennia since Sanskrit ceased to be a popular language, and nothing was done for
more than a thousand years to resurrect it.
That the Buddha spoke in simple language and in the common tongue helped spread his teachings.
Surely, too, the simplicity of those teachings energised the common tongue. What was Sanskrit doing in
the millennium when the Prakrits flowered? We have Paninis grammar elegant, unsurpassed in logic
and science until the nineteenth century in Europe, but not for the many-headed; we have the Yga
Stras of Patajali or others important, but recondite; we have, possibly, Vtsyyanas Kmastra
essential knowledge, but esoteric, surely a world-beater had it been written in a Prakrit; and we have
the Nya-stra and classical drama.
When our dance, drama and literary forms modernised rapidly in the last century or so, we found a
framework ready to support them, through their changes, in the Natya-Sastra. But the scriptural status
Bharata Munis work had been given was, previously, an immovable obstacle in the way of change for
two millennia. After Natya-Sastra, no shades of grey were possible in Sanskrit literary composition.
Nobody could operate outside it; nobody did, at least.
Heroes were all good, villains all bad, heroines always pure and hard done by. If the hero did
something wrong it was because of a divine curse or loss of memory. Good always won in the end, evil
always came away with hanging head or worse. That dramatists of the calibre of Kalidasa took this
seriously shows perhaps the power of the formula that Sanskrit had become.
Modern audiences prefer drakas play Mrcchakaika to the so-called classical dramas. Sudraka was a
king, but his characters speak Sanskrit only in the formal court scenes. (Sanskrit had become a lingua
indica, a language of diplomacy and communication across borders no more.) Good does win in the
end, but incidentally. The people are real, and speak as real people do. A language not rooted in the
common speech cannot survive except as a curiosity.
It was Sankara and some of his peers and successors who restored
vitality to Sanskrit, and they did that by giving it back the intellectual
vigour which defines the g Vedic hymns and the Upaniads.
It is no coincidence that they at the same time restored the religion whose vehicle Sanskrit was. But
that was after 800 CE, and the Prakrits had by then become distinct, vibrant languages all over the
north, with literatures of their own or at least the beginnings of them. In the south the Dravidian
languages were long established; even Malayalam, the youngest, was being born.
Technically, Prakrit applies only to the vernaculars born of Sanskrit, the oldest of which is Pli.
Malayalam is classed in the South Dravidian family, but it is really born of two languages which are
both classical. (Kannada and Telugu are older and prouder languages which disdain the Prakrit tag.)
What could the attitude of such a twice-born tongue be to its parents? (For Malayalam was twice-born,
the first time as Manipravalam.) Why would one parent be revered more than the other?
What is today Kerala was part of Tamizhakam until at least the ninth century CE. Bitter wars were
fought over the land. The political yoke of the Tamils was shaken off at last, but it took three hundred
years. In the civil turmoil which accompanied the wars, the Namputiris somehow managed to get on
top of the social heap and stay there. We have no records of this power struggle. The fact is, however,
that Sanskrit wore the crown of Kerala culture. Tamil scholarship was not a cachet.
The influence of the Aryan varna system on the south is tremendously

complicated.
Sangam literature makes it clear that there were classes, even hereditary classes, which made up the
society of the day in Tamizhakam. Yet the concept of pollution did not exist. All this came the
conclusion is ineluctable with the Namputiris. My father remembers when untouchables could not
come within a certain distance of a savara, and they had to call out warnings when walking along the
road.
Sankara was a Namputiri and was brought up as a good brahmin boy. His Man Pacakam
(Resolution-Quintet) begins with his telling a cala (lowest of the low, born of a sudra father and
savarna mother, commonly called a dog-eater) to get out of his way. My father still remembers that call:
Yhi, yhi, which is Sanskrit for Go hence, go hence. In classical times the brahmins said Gaccha,
gaccha, which means the same thing.
The chandala asked Sankara, By saying gaccha, gaccha, are you trying to distinguish between matter
and matter, or spirit and spirit? Sankara had no answer. He was the prime advocate of Advaita, the
doctrine that there cannot be any distinction between the individual soul and the Universal Soul. He
was big enough to admit in the Panchakam, Whoever shows the Way, be he a brahmin or be he a
chandala, he is my guru that is my Resolution.
(The canny Namputiris later propagated the story, which is widely accepted, that the chandala was Siva
in disguise. This effectively negated the influence of Sankaras example. A Namputiri did not have to
own as guru any chandala beneath the rank of Almighty.)
What Melpattur said to Puntanam was, in essence, this: Gaccha,

gaccha.
As a writer in Malayalam, Puntanam was of low caste as a poet. He was beneath Melpatturs
consideration; the Sanskrit poet would not defile his ears with the sound of the bhasha. His was an
elitist attitude, which called for punishment from the Lord.
An elitist attitude is not the property of a language, but of an individual or of a class made up of
individuals. If Sanskrit has lost its pre-eminence, it is because its votaries said Gaccha, gaccha too
often and to too many people.
To answer the question which began this section What makes a language sacred? What gives it that
quality of holiness when to use it is to profane it? a language becomes sacred, and loses its sanctity,
when the fact of its use is more important than the manner of its use. So it happened with Sanskrit.
All sorts of people, not just writers, were judged and classified according as whether they knew
Sanskrit, not how they used it. Sanskrit is not quite a dead language today, but it is being kept alive by
artificial respiration. Old Latin and ancient Hebrew and hieratic Greek became too holy to be profaned
by common use, so they died. We cannot let that happen to any language we prize; and the first step in
that direction is to prize all languages, to sanctify them all by common and pious use.
Read poems by Vijay Nambisan here.
Excerpted with permission from The Translators Apology, by Vijay Nambisan, from Two Measures of
Bhakti, by Puntanam Namputiri and Melpattur Narayana Bhattatirippad, with a linking poem by
Vallathol Narayana Menon, translated by Vijay Nambisan.
2017 Scroll.in
9/9/2017 Teacup in a Storm - Kindle MagazineKindle Magazine
TEACUP IN A STORM
Vijay Nambisans First In nities brings to life the old world and its many charms,
including the joy of reading poetry in the rain, says Deepa Bhasthi.
(http://kindlemag.in/category/column/ lter-coffee/)
T
he other day, I looked out into the balcony and the 35-year-old jacaranda tree seemed happy. The sky was overcast, and I kept
thinking of what a grand sound the word tempest made. Spring has turned into a near monsoon with only a brief but brutal
summer interlude this year. They say it is this cyclone and that depression in the Bay of Bengal. The famous Bengaluru
weather is back. Untimely, yes, but welcome to us city-dwellers who dont have to worry about the vagaries of rain that might, on the
slightest whim, break our backs and ruin our crops this year and the next. But we now have a little farm, the size of a few palms.
http://kindlemag.in/teacup-storm/ 2/12
Maybe our vegetables will suffer. To start every story with the weather: we seem to worry like a fulltime farmer these days.
Your gateway to nature.

Premium 2 & 3 BHK, near the airport. 64 lacs onwards. Book now and
save big. primehomes.com
I digress.
The tempest sky boded well for the new volume of poetry that had arrived in the mail earlier that day, Vijay Nambisans First In nities
his rst collection of poetry in 20-something years, the poems written over a few decades. One of Indias nest poets, Nambisan is
one of those recluse-types, the sorts I rather love the imagery of. Alongside the ripping-off-you-own-ear madnesses of artist
geniuses, the idea of a writer preferring his or her words to remain in a readers memory more than regular witty lines on Twitter or
eloquent speeches feeds into a well-loved image we give our creative people. That they are a little not-normal, not-like-everyone-
else. The kind of creativity that gives birth to literature and the nest arts is unconventional, but un-convention still requires
adherence to a certain frame of being, some rulesto be able to be broken, after all, there have to be rules in the rst place. I would
rather be read than heard, said Anees Salim (I paraphrase), another famous reclusive writer.
Perhaps the romanticism of a reclusive writer is as distracting from the work

in hand as is a PR-savvy wordsmith who employs every means available to him to
spread the word of wares.

But seen as an afterthought, perhaps the romanticism of a reclusive writer is as distracting from the work in hand as is a PR-savvy
wordsmith who employs every means available to him to spread the word of wares. Which brings me to the book of poetry that came
in the mail.
F
irst In nities arrived on a day that seemed made for reading poetry. Later that evening, the best friend and I would make
ourselves some milky ginger+cardamom+cinnamon tea and read aloud from the book while a storm raged outside. I had
searched for the book on two popular online marketplaces. It turned out that the book was available only on the publishers
website. That made me pause a moment, but the reviewsthis piece is not a reviewwere promising enough.
This is how the purchase of this book went. I was asked to create an account on the website of Paperwall Media and Publishing Pvt
Ltd. Another password to have to remember, sigh. Then I placed my order for one quantity of this slim book, part of their Poetrywala
imprint. I was not offered a one-day delivery or a cash-on-delivery option. Refreshing. I was not told when I could expect to get the
book, who would deliver and what time he would be at my doorstep. Ah, the old mystery of the letter box. And then I logged off and
went on about my day.
That day of the storm and perfect poetry weather, the book came in a brick-coloured envelope withoh how I loved thismy address
handwritten in beautiful cursive. The writing of a stranger, all the way from somewhere, into my home. The bill, torn from a bill book
and slipped within the pages of poetry, was handwritten too. In that little gesture of an older, slower, more human-touch-ed work, the
book had already become endearing.
In that little gesture of an older, slower, more human-touch-ed work, the

book had already become endearing.

Over that tea and with the bestie some hours later, I opened the book at random to the very appropriate Elizabeth Oomanchery,
where the poem, in the face of a celebrity writer, goes home. Poems die too, elsewhere.
T
he balance sheet of this bookthe poems are selected and categorised under Loss, Balance and Pro t its from
mythological references of Bhima and Aswatthama and Kalki to Shakuntala to Auden and Whitman, stopping now and then to
meet a translator to the happy-sounding Snow:

Falling and white?
And then Nila, beautiful Nila of many stories told during courtship, stories of orange suns upon pink skies, makes an appearance. Nila
is a local name for the Bharatapuzha, a river full of sh and boyhood mischief and stolen romances of early youth. It ows across
north-central Kerala before gently slipping into the Arabian Sea.

Stealer of spoiled sons
Deceiver, while she runs
What should we fear.
Somewhere in the middle, Nambisan talks of not believing in fancy names. will.i.am, iPod, the commercial twang to a nonsensical
word or the other way around. He makes tea, turning the surface of water gold after bronzing it, burnishing it.
The balance sheet of this book flits from mythological references of Bhima
and Aswatthama and Kalki to Shakuntala to Auden and Whitman.
Tea, that cup we had that evening, with the reading of the poems.

And in the cup,
Some say, the pattern of your life is drawn
If you have the nerve to turn it upside down.
He makes coffee too and it reminds me of Mahmud Darwishs brilliant prose poem Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut 1982.
Coffee is the one thing of normalcy, those ve minutes of making it the time of sanity during war. War both within and outside glass
walls. Making Coffee reminds me of this, of many coffees. Coffee, the precursor of many loves and lies.
There is something in the making of coffee

That dulls the moral sense.
When the tempest is outside, the mood for poetry, for illicit-ness, for dulled senses, Nambisan gives me the best lines for that
evening. From To the Lord of the Dance:
Destroyer, dance, and let me be

One with the earth your stamping shakes;

Let me be earth, let me prepare
The guilty stem and grasping root
And let all that would pass me, go.
Dance and drama. Love and un-love. Coffee and tea. The old world and its many charms beckon, in handwritten notes, in beautiful
evenings. Even in tempests.
Let freedom go: Nothing remains,

Nothing is true till shadows end
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9/9/2017 Vijay Nambisan v. the Celebrated Poet - The Wire
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The Wire is now in Hindi and Urdu
BOOKS
Vijay Nambisan v.
the Celebrated Poet
BY AKHIL KATYAL ON 30/05/2015
Vijay Nambisans First

Infinities (2015) selects sixty
poems from the last three
decades of his largely
uncollected verse. Because
the net is cast this wide, a
fiercely varied cast of poems
becomes possible, each
experimenting with a
different mood, register and
form. Together they form a
picture of Nambisan as
someone who is both
broodingly cerebral and
goofy, someone pointedly
serious and incredibly self-
mocking.
First Infinities by Vijay Nambisan

His best poems bring these
aspects together, where he is
able to heed the weighty, despairing voice within him, even as he keeps
it from becoming mawkish by a wit that is both devastating and funny.
https://thewire.in/2528/vijay-nambisan-vs-the-celebrated-poet/ 1/7
For instance, in the short poem The hole in the earth, the poet-persona
on spotting a mysterious hole through to the earths bowels, starts a
slightly woolly-headed, self-serious monologue wondering about what
beatitude, what hate, / what hope of sanctity might lie in there, only to
discover the next day that this hole is a far more unpoetic and
disenchanted thing a manhole, which the workmen come and cover
the next day. The brooding self of the poet, its labours of the mind, its
indulgent explorations of the void, are all sharply undercut by the
labour, always caste-bound, of the workmen who make a shattering
debut at the end of the poem. The poetic void implodes into the more
material manhole.
Do not for a moment mistake that the labour of the mind, the work of
the intellect is devalued in Nambisan no poetry does that, and most of
his own is very allusive and densely meditative but this intellectual
labour is neither over-enchanted nor cauterized by pedestalization. His
mind is always roving, searching, thinking, but never in a vacuum, and
is always acutely anxious about self-indulgence. The intellect is worn
lightly on ones shoulders, hoping it would never turn into a
performance, a burden.
Nambisan is a poets poet, but not in its banal, back-handed sense that
only a small coterie really gets him. Here instead, it implies that he
makes the scene of production of poetry as available to his reader as the
product. The worlds where poetry is written, published, disseminated
find their way into the meat of his poems, often to be ridiculed. On more
than a few pages, you get a sense of his chosen poet-forebears, his acute
awareness of writing in English, or the trials of the modern day poetry
scene which overwhelm him and not in a good way.
Vijay Nambisan. Credit: Paperwall
He is very conscious of the craft, of wroughting lines for inducing affect,

and particularly of doing this in English in India. In his opening poem
Dirge, he sees himself both within and out of step with the legacy of
Arun [Kolatkar] and Dom [Moraes] and Nissim [Ezekiel], the
twentieth century trinity of English boy poets, lovely-lettered in their
Indo-Anglian tongue. He tips his hat to them even as he finds relief in
softer shadows, and in kisses that he takes from his missis.
In a hilarious poem The Corporate Poet, Nambisan wittily disenchants

the poetry scene and the supposed high of the high-brow celebrity-
poet, ridiculing him sometimes, not even sparing himself. This
celebrity poet lends his voice to Solemn Moments and Centenary
Celebrations. He is desperate to get into literary festivals, to declaim
grandly on Culture or to be in the good books of government
Akademis. This is Nambisans nightmare of how a poet should be;
launching Nambisans book in Delhi recently, the poet-novelist Jeet
Thayil made it evident that Nambisan was anything but. He said that if
you havent heard [of Nambisans] name before, its because unlike
some of us, Vijay never learnt to attend the right literature festivals,
make the right noises and kiss the right asses. Later in the launch
event, when Nambisan was asked why the book is called First Infinities,
his reply was I dont know. He could have given an elaborate answer
befitting a Corporate Poet but he doesnt. The poems will answer for
themselves.
Within this leitmotif, his strongest, and most striking poem and
arguably, the best of the entire collection is Elizabeth Oomanchery. It
is about the odd equation between being a poet and being famous,
about what happens to a celebrated poet who starts taking himself too
seriously. This poem is an odd little gem
Elizabeth Oomanchery
The celebrated poetess
Went to the corner shop
To buy a loaf of bread.
The shopman said, Excuse me,
Arent you Elizabeth Oomanchery,
The celebrated poetess?
So Elizabeth Oomanchery went home.
Sat at her desk one evening
To write herself a poem.
The poem asked, Excuse me,
Arent you Elizabeth Oomanchery,
The celebrated poetess?
Said Yes,
So the poem went home.
Nambisans hand can be as light and as sharp as this. The form is tight,
the two stanzas sit in an incredible symmetry which is crucial to the
scheme and the effect of the poem. The ending slices you and mocks the
pants off the poet. It is a homily served with humour, a scriptural
warning against vanity offered with a miraculous lack of preachiness.
And hidden somewhere within the self-deprecating heft of the poem
this write-without-thinking-of-fame moral is a naughty little
suggestion, asider than an aside, that Nambisan, the one who wrote
Elizabeth Oomanchery has thought of fame and rapped himself on the
knuckles for it.
This self-consciousness, this critical distance from ones own

deceptions, gives Nambisan, in most other poems, a rare vocabulary of
pain that moves without being maudlin. This happens in poems about
his father, about illness, about the mythological figures, or about urban
isolation in the brilliant Mind the gap. The poem First Infinities:
Hospital holds despair so tightly to ones heart as this entire book
does and so matter-of-factly that it becomes an odd kind of strength, a
device of self-preservation. The doctors hand was asking what my liver
/ Meant to do. I thought behind the curtains of / This purpose of my
birth, to lie and act / Like one soon to be a corpse. This is brutal in its
casualness, up-front in its talk of endings. But it also embraces darkness
so readily that it takes the sting off it. The poet has drunk from
countless bottles and their love has gone into his slow veins and that
experience has been damn exciting he knows that it made him what
he is and hes not going to fetishize or regret it post the doctors

diagnosis. Tell me now what use / The pills, the fruit, nurses disgusted
eye / Or glucose, or molasses. No life is short / That at its centre has this
clarity.
In his lighter poems, Nambisans poetry bristles with an unassuming

clarity, making little gashes on all kinds of pretension or grandstanding,
and in his more demanding, more despairing poems, he comes at you
with a cutthroat clarity of pain, one which lingers long after the poem is
read. The effect is sublimely disorienting, as must be of all first
infinities, whatever they are.
First Infinities by Vijay Nambisan (Poetrywala, 2015) is available from

Paperwall (https://paperwall.in/books/61/First-Infinities).
Akhil Katyal is a writer and translator based in Delhi. His book of

poems Night Charge Extra is forthcoming with Writers Workshop in
July, 2015.
What to read next:

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21/11/2015
In "Cinema"
Vijay Nambisan: When poetry is
everything
Vijay Nambisan believed poetry, rather than any material achievement, could
lead into a deeper existential space
Anna Sujatha Mathai
Photo: Mayank Austen Soofi
In 1988, I was on the governing body of the Poetry Society of India, and on the jury that
selected the best poets of the year. The award offered poets a fellowship to England,
introduced them to leading British poets, and opened doors for them. That year, it was
Vijay Nambisan who won the prize for Madras Central.
After the awards were announced, I met him in the sunlit courtyard of the India
International Centre in New Delhi. He came up to me with a lovely, open smilehappy, if
not triumphant. Perhaps he recognized a fellow soul committed to poetry, though my
route had been through theatre, loss and deprivation.
Nambisan was working with The Hindu at the time, and arranged for me to write
for The Literary Review, which I did for over 20 years.
We became good friends, and wrote letters to each other about poetry and literary ideas.
He told me that everyone had been critical of him ever since he had passed the Indian
Institute of Technology(IIT) examination, and thrown away his bright future for a dream.
He had realized that poetry could lead him to explore his inner being, and into a deeper
space than any material achievement could. I valued his idealism, which was coupled with
a keen sense of the real worldthe details which lit up his poems. I thought to
myself, Why would you sail the seven seas for the Golden Fleece, when the gold was in
your own inner being?
The most telling lines in Madras Central, it seemed to me, were the last: To think we have
such power to alter our states, order comings and goings;/ know where were not
wanted/ And carry our unwanted mess somewhere else.
Nambisans early name as a poet came in 1992, when Dom Moraes published him along
with Jeet Thayil in a shared edition of poems titled Gemini. While some of the strictly
rhymed verses may sound a bit pass, many were already moving towards deeper thought
and search. In After Six Drinks, he says: I am pouring my sorrows into a little cup/ Just
to drown the gods in/ a libation, nothing more. A cynical note had crept in. But
in Grandfathers Beard, he was more light-hearted: I would like my poem to be/ Like my
grandfathers beard, to be airy/ in the lean wind.... Nambisan was childlike, and I think
that was his real nature. He could see through pretentious and opportunistic people, but
this did not ground him.
Once, when he visited Delhi in the early 1990s, he said he would come over. He told me he
liked Chinese food, so I cooked a Chinese meal for him, and waited. When I opened the
door for him, and a friend, I was shocked to find that he had collapsed right there, at my
front door. Actually, I dont think I had realized till then that he had a serious drinking
problem. His friend helped him to the divan, and, later, took him home. The next day, his
friend rang to tell me he had been admitted to a detox clinic. I drove there, and stayed with
him for some time. He seemed quite unconcerned that he would miss the seminar at the
Sahitya Akademi, his reason for visiting Delhi.
Nambisan told me John Berryman was a favourite poet and we swapped some books.
Today I opened a copy of Berryman, and found it belonged to Nambisan. Inside was
inscribed his name, with Moraga. October 1991. I opened Nambisans Berryman, and
read: Will I ever write properly,/ with passion and exactness,/ of the damned strange
demeanours/ of my flagrant heart? Nambisan had started by believing that poetry was
everything, but for nearly 20 years after Gemini, he didnt publish another book of
poems. First Infinities came out in 2015.
I think though that when he was writing his book on Bihar (Bihar Is In The Eye Of The
Beholder, 2000) and Language As An Ethic (2003), in which he gives language the place
it deserves to have in our consciousness, he was also moving back to poetry. Already,
in Gemini there was a poem that speaks of the depth of his thoughts and his poetic
language. In his metaphysical poem Holy, Holy, he looks at the world of the inanimate
metal, crystals, stoneand says, touchingly, Yet even metal has a life that cries/ For use...
He casts Into that emptiness whereof all is made/ And ask,/ without my
imaginings,/What is?/ Nothing answered nothing, and in that space/ I knew myself
unliving, unafraid. This poem reveals the courage of his imaginative life.
In Two Measures Of Bhakti, Nambisan studied the Malayalam poets Puntanam Namputiri
and Melpattur Narayana Bhattatirippad, and with his fathers help, did a translation of
their works. I laughed at Nambisans account of the practice of the high-caste telling the
low-caste, Gaccha, gaccha (Out of my way). Sanskrit lost its pre-eminence, wrote
Nambisan, because it said Gaccha, gaccha too often! There you have Nambisans streak of
caustic humour.
Today, reading his poems, which dare to look into the void, I was moved to read a line
which has a Christ-like voice: I am the Life, the Truth and the Way.
I will never say rest in peace to anyone. Rather: I knew myself unliving, unafraid.
Anna Sujatha Mathai is a poet based in Delhi
First Published: Thu, Aug 17 2017. 05 19 PM IST

9/9/2017
Home States Karnataka
Vijay Nambisan, poet who saw life in everything

By Express News Service | Published: 11th August 2017 02:55 AM |
Last Updated: 11th August 2017 11:43 AM | A+ A A- |
PONNAMPET (MADIKERI): He was a writer who had loved places filled with rich green backdrop and had
settled down in idyllic Halligattu village, 3km from Ponnampet in Kodagu district.
Vijay Nambisan, noted poet and writer, passed away on Thursday at the age of 54. His wife Kavery Nambisan,
a doctor with a yen for poetry, worked in a small-time hospital in Ammatti town near Ponnampet.
The couple could have lived in any big city but chose Kodagu for its natural and scenic beauty. Nambisans
books are connected to places like Madras Central, which won the All India Poetry Competition, and Bihar is
in the Eye of the Beholder. The articles he wrote for prominent journals and newspapers in Chennai outlined
the importance of places that shaped people.
His works include English translations of two 16th century Kerala poets from Sanskrit and Malayalam.
His first collection of poems since 1992, First Infinities, was published in 2015.
He was a rare person, he saw life in everything, chose to pen down life as he saw it connecting it to people
and places and so prolifically at that. In the last four years that he was unwell, he was telling me about so
many ideas playing up each aspect of his 10 years of life in Kodagu, Dr Kavery Nambisan told Express.
He was getting well. I had resigned from my job at Ammatti hospital sometime back to be with him, but in the
last two days he did not complain about anything regarding his health. But his health deteriorated late on
Wednesday night and he breathed his last. I had taken opinions from all my colleagues in the medical field but
yet could not save him. He had so many years of life in him and he was just coming to primacy of his writing
career, said Dr Kavery.The last rites of Vijay Nambisan were completed in Bengaluru on Thursday.
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"Without My Imaginings What Is?"

Remembering Vijay Nambisan
K. Satchidanandan
August 14, 2017
They say there are signs in all things; well, there were some we could have done without that day, Vijay Nambisan wrote in his poem Millennium,
confronted by an ominous heap of straw soaked in blood on the dank stairs that smelt of anger, lines we feel like repeating, forgetting what follows:
we could have done without this loss coming on the heels of Eunice de Souzas sad departure.

Image Courtesy: The Hindu
One of the most painful obligations of a senior poet is to have to write an obituary or a dirge for a younger contemporary who (s)he had all along regarded with
love, expectation and concern. Sadly, I have had to do it several times in my life, mostly for writers of the next generation in Malayalam who had held great promise,
and who I had known personally. I cannot claim that kind of familiarity with Vijay Nambisan, though we did meet a few times once or twice with Kavery, his wife,
the talented novelist and physician and he began corresponding with me more recently while engaged in the translation of two classics of devotional poetry by two
very different poets from Kerala: one in Malayalam and the other in Sanskrit. Upon my insistence, he had also agreed to translate the selected stories of Kamala
Das for Katha during my brief stint as editor in that reputed publishing house where I was planning an ambitious series titled Katha India Library one of my many
pet projects that did not finally materialise though Vijay confessed he would need to take his fathers help to understand the nuances of Malayalam. It was natural
we did not have many occasions to meet as we lived in different places and Vijay was more of a recluse than a traveller that I have ever been.
Fifty four is no age to die; that is the time when a poet really begins to be recognised and revered in our miserable country.
Vijay Nambisan was a poet who, one feels certain, would have written much more and even better if his artistic perfection could still be excelled had he been
given a little more time. He had just come back to poetry after two decades of near-disenchantment with the neglected art, when he, however, wrote some
enchanting prose, with a collection of fascinating poems (First Infinities, Poetrywala, Bombay, 2015) that revealed a poet of rare originality, meditative maturity and
nuanced employment of language, much more evolved than when his readers had first encountered his typically modernist work in Gemini, the Penguin series of
1992 where he had made his debut along with Dom Moraes and Jeet Thayil. If what we hear is right, he was almost ready with another collection when tragedy
struck. Fifty four is no age to die; that is the time when a poet really begins to be recognised and revered in our miserable country.
Not that his early poems in the Eliot-mode failed to win hearts: even Jeet Thayil included his Madras Central that had won him his earliest recognition by
securing the prize in the first All India Poetry Competition organised by the Poetry Society of India and the British Council in 1990 (a prize later won by the likes of
Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Tabish Khair, Ranjit Hoskote and K Sri Lata) as one of Vijays six poems in 60 Indian Poets (Penguin, 2008) edited by him and published after
18 years of its winning the coveted prize. Its sombre mood was not unfamiliar to the readers of The Love-song of Alfred Prufrock: boredom, weariness, confusion,
gloom, all expressed through concrete images like The black train pulls in at the platform/ Hissing into silence like hot steel in wate and ironic lines of resignation
like I cannot be in two places at once: /That is axiomatic. Come we will go and drink/ A filthy cup of tea in a filthy restaurant and time-space games like The long
rails decline into a distance/ Where tomorrow will come before we know it.
I would like my poems to be/ Like my grandfathers beard, to be airy/In the lean wind, to look up at the clouds/ And laugh
But Vijay moved on, conversed with his mother-tongue Malayalam, the classical Sanskrit and the tongues of the places he spent time in, including Urdu. At this
point he realised: I would like my poems to be/ Like my grandfathers beard, to be airy/ In the lean wind, to look up at the clouds/ And laugh One place he loved
during these years of near-withdrawal was Bihar where he spent some quiet time with his partner, rediscovering the locale and its culture, resulting in the writing of
a different kind of book on Bihar, its caste-divide, its struggles, its magical survival: Bihar is in the Eye of the Beholder (Penguin, 2000). His meditations on the
ethics of language-use, its honesty and economy, yielded another work in prose: Language as an Ethic (Penguin, 2003), essential reading for all writers, especially
poets who care for aesthetic integrity and the trust, accuracy and non-manipulative use of language. Meanwhile, he ventured into another area: translation. It is not
surprising that this modernist, like A K Ramanujan, Dilip Chitre and Arun Kolatkar before him, chose to translate excerpts from classical devotional literature, in his
case, from Kerala: Jnanappana (The Song of Wisdom) in Malayalam by Poonthanam Namboothiri (1547-1640) and Narayaneeyam in Sanskrit by Melpathur
Narayana Bhattathiri (1560-1646/66), published by Penguin under the title, Two Measures of Bhakti (2009). The former is a philosophical work of poetry in simple,
contemporary, everyday language in the egalitarian spirit of Bhakti composed by a bereaved father who had seen his new-born first child, born after years of his
marriage, dying on the day of the babys annaprasaham (rice-giving ceremony), and the latter, a work that sums up Krishnas life derived from Bhagavata Purana.
Vijay has been chided for his self-confessed ignorance of the nuances of Malayalam; but anyone who has compared his translation to another more faithful
translation of the work by a poet who is supposed to know better Malayalam, will be convinced of the superior quality of Vijays version. This may remind Malayalis
of a legend about Poonthanam and Melpathur themselves. Poonthanam requested the scholar and linguist Melpathur to go through his work that the arrogant
pundit refused to do, but Lord Krishna himself rebuked Melpathur and told him that he preferred Poontahanams bhakti (devotion) to Melpathurs vibhakti (here
referring to grammar and scholarship). What matters most importantly in the translation of poetry is the translators own poetic genius and vision. Vijays
introduction to the book is a tribute to Keralas poetic genius.
Too much sensitivity always makes for bad poetry Too much sensitivity prevents wounds from healing also and I want therefore to thank all our
political parties and prominent national figures, in business, journalism, publishing, the arts, sports and Hindi cinema for contributing to the
deadening, the cautery of those tendrils which demands fresh air and love and peace in excess. It is a poetical mistake to use abstractions. Let me
say, then, that I thank everyone by whose means I have become so accustomed to living in this country, on this planet, that I should be much more
a misfit anywhere else.
In the foreword to First Infiinities, Vijay Nambisan pays a left-handed compliment to our leaders: Too much sensitivity always makes for bad poetry Too much
sensitivity prevents wounds from healing also and I want therefore to thank all our political parties and prominent national figures, in business, journalism,
publishing, the arts, sports and Hindi cinema for contributing to the deadening, the cautery of those tendrils which demands fresh air and love and peace in excess.
It is a poetical mistake to use abstractions. Let me say, then, that I thank everyone by whose means I have become so accustomed to living in this country, on this
planet, that I should be much more a misfit anywhere else. In the same spirit, in the poem Holy, Holy, he speaks of the stone unencumbered / With feelings: not
obsessed, therefore pure. Again, towards the end of the same contemplative poem he says, When I was young enough to treat these things/ Without
consciousness, I could cast my mind/ Into emptiness whereof all is made/ And ask, Without my imaginings, What is? The title poem of First Infinities is a
retrospective and introspective take on what is possibly the poets own life in three segments of which Need, the first, opens with the lines,
Desperate with knowledge, opened wide by drink

How I have thrown my need about the houses
Ive partied in; how tainting the responses.
He recalls how he was crudely eager to be loved, and how he was forced by his friends abuses to take vulgar vows to be good again. He tries hard to find a city
where he had not been foolish and finds, Difficult lies/ And truths despicable in their fragility,/ Both lack the charm of inadequacy. In the second segment
Hospital, he encounters the doctors hands asking him what his liver meant to do and he pretends like one who is soon to be a corpse. He feels depressed:
Wayside station/ Blues, city living blues, writers cramp blues.
No life is short/ That at its centre has this clarity.
Countless bottles drop their love into his slow veins and he sets out to discover the source of that river. He is overcome with a feeling of the uselessness of drugs
and food and discovers, No life is short/ That at its centre has this clarity. In the last segment, Drying Out, when ashes clog and clot his veins, he spews and
spits bile and his bones are entirely torn, his spirit asks him to have no fears of Hell or hopes of Hereafter, but to believe in the ache for the return of the fire within.
And what is this I am, in a rude day

Bright with the flame of fever? Spirit replied,
I am the Truth, and the Life, and the Way.
The poem exemplifies everything that defines Vijay Nambisans poetry: the uncompromising truthfulness, the clarity of vision and image, the close, if ironic,
observation of the self, the body and the surroundings, the unsettling retrospection, the meditative spirit, the eagerness to settle accounts with the past that he finds
always impossible, the careful choice of words and metaphors, the fine-tuning of the syntax. The poets concern for the self does not in any way exclude the other;
his imagination illumines the whole animate and inanimate world. Even cats find their place in his world of empathy. Cats have no language to tell their world./ The
moon is a midsummer madness/ Which satisfies foolish chroniclers/ But their paws gloat on the captured mouse (Cats Have No Language).
One can only conclude this note with Vijays own lines from the poem he wrote when his friends and mentors Dom Moraes, Arun Kolatkar and Nissim Ezekiel
passed away and whose beautiful, creative fraternity their younger contemporary has just joined:
How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the
Indo-Anglian tongue
Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the world
was young. (Dirge)

9/9/2017
Home States Karnataka
Writer, journalist and a humanist: Kodagu remembers Vijay

Nambisan
By Express News Service | Published: 11th August 2017 12:00 AM |
Last Updated: 11th August 2017 12:00 AM | A+ A A- |
POONAMPET:Vijay Nambesan was a writer who loved places filled with

greenery.
An impressive writer, intellectual and a journalist, Nambisan who
breathed his last in the wee hours of Thursday, had been living in the
serene village of Halligattu in Karnataka's Kodagu district, for the past 10
years.
Nambesan was a man who understood the importance of places in
Writer, poet Vijay Nambisan. (Photo shaping people's lives. Thus, it is not hard to understand why he ditched a
| Paperwall) bustling urban life in favora simple existence in an idyllic countryside in
Kodagu.
In fact, Nambisan's books were mostly well connected to places in it. 'Madras Central,' 'Bihar in the Eyes of
Beholder' and numerous other articles he wrote for prominent newspapers in Chennai, outlined the
importance of places in people's lives.
"He was a rare person, he saw life in everything, and chose to pen down life as he saw it, connecting it to
people and places. He was a genius in that. During the last four years, he was unwell, he was telling me about
so many ideas playing up each aspect of his ten-year life in Kodagu," Dr. Cauvery Nambisan told theNew
Indian Express.
"He was getting well, I had resigned from my job at Ammatti hospital some time ago to spend more time with
him. In the last two days, he did not complain about anything regarding his health. But in a matter of few
hours on Wednesday night, his health deteriorated, and soon, he breathed his last. I had taken opinions from
all my colleagues in the medical field, but yet could not save him. He had so many years of life in him and he
was just coming to the primacy of his writing career," said an inconsolable Dr. Cauvery.
Powered by
His other works include translations of two 16th century Kerala poets, from Sanskrit and Malayalam. His first
collection of poems since 1992, First Infinities was published in 2015.
1/2
Included Works
Language as an ethic
Language as an Ethic is part of the Interrogating India series, which includes several essays on topics
like secularism, political issues and the current problems prevalent in the country.
Written by experts, these essays are meant to bring forth an awareness of the country's issues and
to provide solutions to these problems.
First Infinities Poems
When Vijay Nambisan's poems appeared in a two-poet volume in 1992, Dom Moraes said the work
was "an indication that Indian poetry, after many years of striving, ha(d) at last arrived at maturity."
More than two decades later, Nambisan delivers his first full-length collection, in which learning
and insight are animated by lightness of touch and an unmistakeable tone. Nambisan's view of
humankind is bleak, his view of the possibilities of poetry even bleaker. We have art so that we may
not perish by the truth, Nietzsche says, and Nambisan's art is of the highest order, a reminder of
what English-language poetry in India can do when the language is handled with skill and passion by
someone who is so clearly in love with it, in all its moods, from sombre to playful, from dark to light.
Two measures of bhakti ( Poetry translation )
For four centuries, Jnana-paana and Narayaniyam have been touchstones of faith in Kerala.
Puntanams Jnana-paana may claim to be the first original modern poem in Malayalam; simple and
innocent, it still speaks directly to the reader. Melpatturs Narayaniyam is the last great hurrah of
classical Sanskrit in India; the poem excerpted here, majestic in its humility, describes a vision of
the Lord. With his elegant verse translations, Vijay Nambisan brings these poems to a new
audience. In his incisive Translators Apology, Nambisan explores the dynamics of Malayali culture;
places its literature in context; studies matters of prosody; and questions the attitude of an elitist
language to a regional one.
Bihar is in the Eye of the beholder
The personal experiences of a journalist in a small town in Bihar. Background on poverty, dirty
politics, corruption and lawlessness. An analysis of the system as well as how everyday people live.
An unusual approach to Bihar politics.
I I
Vijay NamblSan
Language
as an Etfiic

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it h-<.:> _~s.ays on themes ranL; r,<; fr
pulitil 11 representatioH'~nd rat,ll Vijay Nambisan
l01IJ,)Lon, terroris,X' and l~r~ll r
PlOP'llnerciy in today'" mic ell
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'c t ' ~iO.1S from somt. of Indn
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~orth(;.om ng titles
Language
as an Etfiic
LANGUAGE AS AN ETHIC
\ .
I).J 1')
LANGU AGE AS' AN ETHIC

\ .
Vijay Nambis~
PENGUIN ,BOOKS
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 11 Community Centre,
\ .
Panchsheel Park, New Dellii 110 017, India For Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, UK
Penguin Group Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, NY 10014, USA
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Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
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Rosebank 2196, South Africa
First published by Penguin Books India 2003
Copyright Vijay Nambisan 2003
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The extracts from the author's article and from the letters
published in the Hindu Literary Review, 18 and 25 April 1993,
are reproduced by the kind permission of the Hindu.
Typeset in Times New Roman by SURYA, New Dellii

Printed at Baba Barkha Nath Printers, New Delhi
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by

way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
above-mentioned publisher of this book.
My language is the universal whore whom I
must make into a virgin. \ ,
Karl Kraus
Language as an Ethic
In Bihar, in 1997, I travelled in Muzaffarpur

district writing a report for UNICEF on a
teacher-training programme they were funding.
One of the most impressive trainers I met
there, a middle-school teacher named Praveena
Roy, told me in an unguarded moment-that
is, in a moment when my interview was not
being monitored by a senior trainer-'I have
no belief in any project. Motivation is from
the individual; communication has to be with
another individual. After all, language is that
which the other person understands.'
In away, that statement was the genesis of I have wondered about societies which failed
this essay. As a professional writer for well \ , for one reason or another, We have no record
over a decade I had already a developed sense of many of them, naturally. Some failed and
of the value of language, but my meeting with are unremembered because of pestilence or
Ms Roy was when I began brooding about it. earthquake, some few because of defeat in
(This is a brooder's essay, not a scholar's.) I war. (The latter would ~ecessarily be few
noticed that in the teacher-training programme because no conqueror would pass up the chance
the best trainers and the most committed were to trumpet a victory.) Those which failed for
those who had least regard for the value of internal reasons, I have fancied, must often
that programme, or any programme where have done so because their languages were not
motivation was not from the individual and adequate to their needs. It is possible for a
communication wasn't with the individual. society to evolve without implements, without
I
manufactured weapons, but not without a
There are journalism schools, and there are language.
courses which claim to teach creative writing
I have heard of tribal societies which marked
(not yet, fortunately, in India) but they cannot
the death of a member by dropping his or her
teach more than the tools of the trade. And
name from their language. The name was
ours is a quarter-century which, starting by
usually a word for some common phenomenon
taking the printed word for granted, has gone
or feature, and thus within two or three
so far that it has come out at the other end of
generations, the language of the tribe would
the warp and takes the digitised or televised
be drastically altered. These were, in a (let us
word for granted. The reverence for the word
say) European sense, a-historic societies. You
is another thing which cannot be taught.
cannot make Death a taboo without also
2 3
forgetting the testimony of the dead. But in make their other tools: with the purpose of
one sense of the word 'history' , such societies \ , s~ival. Dharma, in the Hindu context, is just
were very much alive, for they were constantly this: Right behaviour. That behaviour towards
aware of their links to nature. oneself or another is right which ensures the
These tribes may not have been what James survival of the society. It is.~ ethic. When not
Frazer terms 'civilizations', or what George nourished, or when distorted ' or put to base
W. Bush means by the word. The events of uses, it defeats the user's purpose.
half a century ago would be as hazy as the
memory of their farthest ancestors. Yet, had Langu;age reflects character
the Europeans not come, the Amazon 'Indians',
According to a multinational media
the Zulus and the adivasis of Australia would
corporation's forecast, the languages which
still have functioned as civilizations. The
will dominate the global media in this decade
society might not have changed much over a
are (besides English) Hindi, MandariIi Chinese
century or a millennium. But if it was alive it 2
and Spanish. This statistic will be reflected in
. would' have stayed alive by acting correctly,
the volume of advertisements in Hindi, and is
by reacting appropriately, by behaving like an
good news for linguistic patriots.
organic being with the will to survive and
perpetuate itself. How much effect will it have, though, on the
Survival is the fIrst and only skill. It legitimizes amount of national- business we transact in
all deeds. The tools of survival are the only English? More to the point, how much effect
necessary ones. Successful societies build their will it have on the quality of what we
systems of ethics h, the same way as they communicate in Hindi?
4 5
An educated Indian (let's say, a putative reader phrase, the blanket of Hindi was thrown back
of this book) may be defined by the kind of , . by the upraised hands of' offended regional
English she sneers at. (Happy the Indian who pride-even though Hindi was always fairly
can sneer at both 'elitist' and 'lumpen' English generally understood in every state capital but
and remain politically correct.) ... When the three southernmost, Chepnai, Pondicherry
statesmen reflexively promote the language of and Thiruvananthapuram. But the entertainment
their state in government and apply restrictions industry has succeeded where aggressive
to the teaching of English, yet make sure their chauvinistic politics and diplomacy failed. Even
own children attend 'public' schools, it's no in Chennai (then Madras), where in the 1960s
surprise that many of us should insist on using and 1970s, anti-Hindi agitators routinely
English when we're more comfortable with blackened government signs in Hindi, the 1994
the mother tongue. There are excuses for such film Hum Aapke Hain Koun ran for more than
actions. What excuse is there for those whose a year. The most popular swear-phrase in
mother tongue--or, to be less controversial, urban Tamil Nadu (,loude kobol') was
first language-is English? That very excuse borrowed from Hindi two decades ago. It is
is denied legitimacy by nationalist critics; but now a la mode to speak Hindi, if not yet to
it is just as legitimately Indian behaviour. understand it.
English is a special case, worthy of its own Little can be achieved by legislative measures
basket, its pithaka ... India has fifteen or to propagate--or imprison-a language. Urdu
sixteen or seventeen recognized languages of spread and became a language precisely
government because the states feared Hindi's because it had no grammarians for centuries-
hegemony. Many of the states exist for the until it became a political tool. Before Partition,
same reason: linguistic chauvinism. To coin a the Indian National Congress was as eager to
6 7
espouse it as was the Muslim League. Then including Premchand-who is generally named
suddenly it seems to have become the property ,,
the father of modem Hindi literature- all the
-.
of Pakistan. Only after 1947 did this stale, popular, all the critically-acclaimed Hindi
epicene Hindi which AIR bulletins wallow in writers have quite naturally used ('borrowed'
come into widespread use. It is widespread is incorrect) the living Urdu phrases which are.
just because India's enormous bureaucracy has natural to them and to their audience.
to use it. Sanskritized Hindi survives only in speeches
of State, in bureaucratic communications, and
Bureaucrats and 'statesmen' apparently have
in the many South Indian schools where Hindi
no responsibility to communicate. Both of
is taught.
these- have a political, not a responsive,
constituency. Atal Bihari Vajpayee speaking I once saw in Bihar a village school's
in Hindi at the United Nations is a mistake foundation stone which stated that it had been
because he forgets that his aim in going there laid by Laloo Prasad Yadav's 'paavan kar
is to communicate, not to pander to his political kamal'. (I admit it would have sounded odd in
3
base at home. Musharraf does not forget it Urdu- 'pak haath', the foreign hand?) Perhaps
and gets a better Western press, which is after it was no coincidence that the school was in a
all what they are both after. state beyond disrepair, tenanted mainly by
buffaloes in the rains. Who are the people
A government which foists upon its people an
talking to who try to talk Hindi like that?
idiom or a diction, a language alien to them, is
hastening the death of that language. What Much more unfortunate is the teaching of
great modem novels, plays and poems have Hindi as found in CBSE textbooks. It is more
been written in Sanskritized Hindi? Since and unfortunate because it deludes children they
8 9 .
can live in a desert. I have suffered from this He gave me the box and. said plaintively,
myself, so I know what I'm talking about. \, 'Hindi mein bol diya karo' na , .. ' At which a
North Indian children are fed the same bystander laughed and said, 'He is talking in
eviscerated carcass in school, but they imbibe Hindi.' I should have stayed to talk with that
the heart of the idiom in their daily life. I went chap. I- and Vajpayee- 'ould have found
to Delhi for the ftrst time speaking, as a him well educated.
Hyderabadi friend put it in wonder, 'very
So 'machis' is a Hindi word, and a best-
chaste Hindi'. It was of that order of chastity,
selling one too as the fIlm showed. Is it found
however, which is not chased after.
in any Hindi dictionary, I wonder? Not likely,
The second month or so, I went to a because most shabda-koshas are produced by
4
paanwalla' s shop to buy some matches. 'Bhai Shuddha Hindi Sansthans, who are attempting
sahib,' I said, very correct, 'diyasalayi kii ek to stem the tide of popular Hindi instead of
dibba dljiyega' (which may be Englished, for assisting and directing it. Nirad Chaudhuri has
those who know not chaste Hindustani, as written in the 'Essay on the Course of Indian
'Good sir, by your sufferance let me have a History' which concludes his Autobiography
package of those sticks/needles which confer of an Unknown Indian:
light'). . . . as I walk along the streets of Delhi, I am
often accosted by workmen, labourers, hawkers,
He looked at me askance. 'Kya?'
artisans, and the like, and asked, 'Sa'ab, time
'Diyasalayi ka ek dibbii.' kya haiT . , . For these men there is not the
slightest reason for employing the word 'time'
'Kya?!' with knobs on. because there are good Sanskritic and Persian
'Arre, ek machis dena yaar!' equivalents of the word which have been in
10 11 ,
use in the country for hundreds of years. In the Shuddha Hindi Sansthans sho)Jld be addressing.
same way everybody employs 'room' , 'market' , \. And I wish them luck.
'garden' , 'shoe', 'bed', 'wife' , 'father' , 'son',
But a language cannot be strengthened by
'marriage' , 'danger' and similar words of
workday status without there being any obvious legislation; and it is a historical fact that
reason for preferring these words to their Indian legislative or academic attempts to keep ' a
equivalents. But for the most part the foreign language pure have only succeeded in denying
words are the words in which a modem Indian it popularity. The name 'Sanskrit' means the
expresses his cultural concepts. Not only does perfectly fashioned; it was an ideal language,
he prefer to use a mixed vocabulary in his made by scholars, with ideal rules of grammar
private conversation, he would be utterly and syntax. It was probably never spoken
deprived of expression if he were debarred except on formal occasions, as of ritual and
from the use of this vocabulary. It is doubtful State. It was not a people's language, and
whether in that contingency he would be neither is Government Hindi. It will be argued
articulate even in the kitchen or bedroom . . .
that if Sanskrit as a courtly language was
There is of course no working reason why a perfectly fitting for the rulers of India (only
'labourer, hawker or the like' --or anyone else there was no India then) 2,500 years ago, so is
who speaks Hindi -should not use perfectly it fittingly used by the present rulers. What is
good and simple words like 'samay' and 'vaqt' wrong with that argument is that we are now
in asking the time. If there are cultural a democracy. (Indeed, the use- of the words
reasons-such as the fact that the subordination 'rule' and 'rulers' for our present system of
of the wholesome living day to its mechanical government, in the press especially, is one of
fractions is a concept of Western industrial the glaring symptoms of" our current
culture-then those are the 'problems' that the degeneracy.) The kings of Aryavarta and
12 13
Bharatavarsha did not attempt to communicate well of French. Its elitist nature heightened its
with their more common subjects in Sanskrit. \ , sanctity, and that of the French tongue: The
Asoka's famous inscriptions were written in A~'ademie never has had more than forty
Pali. members. It has on the whole been successful,
too, or was until about tyvo decades ago.
More recently, in the eighteenth century the
French remains a much purer language than
reach of the French language rivalled that of
English. But Hollywood cannot be kept out,
the English across the world. In Europe itself
nor can Coca-Cola. The agony of purists is as
it was the language of fashion, and remained
commonly heard in the French media as it is
the court language of the Russian empire well
in the gatherings of our own high priests of
into the nineteenth century. In London society,
what constitutes 'Indian'. And the French are
the knowledge of French was a cachet between
still legislating. As late as 1977, they passed a
1700 and 1850, by when the more glaring
law banning the use of English in official
excesses of various French revolutions had
contexts if an equivalent French expression
vitiated its charm. The successes of British
existed. It doesn't work, and it won't. Of
arms curtailed the geographical boundaries of
course there is an equivalent native word for
the French language; that it did not remain the
'web' , say, in any country that has spiders.
language of diplomacy was largely due to the
And there is 'net' where there are fish. I
foundation, in 1634, of the Acadernie fran~aise.
should think none of the equivalents is in any
The Acadernie's purpose was essentially to degree of common use.
keep the French language pure, and for two
The great advantage English has- and now,
centuries it kept out neologisms, foreign words,
American-is that it has never been legislated
and anything else that sullied the purity of the
for in its native land. That it has often been
14 15
legislated against in other lands no doubt adds chance (:hat it will be tulfed out on that account.
to its allure. There have often been calls to set
\ , :,:eryone in India says 'telephone' when they
up academies on the European model to purify speak of it at all; why do the silly bureaucrats
English. Protests against the import of words and politicians put up signs saying 'durbhash'
from the Continent, against the adaptation of or (in Tamil) 'tholaipesi'?
Latin and Greek forms, and against the use of The unending frenzy of cable TV has made
barbarous home-grown words when much nicer Hindi immensely more popular than anyone
classical equivalents were available, have all expected a decade ago. The Hindi they speak
sounded in Britain since about 1550. Wisely,
in Bombay films (and in most TV serials that
the calls have been ignored from the very are not gilt and cardboard and set in a mythical
beginning. Academies were not set up, but a
mythical age) is not grammatical. The point of
number of lexicographers drudged and dredged
the syllogism is evident to serial~makers, but
till by 1800 or so it was pretty clear of what
not, it seems, to Mandi House Pooh-Bahs.
stuff the Spirit of English Present was made.
But as important, no thought was given to the Not that I hold any brief for the spread of
Acts of Parliament against the Spirit of English Hindi (' Aya, farmaya, paya,' as some
Future. indigenous Caesar might say). I'm all for
diversity, linguistic and otherwise. I'm for the
The rash of inventions in the last 150 years
little languages spoken by the native
put a great strain on the language--on all
Australians, by the Papuans, by tribes in the
languages. The descriptions coined by scientists
Khasi Hills, even for Eyak, the Alaskan dialect
often offended scholars. 'Tele-vision' is a
spoken only by two 'aged' sisters when they
famous example; they objected that it was half
meet (according to my 1976 edition of the
Greek and half Latin. So it is. But there is no
16 17
Guinness Book of World Records. Alas, they What further complicates th~ situation in India
must be dead now). And paradoxically, my ,. is the preponderant number of people who do
stand against Hindi is founded on the concept not read and write. I say 'do not' rather than
of purity, though not grammatical purity. 'cannot' for a good reason. The official Census
What I am asking is, what is it doing to our may show literacy to be gaining ground, its
character? figures may tell us that nearly seventy out of
every hundred Indians can read and write.
Who uses language well? This justifies a certain amount of government
hoopla. But it is tempered with caution, thanks
A society interested in its language, its
to Kerala's example.
literature, trusts to certain groups and
individuals to preserve its language. The When first Kottayam district and then the
Acadernie fran~aise fulfils this role in France; whole of Kerala was declared '100 per cent
most European and American countries have literate' during the last decade, joy was
some equivalent. Great Britain, lacking an unbounded. But cooler research showed that a
academy devoted to language, has however a
good number of the neo-literates had just
Poet Laureate, a post which dates back some
learned the alphabet and to write their own
four centuries. Our own situation is unique.
names: 'just enough to sign for rations,' as one
Not only is there no one language in whose
cynical Malayali journalist told me. Quite soon,
well-being the majority of Indian citizens has
the Union government stand was shifted, and
a stake, but the Sahitya Akadernis in each
it was declared that any state which achieved
state, entrusted with the preservation of that
state's language, are Government-controlled over 90 per cent literacy would be 'deemed to
and ridden with politics. have achieved' one hundred per cent literacy.
18 19
I am not sure that the decennial Census figures less than those of Australia, New Zealand and
are not similarly fudged. But of those seventy \, South Africa put together:
Indians in every hundred who can read and
This should be enough readership to keep
write, how many do so? How many confine
Indian writers in English alive. But it simply
their reading to the destination boards of buses, isn't. The majority of English-literate Indians,
to official 'circulars' and to newspapers in tea- the affluent ones, go in for the Sidney Sheldon-
shops? In other words, what is the market? Frederick Forsyth- Stephen King pirated line,
when they read books at all; the majority of
One of the abiding grouches of Indian writers
the remainder are first-generation professionals
is that their country's population is not reflected
who seek to better themselves with Chicken
in book sales. Just take the number of readers
Soup and Dale Carnegie.
of English. Assuming that 2 per cent of Indians
are cornfortabl~ with English, and read an To come back to the question, who in India is
entrusted with keeping the flame of language
English newspaper every day- the figure is
burning (not necessarily pure but certainly
plausible, even conservative, given that the
undefil~d), as far as English goes the answer
size of the middle class is estimated by some
is no one. If at all there is anyone or any
to be between 150 and 200 million, that is 15
group which has taken the responsibility, it is
to 20 per cent of the population- that gives a the few but very prestigious newspapers and
figure of 20 million. This compares favourably news magazines published in English. And it
with the 55 million or so total population of is there for anyone to see that they have let
the British Isles and the 260 million or so of down the English language very badly.
the USA. It is approximately equal to the
I think this is less true of the journals published
English-literate population of Canada, and little
in the 'Indian' languages. I have only a passing
20 21 ,
acquaintance with a very few of them, but It is hard to argue with that last dictum. An
those I have seen and have been able to read \. inability to think things thiough, or a reluctance
have seemed less pretentious and more to be logical, mars the spoken argument as
comfortable with their medium. The problem well as the written one. The pressure of time
with English in India is that so few of those is everywhere evident in sloppy business
who live off it live on it. They may make their correspondence; and even more so on the
living from English, but it is not their ftrst journalistic page. In the newspaper and
language, and its travails matter little to them. magazine game, the approaching deadline is a
But those to whom the travails of one language fractious guest, to be entertained as wittily and
do not matter will not be moved by the elegantly as possible. But there is so little time
sufferings of any language. nowadays for that. However, the cruellest
Robert Graves and Alan Hodge wrote in their enemy of the language is malice.
valuable handbook of English usage, The
Pamphleteers and satirists have often produced
Reader over Your Shoulder (1943):
masterpieces, but they were animated by causes
As a rule, the best English is written by people
they considered noble. It is not the beauty of
without literary pretensions, who have
Defoe's English, or Swift's, that made them
responsible executive jobs in which the use of
official language is not compulsory; and as a
such profound influences on society and the
rule, the better at their jobs they are, the better novel, but the lucidity of their thought and the
they write . . . Faults in English prose derive worthiness of their concerns. In contrast, we
not so much from lack of knowledge, have propagandists today who write beautifully
intelligence or art as from lack of thought, but with the purpose of exaltation of self or
5
patience or goodwill. party. It is rare that journalism transcends the
22 23
day; it is increasingly common for it to degrade people who talk; the stiff upper lip is not an
, admired trait among us . .
the hour.
..
\
The writer's character can be told, more often Our literature reflects our personality. Pale
than not, from what is written. But what is novels dealing with the pale lives of
character?- morality, integrity, a natural intellectu~ in Bloomsbury (or at the India
tendency to sprout wings at midnight and fly International Centre) do not have a vogue
out of the window? Essentially, what the among us. Nor does erudite, put-together poetry
sophisticated observer can tell from a written on the Waste Land model. What still thrills us
passage is purity of motive; deducing more more than printed books is the oral poetry of
than that depends on context. And that is the Mahabharata; our best novels and plays in
languages other than English generally deal
mostly what concerns me here.
with the lives of people not influenced by any
Of course, when it comes to India it is not the books but the scriptures and myths.
written word but the spoken that should have
So those who use language best among us are
primacy, and it is not the Indian English
still the talkers: the old lady at the wedding,
language but the Indian Indian one. But such
the gentleman in the railway carriage, the
are my limitations, and my publishers'. The
travelling medical representative, the small-
importation of movable type by the Jesuits
town restaurant owner, the village barber.
almost five hundred years ago did not make
Going by my own experience, the language-
much difference to oui national persona. We
all our languages- are quite safe with them.
have been subjects until just fifty years ago, This is true of every nation; our problem is
and education has been low on the agenda of transcription, and the question of who will
most of our rulers. We were and still are a read the transcription.
24 25
The debasement of language duty . of the citizen, and particularly of the
\ . practising journalist, to be on the lookout for
In what follows, I will be writing principally
such phrases or words and to rend them to
about the use of the English (or American) pieces.
language. This is because English is my flrst
language; I dream in it. Those who wish to Just the year after Two Cheers was published,
quarrel with me about this may hold their Eric Bentley wrote in New Republic: 'Ours is
peace for now; they will flnd ample cause an age of substitutes: instead of language, we
later in the book. I begin with a quote from have jargon; instead of principles, slogans;
Forster's essay, 'George Orwell' (written in and instead of genuine ideas, Bright Ideas.'
1950, in Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951), What do we do now, what would Forster have
which might serve to define the intention of said now when it is the journalists who take
this essay as well: the lead in substituting jargon for language,
He was passionate over the purity of prose, and gleefully seize on any new dehydrated
and in [an essay] he tears to bits some passages and compressed morsel offered to them by the
of contemporary writing. It is a dangerous bureaucrats? . . . The journalistic examples I
game-the contemporaries can always retort- have chosen are chiefly, and unhappily, from
but it ought to be played, for if prose decays, the newspaper I most esteem. I do not
thought decays and all the finer roads of
habitually read any other, and one of the
,communication are broken. Liberty, he argues,
reasons I do subscribe to it is its literate
is connected with prose, and bureaucrats who
quality and its own corporate and professional
want to destroy liberty tend to write and speak
integrity: its character. That even this
badly, and to use pompous or woolly or
newspaper can afford so much cause for grief
portmanteau phrases in which their true
meaning or any meaning disappears. It is the
is signiflcant.
26 27
One reason for the general decline in the This is, to me, the primary reason for the
quality of English used by Indians is that ,
decline in English standards, because English-
-.language
\
journalism has become respectable. Until journals are the most significant
fifteen or twenty years ago, those who worked aspect of the use of English in India. Of
on newspapers got what is termed a pittance. course, they may not te~ch English in the
So if you joined the staff of a newspaper schools as well as they used to, but someone
(there were hardly any magazines until 1975) interested in the language can always get
you had to be interested in the work, and that around that.
meant that you were a keen reader of The decline often begins on the sports pages
newspapers and had an understanding of how because, while India has some brilliant
they worked. It also meant you had a decent sportswriters, those at the sports desk often
command of the language, for there were few gravitate there for love and knowledge of
schools then awarding diplomas and the test sport rather than love and knowledge of
you took was of your writing skills. language. Several years ago, the word
'virtually' began to be replaced by 'literally',
Now, alas, there is money in the business. A
as if it was too weak to convey the message of
journalist of five years' experience does not
totality: 'So-and-so literally destroyed the
make as much as a programmer fresh out of
bowling attack,' giving the picture of an
the software 'academy', but he-and very
armoured batsman at the wicket with a
much she, in the cities-makes enough to
Kalashnikov instead of a bat. Then came these
marry and raise a couple of little journalists
phrases, not as single spies but in battalions:
on. The job, especially at the desk, is just a
'He was in his elements today'; (in a picture
job, with regular hours and PF deductions.
caption) 'So-and-so lofts the ball over the
28 29
mid-wicket boundary on way to his century'; taking as a premise the conclusion one wishes
,
'It was his fifth five-wicket haul of his Test \
!<.> reach; the logical faliacy petitio principii
career'; ' . . . in his only second match' . And named by Aristotle. Modern Indian
so on. commentators, however, reading it literally,
The rot has spread. In early 2001, when follow the phrase with a colon and the question
they wish to ask. This usage, after having been
Dr Ramadoss and his Pattali Makkal Kaatchi
enshrined in an editorial in that once most
defected to Jayalalitha's AIADMK alliance,
literate newspaper, the Hindu (30 January
the Hindu referred to it in the lead story on the
2002), is unlikely to be eradicated.
front page as a 'coup de grace'. This stunned
me, because what was meant wasn't a coup de There are some neologisms which are here to
grace to the NDA but a coup de grace for stay and nothing can be done about them. The
Jayalalitha. Which doesn't mean anything. use of 'contact' as a verb, for instance, which
Then India Today either took it up or had their prompted the detective Nero Wolfe to add a
own brainwave, for the phrase, used identically, thousand dollars to the client's bill. Some such
appeared in their report on the same event. I system of fines would work wonders, but
sat back readying to be overrun by a wave of who's to decide and apply it? Legislation on
coups de grace but mercifully the phrase died the issue of language is out. 'Contact' as a
6
a sudden death. verb is of course a global phenomenon; but
there are some horrid Indianisms which are
One phrase which has similarly emerged from
becoming current even in print. A page 8
nowhere but whose incorrect use unhappily
headline in the Hindu (20 May 2001) said:
seems to be set for a long life is 'begging the
'Centre to wash its hands off Dabhol Power
question'. It means, of course, to argue a point
Corporation' .
30 31 ,
This usage always makes me want to wash my Presumably the reviewer meant 'zenith' , but it
,
mouth, or the sub-editor's. The Indianism \
doesn't make much sense even so. And can't
'taking the name [of ...r is also finding its anyone on the desk check? Did no one have
way into print:
any doubts? And was that because the reviewer
'Without taking Mr Wahid's name, the Vice-
is someone high up on the masthead?
Presid~nt said a leader's legitimacy flowed
from what he did for the people . . .' A friend who once sent a didactic essay to a
(The Hindu, 22 May 2001)
journal, which shall remain unnamed, told me
Such phraseology indicates an unfamiliarity she had got a plaintive message from the sub-
with standard English. These two examples editor:
, are from the issue of India Today dated 15
Your fmal para begins 'We cant about the
July 2002:
nobility of our profession . . . ' There are some
[Mamata BaneIjee] insisted that . . . she would
words missing. Can't what?
return only if she got her old job back. When
Vajpayee refused to oblige, she cried hoarse The number of typographical errors in English-
over the creation of the new railway zone
language journals in India is shocking. (The
headquarters . . .
Bombay Times of India is the best of a bad
And, in the box,
lot.) What is more shocking is that they are
Mamata BaneIjee hankers for railways
accepted as a fact of professional life.
This line occurred in a book review in the
Established journals in Britain and the USA,
same magazine (5 November 2001):
in contrast, make it a point of professional
Nithya's friendship with Sudha, the poor
relative who lives on charity is the story's ill-
honour to extirpate such errors. I was
fated azimuth which accurately approaches its astonished, reading James Thurber's memoir
doomed climax. of his New Yorker days, The Years with Ross,
32 33 ,
that he ruefully remembered solecisms from training. They are taught the mechanistic tools
\ ,
the magazine's inaugural year (1925) thirty- ?f their daily tasks, but they are not taught to
four years later: respect the language, so that imy offence to it
... a two-line joke ... was accidentally printed is an offence to their honour.
like this:
I can make a weary and i saddening list, but
'A man who thinks he can make it in par.'
'What is an optimist, Pop?' let us get some perspective on what is
. . . One poem was accidentally printed in two happening. Certainly young Indians are writing
different issues in 1925; a building located by more and more a very Indian English. The
th
the New Yorker at Sixth Avenue and 55 language must be adapted and refashioned to
th
Street was actually at Sixth Avenue and 54 suit our needs and purposes, but these examples
Street; the name of George Eliot was spelled above are not of adaptation. They are only
with two 1's ... examples of shoddiness.
Not the most confirmed precisian on an Indian There are wonderful Indianisms that express
paper- if there are any such remaining- would something a speaker of proper English could
accept these as anything but trivial blunders. never get across. At a dinner I was at recently,
In regional editions of both the Times of India drinks were suggested with the question, 'We'll
and the Hindu , I have seen the same report have some fellowship?' The use of 'hot drinks'
carried on two different pages on the same for alcohol- to distinguish it from cold
day. drinks- is also very Indian (the proper
Why are sub-editors, and reporters, on Indian distinction is of course between 'hard' and
journals so Laodicean about what earns them 'soft' drinks'): 'You'll take some hot?' The
their daily bread? The reason is a lack of terms 'cousin-brother' and 'time-pass', also
34 35 ,
the use of local words ('chal' and 'yaar', for On 22 October 2001, the Taliban claimed that
,
.~
\
instance) are perfectly acceptable because they US missile had hit a ' hospital killing 100
fill voids in a language which is not native to civilians. This was vehemently denied by US
India. The instances given in previous Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It struck
paragraphs do not; they are symptoms of a me as very probable that both sides were
carelessness about language. lying. The mi&sile might have hit the hospital
and killed a hundred Afghans, but going by
Why is this important? the wars of the last quarter-century it is likely
enough that there was a military post as well
Long before history began, it was recognised
at the hospital, hiding behind the cloak of the
that language was magic put in the mouths of
Geneva Convention.
men. The very fact that humans could
communicate-as animals apparently could The 11 September attacks on the USA and the
not- was magic. Sounds were invested with a 'war on terrorism' have also had consequences
sanctity superior to what their sense alone for language. Words have been redefined, as
could support. (This is why Vedic mantras are naturally have concepts and idiom. The
each separately and individually chanted in a definition of a terrorist has effectively become
very specific style with marked changes of 'anyone who doesn't agree with the United
tone and pitch; just reading them out achieves States'. President George Bush said as much
no efficacy.) It is this holiness we are in on 1 February 2002, continuing the hard line
danger of forgetting, because we have become of his State of the Union address. With his
so sophisticated that language is no longer a usual gift for pleonasm, he declared:
meallS of communication; it is a means of If you're one of those nations that developed
7
obfuscation. Its uses are those of black magk. weapons of mass destruction and you're likely
36 37 ,
to team up with a terrorist group or you're Also, the habit of the US. and its allies to call
,
sponsoring terror and you don' t hold the values \
themselves 'civilized" and their enemies
that we hold dear true to your heart then you barbarians has had its echo around the world.
too are on our watch list . . . Writers in Indian newspapers (and on the Net)
People say, 'Well, what does that mean' . . . It have bandied the word ru,:ound until it seems to
means they better not try to terrorise America hold no meaning. I found this extreme example
and our friends and allies or the justice of this
in the Hindu Open Page on 13 November
nation will be served on them as well.
2001. A certain Gurtej Singh (Professor of
The recent 'war' on Iraq has been well Sikhism) is attacking Professor Satish
documented in its effects on language. I'll just Chandra's account of the martyrdom of Guru
point out that two countries now, if they are Tegh Bahadur in, I presume, an NCERT
the US and UK, can reduce the rest of the textbook. He ends:
world to a minority. But there is an uneasiness That section of the Sikhs which feels that the
among the new majority all the same which Hindus should not, according to the rudimentary
speaks of a besieged mentality. When a recent norms of gratitude prevalent in all civilised
societies, be talking of the Gurus in the tone
World Trade Organization ruling went against
used by Professor Satish Chandra, feel at least
US protective tariffs on steel, a spokesman for
puzzled to read the chapter in the textbook.
the US . steel industry said: 'The WTO's
[decision] ... calls into serious question its Indeed there are many puzzling things about
legitimacy as a serious institution.' (Deccan that paragraph. What I find most puzzling is
Herald, 4 May 2003) If it's against the US, it the implied assumption that any society
is not legitimate. And note, again, the poverty civilized enough to call itself civilized must be
of vocabulary. civilized. And therefore, those who don't bother
38 3,9
to-the Taliban made few references to their Gandhi spoke much better. English, direct,
own high state of refinement that were carried \, from the heart. The editor of the greater part
by the media- are not civilized, are in fact of his Collected Works, K. Swaminathan,
uncivilized. commented:
Gandhi's literary style is .a natural expression
Another characteristic effect of war and an of his democratic temper. There is no conscious
excess of bureaucratic civilization is the use of ornamentation, no obtrusive trick of style calling
language to conceal rather than to tell. The US attention to itself. The style is a blend of the
government has attained to undreamed-of modem manner of an individual sharing his
heights in its use of obfuscatory language, ideas and experiences with his readers, and the
which has been in the public ear too recently impersonal manner of the Indian tradition in
for me to have to quote it. The direct ancestor which the thought is more important than the
of this kind of black magic is Winston person expounding it. The sense of equality
Churchill: with the common man is the mark of Gandhi's
. . . it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty' s style and the burden of his .teaching. To feel
Government be classified as slavery in the and appreciate this essence of Gandhi the man,
extreme acceptance of the word without some in his writings and speeches, is the best
. 8
risk of terminological inexactitude. education for true democracy.9
Quite frankly, Churchill, like Dr Johnson, This is as good an Indian counterpoint to the
inflicted the most excruciating tortures on Graves-Hodge dictum as it is possible to find.
English when he tried to be literary. His English
But Churchill was at least witty, which the US
wit can only be appreciated by one with a turn
State Department and the Pentagon can never
towards the pedantic. He used the language of
quite bring themselves to be. And after the
a Caesar, not of a democrat. His arch-enemy
40 41
11 September attacks, they are using less Terminological inexactitude!
obfuscation, I've noti~ed. They are surer of
\ .
How refreshing it is, on the front page of the
themselves; their use of language is tending same newspaper, to find an Indian policeman
more towards Orwell's Newspeak; that is, incapable of this kind of locution. The lead
lying, with or without euphemism. They put story is the 'terrorist strike' which killed at
the 'language to perverted uses with the least four policemen guarding the American
straightest of faces. The Hindu of 23 January Center in Kolkata. Malabika Bhattacharya
2002 carries a report from the London reports:
Telegraph about the treatment of AI Qaeda _ About three dozen policemen present there
and Taliban prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay were so shocked that they did not fire even a
US prison camp. Previous reports had stated single shot in retaliation. [The attackers fired
at least fifty-four.]
that the 'prisoners of war' were being held in
'We were so surprised that we could not react,'
'cages' surrounded by razor wire in
said an injured policeman . . .
permanently floodlit compounds; they were to
be allowed neither blankets nor mosquito This was, of course, before the facts had been
repellent, in an area aswarm with mosquitoes. filtered through the distorting prism of
The report says: 'spokesman said'.

When told that the treatment of the prisoners
The Indian attitude to Newspeak is paradoxical.
had b een characterised by one British
Often, as above, we are naIvely truthful; but as
newspaper as 'torture', a US Marine Corps
often we are capable of the most refined
spokesman replied: 'I don't characterise it as
Pentagonese. It is my tentative conclusion that
torture. I characterise it as appropriate security
the State, and statesmen, are economical with
procedures. '
42 43 .
the truth when they are being undemocratic During the fIrst year of the emergency, everyone
and know it. They subvert language when \ . (except the smugglers) asked why we hadn't
they are also subverting the idea of the done it earlier.
Republic. Thus, it is no coincidence that the Interview, July 1978
most blatant subversions occurred during the And this was her attempt- to justify herself to
Emergency. Here is a sampling of Indira Louis Mountbatten's family:
Gandhi's sayings during and about that bleak During the emergency, some people were
10
time: arrested, some were politicians but the larger
The purpose of censorship is to restore a climate number were what we call anti-social
of trust. elements-smugglers, dacoits, hoarders, black-
Broadcast to the nation, marketeers, etc., whose activities had been
27 June 1975 pushing up om prices, creating shortages and
were generally hannful to the people as a
What has been done is not an abrogation of whole. Not once during [the] emergency was
democracy but an effort to safeguard it. there any show of police strength. We ourselves
To the journalist Norman Cousins, released all political prisoners some time before
August 1975 the 1977 elections. When the Janata Party
came to power, it released the criminals, with
If any change is required [in the Constitution], dire consequences from which we have not yet
it will be not to lessen democracy but to give recovered.
more meaning to democracy, to keep Letter to Lord Braboume,
democracy, to make it a more living democracy. October 1981
To a conference of lawyers,
Iawaharlal Nehru could not have spoken or
December 1975
written thus. It is reminiscent of nothing so
44
45,
much as Richard Nixon's 'When the President auto-rickshaw ['scootie' in the north] driver
does it, that means it is not illegal.' And
\ . .~ver the correct fare to' my destination. He
George W. Bush is Nixon's direct descendant fmally said, 'Aap khushi se jo dete hain'-
in upholding the Divi~e Right of Presidents of what you're happy to give. When we got there
and I gave him what I thought was fair he
the US.
refused to accept it. I reminded him, 'Khushi
When democracy is in the air-when elections
se,' and he was bewildered. He hadn't been
are due-where the American politician turns
serious. This is relatively new behaviour; ten
coy, the Indian becomes uncomfortably years ago in Delhi and Hyderabad, a cabby
truthful, almost as if he cannot help himself. would have meant this when he said it. And
Khushbhau Thakre was, in early 2002, reported the phenomenon is almost universally
assaying that there was no alternative but to encountered, among shopkeepers, dealers,
give criminals tickets for the Uttar Pradesh suppliers, maintenance people- and ourselves.)
Assembly elections. In 2001, before the Tamil
Nadu Assembly elections, the aforementioned But what happens after the elections? It is
Dr Ramadoss explicitly said that he would go back to Newspeak. When Jayalalitha (now,
for numerological reasons, Jayalalithaa-
by the caste factor in vowing his allegiance.
showing she believes in the magical powers of
At around the same time, Ajit Singh said there
language) won the May 2001 elections, she
was no longer any room for principles or
assigned portfolios to some of her Cabinet
ideology in politics.
Ministers in a creative way. Environment and
(In fact, there is no longer trusting anybody's Pollution Control was given to the same
word, why only a politician's? In Hyderabad Minister who had charge of Industries, Iron
in 200 I after several years, I haggled with an and Steel, Mines and Minerals and Electronics.
46 47 .
The Forests portfolio was given to the same trust to do the right thing with facts they will
,, ~ot themselves trust the voters with. This is
Minister who was to look after Infonnation
and Publicity, Film Technology, the where the republic begins to resemble an old-
Cinematograph Act and Newsprint Control. fashioned autarchy. Naturally, the public must
rely heavily on the media to get them some
An official was quoted as saying that this was
inkling of the facts; which leads the rulers tin
akin to the same person playing judge, jury,
this case they are rulers and we are the ruled)
plaintiff and defendant. Jayalalithaa shuffled
, to mislead the media. Since the media are in
the portfolios around a little after opposition
the word business themselves, the rulers have
was voiced: Environment and Pollution Control
first to obfuscate and in the last resort to lie. It
was given to someone else. But the suggestion
is a self-evident progression away from the
of Orwell's 1984 was unmistakable, where the
truth.
Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the
Ministry of Truth with a daily falsification of And it is a progression the media themselves
the past and the Ministry of Love with keeping are increasingly furthering. After the the
law and order, and the three slogans of the 13 December 2001 attack on Parliament House,
Party are- it was an illuminating and a sobering
experience to watch the Star Newshour.
WAR IS PEACE
Interviewing a panel of three MPs- the
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
CPI(M)'s Somnath Chatterjee, Union Minister
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
for Parliamentary Affairs Pramod Mahajan and
The problem in modem democracies is that the Congress (I)'s Kamal Nath-Star's Political
the truth is too sensitive to be told the public, Editor Rajdeep Sardesai expressed dismay
the voters. They must vote for people they can when Nath sought to fault the Government for
48 49 ,
disregarding Intelligence reports that Parliament The official media are naturally least to be
was under threat. 'This is a moment for national \ . .trusted in such matters. The day after the
solidarity, for all of us to be united,' he attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly
interrupted. It is not a journalist's business to on 1 October 2001, the 9 p.m. All India Radio
act as a statesman, it is his job to get at the news said:
facts; but facts were clearly at a premium that Anguished by the terrorist attack yesterday on
the Jammu & Kashmir legislature in Srinagar,
day.
the Government swung into action today with
Clearly, the more the media behave like this, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee
the less we can trust them to do the right thing personally writing a letter to President Bush
by us, their customers, clients, audience. Such saying that there is a limit to the patience of
the Indian people.
are the fruits of globalization. What Sardesai
did is what the US has done in the last twenty- And that was all the action there was taken.
five years during any 'national emergency'
As anyone who has been in the racket for
(and it's the politicians who decide what a
more than a year knows, it is impracticable for
national emergency is). Mainstream US editors
journalists to tell the whole truth. Especially
are good boys during a crisis, and they don't
when dealing with two trades: politics and
even have to be told to be. They pull their
cinema. The copy that film journals print is
reporters off anti-Government stories, they print
somewhat over 90 per cent fabrication; it is
pages full of 'spokesman said', unattributed
impossible to quote what actors really say
leaks and 'we love America' op-edits. Neither
about each other, or to write in detail of what
does the Opposition raise questions of poor goes on at film parties. And so, too, in politics:
security. Telling everything you discover while doing a
50 51
story will only ensure that no one talks to you armed crowd could be gathered in a few
again. Thus Government and media end up \ . minutes.
colluding in keeping the whole truth from the
India Today (11 March) said a 'local' (shown
public; and the problem of corruption of the
in the accompanying graphic as unmistakably
language begins to deal with a more
a Muslim) had jostled a Ram Sevak and the
fundamental issue than its mere misuse.
fracas got out of hand. But this 'eyewitness
Ten years ago, with the ideological divide account' was that of a Ram Sevak, 'VHP
becoming manifest in the polity, it became leader' Urmilaben Trivedi.
impossible to trust the opinion pieces and The Hindu had said a few days earlier- a
features in the media. Now even the reporting weekly magazine dated 10 March comes out
can't be trusted. This was glaringly evident a th
on the 4 - that the Ram Sevaks had insulted
year ago, after Godhra and during the Gujarat local people at the station on the up journey,
riots, when what must have been a fairly and the latter were waiting for them to return.
straightforward run of events became distorted
by the ideological flaws in journalistic lenses. The forensic proof adduced some months later,
that the rail carriages could not have been set
Here is a sample:
alight from without, was seized upon by both
The Week (10 March 2002) said in its blurb: fundamentalist and pseudo-secular lobbies to
'Dispute over a few cups of tea triggered the buttress their own angles on the story. A year
Sabarmati Express massacre'. The story had it later, and especially now that the Assembly
that the Ram Sevaks refused to pay and elections have been fought and won on the
'advanced menacingly' towards the (Muslim) issue, it seems unlikely that the truth will ever
vendors. It did not say how a large, heavily come out to be accepted by everyone.
52 53
The riots that followed Godhra provoked their around us. It is a sign of our decay that this
own feeding frenzy- and 'provoked' is the
,, .~ntirely unnecessary profession has its coils
right word. Whatever your ideological stand, all about us, and is touted as the one necessary
there can be only one human reaction to the profession. Creating a demand and then
massacre of many hundreds of innocent fellow fulfilling it is its raison d:etre. And of course
citizens. It was here that some of our leading it uses language-the language of symbols
journals proved their inhumanity. India Today, and visuals, as well as that of words-to do
for instance, played down the genocide and the dirty work.
almost justified it as having been provoked. The complete reliance of journals upon
This in tum provoked a lovely pocket cartoon advertising income also corrupts journalists,
by Keshav (The Hindu, 6 March 2002), and the language they use. The smaller
depicting a police constable telling his officer magazines in particular cannot afford to offend
as a rioter departs, 'Yes, I let him go--he says advertisers, and indeed take every opportunity
he was provoked.' they can to say nice things about them. (On
An eighty-five-year-old gentleman I recently bigger papers, this is a more individualistic
met told me he was cancelling all his sideline. A lot of business journalists on Indian
newspaper subscriptions at the end of the papers make a cushy living out of saying the
month. He was sick of the conflicting points right thing at the right time. Plugging a share
of view and of the lack of trustworthiness. issue or a company can fetch lakhs.) When I
That indeed seems the sanest course. worked on a small, struggling city magazine
many years ago, I interviewed the PR manager
Evidence of the guilt of the third great corrupter of a deluxe hotel, and in my report quoted him
of language- advertising-is everywhere using the phrase 'bloody foreigners ' . My
54 55 ,.
editor-in whom professional principles and the suppressio veri. When downright lying
constantly warred with the need to stay alive- \ . .~s resorted to, it is characteristically in a release
passed the story after checking with me that by a Government agency, as with a print
the phrase had indeed been used. But once it advertisement in mid-2002 from the Ministry
was in print, the PR man was called on the of Food Processing cl~iming (in DA VP
carpet by the Vice-President; he naturally language) that processed food is healthier and
denied saying it; and the hotel threatened to more nourishing and so on than fresh-coQked
withdraw advertising. My editor backed down food. When the Government lies like that,
and published a retraction. I was young then, who is to tell the truth? In the last year or so
and felt insulted; now I am more realistic. But I have found three excellent (though rather
crude) examples of how symbol as well as
I cannot help seeing how this realism imposes
word are corrupted.
a kind of censorship upon the journalist. It is
with a distinct pang that I read, in Thurber's The Hindu of 2 October 2001 (Gandhi Jayanti,
The Years with Ross, ' ... [the New Yorker] if you missed the point) carried on the front
annually rejects a quarter of a million dollars' page of its Coimbatore edition a quarter-page
worth of ads which it regards as distasteful or advertisement in a saffron-ochre colour, with a
not up to New Yorker standards.' That was in visual of an apartment house. The lead,
1959. superimposed on the same picture of Gandhi
that you find on the 100-rupee note, said:
But the corruption of advertising is visible to 'Gandhi advocated freedom through peace . .. '
the consumer as well. Indian advertising The copy continued:
wizards today win awards in the West, and We are offering peace and freedom in reverence
they are just as slick con men as anyone on to the Mahatma, the Great Spirit and
Madison Avenue, adept at the suggestio falsi embodiment of non-violence!
56 57..,
Absolutely spacious flats that are comfortable Freedom for All
every inch of the way with all modern amenities \ ,
The Red Fort, symbol of peace down the ages
to give you the freedom to be 'at home' at all and a powerful inspiration during the Freedom
times and set in a peaceful neighbourhood to Struggle. Now Nilgiri's spreads its message of
allow you the kind of peace you so deserve.
Universal Peace with its life-like depiction of
What's more .. . all at a very affordable price!
this architectural marvel which will be on
So here's to Gandhi Jayanthi!
display at its annual Cake Exhibition & Sale.
Contact us ASAP and find out how you can
Also available on sale will be Rich Plum Cake,
earn your peace and freedom.
Marzipan, Chocolate Santas & other Christmas
The second advertisement, in the same position goodies.
of the same edition on 25 December 200 1
If there be a paradox on earth, it is this, it is
(Christmas Day), showed three magi, a star
this, it is this.
and a yellow pages directory against a Prussian
blue background; the copy went:
The right star guided the wise men to the
Prince of Peace
The right Directory guides the wise
businessman to the path of prosperity
The last example I noticed a few days later in

the Coimbatore edition of what is probably
southern India's most profitable chain of
department stores. It was a large, expensively-
printed four-colour poster featuring the Red
Fort. The copy said:
58 59 ,
times. The mason's magic is still
\ . . commemorated and perpetuated in that unholy
brotherhood, the Freemasons. Their arcane rites
(documented in War and Peace) do not
however give them their power today: They
are a guild of powerful men. How powerful
still is attested by the Roberto Calvi scandal of
only twenty years ago, when the Italian banker
with links to the Vatican, and member of a
Sounds without Sense Masonic Lodge called Propaganda Two (whose
members included many of Italy's most
Prehistoric societies, when they developed
important men), was found hanging beneath a
sophisticated skills of communication,
London bridge. The Vatican suppressed any
invariably invested much power in the gift
investigation, though modem Freemasonry has
which, along with tool-making abilities,
anti-clerical origins.
distinguished them from the beasts. ThCi
blacksmith's art and the mason's, for instance, Words are now necessarily universal property,
were varieties of magic. The talents passed on though: At least, anyone can say what she
within a guild, or from father to son, became wants without any but cultural taboos to prevent
esoteric and incapable of understanding by the him. A fatwa may be decreed, but you have
layman. The respect which they commanded the freedom to die for your rights. Few words
is only now dying out. The medieval legend of are improper now in written texts (with the
Wayland Smith in southern England persisted exception in every society of some specific
for at least a millennium, well into industrial icons-the Gurus among religious Sikhs, Rama
60 61
among most Hindus, Shivaji in Maharashtra, the husband's name' . But -in South America,
-
Muhammad everywhere Muslims dwell, until \
.;,\ustralia, Africa and other lands with large
a decade ago Marx and Lenin in the Soviet tribal populations- in other words, people who
Union). If some magazine or book publishers still live close to the land and have our common
still print '****' for 'fuck' it is only out of primordial ancestors' afflRity with nature and
coyness. The awe which power over the spoken all things natural- well into the twentieth
language once evoked has been transferred to century, the names of dead people passed out
the writer with the power to command six- of common circulation.
figure advances. But once, millennia ago, the
very command over description contained in a The extreme diversity of languages among the
sound made it natural for the sound to Australian tribes, in Papua New Guinea (which
command also the thing or act described. This has about the area of Madhya Pradesh and 700
power could very well be dangerous when languages) and in the Amazon basin is possibly
exercised over people (or gods), by the use or traceable to this taboo. People are named after
invocation of proper names. natural phenomena, or animals, or physical
characteristics; when they die, a new word has
It has been well documented how in 'primitive'
to be coined to describe the original. In the
societies spread across the earth, in
space of a few generations, neighbouring
Madagascar, Finland, Australia and Alaska as
villages may possess very different
well as the Indo-European continent, in certain
vocabularies though with common syntactical
circumstances and at certain times, certain
and grammatical bases.
proper names become taboo. The practice, or
vestiges of the practice, are still extensively The fact that this cultural trait is found among
found. Most Indian wives will "till not 'take peoples of demonstrably distinct ethnic s~ock
62 63
higher rank or greater di,gnity than a monarch
is a pointer to the universally accepted magic
,. can be described; and the missionaries, when
of the Word. Naturally, the magic was acquired
they speak of God, are forced to use the native
by the people with the power to use the Word:
word for king.
priests and kings, or priest-kings. Some sounds
were even set apart for them. James Frazer It is premature to say that respect for the
writes in the Golden Bough: commander of the word is dead. Even in the
The king of Siam (Thailand] 'is venerated case of the writer held in awe for her six-
equally with a divinity. His subjects ought not figure advances, this power is a subsidiary, a
to look him in the face; they prostrate corollary of her power over the word. There is
themselves before him when he passes . . .' increased attention being given in cultural
There is a special language devoted to his circles to the tradition of the story-teller, in
sacred person and attributes, and it must be drama, poetry (Heaney's Beowulf) and prose
used by all who speak to or of him. Even the (Soyinka, Rushdie). Our current cultural icons
natives have difficulty in mastering this peculiar
preserve the ancient power- that they may do
vocabulary. The hairs of the monarch's head,
so for materialistic reasons is not beside the
the soles of his feet, the breath of his body,
point, but they do so. The Harry Potter books
indeed every single detail of his person,' both
and the Tolkien epic, both out in film versions
outward and inward, have particular names.
\
now, perpetuate the tradition of the word, fo;
When he eats or drinks, sleeps or walks, a
the supernatural powers evoked in them !lfe
special word indicates that these acts are being
performed by the sovereign, and such words usually commanded by spoken spells. The
cannot possibly be applied to the acts of any New Testament (the ' Gospel according to
other person whatever. There is no word in the St John) explicitly states, 'In the Beginning
Siamese language by which any creature of was the Word, and the Word was with God,
64 65,.
and the Word was God.' The Qur' an consists~ san-no i miJ..tra-ssam .varu i J?ahal san-no
of revealed wisdom, spoken by an archangel.. \ bhavatvaryaJ..ma! san-naJ.. indroJ..b~haJ..
The Hindu epics, too, feature magical powers spatiihil san-noJ.. v~~nu i -rurukraJ.. maha
controlled by spoken words; the earliest Hindu
where the syllable preceding the arrow goes a
scriptures are part of oral literature and exalt
tone higher or lower than normal, according to
the might of speech.
the direction of the arrow. (This is to put it
The Vedas and Upanishads are very particular somewhat simplistically- it is probable that
about the way in which their contents are to be the chanting of the Sarna Veda was the origin
uttered, or chanted. The Vedas especially are of Indian classical music.) In addition-and
mantras, not only hymns addressed to the this ensures that the mantra cannot be learned
various gods but having the power to carry from a text, it has to be taught orally-each
their messages to the gods. Like any spells in hymn or lesson has its own particular tune.
any culture, their words cannot be efficacious Thus every student had to learn from a master
if spoken in any but the prescribed way. The and could be vetted for his habits and
famous invocation at the beginning of th~ disposition before being accepted; and the
Taittirlya Upanishad, for instance, which master had been similarly chosen in an
begins- unbroken line going back to the earliest
May Mitra be kind to us! 'kavi' -a word loosely translated as 'poet' in
May VaruI?-a, may Aryaman! modem times, but closer in ~g Vedic times to
May lndra B~haspati! 'seer'.
. 1
And Vishnu of long stndes! As with priestly magic, so' with military. The
- must be recited: tremendous weapons, the astras which great
66 67
warriors like Drona, Arjuna and Karna could Black magic seems to have intruded early into
summon up required to be invoked by specific ... this world created by priests and warriors. The
mantras. These could be learned only from Yajur Veda is a collection of mantras used in
their gurus' lips; and the guru could refuse to sacrificing to the gods, but it has two
teach a pupil at all, or to teach an already recensions: a black (lq~J?a) and a white (sukla).
accepted pupil the secret of a particular astra. The later Sarna Veda is essentially a musical
Arjuna, acclaimed by all his generation as the 'arrangement' of ~g Vedic hymns, but the
perfect warrior, knew perfectly well what he words are often distorted, prolonged,
was, his place in society, and (except for one pronounced back to front and interspersed
brief but momentous hour) his duty. He was with meaningless sounds of magical
master of himself, so he could master significance. And the least canonical Veda,
weaponry. But Kama, as Irawati Karve points the Atharva, has a number of non-Aryan
out, was a kshatriya raised among the sutas. elements related to folk magic and ritual. I
He did not regain his identity till it was too have heard it said (though I find no such
late. Disguised as a brahmin he attempted to authority in the Mahabharata) that Drona
I
become the pupil of a famously anti-kshatriya employed the black magic of the Atharva
guru. Though he mastered much of the art of Veda to bind the chakravyliha formation which
war, his guru, Parasurama, penetrated his secret eventually trapped Abhimanyu; and indeed
and cursed him with the desertion of his astras Peter Brook's film appears to follow this
at the crucial moment. This could only mean interpretation, as does Ratan Thiyyam's less
that he would forget the invocatory mantra. trumpeted but more principled Chakravyuh.
And true enough, Kama appears to have Certainly it is plausible ; fo r then what
2
faltered in battle at every critical point. Abhimanyu missed overhearing of Krishna' s
68 69
discourse in his mother's womb was the mantra rang true. Of course ,the ordinary northern
\ ,
necessary to undo the binding spell. pronunciation of Sanskrit is of a mongrel breed,
but surely the producers could have got Sanskrit
But this is not the black magic I meant when
scholars to help with the signature tune? To
I said (far too many pages ago): 'It is this
hear 'rna karma phala betur-bhiir-ma t6
holiness we are in danger of forgetting, because
sangostavikarmani' - the second line of
we have become so sophisticated that language
Krishna's famous exhortation to Arjuna to do
is no longer a means of communication; it is
his duty, ignoring the fruits of action-instead
a means of obfuscation. Its uses are those of
of 'sangostvakarmani' drove me to thoughts
black magic.'
of B.R. Chopracide. Does this seem like
Watching some episodes of the seri al niggling detail? Indeed it is not; it is revealing
Mahabharat many years ago drove this into of the fact that the producer didn't give a
my mind. We may pass over the pronunciations damn about the sanctity of the text, he just
'Mahabharat', 'Arjun', 'Bheem', etc., but we wanted to make a saleable commodity. And it
cannot so lightly allow 'Karan' to pass. This is a matter of record that he did. And this in
implies a derivation from the root 'lq' , ahd tum is symptomatic of a supposedly religious
connotes a doer of deeds; while 'Kama', people's having invested its faith in empty
meaning 'ear', is really descriptive of the words and shallowly turbulent priests and
.th 3
ornaments he was born Wl . hollow icons.
And then, the chant with which each episode It has been said that music is the highest, the
begins, the invocatory mantra as it were! Nirad purest form of language which uses sound. I
Chaudhuri' s and Naipaul's denunciations of would not argue with that. A high degree of
the Islamic corruption of native Hindu culture sophistication is necessary to appreciate poetry,
70 i 71
but pure sound is more accessible. Of course, The view, I hope none holds such, that we
there are cultural barriers when it comes to a \ . should look to his music and not to his meaning
European trying to understand Indian music, is expressly contradicted by Tyagaraja who
or an Indian Japanese. But at least within a emphasises in his own definition of a kriti that
culture, music elicits similar responses across it should expound the t~e words of the exalted
societal barriers more easily than any but the Upanishads . . . In fact, in respect of singing
simplest poetry. his songs, it is the devotional word bhajana
that he uses.
However, when the music is set to words, it
seems to me, those words must be given some Too many Carnatic vocalists, even those who
importance. The other day I heard on a southern are acclaimed as Sangeeta Kalanidhi, sing as
AIR station, a respected Carnatic vocalist take if they are oblivious of the meaning of the
for his set piece Tyagaraja's 'Dorakuna' ('Is it words; though generally their rigorous musical
possible?,4) in Bilahari. He sang it, not
education includes a basic study of languages.
smoothly as I'd been accustomed to hearing it,
The average radio vocalist's pronunciation of
but 'Do . . . ra . .. ku . . . na' with pauses
a tongue not her own-particularly of
between the syllables. Obviously he was not;.
treating the sounds as words which meant Sanskrit- is risible. M.S. Subbulakshmi's pre-
something and were part of a whole which eminence as a vocalist is not entirely due to
meant something more, but as pure sounds. her sweetness of voice or expression, her bhava,
The musical language meant something, the but because that bhava perfectly matches the
spoken nothing. sentiment she is expressing. She knows
Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Brijbhasha,
Tyagaraja himself married sound and sense.
Professor V. Raghavan wrote in a learned Kannada and Malayalam well enough to
5
essay: converse in them, and it shows.
72 73
Advocating the harmony of bhava and bol in
\ ,
Hindustani music is practically a lost cause,
because each phrase is repeated so many
dozens of times that it becomes pure sound,
But Hindustani vocalists have the advantage
that the language they sing in is easily
understood by all their auditors, and the
meaning of the song or phrase remains in the
back of the mind, illumining the performance.
The Problem of English
Everyone pretends to musical literacy. There
are few people who lavish praise on the libretto It is now almost ten years that I have been
(and Tyagaraja's poems are worth high praise) battling it out with the English-bashers, and I
while ignoring the music. The spoken language have come to the conclusion that it's not.
can be treated badly just because it is so worth it. The old wounds hardly hurt any
pervasive and necessary. There's no dearth,of . longer, and I can afford to find cause for an
indulgent smile in the incessant ranting of the
it.
pro-languagers, to coin a phrase. As long as
they don't actually legislate against writing or
publishing in English, those of us who commit
these objectionable acts may get along
comfortably in our Duckback raincoats.
That this essay concerns Language is not an

excuse for dwelling on this topic. Readers
74 '75
who mutter 'Old hat!' or 'Flogging a dead later issues of the Literary Review. It's a great
\ ,
horse!' at this stage are invited to skip this ~.elp to have those clippi~gs with me, for they
section and move directly to page 140, they embody not only my own narveanger and
will doubtless be the richer for it. But the anti- bafflement but also the state of the debate in
English stand adopted by so many writers and those early days (early for me; writers from
critics is essentially a political stand, and the R.K. . Narayan to Shashi Deshpande have
purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that contended with it for much longer. Narayan
when language is used for political ends it once told an interviewer who had asked him
loses the ethic which gives it structure, form why his books did not do well in translations
and indeed meaning. It loses its reason for into Indian languages, 'Because they were
being. In happier times we can ignore such written in an Indian language to begin with').
politics; but their adoption in matters of culture The debate has not got anywhere since then,
now coincides with their adoption in matters and is rapidly touching new depths of
of state. Those who espouse such politics in unsophistication; but it is valuable, i believe,
language can now be rewarded by the State, and the extracts below serve to encapsulate it. 1
and are. One who writes in English is perforce
Dreaming Indian, writing English
uninterested in such frippery, but that does not
mean we must close our eyes to its dynamics. There is the story of a schoolboy whose French
teacher told the ,class they could only claim to
A month after my fIrst confrontation with the have leamed the language when they dreamed
English-bashers, I wrote an article entitled in French. A few days later the boy came into
'Dreaming Indian, Writing English' for the class very excited. 'I did it,' he cried, 'I had a
Hindu' s Literary Review (21 March 1993). It dream last night in which everyone was talking
provoked a debate which spilled over into two French!'
76 77 '
The teacher's eyes shone with pleasure as the owe allegiance is that of-Europe; and that their
class gathered around their hero. 'That's . \. writing in English- the same language World
wonderful,' she said, 'and what were they Bank memos are written iri- is proof that they
saying?' The boy' s face fell. 'I don't know,' favour a consumerist market economy. Ycur
he said sadly. 'I didn't understand a word.' correspondent had the ~ood fortune to be one
In that admirable column, 'By the Way' [long of the parties to whatever little colloquy
since deceased] in The Times of India, George transpired, and can vouch for this remarkable
Oommen two Sundays ago related a dream speech, no report of which he would otherwise
he'd had, in which the characters spoke in have believed.
Hindi, English and Malayalam, and asked which . . . it is still relevant to ask why Indians who
language he should write in. If his dreams are write in languages other than English- and
being taken down in shorthand, or somehow who are often perfectly bilingual, writing
miraculously transmitted via a terminal to paper, English with not only ease but distinction-
this point has relevance; otherwise the answer should be so dismissive, so critical, so
is he should write in whatever language he venomous at times about those who are after
feels like writing in. all their fellow-sufferers in the literary desert.
This fact is apparently not recognised by all of Envy is one cause which springs instantly to
us. Exactly a month ago, President of the mind, particularly since the advance payment
Sahitya Akademi U.R. Anantha Murthy Vikram Seth is said to have received. [And
possessed himself of the microphone at a Arundhati Roy, and Pankaj Mishra, and
Colloquium of young Indian writers in New Rajkamal Jha, and Manil Suri, and Ruchir
Delhi, and launched an extraordinary attack on Joshi.] But few writers in English command as
Indians who attempt to write creatively in much; most are just as envious of Seth . . .
English. He alleged that they do so in order to There is no doubt still a good deal of cultural
make money; that the culture to which they resentment, especially in northern India, over
78 79,
the colonial experience. But that experience is .is not his mother tongue. He solves the problem
not something to be wished away. How f'\f \ . by replying to them in English laced with an
shall we go back in history to escape the extra-strong Malayali accent, at which he's
conqueror? There is not one of us ... who can very good.
say with truth that he or she is culturally or Is this a valid form of communication? The
racially pure. And this is as true of our English-baiters would not agree. But my friend
languages. does communicate; aJ}.d in.so doing, he validates
Almost all the participants at last month's his experience as a Malayali who does not
colloquium presented their papers in English; know Malayalam and for whom English is a
the discussions which followed were invariably language both of choice and of circumstance.
in the language Indians- those who can- Those who tell me I betray my nation and my
choose to communicate among themselves. But people by writing in an alien tongue do so
creative writing is also for the purpose of again and again, repeatedly, ad nauseam, in
communication; else it has no purpose at all. Is English. Perhaps they fail to communicate; or
it right to distinguish between forms and perhaps I reject the validity of their experience.
circumstances of communication when it comes Because, obviously, in spite of their proficiency
to the language of choice? in English, they do not find it a language
I have a friend, a Malayali, who can speak capable of saying everything they have to say;
hardly any Malayalam though he understands they do not feel, as I do, that here is a language
it fairly well. Unfortunately for him, he cannot which can sing gloriously aloud everything I
by his looks be mistaken for anything other have to express.
than a Malayali. It is therefore his lot- . .. [quoting Dr Amrik Singh] 'All that I wish
Malayalis being a people who stick together- to affirm is that Indian writing in English can
to have colleagues who do not know him very be of good quality, and even of some
well come and strike up a conversation in what significance, but it is highly unlikely that
80 , 81
anything of greatness in literature can oe A writer in English m)lst reject suggestions of
achieved through the use of this medium.' \, his impotence, and 'ask the English-baiters for
. . . [quoting Anantha Murthy in a 1980 proof of their own vitality .
interview to The Hindu, in answer to the As it happens, I whole-heartedly concur with
question 'What Indian language this century Dr Anantha Murthy's statement of twelve years
has produced a writer of unqoestionable ago. No Indian literature has this century
greatness, like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?,] produced a writer of the class of Tolstoy and
'Among those that I have read, there are some Dostoevsky. What is more, no Indian literature
important novels ... None of the books that I is likely to if its wise men continue to narrow
have read are, however, like those of Tolstoy their minds and pride themselves on their limits.
and Dostoevsky, either in scale or in depth. An If India provides the world with a writer of
easy answer would be to say we don't have a greatness in the next quarter-century, he or she
Tolstoy or a Dostoevsky. Despite the fact that will in all probability be a writer in English:
India is passing through a crisis in its precisely because writers in English come from
th
civilisation exactly like Russia in the 19 India's most pampered class, have more
century, we have not responded to it in opportunities and the only international
imaginative literature with as much profundity audience of any Indian literature and, most
as the Russians had.' importantly, set their strength to breaking
It is not fair of course to quote one writer in beyond parochial bounds.
rebuttal of another. It is also possible that What is it but fundamentalism to deny that a
Dr Anantha Murthy will have changed his writer has his roots in India, because he is fed
mind in the last twelve years, as may by certain springs which came to their power
Dr Amrik Singh . . . But every writer aspires outside these shores? To aver that a writer' s
to greatness, and it is a crushing blow to be heart is in Europe because he chooses to purify
denied it before you have even begun to write. the dialect of a European tribe and adapt it to
82 ,83
his use is not very different from maintaining ~ have or will, returned: fIt might be all right for
that Muslims, because of their adherence to \ . you men; but just think that the women in the
Islam, belong in Pakistan and not in a land old days had hardly any time to themselves.
which they have lived in and loved for Now with cooking gas and grinders, we can
centuries. This fundamentalism will be the ruin
rest a bit.' The doubtful boons of the affluent
of our literatures as it has been the ruin of our
society include both stress and leisure, both a
, commonwealth.
degree of bondage and a degree of liberty, and
The allegation that writers in English naturally
those who advocate the one cannot but promote
favour a consumerist market economy points
the other.
to a curious attitude towards modernism. It
. . . Like the schoolboy who was instructed to
should not need saying that jeans, discos and a
dream in French, writers who choose English
predilection for eating in fast food joints are
to communicate are being asked to write in
hardly evidence of a modem way of thinking.
languages that are supposedly more Indian.
Neither is the choice of English as a medium
of expression. Whatever language we dream in, let not the
I remember last year, at my ancestral home in language we tell our dreams in be imposed
a village in Kerala which the urban sprawl is upon us. Let us be judged for the content of
!
yet distant from, a cousin and I sat one evening the dream, for ~ts purity and truth; else we may
(at cowdust hour!) and spoke nostalgically of ourselves not understand just what it is we are
the good old days which neither of us had dreaming of . . .
seen: of Gandhi, of the self-sufficient village
* * *
economy, of the richness and simplicity of an
older way of life . . . Later, I retailed this We received at the Desk, if I remember aright,
conversation to my mother, in a self- close to a hundred replies to this piece. We
congratulatory manner; and she, who has been carried t~enty-six of them, 'suitably edited or
much closer to the earth of Kerala than I ever unedited, in two instalments the next month. It
84 85
is unnecessary to reproduce them all here, 'The parents were wise. English is the manna
since many are irrelevant or repetitive or jus,t \, from heaven, the passport to all success. And
plain uninformed, But one letter I should like English it had to be!
to carry almost in full. It is written by a 'Apocryphal? This incredible real-life story
correspondent who even then had his feet was movingly narrated by Professor U.R.
Anantha Murthy, President of the Sahitya
..
fIrmly on the academic ladder, naturally in an
English department, where he has since no
Akademi at the National Colloquium . . . To
an audience that comprised virtually every
doubt made many strides upward.
major language group of the land, Anantha
'Somewhere in our worthy land, a lower-middle Murthy's question [what question?] was deeply
class family agonised about the future of their disturbing . .. I am sorry Nambisan has termed
only child, handicapped by a congenital defect the issue as one of "demagogy", "populism"
in speech and hearing. After prolonged and "linguistic fundamentalism" . My essay is
treatment, there was a ray of hope. "A cure is not a report of the colloquium, nor is it a
possible," said the doctors, But there was a defence of Anantha Murthy or the Sahitya
catch, "The child can handle only one Akademi. I shall, therefore, let the details-
/
language." The response of the parents and the who said what- pass, and reformulate the
whole family was immediate and unanimous: problem in my own way.
Of course, the language had to be English! 'Contrary to what Nambisan claims, the issue
None of the family members spoke the in question is not - whether one can write
language. Not one in their community knew it! creatively in English or not. Indeed, at the
Yet they thought nothing of foisting a language colloquium were present several talented Indian
in such an insensitive manner and in writers in English . . . These are ample proof,
condenming a child to a lifelong cultural if proof were needed, that the issue is
alienation. conclusively settled. The questions rather are:
86 87
What is the relationship between the literary .English has to locate himself in a milieu and
creativity of the Indian writer in English apd' . has to respond to a'living tradition: the world
the Indian tradition? What is the nexus between of myths, legends, folklore, rituals, metaphors
language, culture and hegemony? What role and archetypes accessible to a large section of
does Literature play vis-a.-vis cultural elitism his audience. Surely an Indian English writer
and democratic pluralism? And [mally, what can accomplish this task. But has he? How far
function has the English-speaking intelligentsia has he succeeded? What are the facts?
in this country served in widening the gap 'No one need invoke Edward Said's
between what Leavis called "mass civilisation" Orientalism or Antonio Gramsci' s Prison
and "minority . culture"? (One of the Notebook to speak of the unabashed manner in
consequences of such a gap, I maintain, is the which the English-speaking intelligentsia (with
tragedy of Ayodhya and religious honourable exceptions) in the country has
fundamentalism. ) promoted for 40 years a self-validating coterie-
'On the other hand, the more limited question culture with one eye constantly turned towards
of the ethics of writing in English has been the West for approval. Easy access to the
debated from Buddhadev Bose, P. Lal, David publishing industry, the institutional network
MacCutcheon ~d Raja Rao onwards. Do Write and the media have always lent disproportionate
creatively in English, if you can tum it into a space to the English-educated elite, whereas
language of gossip~ dream or the kitchen, as the thousands of our regional writers in
Anantha Murthy declared. The world of the countless provincial towns have continued to
Super Powers, diplomacy, international business languish for want of outlet and/or patronage.
and media as well as language battles within Even the more successful of them find it hard
the country constantly tell us of the importance to break out of their cultural zones.
of English as a link language or a language of '. ~ . Yet how many of us English-educated
communication. But even a creative writer in writers and critics know of such creative writing
88 89
but the only way the E':1glish language and the
and the rich traditions they represent? How
English-speaking clalls can survive in this land.
threatened do we feel when even occasionally \.
'These, as I see, are some of the logical
a quasi-Government body like the Sahitya
corollaries to the questjon Anantha Murthy
Akademi brings our "regional writers" together
posed: our mindless craze for the latest MTV
and allows them to voice their anguish,
show and the latest frolic of Madonna, the
indignation and anger at being sidelined?
systematic denial and denigration of our
'Finally, the question of our accountability to
regional languages and the way we valorise a
our milieu and society: I am not berating the
hierarchy of cultures; the honorific distinctions
Indian English writer for failing to respond to
made between "regional press" of the
the Ayodhya crisis . . . Such a demand for vernaculars and the English-language "national
artistic commitment is both crude and specious. press".
What I am suggesting instead is that the 'We can write in English or in any Indian
relationship between the creative artist-Indian language. That's not the point at issue. Indeed,
English or otherwise-and his/her native the best of our Indian English writers, as Vikram
tradition which is complex, heterogeneous and Seth remarked in a recent interview, are
pluralistic, constantly fluid and evolving, is an "extremely mixed beasts". But there are larger
important ongoing process . . . questions that, we need to ponder over: What is
'We can dismiss the concerns of the majority- the Indian writer's place in his cultural milieu?
their spiritual need as obscurantism or their What accounts for his irrelevance in the
search for social justice as "mandalism" only upheavals of the land? Finally and tragically,
at our own peril. Creativity and culture are not what explains our death wish to create a
ivory tower concepts but must be ultimately generation of clones as Anantha Murthy's
related to the life of the people and the nation. account quoted at the beginning so instructively
Giving more space to our many languages' revealed? It is to these questions that we need
pluralistic traditions is not an act of charity, to tum .. .'
90 91
Indeed. That is a formidable list of charges, a pretence. I remember him cheering as loudly
we seem to be responsible for everything wrong. \ , . as anyone when Anantha Murthy made his
with Indian culture. But there is a curious impromptu speech. Next day, when from the
inconsistency to those charges as well. Writers podium I said some of the things I've said in
in .English both hog the limelight and are my essay, I remember hipl heckling me from
irrelevant; they are both insecure about Sahitya the first row, telling me to read from my
Akademi meetings of 'bhasha' writers (to use prepared text. And I was shocked and hurt.
the new jargon) and responsible for the bhasha . These young chaps, also trying to find their
writers' insecurity. feet as writers, actually hated me. They really
wanted my blood-{)r at least my humiliation-
The 'incredible true-life story movingly
simply because I wrote in English.
narrated' at the beginning is plainly bunkum.
It is, a doctor I showed this letter to told me, 'Contrary to what Nambisan claims, the issue
'a Hindi movie medical problem'. Its untruth in question is not whether one can write
is obvious even to the laity. But it holds one creatively in English or not. ' This is a sophist's
revealing statement. I have often noticed th~t weapon, changing the ground to suit his
those Indians who most profess their closeness convenience. The' issue I was talking about
to the real India know least about it. Where in had nothing to do with 'the relationship
'our worthy land' could a lower-middle class betwe,en the literary creativity of the Indian
writer in English and the Indian tradition'
family afford access to 'doctors~ and 'prolonged
either, as my correspondent Claimed. It had to
treatment' ?
do with why, at literary meet after literary
My correspondent's supposed impartiality- meet, writers in English are accused of selling
not defending Anantha Murthy and so on- is out to the West.
92 93
My correspondent himself admits that what he and in any country. It is just as difficult for us
has to say has nothing to do with what Anantha, \. to find a job, to find time to write, then hunt
Murthy had to say. He prefers to 'reformulate for a publisher, and after all this, just as bitter
the problem [his] own way'. Why does he do to see our work sink without a trace in the
it by quoting Leavis at the outset, and then (in market. It is for the very rucky few that writing
order of appearance) Buddhadev Bose, P. Lal, is not (for the first ten or twenty years anyway)
David MacCutcheon, Raja Rao, Edward Said
a disheartening vocation. You have to love it,
and Antonio Gramsci? I think there is nothing
to love language and the act of creation, to
more elitist than this dragging in of Literature
stay at it. Why then does the young Assamese
and Culture experts most Indians have never
writer at a literary colloquium instantly find a
heard of- and given the language they use, it
kindred spirit in the young Konkani writer, but
matters little whether they are Indian or not. It
both stay away from the young English writer?
straightaway puts the debate out of the reach
of newspaper readers and situates it in the It is true I think that the very lucky few
classroom. mentioned above all write in English. But luck
is not just good fortune; it is being prepared
This charge of elitism, of not being rooted in
when opportunity comes. It is good fortune
the real India, is fundamentally what they
that English is the present language of universal
have against us. So let's think about that a
currency, and books in English sell more
little.
worldwide than in any other language; but the
Most writers in English in this country are just damned things still had to be written, didn't
as hand-to-mouth as writers in any language they? Books of little worth pretending to
94 95
describe the real India may have received fat . Owen, the only world-class talent in his side ..
,,
advances and rave reviews in the West; indeed, It is a cultural thing, again, because the football
they have. But where's the use in being hype like the literary is ruled by the English-
resentful about it? The sincere writer's triumph language media. Ronaldo and Rivaldo have to
is in seeing those books forgotten in five be content with the glory they have at home
years. and among connoisseurs.
(I wrote this passage during the football World And yet, elitism is not a property of anyone
Cup, in June 2002. England had been beaten ethos. It is a property of an individual. I lived
by Brazil and gone home.) Their captain, David recently in a tea-planting area and I have seen
Beckham, was a disappointment. Even the how different planters treat those who work in
penalty with which he scored against Argentina their homes. Some are cOUlteous and humane',
was not a particularly good one: Had the others come back from the field and order a
goalkeeper stood where he was he must surely serv~nt to pull off their boots and 'maalish'
have gathered it. Okay, Beckham had a broken their feet. These latter are sometimes scions of
bone in his foot. Yet it's obvious that his rich planting families, who always had half a
image is the result of a vast exercise in dozen servants within a finger's snap;
hyperbole. He is a hero in Japan, where sometimes they are from middle-class
thousands of youths sport his hairstyle, and backgrounds and always had to do their own
chores.
where they plan to erect a statue to him. He is
paid more than Ronaldo or Rivaldo or any A classmate from liT, Madras, mused a few
other Latin American; more than Michael years ago, 'It' s strange, it's you public school
96 97
types who've stayed back in India, it' s we retreat of the writers invited to the first
\ .
guys who have flocked to the US.' I did not . International Festival of Indian Literature in
attend a public school, but I knew what he Delhi in February 2002. This was organised
meant: we English-language types. There were by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
few of us, but I think a higher percentage of (ICCR); it was State-sponsored. The focus of
the 'public school types' either stayed here the English-language media was, naturally and
after graduation or returned after taking a stupidly enough, on the presence of Naipaul
higher degree. and the absence of Rushdie, but there were
I have sat in the office of a well-known and enough leading lights of the bhashas present.
much-honoured writer, watching his secretary A very few, like Mahasweta Devi and Vijay
handle the day's business. One telephone call Tendulkar, opted out of this costly and
he got was obviously from a university or unnecessary celebration of celebrity to attend

literary association which wanted the great the (hopefully) far more useful Sahitya
man to grace a conference. 'He will corye Akademi festival held at the same time.
only if you send him a return air ticket,' the That reminds me, why are the English-Iangua~e
secretary repeated frrmly. 'And not Economy
media criticized for playing up the English-
Class, it has to be Executive Class.' The
language writers? It's only , what one would
luminary was not, it hardly needs to be said, a
expect them to do. Pointing to their neglect of
writer in English.
bhasha writers is just another excuse for
The most blatant example of elitism in Indian attacking Indian writing in English. It is also
literature in recent times has been the Neemrana unfair: You rarely hear the Hindu praised for
98 99
the amount of space it devotes to writing in I do not idolize Naipaul as many do (this year)
\ ,
other languages, both in the original and in jp the English-language media. But something
translation. Or Macmillan praised for its he said in Neernrana made me for the fIrst
beautifully designed and enormously successful time want to stand up and applaud. Asked
translation series (since shifted to Oxford why fIne bhasha writers earned much less than
University Press). Or the smaller imprints, mediocre English ones in the West, he
Disha from Orient Longman and Manas from retorted- I forget the exact words- 'It's not
EastWest (now defunct). There are enough my business to sell books for you.'
newspapers, magazines and TV channels in
Whose business is it? If there are no Indian
the other languages to feature their literatures
writers like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, whose
and literary figures. Do they? Who makes
'honorific distinctions between "regional press" fault is it? The onus is on Indian writers
themselves to create a cultural acceptance
of the vernaculars and the English-language
"national press"', as my correspondent says? abroad for their translations and those of the
No one I know. This is just drawing a picture writers who come after them. At a very
to throw rocks at it: giving a dog a bad name different period in history, Tagore had Yeats
to hang him. Certainly many English-language to trumpet his genius in Europe. Today's
journals describe ~emselves as national-the European Yeatses are running too hard to stay
Hindu, for instance, subtitles itself 'India's where they are, to bother about unsung Indian
national newspaper' -but what then about masterpieces. It would be nice if Rushdie or
Navbharat Times, Rashtriya Sahara, Hindustan Seth or Lahiri took some time off to help
and Loksatta? create a receptive climate abroad, but you
100 101
r
can't really fault them for not doing it. And if wanting ill discrimination when it comes to
they can't do it, what can we do that the' . celebrity writing. But remember, India's leading
bhasha writers themselves cannot? Where are newsmagazine is called India Today precisely
the Indian magazines in English-like because it concentrates on what's in. It's not
Sovremmenik, where Tolstoy's first works India Yesterday or India Tomorrow; it need
appeared- to publish our work? It is in the have no vision or sense of history.
bhashas that they exist, or have a chance to
It is true also that a number of young people
exist.
(many of them journalists) take to writing
It is true that a number of mediocre-and,
novels because they are attracted by the
worse, inaccurate-books get rave reviews in
advances in vogue these days. But it must not
the West. They often get rave reviews in India
be forgotten that for most of them, English is
too. The Asian Age Sunday books page, 'p.age'
their fIrst language. And when incomes begin
(whatever that means) which I saw recently
to rise in the Hindi, or the Bengali, or the
for the first time, is a real shocker It
translation market, the hacks will roll up there
prominently features reviews of books about
too. No doubt, in the days of the Mughals'
the subcontinent and Asia, but every one of
glory, young aristocrats took lessons in writing
them is reproduced by arrangement with the
the Persian qawwalis and ghazals which would
Spectator, or the International Herald Tribune,
win them court favour; as young French
or the New York Times, or the Washington
noblemen did in writing villanellas and ballades
Post. Even journals which do not sink to such
when the Sun King shone.
expedients to reduce their staff costs are found
102 103
Our problem is that Indian writers in English instead write for the W ~st, write something
are identified with the very di fferen~ \, people there will go wah-wah about. But this
cosmopolitan Indian writers in English, who forces them to restrict their subjects to whatever
sells there- sex, violence and adventure . . .'
command enormous-or shall I say
B. Jayamohan: 'It's like the sambhar [sic]
competitive- prices in the West and many of
served in a five-star hotel. A western visitor to
whom write with a Western audience In mind.
Tamil Nadu naturally prefers [it] to the real
Look at this selection of quotes from Outlook's
thing as it's cooked specially for his palate. He
issue of 25 February 2002, which coincided
can't eat the real thing so comfortably.'
with the ICCR Festival. The cover story by
Sheela Reddy was headlined 'Midnight' s But good heavens, how many of us who write
Orphans' and was all about the scorn-not in English sell in the West? Not all of us begin
envy-today's bhasha writers feel for what with a London agent and a six-figure advance,
she called IWE, Indian writers in English: and few who don't begin thus can end there.
Rajendra Yadav: 'Writing is detenmned by Our books are published by Rupa, EastWest,
your readers. For the IWE, his readership is Orient Longman, Penguin India, Macmillan
less than 30 per cent Indian. When I write in India, HarperCollins India . . . These bhasha
my own language, I know and my reader writers all talk of Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy
knows what I'm talking about. But if I i?-ave to and Pankaj Mishra. Non~ of them mentions
write for English readers then I have to go into Shashi- Deshpande, whose first book was
tedious explanations, leaving little space for
published some three decades ago by Writers
creative writing . . .'
Workshop and who since then by sheer quality,
Gurdial Singh: 'There is always a temptation
hard work and a refusal to compromise on her
when you think or write in English not to
Indianness has become an international figure.
penetrate the psyche of the Indian people but
104 105
The same essay in Outlook says in. a box: ' and health for all by diverting the national
. . . the growing international readership f?r \ , attention to a national enemy. As I said in my
Indian literature (thanks, some would say, to 1993 essay, this English-bashing is only another
the celebrity Indian English writers) has led to manifestation of the fundamentalism which
a boom in translations from regional languages has ruined our comm.onwealth. It is no
to English. . . . nearly every major English
coincidence that the literary right wing has
publishing house [is] mining regional literature
become shriller in the last fifteen years, when
for potential bestsellers. With the doors of
the political right wing has gained more and
international fame, so far fmnly shut in their
more power.
face, suddenly springing open, it's become the
aspiration of every regional writer to be We can see that the charge of elitism can, with
translated into English. In fact, point out equal success, be levelled against successful
regional writers ruefully, a regional writer is
bhasha writers. It can even be levelled against
considered to have arrived only if he has an
successful bhasha literatures. The Dalit writers
English translation of at least one of his works.
of Maharashtra utterly repudiate the
If, as Naipaul said, it's not the business of, the achievements of their 'higher caste' forerunners
established writers in English to promote and peers in Marathi. Of i_ate, they have been
bhasha writing-and it isn't- whose business holding their own alternate annual literary
is it? Surely that of the established bhasha festiv.aJ.s. Jayamohan, quoted above, is further
writers, quite a number of whom are also quoted in the Outlook essay as saying, 'Most
recognized internationally. Why don't they regional writers are from the lower middle
tum their energies to doing that? Possibly for class. There are very few Brahmin writers left
the same reason that our politicians escape the in Tamil. These new writers are bringing a
drudgery of ensuring development, literacy I, new language, an interior language Indian
106 107
English totally lacks . . .' And what do they akin to the aspiring 'modem' poet who chops
feel about the achievements of such Brahmin~ \. . up lines of prose to make 'free verse'.
as Kalki, a- many would say 'the' - pioneer
But he doesn't really believe it; it's for his
of the modem Tamil novel? Sheela Reddy
constituents' consumption. Again in the
does not ask.
Outlook essay, Anantha Murthy is quoted:
In standard-fare Hindi mms, the villain is The good thing about English is that it is
easily stereotyped. He smokes and drinks and limited to the upper classes with the result that
wears 'smart' clothes. In bhasha circles, the while a corporate executive knows only English,
villain writes in English. It's amazing that an illiterate coolie at a bus stand knows at least
even after I wrote in my essay- three or four Indian languages.
The allegation that writers in English naturally
favour a consumerist market economy points
This is as much bunkum as the moving real-
to a curious attitude towards modernism. It life story we heard from him earlier. Let
should not need saying that jeans, discos and a Professor Anantha Murthy produce one
predilection for eating in fast food j oints are example of a successful Indian corporate
hardly evidence of a modem way of thinking. executive- as opposed to the imported Coca-
Neither is the choice of English as a medium Cola CEO sort, and even they are probably
of expression. taking Hindi lessons- who knows no Indian
language but English, and 1'11 eat my copy of
- my correspondent should have mentioned
Samskara (translated by A.K. Ramanujan,
'our mindless craze for the latest MTV show
OXford, 1978, 158 pages, Rs. 60), inscription,
and the latest frolic of Madonna'. The bhasha
autograph and all.
writer who takes such charges seriously is
108 109
The truth is, and Professor Anantha Murthy is said one modern girl, swithed off the pop and
\ ,
far too astute not to know this, it is not good ..launched into a 'varnam' in Hamsadhwani.
business any more to be culturally elitist. The I had a landlord once, in Madras (it was
ads on TV, the pop shows, the pizza parlours Madras then), whose elder son was in the US.
and the dress designers are determinedly Indian, He boasted to us once that his younger son,
and they come from the vast middle class employed locally, had been to visit his brother
thrown up in the last ten years. (That still the previous year but while there 'never ate a
doesn't mean I am for a 100 per cent hamburger or drank beer'. He probably never
consumerist market economy, if anyone wants watched MTV either. The poor fool! What's
to know.) My poor correspondent's MTV the use of visiting an alien culture if you do
shows have also gone 'lndi'. I didn't watch not momentarily at least immerse yourself in
them then and I don't watch them now, but it? And what fools we Indian writers in English
I'm told that their spoofs of the Hindi movies would be to sit here holding up our noses, and
are among the best things on television. what would we ever find to write about? I
I revelled in a story told in the New Indian I have good eyes, but I can't see as far as
Express in early 2002. The article was about England. I can't believe such a wise writer as
how the affluent youth of Madras enjoy the Bhalchandra Nemade is serious when he says
best things in life (read Western), yet are (in the Outlook article), 'What is their
firmly rooted in Tamil culture. At a party contribution to India's literary history?
where some pop music was playing, an older Absolutely nothing. They may have made some
gentleman rebuked the revellers, saying how contribution to British literary history but not
much superior Carnatic music was. 'All right,' to ours.'
110 111
The problem is, it' s fashionable now to be alliance, had been economically destroyed and
rootless. Naipaul and Rushdie have made a . \ . rebuilt themselves suffIciently to stage the
cult of it, and their millions of worshippers in Olympic Games. Japan and China (much more
the West, and a few deluded idiots out here, recently) took on the West on its own terms
glory in it vicariously. Any literary talent worth instead of sitting at 40me whining about
her salt who comes out of India is expected to cultural hegemony; yet they have preserved
be disenchanted, exiled, without hope or the essence of their own cultures. There is
heritage. The bhasha writers are naturally at a much that is unstable and potentially dangerous
disadvantage, because they have to write about about the dynamics of their progress, and I for
roots, or if they don't, even their rootlessness one glory in India's democracy and .variety.
has to be local. We who, though we use But both countries have won Nobel Prizes for
English, are rooted in India and know our works in their own languages- not English. I
roots and are proud of them, are aggressively cannot believe either country's literature can
rejected in India and contemptuously dismissed match India's in diversity, richness or age.
abroad. Bloody hell, we're driven into exile! Why can't we put it together?
I referred to the World Cup earlier, and it Another unhealthy aspect of the radicalization
made me think about Japan's recent history. of literary politics is evident from my
Their fIrst contact with the industrialised West correspondent's letter. So many of those who
was as late as 1861. In ten years they had attack Indian writers in English (quoting Leavis
reorganized their polity; in thirty-fIve their and Gramsci the while) are members of
fleet had defeated a major European power; Departments of English at our universities.
within a century, they had come close to They earn their living from English. Do they
militalily swamping a much more powerful delude themselves that they are undermining
112 11 3
the enemy from within? But it is politically who'd gone to cover the lecture for the daily,
fashionable nowadays even in Departments tif just to check that my quotes were right.
English to assume, or reveal, an anti-English 'Yes, it's accurate,' he sighed. 'Of course, I
stand and talk of cultural hegemony. You can don't agree with what you say.' This young
make a career of it, and go a long way. My man was working for an English-language
correspondent has been abroad several times daily, writing his daily reports in English, and
to attend Commonwealth and other pulling down a pretty good salary for his
conferences, and invariably on his return writes command over English; yet he thought Anantha
for an English-language newspaper about the Murthy was correct about writers in English
experience. being mercenary and betrayers of their culture!
In 1995 I resumed my battle with Professor The underlying rationale is of course economic.
Anantha Murthy when he came to Madras to My colleague had been brought up on Tamil
give the first IRB annual lecture. (The IRB, and felt much more comfortable with that
Indian Review of Books, unhappily expired in language. But English-language jobs pay
2001.) It was the same old anti-English tirade, higher, and have more 'exposure'. The young
and a couple of us writers in English waylaid men and women who take these jobs are in
Professor Anantha Murthy later in the foyer to much the same situation as the babus who
tell him we thought he was mistaken. He did worked for the East India Company and the
us the courtesy of listening to us--of course, Raj. It is no wonder then that resentment
he'd heard our arguments too before. Later in grows in their hearts and they talk in all
the newspaper's office, I showed the essay I'd sincerity of cultural hegemony. Reading these
written for the literary pages to the reporter yellowed newspaper pages again nine years
114 115
later, it has struck me that those who criticize of an Indian who do.e s not share their
writers in English are themselves nC!t \ . resentment towards the English language. The
comfortable with the language. They may use reality is that they transfer their problems to
it well, in speech or writing, but it is not their us. This was amply proved by the other critical
natural medium. The problem is they think it letters I received at the Hindu's features desk.
is so with all Indians. It's not just a question I begin with one we didn't print, because it
of 'skills' in English, it is that English is as leads directly on from the case of my colleague
natural to me as Bengali or Kannada may be at the newspaper. TW9 young men wrote from
to them. For some reason they cannot accept a south Tamil Nadu town asking who I was to
this in their hearts; there is the ineradicable set myself up as an exemplar, a paladin of
certitude that I'm lying, am putting it on for English usage when my own was so flawed.
effect or money. To them, those who write in They pointed to two phrases in my essay:
English are 'chamchas', eating with the 'possessed himself of the microphone' in the
conqueror's implements and living off the fourth paragraph, and 'purify the dialect of a
conqueror's bounty. And if we say No, English European tribe' towards the end. Now here's
is our fIrst language but we are Indian, they the punchline: The two young men signed
despise us even more as having been purchased themselves as lecturers in English at the local
body and soul. They have only sold their college. And they didn't know Eliot!
bodies.
Here is another letter full of resentment:
Writers in English are called liars or fools Whenever I write in English I do so with a
when they assert they have sold neither. Very veiled sense of dejection and disgust. I feel I
often their critics cannot conceive of an Indian am a stranger in my own land: a bastard who
feeling at home with English, cannot conceive snapped his links with Tamil and Sanskrit for
116 117
no other reason than that this airport mongrel of a particular language to write should always
called English was so much easier to mast~r \, be a cultural and social necessity and at no
and ply his trade with. If Nambisan feels the time can a sincere writer believe that the
way I do, deep within him, and what he has language in which he writes is a personal and
spat out in print is but an outward show I intellectual manifestation of himself. If you
should love to hug him. But the impression I believe as a writer that language is very much
get from his aggressive apologetics is that of a a part of the community consciousness, only
cock strutting about in the backyard of his then do you realise that you have a commitment
master's mansion. And we all know who the as a writer to your people and society.
master is.
They gave me credit alternately for too much
I am by no means a linguistic chauvinist; but
and too little self-consciousness. Too much,
at the same time I cannot shut my eyes to the
staring fact that, as languages, Tamil and
because no creative writer I know has sat
Sanskrit are infinitely more beautiful and down and deliberated the choice of language
expressive than English. One can put to write in. The medium chooses the artist, not
Shakespeare through the meat grinder, often to the other way around. The choice -is certainly
great advantage, but who will dare touch a never made by anyone except a pamphleteer
syllable in Kamban and Kalidasa? from a point of view of social or communal
consciousness. Rather the fortunate writer who
Too many of my correspondents began by
-has a choice would consider in what language
assuming that I-and by extension all Indian
he may best express her own ideas, feelings
writers in English-felt the way they did.
and personality, for the purpose of individual
Here is another extract:
relief. To think otherwise is probably Marxist,
,For a writer, to choose a language to write is
but it is also uninformed.
no individual discipline at all. For the selection
118 119
Too little self-consciousness, because any originals !n.' Mahabharata. The principles
serious writer hesitates to lie in print. I would ' Bharata is supposed to have laid down and the
certainly never defend the use of English classical dramatists put into practice are still
without a strong belief in its advantages- for those that govern our popular cinema.
myself. It is not a prescriptive stand. Why Shakespeare; in contrast, wrote too hurriedly
would I do such a thing for 'outward show'? for anything like perfection, but he described
The first gentleman quoted above has human nature as it is, not as it might be.)
probiems-Gosh! he has problems-but why
Some of my correspondents, I thought,
transfer them to me?
defended Anantha Murthy because he is
(The Kalidasa vs. Shakespeare debate is no Anantha Murthy. My charge ~f envy raised a
part of this essay. But I'd like to say one thing lot of hackles, and all those people with ruffs
about it. Sams-krta means the perfected around their necks conveniently ignored my
[language], and in Kalidasa's hands it lives up proposition that Rushdie, Seth and the rest
to its name. But it is too beautiful. Kalidasa were equally envied by most writers in English.
and his peers [except Sudraka in his only One wrote that I had taken Anantha Murthy's
surviving drama, M.rcchaka.tikii- which comments in the wrong perspective.
contains a good deal of Prakrit] destroyed the 'The charge he gives to the word "creative" is
possibility of realism in Indian literatures far more powerful than Nambisan imagines ...
because in an ideal language they could [He] ... is rnischievou~ and distorts the opinion
describe only ideal characters and idealised of people like Anantha Murthy. He says,
actions. The poetry of Sakuntalam may be "Writers who choose English to communicate
sweet, but its noble figureheads cloy in are being asked to write in languages that are;
comparison with their severely pragmatic supposedly more Indian." What we should
120 121
realise is that "pundits" like Anantha Murthy being from Coorg, actually has as native
,
direct us to tum to our mother tongue for
\
language a dialect called Kodavathakku which
creative purposes and they do not advocate an uses the Kannada script. She writes in English;
empty patriotic dependence on the Indian whom exactly is she betraying?) Writers who
languages.' make and prescribe political choices are all
This is still mostly hot air. What is the speaking the 'father-in-law's tongue'-with
'powerful charge' Anantha Murthy has given the connotation that 'father-in-Iaw's house'
to the word 'creative'? Is it the same quality has in Tagore's Cabuliwallah.
an Indian who writes in a supposedly more There is a well-known Tamil writer, Dilip
Indian language has, as opposed to us hacks Kumar, who lives in Madras. Not only does he
. who only think we are creating? write in Tamil but he is very much involved
At the July 2001 Colloquium of women writers with publishing and research in Tamil. He
discussing 'Gender and Censorship' , the charge happens to be Gujarati. Given the present state
was levelled--in the same arbitrary way as of affairs in that State, he may very well be
Professor Anantha Murthy raised something, excoriated by 'patriots' for not writing in
not on the agenda- that those present who Gujarati, but no one else really bothers except
write in English were writing in their 'father to praise the rarity. That latitude could be
tongue', not their mother tongue. People who extended to others too, I feel. 'Any Indian
argue a point from sentiment or for advantage, language but English!' - is it only the fact of
devoid of logic except to them, use similarly English being the conquerors' language that
empty phrases. If I, a Malayali, were to write brands those who use it naturally? Then what
in Kannada, my wife's language, would it be about Urdu? And Sanskrit itself was a
my 'mother-in-law tongue' ? (And my wife, conquerors' language a mere two millennia
122 123
ago, which gives the Tamil chauvinists very do not address the 'real' India. It is so specious
good cause to hate it. If we go chasing our. \ . an argument that any retort seems immediately
tails like this we will very soon be condemned stupid. ('What is the real India?') In some
to perpetual motion, which is of course a ways it's like the 'father tongue' argument,
physical impossibility. And we will have no which doesn'! really mean anything either.
time to write. Over the years, several replies have been
fashioned to answer it:
Naturally, many letters to the Hindu said those
who write in English are not communicating I'm just as real an Indian as any slum-
with the Indian people: dweller in Dharavi.
'. . . In the Indian context at least, if you want
The Punjabi writer is not communicating
to reach the real masses of India, you have no
with the real Bengali either . . . ad infinitum.
option but to use the languages of India. That
is where the failure of the intelligentsia to fight You're able to understand me; how Indian
for anything it values, say secularism, lies. are you?
Communalists of either hue have gone to the
With the literacy rate what it is, how many
masses, speaking the languages of the people;
Kannadigas, say, have read U.R. Anantha
but the fight for secular ideals has been
Murthy?
restricted to the English press. It has not
percolated even to the Indian language press. Why do you read Tolstoy, or Marx, or John
Herein lies the difference between "dreaming Grisham then?
Indian" and waking up to the Indian reality.'
- which leads us to the truism that good art is
This is the most common accusation made universal and will find its audience. But none
against those who write in English: That they of these answers is really satisfactory. The
124 125
best thing is to do is to ignore the accusation. at writing than those who write in other Indian
The problem is that it makes for fine. languages 'than English. If anything, the
demagoguery . comparison is rather weighted the other way
around, mainly because the other Indian
The second point this letter tries to make is literatures are far older. I also gave the
due to ignorance. Is the writer saying that important reason that 'writers in English set
there are no secularists in the Indian language their strength to breaking beyond parochial
press; or no bhasha writers among the bounds.' Unself-consciousness again; you
secularists? What I like is that he says exactly cannot produce great art if you're constantly
the opposite of what my academic friend, looking around to see where the others have
quoted in full above, had said: that no Indian got to. So many hostile letters to the desk
writer in English had reacted to Ayodhya. In spoke of Dickens and Conrad, of Chinua
his case, of course, the inaccuracy was not due Achebe, quoted this authority or that. Few of
to ignorance, but mischievousness. them stuck to the matter at hand. The fact is
that I don't personally know any Indian writer
My claim- that if India were to produce a
in English who's thinking all the time of peers
writer of greatness in the next twenty-five
and forerunners and competitors. And I can't
years, he or she would be a writer in English~
remember any gathering of writers in English
also made me a number of enemies. But it was
that degenerated into a wholesale denunciation
not a challenge. It was tempered by the of writers in another language, as the Sahitya
reasoning that such a writer would be favoured Akademi colloquium did. Of course, it is not
by precisely those elitist circumstances which politically correct to attack bhasha writers while
are so to be deplored. I did not, and do not, it is for them to attack those who write in
mean that English-language writers are better English.
126 127
The correspondent who mentioned Achebe English doesn't get published (with some
\ . exceptions, notably Vilas Sarang and R. Raj
also mentioned, of all people, Conrad. I wonder
what they thought of him in Poland? And Rao of late. Paul Zacharia has been successful
Achebe is a bad example, because English is in translation). I've read dozens of boldly,
the official language of Nigeria and no native wildly experimental stories- in manuscript.
(written) literature goes back more than 150 The big English-language publishers, here or
years. Achebe's achievement (and that of in most of the West, aren't willing to take
Soyinka and others) was to adapt the oral risks the way smaller publishers are.
literatures of Africa to the conquerors'
I don't go in for this business of ishtyle myself
language. As for subverting, or at least because I don't see why a writer should parade
adapting, the English idiom to Indian needs,
orientally in the name of art while using a
isn't this what Rushdie and his school are sober language in criticism or journalism. And
widely judged to have successfully
not every Indian writer in English who is
accomplished? I am no admirer of that school,
supposed to have faithfully portrayed the Indian
but I can hark back to Desani for an even
reality has needed to clothe himself in such
more complete victory over the conqueror' s
pomp. The deathly dullness of north Indian
tongue. middle-class life is matched by the deathly
Jayamohan in the Outlook essay says Indian dullness of Vikram Seth's prose in A Suitable
writing in English is formulaic : ' The Boy; of second-rate London Bohemia by the
experiments happening in Tamil and pallid prose of An Equal Music. Seth and
Malayalam fiction are far bolder than anything Amitav Ghosh are lucent exemplars of the
happening in Indian English.' This "is true only . truth that any story deserving the telling can
to the extent that experimental writing in be well told in ordinary prose.
128 129
Ordinary prose, as 'my friend' the academic From trivial .Exchange Programmes through
\ , publication' offers to literary awards, the guiding
demonstrated, is not suited to cultural criticism.
principle is subscribing to Western values .
Here is one last set of extracts:
Such a situation, it is plain to see, militates
It must at once be noted that language
against the country's interests. For it is nothing
constitutes a powerful instrume!lt of hegemony
short of culfural subversion. It snaps the very
in the hands of the post-colonial European
commitment of the writer to this country and
powers. Not only is it a powerful vehicle of
its genius. Makes him impose an alien model
culture but the entire gamut of human relations
and thereby stultifies the very process of
and inter-personal attitudes are encoded in it.
creativity. And in time, it is apt to extend to
Further, where the language finds a non-native
. other areas of national life. It, therefore, appears
usage- as is the case with English in this
that the castigating remarks of Dr U.R. Anantha
country- its basic reference is its native, that
Murthy are in order. It is preposterous to
is, British culture. This means a non-native
compare this tribe with Indian Muslims.
user is condemned to constantly model himself Notwithstanding some fundamentalist ~lements,
on British cultural patterns. In other words, in this latter community did not come under the
the very process of dominating English as spell of subversion; whereas succumbing to
medium, the prospective writer imbibes subversive designs remains one of the prime
inevitably an alien culture and places at par guarantors of success in case of the Indo-
those attitudes with the native ones. Worse, the English community of writers.
more one tries to perfect his command over the
language, the more deeply does one get steeped
Well. I begin to understand the thought
in the alien culture. processes of people like Union Minister for
It is, therefore, at the cost of a sort of 'Secular Science, Human Resource Development and
Conversion' that the Indo-English writer can Education Murli Manohar Joshi. I understand
hope to derive any benefit from the West. the pressing need to rewrite textbooks . . . It is
130 131
but a short step, as has been shown, from well answered by another which was printed
rejecting an enemy culture to claiming its . \. on the same page:
2
inarguable achievements for one's own. I The writers of [the post-Independence] period
have already heard that War and Peace was have made conscious attempts at naturalising
written by a Garhwali anchorite called the Engli~h language in consonance with the
Tiil-sthiiyi, and Hamlet among other plays is Indian sensibility and milieu. 'I believe,' said
attributed to a Tamil brahmin, one Seshappa R. Parthasarathy in an article published in

1981, 'that if a writer thought long and hard
Iyer.
enough on his own use of language, even if it
It is very revealing in what manner this is English, sooner or later, I think, through the
correspondent seizes upon the comparison with English language, he will try to come to terms
Muslims in my essay. I was not comparing the with himself as an Indian, with his Indian past,
Indian writer in English with the Indian with his Indian environment, and the language
Muslim; I was comparing the fanatical Indian will become acclimatised to the .Indian
baiter of the one with the fanatical Indian environment. '
baiter of the other. 'Does an Indian writer become less Indian by

writing in English? Let me ask a counter-
Here again, too little self-consciousness is being question: Is English really a foreign language
attributed to the writer in English. Is she not for us Indians? Decades ago, Raja Rao said in
aware of the origins of the language she uses, his foreword to Kanthapura that English is a
and on that account is she not more careful, language of our intellectual make-up, if not
especially in this age of Political Correctness? our emotional make-up. The situation has since
By this correspondent's logic, Indian writers vastly changed: For many Indians now, English
in English should have enthusiastically upheld is a language of their emotional make-up as
US interests in the Iraq 'war' . This letter is well. And when they make an honest attempt
132 133
to express themselves creatively in English, it easily blurt out in English, things you could
is unjust to denationalize them . . . \ . never write down in your mother tongue.
'The accusation is unjust for another reason Eroticism, for example, is on your fingertips if
also .. .. Indian English writing is not really you use English. Mother-tongue stands over
English. I mean it is our own brand of English, you like M~ther herself . . .
nativised English, or Indian English, since it is
Dev Sen really should know better than to talk
contextualised in our own "non-English"
drivel like this. She makes women writers in
culture.'
English seem a generation of Shobha Des,
Now I should like to revert to the colloquium
frantically brushing up their English in order
of woman writers on 'Gender and Censorship' ,
to rush their orgasms into print. She is a
and give the offensive quote in more detail. It
personal friend of too many writers in
is from the keynote address by N abaneeta Dev
3
English- as indeed is Anantha Murthy- to
Sen:
misdoubt their motives. Anyway, let us briefly
. . . some Indian women writers draw a lot of
look at women writers and their inhibitions
media attention ill today's world, provided
they write in English and do not call themselves when it comes to eroticism. A writer in English
feminists . . . Gender has become irrelevant in is either (a) brought up in a 'Western' or
the power language . cosmopolitan- way with English as a first
. . . More and more Indian women are writing language (Anita Desai, presumably; I'm just
in their father-tongue, English, these days, guessing here) or (b) has a traditional
within and outside India. Naturally. There is upbringing, and is educated equally well in a
much more freedom for your literary bhasha and in English (Shashi Deshpande,
imagination in that foreign language. So much
say).
more power. So many difficult things you can
134 135
If (a), surely Dev Sen is not implying that a Sen cannot be as simple-minded as to believe
. ,
what she says. Hers is a political stand.
girl brought up in a 'Western' fashion is
encouraged to express her sexuality any more One writer who attended the 'Gender and
than a girl brought up in a very Indian way? Censorship' Colloquium told me, 'There were
(And these tags mean little to me; to me, the some women who branded everything they
Westernised ways of say Malabar Hill are as were against as patriarchal, everything good
Indian as those of Chembur or Ghatkopar.) and inspiring as feminine.' Most serious writers
Surely Mother looms as large. The Sexual though don't give a damn for the issue of
Revo]ution in the West in the 1960s was a language. Mahasweta Devi is quoted in the
revolution because it rebelled against traditional Outlook story as saying, 'I don't know their
language or their world, but who can tell
mores.
who'll be read fifty years from now . We need
And if (b), isn't it naIve to imagine that a girl not squabble, let posterity decide.'
can abandon all her repressions simply by
But on the whole, the women writers in English
changing the language she writes in, or by
were not too upset. They have become used to
writing short stories instead of poems? You
facing this cultural flak each time they atte~d
don't have to read Freud or Krafft-Ebing to
a literary conference, though this time the
know that cultural and psychological baggage
subversion of the 'Gender and Censorship'
are not got rid of so easily. You have to write
agenda took them aback a bit. More than one
of what you know, even if you write in English;
had only this to say, 'We'll go on writing, let
and if what you know is Indian, it comes with them talk.'
all those Indian strings attached and Mother
standing over you. The struggle is an artistic I had come across this attitude before, and
though I then thought it reminiscent of the
one: to translate what Mother is saying. Dev
136 137
allegorical ostrich, it is probably the only way as promiscuous because of the cold. The genius
to remain sane . . . Back in 1993, at the lies not in the faith out in the living; not in the
Sahitya Akademi Colloquium, after I had made language but in being human and writing about
an impassioned refutation from the podium of it.
Anantha Murthy's charges, he rose from the The Outlook story quoted above (in more
audience and demanded a chance to speak detail than it merits) says-indeed, it is the
again. Upamanyu Chatterjee in the chair premise of the piece- that 'regional' writers
allowed it to him. When he was through, I 'now tend to look down upon' the perceived
wanted to have another go, but Chatterjee advantage that a writer in English has. Well,
declared the session closed. Angry and thank heaven for that. Now perhaps we can all
frustrated, I protested to him later in private. get on with our writing, and I shall make it an
'Why should we bother what anyone says?' article of my faith never again to defend the
said Chatterjee with a quiet smile. 'I'll just language I chose or that has chosen me.
keep on writing.' At that time I simply could
not comprehend such ah attitude. I wanted to
reason, to convert or be converted. Now I
know that political stances adopted for political
ends cannot be corrected by reason. To have a
low opinion of a writer, or writers, is one
thing; to brand anyone who uses a particular
language as low and dishonest is no different
from branding all Pakistanis as evil because
Pakistan is a Muslim country, or all Eskimos
138 139
the doctrine that language is the most insidious
\ . tool of all.' The philosopher's duty was to
deconstruct the language, expose its hidden
agendas, and help save the victims of the
American 'E~tablishment': women, the poor,
non-whites, homosexuals, and hardwood trees.
Oddly, when deconstructionists required
appendectomies or bypass surgery or even a
root-canal job, they never deconstructed medical
or dental 'truth', but went along with whatever
p olitiCal Correctness and their board-certified, profit-oriented surgeons
Artistic Incorrectness proclaimed was the last word.
The ultra-percipient critic of culture, Tom Deconstruction's reign is symptomatic of an

Wolfe, says in an essay on the USA in the increasingly paranoid world. Its practical
year 2ood, purportedly written some decades manifestation, its projection on to everyday
in the future: behaviour, is Political Correctness, familiarly
. . . The reigning doctrine was deconstruction, called PC. Essentially, Political Correctness is
whose hierophants were two Frenchmen, a good thing because it makes us aware of
Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. They what we say, of the ideological weight that
began with a hyperdilation of a pronouncement hangs upon our words, and therefore it
of Nietzsche's to the effect that there can be no sensitizes us to our own values and their
absolute truth, merely many 'truths', which are justness or unjustness. But in the hands of
the tools of various groups, classes, or forces. critics it is an instrument of terror. All too
From this, the deconstructionists proceeded to often it is applied with retrospective effect,
140 141
India's exotic.landscape, overlaid by the uneasy
negating the artistic achievements of another
\ . presence of the British Raj .
age.
There are a couple of things wrong with that
A good example of this de-achievement is
resume. One is the opulence of the exotic
Kipling's Kim, first published just over a
landscape. Some journalist once said that
century ago.2 More than any other novel of
'exotic' is a sub-editor's word. It means little
the twentieth century, it has been the object of
in itself but to the reader suggests 'erotic,.3
desperate critical attempts to make it
The second thing wrong is the uneasiness of
'acceptable' . There is nothing wrong with it as
the presence of the Raj . There is nothing
either art or adventure. The problem is
remotely uneasy about the British Raj in Kim:
Kipling's reputation as a jingoistic tom-tommer
It is omniscient, near-omnipotent and wholly
of . Empire, which clouded his early success
benevolent. Kim is not an apologia for the Raj,
and had shrouded his work by the end of his
because Kipling saw nothing to justify or
life. defend.
Some years ago, I chanced upon a new Penguin
This 'Twentieth-Century Classics' edition came
Twentieth-Century Classics edition of Kim,
out in 1987, at the fag end of the era of Raj
with an Introduction and Notes by Edward
nostalgia in Britain and at the beginning of the
Said. This volume gave me an excellent idea
Politically Correct age. Hence this triumph of
of what happens when political Correctness
the sub-editor's art: She's trying to have it
goes up against art. The blurb describes the
both ways. But most blurb-writers are
novel thus: unprincipled fellows, and all publishers believe
A celebration of (Kim and the Lama' s]
the ends justify the means. Said, I thought,
friendship in a beautiful but often hostile
would provide the proof of the pudding. There
environment, Kim captun:s the opulence of
143
142
Party had beyn established in 1880, for
was something uniquely piquant about Edward
\ , example) . . '.
Said annotating Kipling. Said was the scholar
who'd opened the eyes of a whole generation Every schoolchild knows that the Congress
to the power of language to divide and define was founded in 1885, and it wasn't even
worlds. And Kipling's language was of that founded by an Indian. The action of Kim takes
order which suspends disbelief. Said showed place some time late in the l880s, and it's
us how we could defy our own likely that none of the characters except perhaps
stereotypification. Assent to it is the first step Colonel Creighton had heard of the Congress-
leading to a consensual rape. which was not a Party then. Kipling wrote the
The chief disappointment, in Orientalism, to book in about 1900, and until the partition of
an Indian reader is that Said ignores the rich Bengal in 1905 the business of the Congress
(opulent, exotic) Indian material. He devotes was not nationalism. Indeed, it took another
the book to Europe's picture of the Arab decade or so for the Congress to shed its
world. This is natural in a Palestinian. But at image of a collection of Uncle Tom babus.
least when it comes to writing a gloss on a Said says some fifteen pages later:
book set in India, should he not have done For the Indians, the Mutiny was a nationalist
some elementary research? uprising against British rule, which
Said is of the opinion that Kipling ignores uncompromisingly reasserted itself . . .
nationalistic feelings which were there to be Is this at all true? It is at least moot, and we
sympathized with: are too recently independent to take an
. . . even though Kipling resisted the notion, objective view of 1857. But there is no doubt
India was already well into the dynamic of
that at best there was a series of nationalist
outright opposition to British rule (the Congress
145
144
This is most unlikely. The peasantry of the
uprisings, and not one concerted revolt. Though
\ , 1880s would 'have respected the Rissaldar for
the leaders of the uprisings today find places
his age, his prowess as a warrior, and simply
in the made-to-order pantheon of Indian saints,
because the British respected him. Caste- and
there was no talk at all in India of an India-
clan-loyalty st!ll come before patriotism in
which itself is an artificial name. The several
India. Treachery to the Indian State is not so
native princes and princesses who rebelled
fIrmly established as a crime today as the
expected to keep their kingdoms if they won.
immutability of the British Raj was established
Besides, the revolt was against the East India
then. There are any number of Indians who've
Company, and some compromises were
committed anti-Indian acts and are yet basking
made- after the fIrst brutal reprisals- when
in the glow of their peers' adulation. Many of
the Crown assumed control.
them are Members of Parliament . . . And
This is Said's comment on the old Rissaldar in talking of treachery, it must not be forgotten
whom Kim fInds a friend: that technically it was the Rissaldar who stood
It is . . . highly significant that Kipling' s fast to his vows to the flag, and his rebellious
choice of an Indian to speak about the Mutiny comrades who were forsworn. Whose word
. . . is an old loyalist soldier who views his had you rather take?
countrymen's revolt as an act of madness. Not
surprisingly this man is respected by British By the way, what is Said doing calling the
'Deputy Commissioners' who, Kipling tells events of 1857-58 'the Mutiny'? They began
us, 'turned aside from the main road to visit with a mutiny, but swelled to much more than
him'. What Kipling simply eliminates is the that. Wrapping up the rebellion as a Mutiny is
likelihood that the soldier' s compatriots regard like subordinating' the whole business of the
him as (at very least) a traitor to his people. English Civil War to Hampden' s refusal to
147
146
pay Ship Money. Or calling the American more up to date tijan 1901, at least where they
War of Independence the Boston Tea Party. \ . concern India. ' Just look at these spellings:
Especially when he's inventing a case for Umballa, Peshawur, Amritzar, Jeysulmir,
Kipling's ignoring Indian nationalism, Said Mahratta . . . Of course Kipling and the Raj
should be politically correct enough to say spelled them tha! way, but is that any excuse
'the First War of Indian Independence'. And for a guide published fourteen years after the
in his Notes, he refers the curious reader to demise of the Raj to do the same? Or for Said
Christopher Hibbert's 1980 book The Great to parrot those spellings a quarter-century later?
Mutiny : India 1857, a study which is Is there any contemporary meaning to this
note on 'Simla'?
thoroughly Anglocentric (in seventeen pages
The summer residence of the Viceroy and his
of bibliography there are only thirty-three
consul [Council?], and of civilians and officers
identifiably Indian sources mentioned).
who need respite from the heat of the plains.
To say the Notes are by Edward Said is a
Note that 'need'! And note this wondrous note
terminological inexactitude. An acknowledge- on 'Dacca' :
ment precedes them: A town in Bengal about 150 miles north-east
In compiling these notes, I have drawn upon of Calcutta.
Roger Lance1yn Green and Alec Mason (eds.),
The Reader's Guide to Kipling's Works, volume Said is, in effect, committing the cardinal sins
I, prepared for Mr R.E. Harbord (1961). he warned us about in Orientalism. He has no
qualms about reinforcing stereotypes (he
This is supposed to be the definitive guide to
defines the 'Mahrattas' as 'a warrior race' and
Kipling; and it' s hard to see where Said has
so on). He ignores 'history, and not only the
improved upon them. They are evidently no
history of the victim of Orientalist practices
148 149
but objective history, objective insofar as Said. But liberal philosophies when applied in
,
Dhaka had been the capital of Bangladesh for
\
a woolly way terid to ignore reality. We have
fifteen years when he compiled these Notes. enough ills of our own commission to remedy;
He has been co-opted by an Establishment why begin on our parents'? The fact
which is still (though a trifle ashamedly, as the encapsulated in thjs 1987 Classics edition is
blurb shows) Orientalist in its marketing that Kipling accurately portrayed the ground
strategies and probably in its philosophy. realities, the political truths of his time--except
for the one overwhelming reality of colonial
Why couldn't anyone consult an Indian, or at
exploitation, but you'd hardly expect that of
least a reference work? An atlas was all that
him. Said ignores the realities of Kipling's
was needed to bring 80 per cent of the Notes
time in his Introduction and of his own time in
80 per cent closer to reality. Alternatively,
his Notes. You'd hardly expect that of him.
specialists would have been easy to find in
London. But they never do consult experts Political Correctness is one of those trends it
when it's a question of India. The 1961 Guide is more paying not to buck. Artistic judgements
is quite enough- there's been no Indian history based on Political Correctness are not aesthetic
since 1947. Kipling, when he wrote Kim, would but political. I have known more than one
have found it hard to believe it would ever English Literature student who steadfastly
have native Indian readers, educated in India. refuses to read Kipling, but swears by Said.
It's rather hard lines on us when the author of And yet, who is truer to his time? Whose word
Orientalism functions on the same principle. had you rather take?
It's funny to be defending Kipling on grounds Certainly what the deconst~ctionists say is
of political correctness, and fmding fault with right: Language is a political tool. Whether it
150 151
is insidious or invidious or not must depend I think this very funny, and so no doubt do a
,
good few British Asians. Even funnier is th~
\
on the person using it-and the person

listening. It is easy to be betrayed by Political fact that an Asian can afford to say he thinks
Correctness, because in a world ruled by PC it funny, but a Caucasian can't. By the way,
it's even more difficult than formerly to be Ms Winterton' s original story said 'a Pakistani';
. sure that people are speaking their minds and I took the liberty of supplanting him with an
not merely mouthing ritualistic formulae. It is Indian. Do you find it funnier now?
a humourless world too, as the sacking of a In public matters too many of us would be
member of the Shadow Cabinet in the UK in happier knowing people mean what they say.
May 2002 showed. Ann Winterton, a I'm sure the Communists would be less
Conservative MP, cracked this joke at a rugby uncomfortable dealing with the Vishwa Hindu
club dinner: Parishad (VHP) than with the Congress-or
A Cuban, a Japanese, an Indian and an the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since they
Englishman were travelling together on a train. glimpsed power thirteen years ago, it's a safe
The Cuban threw a Havana cigar out of the bet that the BJP's spokesmen are meaning less
window saying they were ten a penny in his than half of what they say, and saying perhaps
country. The Japanese said the same thing as a tenth of what they mean. There are long-
he got rid of a Nikon camera; and the serving formulae to deal with most situations
Englishman then picked up the Indian and that seem to imperil Indian secularism. As
hurled him out the window saying, 'They are most of these were invented by the Congress,
ten a penny in my country.' collaborating with the C~ngress in a secular
Hasan Suroor in the Hindu,
alliance against the forces of Hindutva does
6 May 2002
not make for sweet dreams for the Communists.
152 153
by the editor. This. happens more rarely than
There is presently a brouhaha in media circles
over a proposal to permit Foreign Direct
\ . the laity would think.
Investment (FDI) in the Indian media. Print But frankness can be carried so far it becomes
4
journals and TV channels are split pretty evenly shameless. Some time in 2001, when India
down the middle on the issue. The established Today commencea its 'Impact' series with
old-timers are for the most part against FDI; those two-pagers full of state governments
the newcomers and those trying to open up blowing their own trumpets, the only twinge
new markets in a time of stagnation are for it. of disquiet I felt was caused by the fact that
The reasons are obvious, and based on the matter in the 'Advertorial' (ugh!) looked
economics. Yet every newspaper and magazine disturbingly like the magazine's own pages. In
that carried opinion pieces about FDI was a couple of months, however, if I remember
acting very noble about it, adducing ideological right-I don't have access to back issues-the
reasons for their stand. This was true until a copy was reset in a sans serif typeface and
remarkable article appeared in India Today 'An IMPACT Feature' told you where you
(11 March 2002) pointing out just who would were from above the headline.
benefit financially from FDI and who wouldn' t.
Without saying so in so many words, it made Some of the Impact features were risible:
it very clear why India Today is for FDl. I am Rajnath Singh touting the progress initiated by
personally against FDI, and since I don't own his Government with the polls racing towards
a newspaper, my stand can only be based on him, for example. But then no one reads these
either ideology or stupidity; but it was . features except those with an interest in them,
refreshing to see the plain truth plainly stated and if India Today did its bit towards
by the writer and allowed to be plainly stated diminishing the Uttar Pradesh government's
155
154
no mention of how many people lost their
bank balance, that was on their conscience,
\ . lives; how many women were gang-raped;
not mine.
how many were burned alive. The two
But the 6 May 2002 issue which I received did subheads were 'Effective Steps' and 'Minimal
occasion more than a twinge of disquiet. Economic Loss' , .the latter saying, as Prime
Between pages 33 and 36 was an unashamed Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had said in
screed of propaganda, nothing less than Singapore the previous month, that there was
Narendra Modi absolving himself of all no likelihood of a fall in foreign investment.
accusations of inaction. It began with the Mter all this, what credibility can India Today's
Godhra 'massacre'; indeed the first line was: coverage of Gujarat have?
After 58 passengers aboard the Sabarmati
Express died in Godhra on February 27, the (In passing: The Advertorial said:
entire state of Gujarat was tense. A smear campaign is also on to prove that the
post-February 27 events have caused
Right. So were we all. But the rest of the
unimaginable economic losses to the state and
article, if it was one, was devoted to saying
that foreign investment in Gujarat has greatly
what remedial measures the Gujarat
suffered as a result. As they stand, the facts
government took, how many Muslims were prove this to be a white lie.
saved, how many rounds of ammunition were
fired (8,465 of bullets and 11,690 o~ teargas No wonder the Impact writers didn't want
shells). This was the first time I'd ever heard their names mentioned. 'White lie' is a literal
anyone, private or government, validate a police translation from the Hindi. 'Safedjhoot' means
action by stating how many rounds had been an obvious lie, a glaring lie, something that
fired rather than how few. There was absolutely stands out against the truth. Contradistinctively,
157
156
a 'white lie' in English is defined by Webster's
are beginning to. value the press as they ought.
as 'a well-intentioned or diplomatic untruth'.) ,.
Mter all, the chief of this media chain had
In the same issue, the news magazine carried famously declared fifteen years ago that he
an article about Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu, could sell a newspaper like a tube of
who'd earned several crores from bribes as toothpaste.) One -comment on this infamous
Chairman of the Punjab Public Service proposal said in pari::
Commission. He'd started out as a journalist, A market leader that should ideally be setting
had worked for the Hindu, the Indian Express new standards in journalistic ethics is busy
and the Tribune; and another newsmagazine blurring the distinction between advertising
said (The Week, 5 May): and news . . . Till how, newspapers believed
... he launched his career as a journalist at the that advertisers were interested in them because
Tribune. 'The fIrst thing he told me was there they offered circulation . . . [J]ournalists pursued
is a lot of money in this fIeld,' said Surender the truth and reported it fearlessly and marketing
Khuller, a Chandigarh-based journalist. 'I was executives attracted advertising on the strength
stunned. It was clear then itself that money of these values. The new philosophy is exactly
was the first thing on his mind.' the opposite: it believes that journalists are
"intermediaries who are redundant. A brand
Indeed.
manager will do. By this logic, those who
There was a small storm in media teacups want to be covered in the newspaper should
when the doyenne of Indian journalism, The pay for it directly ... The most valuable asset
Times of India, announced in February 2003 of a newspaper is its credibility and if that is
that she would be selling space in her editorial up for sale, the truth will never prevail.
columns. (It didn't create much flutter outside
That is an extract from the Editorial in the
media circles; which shows that consumers
India Today of 3 March 2003. Pots and kettles!
158
159
-his attitude to women, to bull-fighting and to
The rest is silence ,- big game.
The list of great works of art does not include
Political Correctness as thus employed is not
many which are politically correct. Some years
just destructive of art, it is inimical to language
ago, there was a ruckus over the proposal to
itself and to the heart of language, sincerity.
ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in
The reworking of the English language in
American schools. The reason given was that
Mark Twain used the word 'nigger' freely. recent years to accommodate feminist concerns
But he was being true to his time; and the has its good points; we cannot honestly quarrel
passage in which Huck decides against handing with 'chairperson' in place of 'chairman'. But
over the runaway slave Jim to justice is one of it is tiresome to keep following inclusive
the most redeeming in any literature. adjectives with pronouns of both genders, as
Artistically, it is worth a dozen Uncle Tom's in 'Every writer must know who his or her
Cabins. This is the book of which Hemingway audience is.' Many years ago when I started
wrote, in The Green Hills of Africa: out in journalism, long before anyone had
All modern American literature comes from heard of Political Correctness, I solved this
one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry problem to my satisfaction by alternating the
Finn . . . . it's the best book we've had. All two genders. This has the advantage of still
American writing comes from that. There was
being so rare that it makes the reader sit up
nothing before. There has been nothing as
and pay attention, and is infinitely preferable
good since.
to a neologism like 'slhe' . And 'every' followed
But this cuts no ice with the would be- by 'their' is simply not grammatical, though
Politically Correct. Hemingway himself would time and usage may validate it.
be on their Index Librorum Prohibitorum for
161
160
Feminist usage can however be carried to (220 if you count the American Spelling Book,
absurd lengths and is in the US. Tom Wolfe ., . familiarly known as the Blue-backed Speller)
mentions, in an essay titled 'In the Land of the and has gone into a zillion editions (excuse
Rococo Marxists' in the collection cited above, me, please). The big brass of Merriam-
a teacher at a prestigious university who taught Webster's are r:eported to hold top-secret
a course in Feminist Theory and gave her conferences which decide what words are
students Fs if they used the spelling 'women'. naughty and should be suppressed. The edition
She insisted on 'womyn', because the males I have, Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary,
who'd created the language had built into it a copyright 1984 and 1988, says in a self-
subversive bias. 'Women' is 60 per cent 'men'. conscious Preface:
What did this stand achieve? Her students . . . like Noah Webster we look upon the
dictionary not as the documentation of a
shrugged and used the spelling she wanted.
retrospect upon the language that, once done,
Most of them didn't give a damn as long as
can then be put aside. We intend this book to
they got a passing grade. It was just another
be used, to shape language as well as reflect it.
skirmish in the struggle to beat the system,
A little later:
and that' s what she was training them to do.
We have avoided stereotyping by sex. And we
The chief danger of taking Political Correctness have omitted certain offensive words, whose
too seriously is that a censor is switched on in meaning is hardly ever retrieved from a
the brain which hampers communication and dictionary .
vitiates it. Even professionals in the language It seems to me that by omitting all mention of
business get into trouble on this account. past prejudices, the Dictionary abdicates a
Webster's Dictionary is now 175 years old necessary and valuable role as 'the
162 163
documentation of a retrospect upon the 1. Abuse of oneself or one's abilities.
language'. And as to offensive words, who is 2. Masturbation.
to decide upon their offensiveness, or the
'Onanism' -a synonym derived from the
motives of those who may look them up? The
Bible- is also missing.
word 'fart', for instance-omitted by this
volume-is not slang, nor is it Anglo-Saxon Nero Wolfe- whom I mentioned early in this
like another 'f -word. It is of genuine interest essay as having added a thousand dollars to
to philologists, because it is one of the the bill of a client who used 'contact' as a
verifiably oldest words in any tongue. It is one verb--once burned a forty-seven-dollar-and-
of those few hundred words which may be fifty-cent dictionary :lor being 'subversive and
accurately traced back to a hypothetical 5,000- intolerably offensive' (Gambit, 1962). That
year-old proto-Indo-European mother of all was also-Rex Stout is explicit about this,
languages. The Sanskrit word 'parda', from disregarding the possibility of a lawsuit- a
which the Hindi 'paad' derives, is a cognate. Webster's, the New International Dictionary.
The change of the original 'p' sound to 'f is One of Wolfe's charges against it was that it
also a fine example of the linguistic rule called said 'infer' and 'imply' could be used
Grimm's Law. interchangeably. The edition I have doesn't do
that, but I think it and other reference works
This smug, self-righteous, proprietorial attitude
like it should prominently carry a warning,
to language often has Webster's in a bind.
'THIS BOOK IS POLITICALLY CORRECT.'
This Dictionary declines to defme 'masturbate',
which is a perfectly sound word with a Latin That would be useful, but I have seen such
pedigree. Yet turn to 'self-abuse' and you disclaimers (or claimers?) have the opposite
find: effect. Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of
164 165
Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) won rave sales while the shock value lasted and during
\ ,
reviews and sold by the million for ten years. the first few months of my jail sentence.
In that time it was also one of the cult books
I don' t know if it was Zen and the Art which
on Indian campuses. But I was never able to
set the trend, but there have been quite a few
read it through, and I think that was because
books since with catchy titles and unobtrusive
of this disclaimer, parading as an Author's
disclaimers. John Irving, author of the World
Note:
According to Garp, published in 1994 a 633-
What follows is based on actual occurrences.
page novel set in India, A Son of the Circus,
Although rriuch has been changed for rhetorical
purposes, it must be regarded in its essence as
with a preface that said:
fact. However, it should in no way be associated This isn't a novel about India. I don' t know
with that great body of factual information India. I was only there once, for less than a
relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's month. When I was there, I was struck by the
not very factual on motorcycles, either. country's foreignness; it remains obdurately

foreign to me.
Now tell me, what value does the book have?
It is- I have been told- all about quality and Why on earth did he write the book then? And
its importance in making a life worth living, it's a curious use of perspective, to say the
but how can I trust the guy when he's obviously country remained foreign to him when in fact
just picked out a catchy title? What quality he remained a foreigner in it. I read that novel,
does he have? I could write a dreary suburban and I seem to remember a remarkable
novel and entitle it What Kareena Kapoor Did description of the sun rising over the Gateway
in the Boys' Bathroom, screw on a disclaimer of India. A Son of the Circus was a dud and
like the one above, and be assured of some deservedly so.
166 167
This brings us once again to the phenomenon will have gone where A Son of the Circus
of hacks who have a command of English went; and hopefuliy the best of Indian writing
turning out 'novels' which win six-figure in languages other than English will be as
advances in the British and American markets. widely read, and as remunerative, as the best
The 'bhasha' writers in mdia complain bitterly of Indian writing. in English, and Latin
about them; and so do many writers in English. American and Czech and Chinese and
The novel was called the novel three or four Polynesian literature.
hundred years ago because it was new. But
For only history can uphold my belief in
often there is nothing new in these modem
language. This is the American century, and in
bestsellers. Their writers know very well what
every field of endeavour the best and worst of
sells in the West and have certain formulae to
the American way of life will predominate
supply those needs. But are they really p.eeds?
internationally: the striving after personal and .
Why should the Americans and Europeans
artistic freedom, the will to achieve, but also
want to read uninspired prose about us?
the insane competition with each other and
Simply because it is that kind of world. The with nature, the charlatanry and hype that so
bhasha writers and critics in India are beating often take the place of achievement, the
their heads against the wall, because they are senseless trends and fashions in thought and in
attempting to pick a bone with historical truth. dress.
Their only comfort can be that their criticisms
Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s predicted that
too will be validated by historical truth: In
the book would disappear. Thirty years later,
twenty or thirty years, barely half a dozen of
many voices were heard saying the novel was
the Indian English novelists first published in
dead. The book has shaped itself to the
the last fifteen years will still be read, the rest
168 169
electronic media; the novel may also be himself will serve, since the Absolute is
transformed, yet still matters to most literate \ . manifested equally in the little and great,
animate and inanimate, good and evil.
people. But no one has questioned or can
Ananda Coomaraswamy
question the need to communicate. Karl Kraus,
the Austrian writer and philosopher from whose The phrase which should be stressed here is
work the epigraph to this essay has been 'proper to himself (or herself); choosing an
taken, also said, 'Speech is the mother, not the improper theme for whatever reason will
handmaid of thought.' The language had to be invalidate the experience, indeed corrupt it.
invented to fulfll a felt need- 'Come here!' 'I
Yeats writes in his Autobiographies of the
am hungry.' 'When will you go hunting?'-
choices he had to make in deciding to be a
before our ancestors perceived that it could be
poet:
used to describe their universe, real or illusory.
'If I can be sincere and make my language
The possibilities inherent in language inspired
natural, and without becoming discursive, 'like
them to widen their experience and their minds.
a novelist, and so indiscreet and prosaic,' I
Speech is thus the mother of. religion too, and
said to myself, 'I shall, if good luck or bad
the value of language is more moral than luck make my life interesting, be a great poet;
aesthetic: for it will no longer be a matter of literature at
Love is reality experienced by the lover, and all.' . . . It is so many years before one can
truth is reality experienced by the philosopher; believe enough in what one feels even to know
so beauty is reality experienced by the artist: what the feeling is.
and these are three faces of the Absolute. But
it is only through the objective work of art that Perhaps there are those who develop faster.
the artist is able to communicate his experience, Progress in technology is on an exponential
and for this purpose any theme proper to upward curve; do the technologically attuned
170 171
grow up at a proportionally higher rate, so that while he was meditating in a lonely spot, a
,
they can tum out masterpieces in their twenties \
traveller ran past him and hid nearby. Hot on
and thirties? Have their lives already been so his heels came a gang of bandits. They asked
full of interest? Do they have such self-belief, Kausika where their victim was hiding, and
such sincerity? he, self-constrained. from lying or pretending
ignorance, answered them truly. The bandits
During the 2002 football Wodd Cup, I saw an despoiled and butchered the traveller. A
interview with the key Portuguese player, Luis footnote is appended to this story: Kausika
Figo, about his aspirations and career goals. went to hell for his truth-telling.
The fIrst thing he said was, '1' d like to be
Joyce famously said that the three weapons of
remembered as an honest player.' Only then '
the writer are silence, exile and cunning. The
did he add, 'And a winning one.' Figo is a
ruling generation of Indian writers in English
greatly respected footballer, and no wonder.
pride themselves on their cosmopolitanism and
He may not have Maradona's skills,-but what
actively seek to be uprooted: They cultivate
of that? Maradona was in the same skills the state of being disinherited. There is enough
category as Pele, but where player respect is and more cunning being shown by everybody
concerned, he's simply nowhere. who uses language. Could we now have a
Honesty in the use of language or in any other little silence please, to reflect in?
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness;
craft or trade must not be an end in itself. The
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
story is told in Mahabharata of the brahmana
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
Kausika, who set his heart on being completely
sighs too deep for words.
virtuous. He never told a lie; he never told a The Epistle of Paul
story to amuse his friends or family. One day, to the Romans
172 173
--
Oh, if he can only find the time!
The Corporate Poet
Tonight in bed he will 'Free Associate
\ ,
Briefly his pen slithers among For five or ten minutes; out of one Meaningful Rhyme
Pieces of language, sorting and emending,
He will fashion a poem, short, clever, pithy
Telling right from wrong.
For tomorrow's address to fifty college girls
It is poetry that he's making- Who will find him remarkably good looking and witty,
The highest art of all, transforming truths
If FA fails there's always the oration
From insistent dreams to his harsh waking.
On Language as an Ethic, from the Akademi's fete:
. His ear' tells the trueness of ideals and abstractions, He can render that without preparation,
His voice is the voice of peoples and governments, London Magazine,
Of solemn moments and Centenary Celebrations. June/July 1991
Briefly his pen tells right from wrong-

Very briefly: He must finish by eleven
And tum then to refining the words of a song
For a Bombay Film. His Ongoing Venture

(To be declaimed in Chicago at the Festival of India)
Must delay his next book, which is critical of Culture:
Distracted by these trivialities, he cannot devise

A new rhyme for 'pyaar': Art, unfortunately,
Is subject to the restrictions on private enterprise
But he plans to attack this in a speech he will deliver

At the PEN's annual conference next week,
Which will make the Ministry's mandarins quiver:
Quoting from Plato, he will demonstrate

How Poetry may prosper on Government funds,
And uphold the example of the Soviet State . . .
Meanwhile, there's the couplet to be written still

For Hindustan Steel (it will be preserved in marble
At the new theatre complex they propose to build)-
174 175
--
NOTES edited by Khushwant Singh (Viking/Penguin,
\ . 2001) but it is too relevant not to reproduce here.
5. In 1579 a pamphlet attacking a proposed alliance

between Elizabeth I and a Catholic prince offended
Language as an Ethic the Queen. 'Burning with choler', she suspected
a deeper conspiracy. The writer, John Stubbs,
1. Arthur C. Clarke has constructed just such a
and the distributor of the pamphlet were sentenced
highly intelligent society in his beautiful story to have their right hands cut off. '. . . so soon as
'Second Dawn' (Expedition to Earth, Ballantine, [Stubbs' s] right hand was cut off he put off his
1953). hat with the left, and cried aloud, "God save the
2. Forecast by News Corp quoted in 'Starcrossed: Queen!'" Writing and publishing should have
The inside story of Prannoy Roy's dilemma over remained a dangerous profession, it would have
Star TV', Man's World, October 2000. eliminated dilettantism.
3. On 18 January 2002, the Hindu carried a quarter- 6. I spoke too soon. Reporting on the incredible
page 'Message from the Prime Minister' asking NatWest Trophy win against England, the Hindu
Indians to conserve petroleum products and said on 15 July 2002: 'India staged a coup de
declaring the second half of January ' Oil grace in a championship final at Lord's on
Saturday ... '
Conservation Fortnight'. The message was in
Hindi. Why should the Government release an 7. 'In our time, political speech and wntmg are
advertisement in Hindi in a newspaper whose largely the defence of the indefensible . . .'
readership is overwhelmingly south of the George Orwell, 'Politics and the English
Vindhyas, and why should that newspaper carry Language', from Shooting an Elephant (1950).
it? 8. 'When there is a gap between one's real and
4. I have told this story in my essay 'City without one's declared aims; one turns as it were
instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms,
Natives' in the Delhi anthology City Improbable,
176 177
---
like a cuttlefish squirting out ink . . . Political Sounds without Sense
language . . . is designed to make lies sound \ ,
1. From Patrick Olivelle's translation, Upanishads,
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an
in The World's Classics, Oxford University Press,
appearance of solidity to pure wind.' Orwell,
1996.
ibid.
2. All these insights, and much of two Anglicised
9. Quoted in Ramachandra Guha's essay, 'Gandhi' s
generations' understanding of the Mahabharata,
Editor: K. Swaminathan', in An Anthropologist
have been gained from Dr Karve's brilliant essays
Among the Marxists and Other Essays, Permanent
in Yugiinta, Sangam Books (Orient Longman),
Black, 2001.
1974.
10. These quotes are lifted from Ramachandra Guha' s
3. I read recently of an interpretation that he was
essay 'The Dictator's Defence: Indira Gandhi',
born from Kunti's ear, but this again is non-
ibid.
canonical so far as I can discover.
11. From Alice in Wonderland: 'I'll be judge, I'll be
4. 'Will it ever be possible for even brahmins
jury,' said cunning old Fury: 'I'll try the whole
and gods who have only a little tapas to their
cause and condemn you to death.' Later, in Alice
credit, to have the blessed privilege of such a
Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty
darsana . . .'
says, 'When I use a word, it means just what I
choose it to mean . . . When I make a word do 5. From the Introductory Thesis to The Spiritual
a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.' Heritage of Tyagaraja; English translations of
Politicians pay speech-writers and media Tyagaraja's kritis by C. Ramanujachari, with a
consultants instead, which I suppose comes to the Foreword by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; Sri
same thing. Ramakrishna Math, Madras, Third Impression
1981.
178 179
The Problem of English Political Correctness ,and
,
1. The extracts from my article and from the letters
\
Artistic Incorrectness
published in the Hindu Literary Review, 18 and 1. From Hooking ,Up by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus
25 April 1993, are reproduced by the kind and Giroux, 2000). Reproduced by kind
permission of the Hindu. lowe the Hindu much permission of the author.
more than that, for the editors allowed me on that
2. This passage was expanded into an essay, 'Why
and other occasions to express my feelings about
Kim is politically correct . . . and why Edward
those I have termed 'English-bashers' without
Said is not', which appeared in Man's World,
any constraints.
February 2002.
2. School textbooks in the Soviet Union consistently
3. I tracked down this quote, which throws some
claimed that the radio transmitter was invented
light on sub-editorial thinking. It is from a memo
by a Russian named (if I remember rightly)
written by Harold Ross, founder editor of the
Popov. In February 1962, Izvestia carried an
New Yorker, and is found entire in James
article about an old Russian game called 'beizbol'.
Thurber's The Years with Ross (1959): ' ... The
3. From The Tongue Set Free: Women writers speak
tab[loidls use exotic wrong, nearly always. Exotic
about censorship Women's WORLD, Asmita,
means, merely, foreign. But they apply it to
2002.
domestic ladies freely. A man who worked long
on the Daily News told me that News rewrite
men were given a list of ten or twelve words to
use in stories and headlines that sounded snappy,
would be thought by the readers to mean
something more than they really mean, or
something other than they really mean, something
snappy-and wouldn't 'be libellous. At head of
list was exotic. Tab readers are supposed to think
180 181
that exotic means erotic. It would be libel to call
a lady erotic, I guess.' \ .
4. This instanc~ was written up as an essay for The
Hoot, website of The Media Foundation,
30 May 2002.
182
\ ,
rrugating India is a new series that looks critically
[ff/(
at the common sense prevailing on some of the most

pressing issues of our times. Provocative and incisive,
It has essays on themes ranging from secularism,
pol tical representation and nationalism, to
corruption, terrorism and language, which figure
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Pa%ionate, accessible and opinionated, these
refJt;ctions from some of India's best minds should
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to the challenges they present.
Forthcoming titles
tuv Visvanathan
Chandra
iratap Bhanu Mehta
ft.V\ \
FIRST INFINITIES
\ .
FIRST IN FINITIES
\ ,
Vijay Nambisan
Also by Vijay Nambisan
POETRY
Gemini (Viking/Penguin India, 1992; two-poet volume)
NON-FICTION
Bihar is in the Eye of the Beholder (Viking/Penguin India 2000)
ESSAY
Language as an Ethic (Penguin India, 2003)
TRANSLATION
Puntanam and Melpattur: Two Measures of Bhakti (Penguin
An imprint of Paperwa ll Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd
Classics, 2009)
\ .
POETRYWALA
An imprint of Paperwall Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd
Copyright Vijay Nambisan
First published in 2015 by

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,, Acknowledgements
Several of these poems have appeared in print and/or on

websites. I ceased tracking them when the proliferation of
information on the internet rendered obsolete my filing systems.
So the following credits are given from memory, with a little help
from my files. I thank the journals and editors concerned, and ask
the pardon of those I have missed.
"Dirge': "Millennium" and the three poems in "First Infinities"
were published in the special edition of Fulcrum edited by Jeet
Thayil and thereafter in 60 Indian Poets published by both Penguin
India and Bloodaxe. The "First Infinities" poems, though, were
previously published, a long time ago, in Gentleman.
"Ducks': "Elizabeth Oomanchery" and "Meeting a Translator"
were published in Indian Review of Books.
"Kalki", "The Deserted Temple", "Mind the Gap", "Sangam",
"Chyavana", "Grown-up", "Lint" and "Mahasivaratri" were
published in the HarperCollins Book of Indian Poetry, edited by
Sudeep Sen; though "Sangam" - now called "Lady with Parrot" -
was earlier reproduced in an article on translation, by Gowri
Ramnarayan to whom I dedicated it, in The Hindu.
"A Little Better" and "A Town Like Ali's" appeared in IQ.
"Nila in Floodtime" appeared in Muse India's Kerala special.
"You, Wystan Auden" was published by the Indian Poetry
Society in its collection of prize-winning poems from the annual
competition.
"The Corporate Poet" appeared in London Magazine and also as
an endpaper to my essay Language as an Ethic, published by Penguin
India.
"The Hole in the Earth': "Christ Stopped here': "Something
Rich and Strange", "Medical Entry" and "Pills" have appeared in
the sixth issue of nether.
7
I
Contents
,.
Preface 13
Foreword 17
I. Loss
Dirge 23
Words from the dying city came 25
Ducks 26
The hole in the earth 27
Kalki 28
Millennium 29
Diogenes 31
Elizabeth Oomanchery 32
Aswatthama 33
Snow 34
Age speaks to age 35
Christ stopped here 36
Chyavana 40
The deserted temple 41
ToHST 42
Something rich and strange 43
Medical entry 44
Mind the gap 45
Nila in flood time 46
II. Balance
To the Lord of the dance 53
Spider 54
Ilyushin 55
De Maupussant's lover 56
Lady with parrot 57
9
8
Summer triangle 99
Bhima in the forest 58
Th~ rain is pouring down again 100
When suddenly the poems die 59, ,
A gift of tongues 101
The door 60
Neighbours 102
The nuns 61
The corporate poet 103
To have been written in Urdu 63
A town like Ali'S 105
Sakuntala 64
Shame and renown 106
Mahasivaratri 65
Grown -up 66
To K, who said a poem ended weakly 67
First Infinities: Need 68
First Infinities: Hospital 69
First Infinities: Drying out 70
Dvija 71
You, Wystan Auden 78
ToDom 80
Half-life 81
Ill. Profit
A little better 85
Essay in capitalism 86
No fallacy is pathetic 87
Meeting a translator 88
The fly in the ointment 89
Names 90
Making tea 91
Pills 92
Making coffee 93
Lint 94
Those blind from birth 95
These were my homes 96
Wet dream 97
On first looking into Whitman's humour 98
11
10
\ .
Preface
These poems should have appeared in a book a long time ago.

Readers who come across them for the first time as I did a few
months ago will wonder why a poet as fine as Vijay Nambisan has
been virtually invisible, with little critical attention being paid to
his work. After the first public appearance of his poems in Gemini
I (1992), a book he shared with Jeet Thayil, Nambisan grew to be
better known for his work in prose - the insightful Bihar is in the
Eye of the Beholder, for example, for Language as an Ethic, and for his
literary journalism. Nambisan the poet seemed to have fallen silent.
When, earlier this year, Thayil told me this wasn't so, that
Nambisan had more than seventy poems waiting to be published,
I wondered why the fact had been kept hidden for a long time.
I know Nambisan personally. Having agreed to introduce his
poems, I risk being subjective. My intentions are good even though,
we're told, they pave the road to Hell.
Hell itself, or a state very much like it, does feature in Nambisan's
poetic underworld, which is deep, intricate and enticing. But its
attendant horrors are never indulged in for their own sake and are
kept well in check by a certain wit, a muscularity of mind, which
remind me of a similar grace in poets as far distant in time from
each other as Robert Graves and John Donne.
If, as the critic Christopher Ricks implies, good poetry is a
joining of music and reason, there's plenty of it in this book. But
what, in good poetry, is the place of feeling? How deep and how
far can a poet allow his feelings to run without their sounding
sentimental or maudlin? I find Nambisan's tact in this matter
exemplary. Consider the personal note in the poem "Pills" and
how subtly illness is suggested.
13
Pills Tukaram and the other Bhakti poets were rarely uncritical and
never unreasoning:
\ ,
This doesn't mean that Nambisan is unaware of the hold of
Some pills are sugar-coated. unreason, both in our day-to-day (or should I say night-to -night?)
And some are not. lives and in poetry. It is precisely this awareness, a sense of the
Some are encapsulated in gelatine appalling danger that comes with unreason, that holds him back
And some are not. from its attractive abyss, or from being disastrously adrift in the
Those that are handed out galactic constellations he evokes so pOignantly and with great
For ailments of the mind, I have realised, lyrical strength in "Summer Triangle':
Are always au nature!'
Why must this be so?
Why cannot the pill-makers disguise them, too, Summer triangle
Behind milk and honey?
Is it so that we, You know, while I lie here in bed and write
Carrying our bitterness with us always Far above my head the stars are playing out
Like a mask behind a mask, should know Their autumnal dance.
What it is to be unmasked - we should be told
This is the bitter taste we give to a sweet world
And learn to sugar coat ourselves like the rest? The rains are over
(They may have other plans) and yesterday
From the terrace I caught a glimpse of Swan
The world's multiple illnesses, whatever they are, are hinted And Lyre and Eagle.
at by the varieties of pills available, nameless, like the illnesses
themselves. Ailments of the mind, perhaps sources of unreason,
are also suggested, but in a measured way. A personal need for one Such pure light was not
kind of medicine or another is downplayed, made almost irrelevant. Invented just for us to rejoice by, I'm sure,
It is this reasonable, self-distancing stance that separates Nambisan But we had been friends for many years.
from bhakti, or rather, that separates his poetry from what bhakti
poetry has become, a development of which he is deeply critical. So as I play with toys, with pen and book
In bed, in the stars' wakes drift to what strange ends
Reason, again, is the dominant given in Nambisan's definition of
What strange bedfellows.
poetry. In his "Translator's Apology" in Puntanam and Melpattur:
Two Measures of Bhakti (2009) he says:
Almost, in the night,
'These are poems of Bhakti I have translated, with my father's
They break their bounds and hover near. They range
aid. I am not a bhakta. I think the Bhakti philosophy as applied - The blackness, always searching, it seems now
second only to the caste system - is the bane ofIndian society today: In my own blackness, for what is over
He also says: 'In the modern context, it seems to me, Bhakti And can be rewritten only in my book.
means an unreasoning and uncritical faith, however profound.
15
14
The reader will also find other wonders in this book, will find,
to steal one of Nambisan's titles, itself stolen from Shakespear~"
'something rich and strange: His many references to his childhood
and frequent references to children suggest other sources for his
wonderment, his embracing of a world before it disappeared into Foreword
the adult mazes of love, business and responsibilities.
Under a clear night sky in a small town in France, I look up to
see in can spot the Swan, Lyre and Eagle that Nambisan saw. I make Some of these poems are thirty years old. It's an appalling fact,
myself believe I can so that a connection is made between his world for I feel and act thirty yet (some of my friends would put it even
and mine, both, ultimately, part of the same world. The connection lower). Perhaps it's on account of the large quantity of preservatives
is made, I'm satisfied, and I'm grateful to Nambisan for it. I've ingested over the years. I am fond of these poems, as of
anything one has grown up with; and that fondness itself renders
Adil Jussawalla incompetent the critical faculties.
La Bourboule
It is twenty-two years since my first and only selection was
published. Twenty-one usually marks a coming of age, but in my
case I'm not so sure. One reason I've not published much since
1992 is that I was pretty much convinced that "the poetry does
not matter': That line is from Eliot, and the critic Karl Shapiro
added this gloss:
Oh yes, it matters, it matters very much. But there is no
salvation through consciously induced spontaneities;
and there is no salvation through art.
Now for one who began writing seriously in his second year at
a professional college whose vaunted profession he had no desire
to espouse, salvation is the whole point. Forcing myself to write,
too, did not fit with my ideas of what poetry should be. Spontaneity
is worth much to me. If poetry does not happen, and if "poetry
makes nothing happen" (Auden), what is its reason for being? For
many years I thought it did not matter, it makes nothing happen,
and there was no urge in me to write.
I don't know exactly why, but some years ago I veered around to
the opposite view: Poetry is the only thing that matters. I have no
justification for that; it's all in the mind. It is difficult to regain the
optimism of my young days, whatever my circumstances then, and
my recent poems no doubt bear the scars of the last twenty years.
17
16
I did not try to judge them, but handed them over to the critical my consciousness, where they've festered too long. (I sent many
of them, long ago and by post, to a friend in Delhi whom I thank
judgement of Teet Thayil and thence Adil Tussawalla. , \
for her unreserved attention and care.) Too much sensitivity
That these poems are appearing in a volume is entirely Teet's preve nts wounds fr om healing, also ; and I must therefore
work; he told me to do it and kept at me to do it and has lovingly thank all our political parties, and prominent national figures
shepherded them to the press. I am so very grateful to him, for I in business, journalism, publishing, the arts, sport and Hindi
never would have done it on my own. cinema, for contributing to the deadening, the cautery of those
My debt to Adil is incalculable. Dilip Thakore many years ago tendrils which demand fresh air, and love, and peace, in excess.
in a column described him as one of the few gentlemen left. He It's a poetical mistake to use abstractions. Let me say, then, that I
is not only that, he is one of the few genuinely kind and tolerant thank everyone by whose means I have become so accustomed to
writers we have, with seemingly bottomless wells of both kindness living in this country, on this planet, that I should be much more
and tolerance. Besides which, he has the best critical brain I've ever a misfit anywhere else.
deferred to, in both poetry and prose. Vijay Nambisan
One reason the early poems here did not get published earlier
is that Dom Moraes passed them over when I showed them to him
in 1990. Dom got Teet and me published together in 1992, bunt's a
fact that until (a few years later) he was made to see India through
Indian eyes, he was highly intolerant of anything smacking of
Indian rhythms or modes of thinking. Never mind; I owe Dom so
much that I cannot think to cavil at these relative trifles. He and
Adil, established poets, treated me almost from the first meeting
as a fellow poet. Nothing could have been more liberating.
A poem in this volume, "The Nuns", ends with an image which
is copied outright from a poem of Dom's. That's strange, for I wrote
the poem in 1983, more than six years before I met him, and don't
recall then having read his poems. I must have, however; it's a very
Dom-esque image. Since I became aware of the plagiarism, some
twenty years ago, I have attempted times without number to change
my poem. But nothing matched Dom's image. I've decided to let the
unconscious plagiarism pass, to let Mary stand and bless as she has
for thirty years, as a reminder of my debt to Dom if nothing else.
(He read the poem in 1990 but said nothing. He was exquisitely
tactful when he w!lnted to be.)
Too much sensitivity always makes for bad poetry. A few of
these poems must be considered juvenilia, and have been called
self-indulgent, but I take this opportunity of getting them out of
19
18
\ .
I
Loss
Dirge
,,
The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side,
Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide,
How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-
Anglian tongue
Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the
world was young,
I'll live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis;
And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis,
Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed

to care;
Then calls for cheques of last year's owing did not fall on empty air.
Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them
unchanged; and paid;
But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty
trade.
In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes,
I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis,
They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead
how to speak.
They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique.
But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen
My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years
and ten.
And if it prove my prime is over, if I've no chance at wordly bliss
Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis,
23
Words from the dying city came
This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a
friend. ,, ForSagari
I've a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end.
So Arun and Dom and Nissim - I will shun their hard-earned grief
And much though I will always miss em, in softer shadows find relief. Words from the dying city came
And when I'm ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more As a thirsty man asks for water
And the bougainvillaea climbed the walls of the white house
than this
I will answer, "But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis." Far from the slaughter.
A man sits high by a luminous window

Where the white doves ruffle their restless feath~rs.
And he hears the dying city as clearly as he hears
1he bees in the bougainvillaea in the fine March weather.
The man by the window remembers last summer

In the doomed city. He sees the jacaranda flame against the sky.
And he knows it is useless, in another time and place
To listen to a city that must die.
25
24
The hole in the earth
Ducks
\ ,
There is a hole through to the earth's bowels,

They hammered in the stakes and wound the long nets round,
I glimpsed it yesterday, outside the gate,
Blue nets of nylon, about as high as where
A view of voided ground yielding voiceless vowels,
They wound their dhotis, and I wondered as
Saying without speaking; and through what ways
I sat by the raining window what the blue meant,
Winding, through what beatitude, what hate,
The blue circles in the wet square of pasture.
What hope of sanctity I do not know
It goes because last night I knew my place
Then at evening the boys drove up the ducks Was not to know. Then waking in my sleep
From the river, squat and uncomplaining, I felt by day my fate and I could go
They herded them here and prisoned them in the Down unwalkable roads beyond all name
Blue cages. Then they went away. The rain Of nothingness, discover what they keep
Sobbed till nightfall in the tamarind trees. Below of us without knowledge of day.
So I prepared; but today the workmen came,
When the rain stopped the ducks began their noise, Replaced the manhole cover, and went away.
Hoarse-throated, full -chested, and we heard them
Away in the big house, after dinner, and my niece
Asked, "Are they bullfrogs?" I said yes, or perhaps birds,
But I knew all the time they were only ducks,
Their noise is incessant, like frogs or crickets.

And sometimes to me it is like the river
A mile or two away, groaning at its strength.
Or like the rain as it winds the teak groves through.
Or sometimes, to me, like the song of birds.
I am still wondering what they're doing there,

What's being done to them. As I write
Again the rain is washing the still morning small
And the ducks are silent, not at all thinking
What manner of beast creates these hours of sleep.
27
26
Millennium
Kalki
\ ,
There was not much light in the world when we left.

Difficult, now, to predicate order. The stairs were dank and smelled of anger.
The wheel spins without weight at a careless touch.
At their foot was a heap of straw, soaked in blood:
Those who stand alone are always reclaimed We <lid not ask whose, for all was conjecture, and this
And the mobs conjugate at every border. Fresh sign would have yielded us little more.
Who remains to gUide me, how or how much
Shall I give of my gifts. Coming proclaimed
In other ages I brought a great prize They say there are signs in all things; well, there were
To my seekers in unconfounded peace. Some we could have done without that day. For the sun set
Elsewhere I returned fire with fire, ice with ice The instant we had emerged from the passage-way
And bore a sword to those who would not fight. And we had to grope our road to the little shed where,
Now I am ignored in hourly agonies. Little and unannounced, our mission lay.
My foolish news of the conclusive war
Comes to the inconsequential dead. My might Frost steamed the air. Our blood pulsed thin and shrill.
Is lonely: An unpeopled avatar. My brother pushed open the door. In the wild light
Of a torch, we saw the mother's breast was white and plump,
And the child's lips were red as any rose. None of us
Dared hesitate, or be afraid; we drew our swords.
It is long after that I tell this, and it may differ

From the tales you must have heard. What matters?
There was no light in the world when we did our deed.
There is no light now. Is it at all possible
That I should say more or less than that I know?
Yes. I have heard the stories. Yes, there was some talk
Of a brave man whose bravery passed all foolishness.
Yes, we are a weak people now but we were not so
When lured by gold but hardly less by strength
We let our faith die and put away our books
And enrolled ourselves under the Idumean.
29
28
Diogenes
He was a false king, at last, but what would you have?
There have been falser. One rules now, in Rome. \ ,
But this one thing I can say, because upon my steel The watchman has lighted his lamp. Outside
There sang the blood, and almost on my lips: with The guarded houses, night is complete.
That sword which now rotten hangs upon the wall,
With that blade and no other, I slew David's heir.
I hear his staff thud, thud. Hammering smooth,
Straightening the paths of many feet.
They are unselfconscious in the day. In the dark

They try to be silent, overcome
By knowledge that life is very far away.

It is in the attempt they become
Spies and strangers, betraying without will

Minds with a purpose, going somewhere.
The watchman follows. In open night

With impartial staff he shadows them,
Covering up motives that lay bare.
31
30
Aswatthama
,,
Whenever he put on his high-soled shoes
Elizabeth Oomanchery And came to town, we all felt out of place:
The celebrated poetess He was a man to whom nothing is news
Went to the corner shop AlthQugh he wore his boredom with fine grace
To buy a loaf of bread. And his kindness was apparent in his face .
The shopman said, "Excuse me,
'}\ren't you Elizabeth Oomanchery,
He'd talk with us of Love, or Art, the while
"The celebrated poetess?"
So Elizabeth Oomanchery went home. We sat on the sofa and sipped our drinks;
But his sudden pauses, his secret smile -
We would half-say, I wonder what he thinks.
Elizabeth Oomanchery Yet nothing he said would supply us the links.
Sat at her desk one evening
To write herself a poem.
Oh, he was charming, and could always be
The poem asked, "Excuse me,
Relied upon to make an evening go;
'}\ren't you Elizabeth Oomanchery,
But suddenly he would look at you, and see
"The celebrated poetess?"
- Well, what? and you would feel leaden, and slow.
But we all liked him. At least, I suppose so.
Said "Yes;'
So the poem went home.
And then he came no more. We do not talk
Of him, but sometimes, when the passing hours
Oppress, we fall silent, as if he should walk
In at the door. But the memory sours.
Even his silences were different from ours.
33
32
Age speaks to age
Snow
\ ,
My forefathers came here so many years ago,

Crisp in the winter's morning, Even the land may now have forgotten. - You ask
Softly all through the night, Whether the land loved them? I do not know,
Falling and white?
But they were insistent upon their rights:
They said a people such as were settled here,
I have never seen snow Without a tongue with which to read or write
But I can imagine it quite -
Were not of God, but little better than
The beasts within the jungle, or the birds
Who cannot know what it is to be a Man.
One morning I'll open the door
To bring in the morning's milk,
What do you say, little one? That the birds
And all around there'll be snow -
Fallen and still. And beasts speak, too? Yes, when I was young
I could hear things that were said without words.
How I'll roll in the stuff!

So said the people that my fathers' fathers found:
How I'll tumble and spin!
Until the neighbours cry, Enough! "We read our past and future in the skies
And send me back in. And write our present on this hallowed ground -
"What need of more?" - The runes that flowed and shone

Upon his bright blade, our chieftain showed them then.
What need of more? Our swords were steel; theirs, stone.
So with steel we wrote our story. There is silence

Now through the land - all but our talk, our songs,
The texts we write and all the noble deeds that men's
Arms find to do. In silence drop the tears

Of rain; silent the thunder speaks; silent
The seasons pass, and say no new things in our ears.
35
34
Here in the hills
Christ stopped here . that mayor may not stand at Eboli
"Carlo Levi, celebrated author of Christ Stopped at Eboli ... ." ,. crafted of a magic name
Pablo Neruda, Memoirs whose magic I may understand
and may not,
here in the hills
How white the snowdrifts in the pass!
are snow, and the green grass
how green the grass and a red sun:
down there in the plains; But come, into the shade
The earth not showing, (I am afraid
the mountains yet growing, to relive what has passed)
growing still ... and you will see upon the tree
And like memories of another year (the tree is old and haughty, its bark
the prints oflong-dead palms is like many winters), upon the tree
upon the trees,
the cruel trees
which lance into the sky... I am afraid the prints of many palms
that someone else must live as I did, as if groping through the dark:
must die ...
Beside, in the snow
Here, where the grasses grow or grass, I do not know
beneath the snow but it is trampled by feet
or here, lie (I have been here before!)
beneath the snow: feet waiting for an hour,
Just one hour, and no more:
Christ stopped here.
And look more closely, you will find
(song for two voices) . some blood
Jesu, fruit of God's believing ah, that is nothing, never mind;
In glory and an end to grieving, Some crusts of bread, some crumbs of cheese
Embrace me as you only can, (a little peace)
Make into me a little man. and some ash - oh, holy ash! -
from a cheap cigar.
Jesu, in the rock or crystal Yes, Christ stopped here.
Conceptualized a little seed:
But from the amber came a pistol;
What grew then was only my need.
37
36
(as iffrom above) a face - or in the wind, gently brushing
He carved upon rock and on river and reed, ,. my' fa:ce like cobwebs in moonlight
He carved up on snow all the soul of his need.
His hand never shook, his fingers aye pressed, And it's a face that I have seen before
But his mind, ah! his mind - it was never at rest. or if upon the young trees, whose bark
is like an infant's skin, I should see
Leaving the alien hills the cruel palms
that have seen me before,
felt my need again: to harvest Should I not be possessed again by my fear?
Something else, some new grain My memories of another long-passed year?
unused by man ... Shall I have none, no one loved and dear
so I must down to the plain, and no one to despise?
to live as someone else a while,
to work hard, to sweat, to smile, And stop and know
to feel my palms blistered, not soft as before a weight bears down upon my eyes
(to smoke no more) know
I am come out from under the tall trees Christ stopped here.
inauspicious of memory
So leave this place

but I am still afraid:
I have seen no ghost, no familiar face
that smiled at my trouble, nor said,
Friend, you have been here before, and it is all
Vanity, vanity to imagine you suffer
for you must live again, and live
again
But I am afraid
For what if I go down to the plains
and they are bare, if there is
no green grass to remind me of my need,
no amber, and no seed -
But what if in the clouds there grows

a face - or in the water, clear water
38 39
The deserted temple
Chyavana
\ . Srt1Vl:1nabelagola
When the great sage immured his narrow law

Within the anthill, that his confined eye The god is gone. His cave is bare.
Might open inward, and stare upon the truth, In shadow from the sun
His sacrifice was vain; for he little thought The clotted bats hang from the roof.
That human innocence would interfere, Below, the scorpions run
The silly girl would poke the thorn within, And pious folk no longer come
Convert metaphor into fact, and show Lest evil should be done.
What he deemed illusion was really so.
Ruins of flowers on the floor
That was the test: to see if he would smile Bear imprints of his feet.
And thank the princess, and say, "Now this anthill They point through the door into
"Is quite unnecessary, and all my life The many-miraged heat.
''I'm freed of temptation"; and so grow wise His voice was heard. His fragrance kept
And the three worlds would shake to see the Man. This prisoned air once sweet.
But he, blind fool, only roared in rage
(Which quite tickled Fate) like an overgrown boy His voice was heard: It told his tribe
Whose toy's broken, and wants another's to keep. To leave this sun-cursed hill.
They went, and left his dwelling here.
So satisfied, the primal fancy curled They went; it was his will.
Within the actions of the living world Who piled these stones knows when he comes
Winked its broad eye, and went back to sleep. And where he stays until.
41
40
Something rich and strange
ToHST
\ .
He was past patience when he threw in his lot
Why do they always couple 'law' with 'order'? With the sea. He abandoned himself to the sweep
Who the hell are 'they', anyway? And swell of water, putting away the thought
That .this was permanent and could not be cured
Our progress must be with faltering steps: By any charm of his. He would endure
Entropic; its fruit, fruitlessness. What the neighbours said. Now there was only sleep.
Wave a hand and dissolve a window, His fingers rose and feli upon the tide,
Stretch a smile into its component parts, Weightless as his mind, and his legs suddenly twitched
As if they would feel the earth. He did not care
Each fragment a wholly pOintless grin For his body now - it too would be pitched
Breaking the glue of polite conversation. Loveless down, away from light. Now that his pride
Was committed, his flesh had little to bear.
Rip up the paving-stones with tender hands,

He lifted himself to see it all again,
Scatter the seeds of dragons; then retire
To seize the moment. It wasn't right. A lack
Of decision, even now - where was the pain,
Peacefully into some private hell Where the drama, the completeness? What had he missed?
Kept desolate by a troop of frustrated Boy Scouts. He was sad at last. His head settled back,
Marring the ceramic. The soap fell from his fist.
43
42
Mind the gap
Medical entry
\ .
Mind the gap. The seasons spoil and change
Arteriosclerosis: A condition of But the gap is to be minded. Not mended, mind,
The heart eventuated by too For each to each must forever be strange:
Much vanity, too little love Mind the gap. There, that's a splendid chap.
For what we have caused to produce Please mind the gap.
Us; Insecurity of a few
Glands; Valiant attempts to choose
We may look ahead or read The Daily Mail,
Between various failings, an
Effort to close in oneself the We may study the ads and even find
The perfect holiday; but on this tunnelled trail
Effortless secret of man.
We mind the gap. That's a splendid chap.
Please mind the gap.
Conditional upon the heart's own
Involuntary needs is
This condition, sometimes known Stiffly we sit. Our empires are within
As 'Hardening': Hard Times, Hard Cheese And must not touch each other. Behind,
Are like phrases. Consequently this In some holey station, musicians swing.
But we mind the gap. We are splendid chaps.
Entangles the faculties
In perceiving it as a tonic
For jaded life; After all the
Fact remains that death is chronic. We travel each to a peculiar end,
Ro ck with the rock, grind with metallic grind
And will not recognise enemy nor friend.
Prognosis: Grave. Certain medicines
Mind the gap. Yes, that's a splendid chap.
Have palliative effects which
Are salutary, reducing
Ante-mortem rigor mortis,
Ocular Jaundice (vide a Stitch I mind my business and watch the seasons mend.
In Time) and pain. Accidental
Kindnesses are performed by the
Dying, but life remains fatal.
45
44
2
Nila in flood time
Nila is a local name for the Bharatapuzha, which flows across north -cel1tral ' Slowly she rose above
Kerala to the Arabian Sea Lowly reef, spit and cove
Flowed to that one remove
Beneath the town
Mornings in late July
Stern in the steel-grey skies
Warnings of thunder cried Then broke the waters pent
Reminders of gain One stroke the pattern rent
Dark cloaked the firmament
The rain came down.
Looked at the hard earth which
Spoke of our dearth, and rich
Smoke curled over the bridge Rising to embrace us
Praying for rain. Twining through embrasures
Smiling she increases .
Giver of wealth -
Nila lay cold and stark
Silver though was her spark
Filament of the dark Winding where she pleases
Thread in the sun Minding no man -measures
Why should she displace us
But for our health.
River so kind and cool
Reliever of summer's rule
Swelling a mile each way
Giver when to our cruel
Felling the palms to lie
Loom she be spun.
Telling their tales to grey
Unmannered sky
Who shall applaud her now?
When in thrall this is how
Motionless in her sweep
The call of the arrow
Summons the bow: Ocean is not more deep
Chosen secrets to keep
Than this of eye.
In coil on coil the snake
Steels all her strength to make
Always without mistake
That one springing blow.
47
46
4
3
,.
Goddess or madness, this
Blood and bone cannot stand Glorious gladness is
Flood and famine at hand Tore from us anxieties
Rudely we understand Living a lie
The day is now
Storm and suddenness shook

One hour from the end Form from fate, eye from look
All ours may pretend Dormant the master woke
But powers of a friend o thus to die.
Have become foe .
Brown corpses rent across

How she batters the wall! Town, village counted loss
How she gathers her all Blown and battered alas
Howling the southwest falls We are still here
Upon a shore

That yesterday was ours Stealer of spoiled sons
That festival and flowers Deceiver, while she runs
And arrested lovers What should we fear.
Kept tame ever more.
Fever of sacrifice:
Lashing our flesh with cane Ever the victim vies
Smashing to mud again With the haruspices'
Cash and the hoarded grain Vision of time:
And our tall walls
Grey water running free
Believe, animals yet Straight to tomorrow's sea
Relive, or else forget Faith that I cannot keep
To scrive the alphabet Go, and keep mine.
At that one call.
49
48
\ .
II
Balance
To the Lord of the dance
,.
To you the falling flower turns
And asks for rest: Your petalled foot
Poised lightly on the mortal breast,
Smile on me, Lord, until it burns
Me to be here where freedom is,
Waiting upon a little wind
Between this life and that your death.
Eternity, infinity
Are fruits come of a yielding tree
Which listens to the laughing wind,
Imagining that it is free.
My pain is still the pain of years
That whisper through the living air:
We will be, although you fall.
Destroyer, dance, and let me be

One with the earth your stamping shakes;
A flower is a promise, all
Ignorant of the weight it takes;
Let me be earth, let me prepare
The guilty stem and grasping root
And let all that would pass me, go.
Let freedom go: Nothing remains,

Nothing is true till shadow's end,
Nothing I see except the shape
Ecstatic in the dance begun
To which the falling flower turns,
Asking, Thus?
while the wind maintains,
Alas my child, your dance is done.
53
Ilyushin
Spider
,.
But it was real, she said, I know I saw a plane
There is a season known only to spiders Cut through the silver clouds with a more silver flame;
Which falls usually between June and September Why do you lie to me so? Why so leave a stain
(Though in some places it comes as early as April) On all that is between us? - I said, but hear me -
When they all have licence to crawl out of their own
Accredited crannies, and spin webs where they like.
Oh, she said, you think that you will steer me
Out of my own opinions. Why do you fear me
This is a great offence to careful housewives When I tell truth? You saw, you were near me,
(Especially to those who are afraid of spiders) And I know what I saw - I said, but there is more -
- Suddenly to see a fat black bounty squatting
In a nook that was spotless an hour ago
You are so good at words, she said, you have in store
Is enough to give anybody the hiccups.
So many that make me look more stupid than before;
But that was no illusion, I saw it as it tore
There is a cure, however, as there is one Across the heavens - I said, let me explain -
For all ills except those which breed in the heart
- Wait for the round white eggs of the gecko to hatch,
And carry off the hatchlings, as many as you need,
And secrete one in each violated corner,
And no spider will spin again there that season.

I was taught this by a truthful friend who has since
Transmuted himself. He was so devoted to spiders
That he decided to do the irrevocable,
Some time ago, and the last I heard from him was
. Splatch!
55
54
De Maupussant's lover Lady with parrot
,. for Gowr.i
The smell of you

Is sometimes in my nostrils, and the warm Parrot
Corruption of your breath upon my cheek, sweet parrot
And the remembered shape of you sweet parrot in a cage
Will sometimes turn and tighten in my arms speak to me
And fill my sleep.
and I will give you honeyed milk
And tell of you to keep sweet your tongue:
What I may, how faithless you have been,
How cruel, how true
whisper one word to me.
Are ghosts that haunt my bed,
Your lips will only mock me with a smile
Or open in a death's-head grin; Moon,
And as I close them with a kiss, I seal horned moon,
A letter from exile. Lord of the horned moon,
Lord of the city of the horned moon
by the refulgent sea:
parrot,
sweet parrot,
sweet parrot in a cage,
whisper His name to me.
56 57
When suddenly the poems die
Bhima in the forest
,.
When suddenly the poems die
Of the flesh of the bull Away, when the pen lies bereft
And the flesh of the fowl Of striving hand, what use the day's
And the flesh of the blue deer Long words, of pretence what is l~ft?
I have eaten.
It is like waking from a dream
Of the blood Within a dream to find the night
Of the hare, and the blood Has just begun, and all that seemed
Of the ram, and the blood Substantial has still to be done.
Of the peacock I have drunk.
So, love, the dull days without you

Tell me, where is the snake Are full of something new to come -
To spoil me, where is the tiger The poems that I will make true
To tear me, for I am brother Were born in this interregnum.
In my body, to all beasts.
59
58
The nuns
The door
,,
The nuns are small and white and starch,
She shut the door because upon the other side
The nuns are tall and white and march
There was the voice of one for whom she once had cared:
Stiffly in their virgin shrouds.
She shut the door.
I do not know where they are from,
Where they will go and why they come,
"Open!" he cried, "for there are things that I must say But they always seem to know:
"Which you must hear - which will mean much to both of us - Eyes downcast and backbone straight,
"Open!" he cried. Stockinged feet and swaddled gait,
I wonder where they think they go.
Remembering how he had marched in thus before,
She turned away and stopped her ears to all his words, o ladies who have seen the light!
. Remembering. Sisters! I, a sybarite,
Would like to know where you are from,
"When I asked you whether one day you'd shut me out:' Where you will go and why you come,
He said with bitterness, "You replied with a kiss But your purpose frightens me.
"When I asked you!" I'm afraid you will make reply:
We go to heaven; so will you
If you have faith - what can I do
She wondered why the words we say to those we want
Who only know that I must die?
Sometimes resound in worlds where we have never lived
- She wondered why.
I will not ask. But sisters dear,
Whose purpose seems thus one and clear,
"You must have faith;' he said, "although to you our love
I - I'm only a little guy
''Appears to limp; with you I'm strong, you're strong with me
Who only knows that he must die;
"- You must have faith!"
I know my passions can't match yours,
For I weep at failing, yet
She opened all her mind to all that she had lived, Find comfort in a cigarette -
She summoned all the strength she'd had and turned the key, But - do you have no time to rest?
She opened all. Must you strive so to be blest?
He'd never been a man to whom her strength was new;

He'd never thought her precious all was hope enough;
He'd never been.
61
60
To have been written in Urdu
Once, within the Lord's chapel
I saw amidst the pealing bells \ .
A stone maiden with dreaming eyes, All the world, it seems, knows I like to drink:
Her arms so raised that as she blessed How few know how well I like to be sober.
She held what vastness to her breast
And stood there - I like-to touch darkness, sometimes, with steady fingers,
Sisters, if you will, Not bound it round with mists and bright fuzzy lights.
Stop! Dream that heaven where you'll rise,
Hold it in your inmost eyes
I like to hear my thoughts as they drop one by one
And stand a moment stony still.
On to a page, into a well, in a black brimless sea.
I do not always like to have to thresh around
To find the particular one that should feed at my breast.
I like sometimes to know that this is how to go,

Not reach a place for lack of other places to have gone.
I need, sometimes, to form a face which is a face,

Not a landscape of eyes and nose and mouth and eyeless gaze.
I like to look into the distance and see distances

And know that I will never know them as a familiar place:
Not find myself, when I want to be alone,
Surrounded by familiar places that have come from afar.
So many people seem to know that I like to drink

Whom I should never dream of informing that I was sober -
So why should I lie to them, as sober men do,

And insist they inhabit the world in which I live?
63
62
Mahasivaratri
Sakuntala
\ .
Crisply burning up the sky
Under the blue mountain, in the flowering cloud's shade Tails of fire come to try
Where the earth is soft to the press of a maiden's foot Domination. Lord with hair
By a little river which laughs as it were wine Aflame do you unlock your lair
Upon a grassy breast of earth that the first gods made And summon death made at creation
Listening to the leaves fashion the wind's flute For once for all end the nations
She stares across the glade and wonders what she'll find.
Watching seas of spirit burning
Carelessly tearing the jasmine that clings to her black hair In your cradle endless turning
Letting the fragrant fragments float upon the stream Whose end no earth can hold whose mouth
Or giving them to the wind in payment for his tune Shrieks forth always . an unquenched drought
Half-hearing whispered secrets which the tall jungle lords share Settle dear friend I seek a stern
Sensing that all is magic, prelude to birth, a dream Unwinking arbitration an end
She looks beyond the far hills and knows it will be soon.
The forest deer devour her with their large longing eyes.
A shape with black and tawny stripes stops a moment his pursuit.
Within the stream the gleaming fishes quiver once, silently.
The earth breathes deep and shivers in long delicious surprise.
All life is still, all life is here within her life, but mute
In that one breath she senses death and anticipates me.
65
64
To K, who said a poem ended weakly
Grown-up
,,
But that is how texts end, my dear,
When I was a child I'd sometimes lie at night
With neither bangs nor whimpers, but
Awake, and hear my parents talk in bed:
Some scarce indefinable fear
I could make little out of what they said
Which the next word might forget.
But I could tell, their stern surrations light
Today's events to rest. So comforted,
I'd fall asleep, wishing to be a man, So here it is I draw the line
To lie thus in the matrimonial bed, Beneath a trace of thought I thought:
To talk today away, and make a plan I knew this much, that this was mine,
For tomorrow. And ceased before it should be not.
But now that forty years
a
Have made me half man at least, my wife I say this because what I write
And I exchange good-nights, then fall asleep: Is, once written, become my friend,
It's surely not because we have no fears And what comes after may, despite
To cherish, or we know we have lived life Old friendship, seek another end.
One golden day; but that our clay will keep.
67
66
First Infinities: Hospital
First Infinities: Need
\ ,
The doctor's hand was asking what my liver

Desperate with knowledge, opened wide by drink, Meant to do. I thought behind the curtains of
How I've thrown my need about the houses This purpose of my birth, to lie and act
I've partied in; how tainting the responses. Like one soon to be a corpse. Wayside station
How crudely eager to be loved, and how Blues, city living blues, writer's cramp blues.
Vile next day, with Jflinging in my face
I had of countless bottles made a river
My sottishness, not allowing me to think, And discovered its source. Yet one more dropped its love
His poisoned tongue flickering, my vulgar vows Into my slow veins. The tiled walls did not in fact
To be good again. I took my chances Confine; they wrung from me definition
And paraded them; and now, And made me what I am. Tell me now what use
Put out to grass in an accustomed place
The pills, the fruit, nurse's disgusted eye
I count them one by one. To find a city Or glucose, or molasses. No life is short
Where I have not been foolish: Difficult lies That at its centre has this clarity.
And truths despicable in their fragility,
Both lack the charm of inadequacy.
69
68
Dvija
First Infinities: Drying Out
\ . to Achhan
For I asked myself, What is worth this pain?

And my spirit said: Do not think of Hell When
Or hope of Hereafter. Breathing this filth the dying hour of evening opens its eyes and sees
In a stale room, aching for the fire the lidless hour of night
To flow in you again - only believe this. and shudders, then is engendered, then is
this awe and this secret
this moment that trembles
Only ashes clog and clot my veins.
like dew upon the flower which has not yet opened
It is in another life that I was well
this myth
And time moves like the sea. I spew and spit calling the bats out of the violet light.
The yellow bile. My bones are torn entire.
They look at me and laugh. I am what is.
There are bells in the churches,
bells hang in the silence, they are spoken,
And what is this I am, in a rude day speaking of what may only be spoken in this dusk.
Bright with the flame of fever? Spirit replied,
I am the Truth, and the Life, and the Way.
The echoes of what may become
swell into the violet hour of my time.
I shut my lidless eyes and sit still.
Here
this is the expectation that follows an opening door
and of hesitant footsteps that wait outside my
door
In the distance
where the sky stands stills and considers us
you, you only
but here are the distant voices trooping out of

cinema halls, forcing the city
to flow into the gutters, the mudfaced houses,
here is the abrupt clap of a muted hand.
71
70
In one such hour from the nature of your needs, I forgot these
I turned my eye to the sky, and my ears ,. things I had known from another life
to the call swelling from the thin-pierced minaret and I spoke to her.
but in my spirit there was Woman, I said,
something else why do you weep? Is he not luckier than you are,
something unspoken, to escape this wheel? Will you not let him go,
left unsaid: deeds done, battles won and send with him something that you lived for?
love regained and conquered, the cycles of action
repeating themselves and left incomplete. But she wailed, and said,
Again, I turned my eyes he worked each day in the mill, and now
to where the violet light ebbed between the window bars there is no one to bring home the grain,
and looked for, waited for sneaking it past the guards in the folds of his cloth
my father's ghost, looked for, waited for, as he used to. I cannot forget
seated on my bed how I would scold him for his drunkenness,
his legs folded beneath him like the lotus and he would beat me; and later
and his hands shaped in a smile. when the moon was young and hot in the palm fronds
we would share the comfort of the earth
He did not question softly why I failed; and I would touch him, and hold his shoulder
instead, looked at my ashtray close, close to me
and asked me, so you have not yet stopped to smoke? and the stink of his breath was like honey.
But now he is gone.
I said,
I did not answer him. How could I answer him?
Woman, you are to be pitied. But think again.
He was a man, and lived, and now is dead.
He spoke to me he may not be remembered except with tears,
no secrets, but quietly paraphrased and tears will not preserve the traditions of your house.
my answers, so that I could not frame He is best forgotten .
. my questions; he said, Then
as I walked this way her eyes grew like stones
I saw a woman in her hovel and her tongue darted at me like a snake
mourning the death of her man. and she drove me thence with such words
Her hands like knives, as I had minded, had I not known her shame.
she clutched the sky to her breast, let it go
and rent the air with manic gestures.
He was silent
1be fierce scent of her clothes muddied the air
Except that the trees stirred outside
and made me, for a moment, think of what I had lost.
at the passing of the wind. He drummed
But as in the moment of your giving, you are divorced
72 73
by the water-covered steps. I was afraid
his fingers lightly on his knee (a gesture of their poison, and of the stories of my aunts
I remembered well) as a man will \ . who spoke sometimes in dreadful whispers
when he strives towards the past. of such flowers as these.
He said again, I did not try to gain the flower.
When I was young and of the old earth, Instead, I felt choked
the old house, I was of the earth as if by- some presence in the water
and the fields, and the birds that sang reaching out an old and wrinkled hand
each morning sang too within my heart. covered with moss. I did not stay, I fled.
And I would go each morning to the pool;
my feet knew the earth and the broken tiles
He laughed. The evening turned to night.
and yesterday's flowers; and the chill red sun
He spoke again.
would lie beneath the hills
Now, I can wish
and wait for the dark spirits within the banyan tree
that I had tried to reach my flower, I feel
to end their vigil.
I would dive there was more to it than I had guessed.
I fe el that things - oh, you know what I mean!
many times into the clear green water, and took no heed
- that it would have been different. Even had I drowned
of bruised shins and fingers. When the water closed
it would have been different.
over my head, I heard all the sounds of another world
I was not learned to formulate; and then
I would rise gasping from the water, the air The first moths of darkness
sounding in my ears like a bell; I would wonder flitted against the glass; surprised
what I had lost. to see no light where they had been accustomed to light,
One such time. they blundered for a while, and ceased.
I saw a flower in the crannied steps I was still, but my heart beat within my breast.
that led down into the water, steps made of moss
and the sharp stone beneath which held your toes My father,
and would not let go. the ghost that had been my father
I had never seen such a flower. spoke again, and his voice was like the wind.
I cannot properly describe it to you, for in the water Son, he said,
it was dark and absurd from above. I am not sure son, when my wife died, when your mother
even if it was a flower - but something died, I was possessed by a curious guilt.
there was about it - I had never I felt not grief for her passing - what I believe
seen such a flower. I believe, and you are not so young
It was too deep as not to know what made you.
to be reached with fingers, and too perilous No, I shed no tears for her dying:
to be dived for ; and there were water snakes I was not sad because she left me,
and tiny creatures with sharp mouths, down
75
74
and remember what I had seen.
I did not complain at her leaving me;
. With all my heart
these things are not needed. \ . I called it to me, and found sweet refuge
But I thought,
in its friendlessness, and called it mother.
we have never sat alone together I called the night to me, and I was alone.
and linked our fingers; we have not felt
with our eyes what we are to each other
nor looked as one at the evening outside
and thought what it means to us. Oh, all these things
have happened; we have loved
and we have lived together; but always there is
something
something that is denied us
that will not be
and if I had her here again with me -
just for a moment, one hour as a man -
But no,
even now it may be denied, and even now
I do not grieve that it has passed beyond me
For she is gone, she is not,
She has ceased to be.
She never was.
She cannot exist because she does not exist.
Perhaps you are not old enough to understand,
but it may be you are, and have felt
the need to remember, and the necessity
of oblivion. I do not regret her loss,
as you will not regret mine. It is better so.
And then
as the coarse-woven mattress pressed its soft
insistent imprint on my thighs, and the clock
dropped its exhausted noises as water
in a dry well,
the night outside
reached with casual fingers in
and reached into the room,
and kissed with indifferent lips my open eyes,
that I should not remember, that I should not see
77
76
=
Of all those works of lust and pain

You, Wystan Auden No mortal fragment can remain
\ . And all fhat foolishness is past
Now six feet beneath the air
The Nordic shape of skull is bare Yet our lives are still so vast. .. .
And behind the august frown
Worms have gorged on verb and noun .. .. And in th~t vastness since we speak
Strong words of love though we are weak
The baffling lines that seemed to trace He cannot know: something survives
Maps of care upon his face, The carrion bleaching of our lives.
Now nothing between brow and chin
But maggots have tunnelled in ....
And the hands whose fingers' -ends

Once touched the keys to common sense
And the truly careless wrist
(Which cherubs have often kissed)
Lie open now without pretence

That they enclose arguments
To shatter prison doors, or shake
The steps of wisdom on the make ....
The compassionate eyes that hate

Could not face and grew desperate,
Now bony voids where worlds once turned
.In agony at being burned ....
The heart that could some pity find

For every shape of human fiend
Now less than dust, because from thence
No spring of friendship does commence . ...
79
78
Half-life
ToDom
\ .
Half a lifetime ago
In the light of the day
We last met
I wished I was drunker:
And have swept our failings, since,
Heedless of the way,
Under the carpet.
Huddled in my bunker,
With rain on the roof,
A good book to hand, If we should meet again, now,
Some 85 proof Whom will you blame
And the hell with the land. For parting, or shall I play
The silly game
But now it is dark
And the song has been sung. Of trying to remember
The vision is stark Why we failed?
Of when I was young Your poems that I wrote then
And would dream of the lines Have not gone stale:
I was meant to write,
The complex designs,
Radium decays
All wise and all bright.
A bit at a time;
Your poems have burned away
You are to me now Line by half-line.
A god in excess.
I wonder at how
You're still able to bless. The words that smouldered then
If something to give Smoulder still
Is all the prayer, Where, half a lifetime ago,
Look at me and live, You wished them well.
Poet and sayer.
My liver is rotted,
Cancerous my tongue.
My thoughts are all clotted,
I am no lovger young.
But still I can make -
Because you give -
From deed and mistake
One reason to live.
81
80
A little better
,,
A little water trickled down a little pipe
Left leaning by the wall when the roofers
Had laid the guttering. It went along
The earth, asking until it was needed.
Now
There is a little green thing there, hardly
A plant, come of a seed which lay in wait,
And whether it has leaves or feathers or
Wings, I must wait to discover.
It is
Not a green I care for: not a green I use
In crayon, or in cloth: too rich, too loud
With treasure, too pleased with itself.
How
They'd laugh, the harvesters outside
In the fields damp with paddy, their fingers
Clutching goodness, if I showed them such a yield!
The land is rank with rice this year, the price
Is down.
And so this little greenling sits
In the sun, satisfied with itself,
Whatever it is.
Whatever it is,
It cannot make things as they are any worse,
And nobody is the poorer for its pleasure.
85
No fallacy is pathetic
Essay in capitalism
\ .
Above, the sentimental sky is matching colours.
Down, down the Shanty Road our bodies go
I know it well by now. Picking on someone below,
Bag in hand, searching for the choicest fish
If no human a dog then or a cow, the bent
Or potatoes, or melons - while we who know
Of a ruining wall, a bush with thorns and flowers,
There will never be so succulent a dish
A tree (Single for preference). Mood for mood
Again as that my smiling mother cooked

The sky changes: black for anger, dull brown
On Sunday afternoons - we sit inside the car,
With dust and thirst, a slow western crimson
Pale hands on the wheel, and if anyone looked
For the dying-out of passion, soft beddable blue
We would not be there. We are afar
In comfort and carelessness, or as now
Like the deep sea bringing back forgotten things.
Buying vegetables down the Shanty Road .
.. .And now if I should do like that bearded guy
It never can resist a touch of the dramatic,
Who rawhide whip in hand subdued the crowd,
Never be itself: no man can be miserable but
Lashing the corrupt flesh till it ceased to cry
It too must let fall two giant tears. The clouds
Serve perhaps to hide behind when it has to laugh.
"Four for eight!" or "Come here, I give you more!" - Blush, then, I think I touched a nerve that time.
- Then I would wait for signs among the fish
Telling me, Summon now anger from your store
Only at night can I bear to look at it,
And you'll be unselfconscious as you wish.
More or less inhuman, unfamiliar as the womb
- Although even then with assorted jewels it tries
Until then, pale hands upon the wheel To look as if it had a date. Whoever made it
I sit while my body goes forth to buy Thought it very important to condescend to us.
Leaving behind whatever makes me feel
The aches of beggars who affectedly sigh
About my windows. Now I let in the clutch

And leave the Shanty Road, and the beggars know
Although I am not immune to their touch
I am that beardless guy who makes the market go.
87
86
The fly in the ointment
Meeting a translator
\ ,
(on seeing a worm crawl out from my notebook)

We drove to the airport in a solitary rain,
Exchanging languages as competing fleets
Divided the sky. After I had checked in This maggot from among my poems poked its head,
We sat in the bar; we drank amicably, Its shiny head of bruised black, trembled stiffly,
We had an argument, and were friends once more. Hesitating as I hesitated
We shook hands when we parted. Later, when To plunge the penpoint in and rid my rhyme
The plane flew over the suburb where he lives Of this reminder of its predestined time.
He hurled my silence up to me again.
Do I know what insincere word I wrote
Caused this evil to hatch here, assuming
Property in the fabric of my thought?
Not exactly; but poets never can guess
What it is makes their magic to grow less.
The poetry's not only in the form:

I know some aberration of my mind
Has taken root here and produced this worm.
One sick neuron will lay the sordid curse
Of unsuccess on all my meagre verse.
But - I explain why I hesitate -

Should I kill this misbegotten creature if
It really does reflect my creative state?
Truth is beauty, just like the man said,
So I must preserve truth if I'm to be read.
Therefore I will research each youthful page,

Undoing my folly. Yet take comfort, for
This apparition's only in the larval stage
And if I work well, in my astonished eye
It will grow wings and appear a butterfly.
89
88
+
Making tea
Names
\ .
What a difference a pinch of tea-leaf makes
I don't believe in fancy names. Twinkling on the surface of the water,
Fancy names come close to touch
Bronzing it, burnishing it, turning it gold.
Yet slip away, and soon play games
With my medulla. I don't like them much,
And in the cup, a lake of such enchantment:
Merry at the edges, brimful with laughter,
But am forced to contend daily Wearing its meniscus like a crown.
With names skirting sanity's edge Goon,
Which then skip alongside gaily Drink it: There is nothing after this
Telling me Acceptance, that's our pledge. But a bitterness in the mouth.
Why should U2, iPod live? And in the cup,

Our language grasps for tenuous Some say, the pattern of your life is drawn
Moments where it can survive, If you have the nerve to turn it upside down.
Its clasp sensitive, but ingenuous.
What is it to make a name?

I catch as catch can, but insist
That every sense give to my gain.
Does Paris Hilton live? Must wilLi.am exist?
91
90
Making coffee
Pills
\ .
I measure decoction into a cup,
Some pills are sugar-coated.
Add milk and water, pour the whole into
And some are not.
A suitable cauldron, and place it
Some are encapsulated in gelatine
On the stove.
And some are not.
Some stoves are born to make trouble,
Those that are handed out
But this one clicks sweetly into flame.
For ailments of the mind, I have realised,
Are always au nature!.
Why must this be so? Now I can stand and look at greenness
Why cannot the pill-makers disguise them, too, Outside the window, now I can forget
Behind milk and honey? To forget, until it's time to turn down the flame.
Is it so that we, There is something in the making of coffee
Carrying our bitterness with us always That dulls the moral sense.
Like a mask behind a mask, should know I spoon in sugar
What it is to be unmasked - we should be told And sip that first sip against which it is vain
This is the bitter taste we give to a sweet world To argue.
And learn to sugar coat ourselves like the rest? Not strong enough.
I must add
Some instant powder, which I loathe, or spoon in
Some more decoction, which will make it cold.
This is not how the masters advocate

The making of coffee, but I have succeeded
In taking seven thinking minutes off my life.
93
92
~" ~-~~---------r----------
Lint Those blind from birth

\ ,
Those who sweep beneath beds know the smell of lint. Those blind from birth know they have eyes
It is something like musk, murmuring of age Because they do not know what darkness is
And wickedness: something less than ashes, more than dust, Different from the kingdom where they dwell,
Thinking that this is alL Those blind from birth
Lighter than the air which wafts above the bed, .
Can smell the redness of a rose, can hear
Yet heavy as that which weighs upon your head at mght
The muted silver of a flute, and touch
When you want sleep and it will not come.
Granite's own grey. Those blind from birth can feel
Lint is light
Pity in others like a black shroud pressed
Captured in windows, kept captive against the dark:
It is all of yesterday that we wished to forget,
Upon their eyes. Their eyes are inward-looking, so
Why should they know the pangs of earth's
Creeping silently back when we thought it was gone.
Each dawn, or mourn when doomed lives end?
Those blind from birth have sometimes their
Lint is power, wicked only in its weakness. Lock Own particular reason not to see:
It in cupboards and it triumphs; sweep it aside It is not a reason you or I require.
And it owns no master.
The smell of lint is thus
The smell of waking to the very ill, who need
No compassion, but it smothers them. Yet those
Who sweep beneath beds are also sometimes wise,
And they know enough to leave the lint alone.
95
94
-
Wet dream
These were my homes
\ .
Last night there were ghosts around my bed,
These were my homes then, though I did not know:
I didn't dream it. Today I saw their traces
The swell of the womb, and a mother's long breast
In the weave of the bedsheet near my head:
And the small peace of a children's house;
Tracks l.eading to unrecognised places,
The blankets of my bed, and the night's rest
Confused on purpose and seemingly lost.
Beneath, and then the waking to sweet air.
I did not follow them in sleep. Night has lost its fears,
And their call could not rouse me. They paused
These were my homes, though they did not know me: At my stillness, and went away.
The worn cool green of my father's lands, It's many years
Older than battle; the wars that won them; Since they last came. Did they recognise the child
The moments lingering, for each was planned Who hid from darkness because it was not in him?
And I only had to reach out to sweet air. I wonder. Now there's enough that is wild
Within me, their spells are powerless and dim.
Then these are the homes that I will know yet:
One book to live in, one honest page, This morning I watched my mother make the bed.
One face to meet at dawn and noon and night, She sniffed at the sheet. "Spirits" was all she said.
One storm to soothe, one oblivion, one stage,
One bed in which to breathe my last of air.
At last, the homes made on other roads:

But were these mine to know, mine to be told,
I should not tell lest they should become mine.
97
96
Summer triangle
On first looking into Whitman's humour
\ ,
You know, while I lie here in bed and write

A child said to me: What is grass? and I replied,
Far above my head the stars are playing out
It is a weed, not good for much; but if you
Their autumnal dance.
Pick some carefully, and dry it several days
In the sun; and you lovingly pack it
Into a ceremonial pipe - The rains are over
No, he interrupted, (They may have other plans) and yesterday
Not that grass! The green grass - do you perhaps From the terrace I caught a glimpse of Swan
Think it to be the uncut hair of graves? And Lyre and Eagle.
So I threw a book at him and went on smoking.
Such pure light was not
Invented just for us to rejoice by, I'm sure,
But we had been friends for many years.
So as I play with toys, with pen and book

In bed, in the stars' wakes drift to what strange ends
What strange bedfellows.
Almost, in the night,

They break their bounds and hover near. They range
The blackness, always searching, it seems now
In my own blackness, for what is over
And can be rewritten only in my book.
99
98
A gift of tongues
The rain is pouring down again
\ ,
If I were a young man, I should be a thief:

The rain is pouring down again, and all
I should steal from those possessed of gifts beyond belief.
The grass is overjoyed. Naturally it knows
Somewhere I'd find a simpler mind, somewhere a sharper pen,
Nothing of the jaws that clomp in half
I'd find th~ gifts I find I've lost between this now and then.
Its pride, the guileful steel that cuts
From one a livelier liver, from one unblackened lungs -
In two its prime. Why should it grow
But most of all, from where it fall, I'd filch the gift of tongues.
Thinking these thoughts? Its seeds scatter
Where its murderers will, and in small days
To come, will sprout again. All languages approach sages with familiar ease;
We who keep our heads My halting mouth they tiptoe to as if it bears disease.
And stunt our hopes, we also know something I grant myself a turn for scripts and signs and silly things
That grass has glimmerings of: Of suns gone But 0 the bird of many hues within me never sings.
Without goodbyes, of parched earth and wayward winds I can comment on many climes under their many suns
Which do not wait. But scarce six suns have ever shone 'neath which I made a pun.
And yet our proud roots clutch
At tenuous soil, that holds our lives together The land where I was born has tendered loving words to me:
And is willing to be divided at a touch. A score and more of wonders burn here between sea and sea.
What root to hold, what stem shall bear my inward-turning guile,
What branches wait for one whose wits will not be prehensile?
This language which I wage will take me all one life to learn:
One birth, one death, one betweenness, one piety to discern.
God grant me hope again; God grant a milder manner yet;

God grant I remember before I begin to forget;
God grant the wishes that I wished be unwished ere they fail;
God grant my soul may never be on envy's spear impaled;
God grant me expectation, long after I am young;
God grant me naught - except what's wrought with magic of the
tongues.
101
100
Neighbours The Corporate Poet
Brightne~s f~lls from the air.
\ . Queens have died young and fair.
Sunita Williams is in India now Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
And on a TV show they asked her if Nashe
She'd like to visit Mars.
Yeah, sure, she said.
Briefly his pen slithers among
The god of war is straying near the sun,
Pieces of language, sorting and emending,
Or I'd step out tonight and ask him if
Telling right from wrong.
He would like Ms Williams to visit him.
It is poetry that he's making -

Even a lady should ask a gentleman.
The highest art of all, transforming truths
From insistent dreams to his harsh waking.
Have we become such boors? Are all these worlds
There simply for our taking? Are we so bored
His ear tells the trueness of ideals and abstractions,
By life on earth? When Tereshkova
His voice is the voice of peoples, raised in hope,
Spent a day in space, it thrilled us more
Of Solemn Moments and Centenary Celebrations.
Than when Sun ita stayed up there six months.
Briefly his pen tells right from wrong,

Those glittering worlds, those gleaming, glittering worlds
Very briefly - he must finish by seven
Are so familiar, we think of them
And turn then to refining the words of a song
As just across the street.
Our Father's house
Has its many mansions, and there surely For a Bombay film. His Ongoing Venture
We shall live as neighbours are meant to do: (To be declaimed in London at the Festival of India)
Windows will need no curtains, doors no locks Must delay his new book, which is critical of Culture;
And we no questions.
Star requires of star Impatient with these trivialities, he cannot devise
Nothing but being: In some world to come A new rhyme for 'pyaar'; Art, unfortunately,
Each house shall be only the threshold of the next. Is subject to the restrictions on private enterprise
But he plans to attack this in a speech he will deliver

At the capital's Literary Festival next week
Which will make the Ministry's mandarins quiver -
103
102
Quoting from Foucault, he will demonstrate
A town like Ali's
How Poetry may prosper on Government funds ,,
And uphold the example of the Soviet State ... It is a town somewhat like Ali's, the railway runs as ever
By dirty backsides of palaces, where the poor folk shiver
Meanwhile, there's the sher to be written still Early mornings in the winter, perched atop the gutters
For Hindustan Steel: It will be preserved in marble Losing Oll what little's entered, and the red flags flutter
At the theatre complex they propose to build - Atop their shacks, old tin and sacks, their incurious gazes
Seeing wheels turn within wheels, and not passengers' faces.
Oh, if he can only find the time!
Tonight in bed he will Free Associate In this town which is like Ali's, the cinema houses brightly
For five or ten minutes; out of one meaningful rhyme Flicker neon, swallow, release mortality nightly.
Bodies come and bodies go, the streetlamps count the traffic;
He will fashion a poem short, clever, pithy When Ali wakes from dreams he knows a vision most fantastic:
For tomorrow's meeting with fifty college girls Each night after tears and laughter, with concrete heart and loins
Who'll find him remarkably urbane and witty. The city bears more concrete lairs, and each to each it joins.
If FA fails there's always the oration Ali's moved from town to town, each the other's mirror:
On Language as an Ethic, from the Akademi's fete : What cannot go up must go down, and falling has its terrors.
He can render that without preparation. He knows the old temples and mosques, where sometimes from danger
He creeps to hide, and never asks the ineffable stranger
To whom they pray 0 every day, what cities lie before him,
What anxious trade his parents made, what boxes wait to store him.
When Ali was a little boy, his town fit snug around him;
Now strange perils and stranger joys have taken it beyond him.
On the pavements, in the sewers, he smells the smell of money:
The notes are only gay deceivers, the coins stick like honey.
He lives between mighty and mean, kings' avenues and galis,
And everywhere there is a snare which is a town like Ali's.
105
104
~~------~~~~~~~----------------------------------------~------------------------------------------------------------~
Shame and renown

The first line is from Hafiz \ .
If you call me shamed, then shame is my renown

Which winds its web around the deaths of kings
But, blind to other earthly happenings,
Ignores him destined not for gibbet nor crown.
Thieves rejoice in their fingers, women who
Live by pleasing men (as most women do)
Pride themselves on false shame, and merchants still
Win more renown the more they pad the bill.
Poets sell their words, and their own worth
Is measured not in hearts bought but copies sold.
Then why should accident of breed or birth
Prevent my doing what was not foretold?
Shame cannot speak unless it cheats the frown
The world wears, with the gaudy robe renown .
106
Hell, or a state very much li ke it, does feature in Nambisan's poetic underworld,
which is deep, intricate and enticing. But its attendant horrors are never indulged
t?
in for their own sake and are kept well in check by a certain wit, a muscularity of
mind, which remind me of a simil~r grace in poets as fa r distant in time from
each other as Robert Graves and John Don ne.
- From the Preface by Adil Jussawalla 'TJ
H
~
Nambisan's view of humankind is bleak, his view of t he possibilities of poetry C/l
>-l
even bleaker. The gods are lonely and turned away by "the mobs . .. at every
H
border", and no amount of poetry can breathe Iife into a dying city. We have art so Z
that we may not perish by the truth , Nietzsche says, and Namb isan's art is of the 'TJ
H
highest order, a reminder of what English-language poetry in India can do when Z
H
the lan guage is handled with skill and passion by someone who is so clearly in
>-l
love with it, in all its moods, from sombre to playful, from dark to light. Th is love H
tT:1
is on display in everY page of First Infin ities, whose every li ne is worthyofhis great f/l
precursors -''Arun and Dom and Nissim"-whom Nambisan so lovingly invokes
in the book's opening poem. <
I E S ,
-Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
-<
z
Vijay Nam bisan's sensuous, intelligent, and often unsettling poems are parables
for the time we live in now, without in any way being portentous or just topical. ~
OJ
Nambisan appears to achieve his mix of the reporter's sense of be in g present IJ)
at an im portant event or moment with the artist's refracted relationship with
meani ng through his preoccupation with formal design and mythic allusion. In z
poems such as 'Millennium', whose ''There was not much light in the world when
we left" reworks Nissim Ezekiel's credo 'Enterprise' ("It started as a pilgrimage"),
Nambisan, half a century later, seems to extend and interrogate. while doggedly
contin uin g with. the curious business of Indian poetry in English itself.
-AmitChaudhuri
.. I I
..
ISBN 978 -93-82749-14-1
VIJAY NAMBISAN
11 1111111111111111111111
9 789382 749141 >
An imprint of Paperwall Media & Publishing Pvt. Ltd. ~25 0 10 $12
!)J/li }I
,. PENGUIN @CLASSICS
TWO MEASURES OF BHAKTI
PUNTANAM NAMPUTliu (1547-1640) wrote in Malayalam in an age when

the vernacular was not esteemed, because he had little Sanskrit
scholarship. The place of his fnana-paana, composed c 1590, in the
Malayali consciousness cannot be overstated. His other noted works
are Srikrishna-karnamrutam and Santana-gopalam.
MELPATTUR NARAYANA BHATTATIRIPPAD (c 1560-c 1645) mastered Sanskrit

when very young and was the pre-eminent Kerala poet of his era.
According to contemporaries, he was cursed for his arrogance with
arthritis. His masterpiece, Narayaniyam, was composed in expiation
in c 1587 and recounts the life of Krishna and the other avataras of
Vishnu.
VALLATHOL NARAYANA MENON (1~78-1958), Kerala's greatest poet and

most influential cultural personality of the last hundred years, is one of
the trinity who brought modernism to Malayalam poetry. He founded
the Kerala Kalamandalam, which brought about the renaissance of
Kathakali and other performing arts.
VIJAY NAMBISAN has worked and written for journals in many parts of
India. His poems (in English) have been widely published. His books in
Penguin include the journalistic Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder
(2000) and the essay Language as an Ethic (2003). This is his first
published translation.
I\JAI
\ . I
I
TWO MEASURES
OF BHAI(TI
Puntanam Namputiri
Melpattur Narayana Bhattatirippad
With a linking poem by

Vallathol Narayana Menon
Translated by
VIJAY NAMBISAN
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City,
Gurgaon 122 002, Haryana, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA ,, To his parents
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Sri Kavil Narayanan Narayanan Nambisan
M4P 2Y3, Canada
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England and
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin
Books Ltd)
Srimati Perandoor Narayanan Bhanumathi Nambisan
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008 , Australia these translations are dedicated
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan with respect and affection
Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesbutg 2193, South Africa by their occasiohally dutiful son
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Vijay
First published by Penguin Books India 2009
Text and translation copyright Vijay Nambisan 2009
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
ISBN 9780143 064480
For sale in the Indian Subcontinent and Singapore only
Typeset in Sabon by Eleven Arts, New Delhi

Printed at Repro knowledgecast Limited, Thane
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under
copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without
the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned
publisher of this book.
A PENGUIN RANDOM HOU SE COMPANY

(IDm)(ml~ nJC1>mJ~ dhO~J(}JO
63(Tl)J~tZl mC1>mJnJOCQ)tZl'CfOJC1>
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(}J(Tl)J ~nJOo nJl\9CQ)2 tZlc8CIDO CfOffi:,CQ)Oam
dh2tZlOC1>mOCfOO, 'm~lml'
God did not give us the means to show others the insides of our
minds. Today in this world, alas, language is imperfect, and we
make mistakes because we do not understand.
Kumaran Asan, Nalini (1911)
The politics of translation lies not only in who translates which

text for whom and for what purpose, but also in the reception
of these books, because readership is determined by the position
the source language occupies in the real or imaginary mental
landscape of the potential reader.
Meenakshi Mukherjee, Elusive Terrain (2008)
Vll
\ .
Contents
Translator's Apology 1
1. The jnaI1a-paana 49
Puntanam Namputiri
2. Kesadipadavarnanam 67
Melpattur Narayana Bhattatirippad
3. Bhaktiyum Vibhaktiyum 77
Val/athol Narayana Menon
Notes 87
IX
"._-
\ .
Translator's Apology
Any audience whatever is sufficient for one who has been

too long silent. On the day that the rhetorician Gyrnnastoras
came out of prison, full of suppressed dilemmas and
syllogisms, he stopped before the first tree he met with,
harangued it, and put forth very great efforts to convince it.
Les Miserables
T his translator's apology is on two counts: of language and

of belief. First, I must admit I have never studied Malayalam
formally. My parents made me literate when I was very young,
but those rudiments were soon overlaid by the English and Hindi
which were my first and second languages at school. I was a
marunddan Malayali-an out-of-towner, as they say in Kerala-
and had never lived for more than two months at a time in my
home state until 1998. Since then I have attempted to understand
the language, and its structure, better.
Yet Malayalam is a highly diglossallanguage, much more so
than any of its northern sisters. The farther south you go in
India, I think, the further apart grow the written and spoken
1
TRANSLATOR'S APOLOGY
TRAN SLA T OR'S APOLOGY
languages. In Tamil and Malayalam, to be literate is not the My second, apology is on the grounds of faith. These are
\ ,
same thing as to be educated. I can barely comprehend the poems of Bhakti I have translated, with my father's aid. I am
newspapers, and most literary texts are closed books to me. I not a bhakta. I think the Bhakti philosophy as applied- second
have to be content with what I have, lacking the plastic brain of only to the caste system- is the bane of Indian society today.
a Max Mi.iller. In any case, it will take me all this present lifetime Bhakti once .meant doing without priests and rituals. Diiip
to attain to some mastery over English. Chitre writes in his Notes to Says Tuka, his selected translations
I do not really know Sanskrit either. It was my third language from Tukaram:
in school, but there a sastrikal taught it by rote and repetition
rather than by reason. I still regret it much that I had not a ... Bhakti for the Varkaris is a direct relationship with
better teacher. It was not until well past the age of indiscretion Pandurang without any mediation . ... It is obvious that
that I learned to follow Sanskrit to its spring, and follow also all the devotees experience their God in a human form and
the Indo-European languages to that same source. conceive their relationship with him and their own
I am therefore indebted to my parents for whatever virtues relationship with one another as a 'family' or 'community'
there are in these translations. There was no television, of course, bond in this-worldly terms. For them an act of worship is
when they were children. Their entertainment of an evening was a reward in itself: It is an experience df God here and
rooted in their own culture. Their evenings were spent in the now, making the 'other world' irrelevant or redundant.
ummaram-the veranda-reciting verses, or hearing stories told;
by their elders. Though they have not lived in Ketala for half a This expresses very well an experience and a bond I have
century now, the Kerala culture was so deeply absorbed that never quite been capable of. In the modern context, it seems to
English, and Delhi and Bombay, and Tamil Nadu and Bangalore, me, Bhakti means an unreasoning and uncritical faith, however
and television, are only a veneer-thick, but yet a veneer. And profound. Tukaram <lnd the other Bhakti poets were rarely
though the culture of their childhood was wholly Malayali, its uncritical and never unreasoning.
languages were equally Malayalam and Sanskrit, so intertwined The Bhakti Movement- or movements, for they occurred
that they could not then have told one from the other. at different times and took different shapes in various parts of
That has been my great disadvantage: Born and brought up India-transformed our cultures: our literatures, our musical
outside Kerala, and educated in an English-medium school, I forms, our very languages. They succeeded because they asked
could not discover my love for my mother's tongue or for pertinent and necessary questions. Are those questions being
philology at all until it was too late for formal learning. My first asked today? Can they be?
language is English and will remain so. In the first of his Father Brown stories, 'The Blue Cross',
2
3
,.-.-
TR ANS LATOR 'S A POLOGY

They knou; they will be redeemed, because they have

G.K. Chesterton has his Roman Catholic priest-detective unmask \ .
the criminal-who has been masquerading as a priest-with the' performed their puja and taken God's name. If they do enough
words, '[He] attacked reason. It's bad theology.' The necessary for their caste, their community, politicians will be re-elected.
end of unreasoning faith is fanaticism, and that is where our And while doing that, if they make enough money on the side
that their next seven generations may thrive, they are only doing
reductions of Bhakti have brought us.
To some extent, perhaps, faith over reason was needed in their duty. That is Bhakti as it is practised in India.
the eighth century CE for the revival of the Vedic religion. But it (As I write this-not in my own home-there is a poster above
was not the Vedic religion that was revived. It was very different, me on the wall. It is of three lapdogs on a lawn: Papa Pomeranian,
a softer acceptance of things as they are and cannot be changed Mama Pomeranian and Ickle Pomeranian. The slogan above
in this world. Iravati Karve says in one of her essays in Yuganta, them says, 'The family is more sacred than the state.' Indeed.)
That is also the story of Ajamila in the Bhagavata Purat:ta
which I am never tired of quoting:
(popularly known in Kerala, and henceforth referred to, as the
After the Mahabharata period why did all literature Bhagavatam). Ajamila was a miserable, cowardly rake who never
become so soggy with sentiment? The ancients daily did a good deed after his early youth. On his deathbed, though,
prayed to the Sun, 'Keep our intellect always on the go he happened to utter the name 'Narayal).a', which was his
favo~rite son's. Because it is also the Lord's name, he went to
like a horse whipped by the master.' How could the
descendants of these very people be content to hand over I
Heaven without being judged by Yama. This story is told
their thinking powers into the keeping of a guru? approvingly, as a proof of the power of Bhakti. With Ajamila as
a role model, how can our countrymen do otherwise?
The philosophy which had as its basic premise an interrogation All this off my mind, how can I yet be interested in translating
of the status quo was itself, over the centuries, co-opted by the Bhakti poems? These two works, the Jiiana -paana and the
status quo. So, now, the corruption at the heart of the Indian Narayat:ttyam, are familiar to practically every Malayali. I would
polity has its roots in Bhakti. Our politicians may loot and have said 'every' if I were writing this in 1990. The last fifteen
murder with a clear conscience, because they perform a puja years have changed the cultural climate. Yet no one brought
mornirig and evening. If they do their duty to God, they owe up in Kerala can escape the late P. Leela's piercingly sweet
none to their fellow citizen. And it is so all down the line, through rendition of the dasaka (decade) from Narayaniyam that I have
the industrialists, the officers in the armed forces, the big attempted to translate, or Jnana-paana in the same voice. No
landowner, the small farmer, down to the petty trader in his tourist can, either, because they fill the sky above every temple
at dawn and dusk.
petty shop.
5
4
TRANSLATOR'S I\ P OL O GY
I learned the dasaka from my father when I was a child. He \ . all, much of the boundary between the two territories is marked
would recite it sometimes at my bedtime, or when I was ill, and' by high hills with few passes, and once an independent political
explicate it too, but I do not remember understanding it then. I power established itself in Kerala the cultural differences became
first listened to Jnana-paana in 1992, at my sister's wedding. I asked more pronounced.
what it was, and was wonderstruck to hear it had been written Between th@ ninth and twelfth centuries, a curious new
four hundred years earlier. It was still so fresh, so contemporary. literary language developed in Kerala. Called MaI!iprava!am,
It talked of things happening in our world, not someone else's. it was, very roughly, half Tamil and half Sanskrit. The earliest
It communicated. It spoke to me. I wanted to put some of that Kerala literature which was not Tamil was composed in
wonder into English, so my peers could read it. It has nothing Manipravalam, and it continued to evolve. Perhaps this was
new to say philosophically, maybe, but old Puntanam's voice still for political reasons. Through most of the eleventh century,
rings as if he had said these things yesterday. How far I have the Cola empire which was the dominant force in the Tamil
succeeded in conveying that contemporaneity is for you to judge. country was at war with the Ceras or Kulasekharas in the west.
Melpattur's Narayaniyam is of a different order. He was a The war ravaged Kerala; the whole economy and society were
classical scholar and probably dreamed in Sanskrit verse. There geared for armed cpnflict. At the end of the century, by processes
is no chance at all of my conveying the majesty, the gambhtryam, which are not quite cleqr, the Namputiris held the balance of
the style and purity, of his language. I have tried to do so mainly cultural power in Kerala.
as a contrast to Puntanam. A note on the writers is due, but let The Namputiris (pronounced and usually spelleq, as a
me prefix that with a note on their languages. surname, Namboodiri) are generally supposed to be the Aryan
brahmins who settled in Kerala (but see Notes), probably well
Tamizh and Samskrtarn before the Christian era began. According to legend, St Thomas's
earliest converts were the members of one hundred (or four
Until well after the CaI)kam or Sangam era (up to about 400 hundred) Namputiri families. That was in the first century, and
eEl, what is now Kerala was a part of Tamizhakam-the Tamil the descendants of that cOQgregation are what came to be called
country-culturally even when not politically. Many literary the Syrian Christians.
works which are part of classical Tamil literature were composed At the begirining of the twelfth century, the Chera empire
by writers from this western region. The Tamil masterpiece was fragmented; but the kingdoms of Kerala were also free
Silappatikaram is said to have been written by a Kerala prince, forever of Tamil suzerainty. However, the society and economy
IlaI)ko-Atikal, but its date as a Sangam work is disputed. The were drastically' altered. The janmi system of landowning was
Tamil spoken in Kerala slowly evolved into a distinct form. After in force, and the Namputiris were the biggest landowners in the
6 7
TRANSLATOR 'S APOLO G Y TRANSLATOR'S APO LO GY
country. (They remained so in Travancore until a strong king, \. Kerala. It wa~ with good reason that Vivekananda referred to
M artaI).c;ia Varma, centralized power in the second half of the the province as a veritable madhouse of castes.
eighteenth century, and in the rest of Kerala until the redistribution The brahmins of Tamizhakam-the Iyengars and Iyers-
of land in the late 1950s by a communist government headed by have had a profound influence on Tamil culture, but relatively
a Namputiri, E.M.S. Namboodiripad.) little upon th~ language. Perhaps this is because Tamil was
The Namputiris were the arbiters of all moral and a fully formed literary and popular language even before the
religious-and often political-issues. Among non-brahmins, brahmins came so far south. In Kerala, however, the rise
marumakkattayam, or the system of inheritance by the sister's of bra,hmin power coincided with the development of an
son, was the dominant social dynamic. The Namputiris remained indigenous language. Hence, perhaps, the high proportion of
patrilineal, that is, the eldest son inherited from the father. Sanskrit words in Malayalam.
To avoid the partition of their extensive estates, the younger Its Tamil antecedents are very clear from its structure, its
sons were not encouraged to marry in their own caste. Instead, inflections and from many thousands of roots. Some appear to
they formed the custom of sambandham, or non-matrimonial have disappeared, in popular usage, from the mother language.
conjugal alliances, with the matrilineal high castes, especially (Some, bewilderingly, which are in current use in Tamil are
the Nayars (usually nowadays spelled Nair). Their children were archaisms in Malayalam.) The script too-the old vattezhuttu or
brought up in the Nayar households. There was no stigma round-letter script was early discarded in favour of the Grantha
attached to this practice, which continued until the uniform used in south India for writing Sanskrit-has distinct similarities
Hindu Civil Code was enacted fifty years ago. In principle, the with the Tamil. But the vocabulary is highly Sanskritized, so
Nayar woman had perfect freedom to agree to a sambandham, much so that, even today, practically any Sanskrit word may be
and to dissolve it when she chose. The father of her child had used in the literary language.
visiting rights, often spending every night with her. Thus the Until well into the eighteenth century, Sanskrit was the
Namputiris were connected to and had influence over the court language of the largest Kerala kingdoms, Travancore
ruling clans. (Tiruvitankuzh) and Cochin (Kocci) . The late O.v. Vijayan has
The varI).a or caste system, of which Tamizhakam had as a said that he only really became proficient in Malayalam in his
whole been relatively free (see below, 'Gaccha, Gaccha' ), was twenties, in college. As a result his written Malayalam has a
enforced by the Namputiris' dominance. The coexistence of highly Sanskritic flavour, which lends to it that complexity, or
patrilineal and matrilineal systems, and the alliances which that quirkiness, which makes it so highly acclaimed by those
continued to be formed across the varna divide, led to a who read it in translation and such a whetstone for the wits of
bewildering proliferation of castes and sub-castes in late medieval native speakers.
8 9
TRA NS LATOR 'S A POL OGY
TRANSLATOR 'S A POLOGY
There is a small but appreciable fraction of Malayalam words Puntanam and Melpattur
that canriot be traced to either Tamil or Sanskrit. It is of course \ . Vasco da Gama landed in north Kerala in 1498, and the next
probable that some are indigenous, but modern research indicates century and a half in Kerala history is called the Portuguese
that many derive from the Jain Pralqts. Sravanabelagola in Hassan period. It was a traumatic time. Kerala had not been politically
district of Karnataka is not very far from the Kerala border, and united since the fall of the Kulasekharas four centuries earlier,
the emperor Chandragupta Maurya followed his preceptor, the and now it was never to be. The Zamorin (originally Samudri
Jain saint Bhadrabahu, to ritually starve himself to death there Raja, or Lord of the Sea) of Calicut (Kozhikkode) had been
in the late fourth century BCE. The Jains travelled all over south consolidating power in his hands, but the advent of the Portuguese
India searching for retreats, and incidentally making converts. with their cannons and muskets- arid their religion- upset the
It is well established that many currently Hindu temples in Kerala balance. Within a century, again, the economy and society of
were once Jain or Buddhist shrines, and the same has been shown Kerala changed out of all recognition.
of the Tamil country. For one thing, the Portuguese disturbed the even communal
Malayalam is one of the youngest Indian literatures. Yet it is tenor of Kerala. They persecuted not only the Jews- who had
about twice as ancient as the earliest readily comprehensi~le been settled here perhaps since the fall of the Second Temple in
form of English. Puntanam was born seventeen years before Jerusalem in 68 CE- but also the Christians of the Syriac rite,
Shakespeare. His texts are easier of access to the lay Malayali seeking to impose the spiritual control of the Pope of Rome. To
than Shakespeare is to the lay Englishman. the Muslims of course they gave no quarter. They disrupted the
To say this is not to beat the patriotic drum. (See Notes on centuries-old trade with Arabia and Africa: Henceforth the spices
Prakrits for the relative conservatism of south Indians languages. ) of Kerala would go to Europe. The Portuguese also encouraged
I have had more vitriol flung in my face than any of my p~ers civilian strife in the country. They reduced the Zamorin to a
who writes in English, for my insistence that English is an Indian vassal, broke his sea power, and propped up petty kings.
language. I am placing sixteenth-cen!tuy Kerala literature in In hindsight, though, the Portuguese made one valuable
context, in so far as my limited scholarship allows. Puntanam's contribution: They broke the back of the caste system. The lower
scholarship was limited too. In his very simplicity, it can be castes were motivated to convert to Christianity, and education
argued, lies his enduring appeal. (Shakespeare was no scholar and wealth could no longer be the prerogatives of the privileged.
either: He had 'little Latin, and less Greek'. There is a subaltern Ketala society was forced to grow up and face a new world that
triumph here which I am too poor a scholar to crow over was as treacherous as it was brave, and Malayalam perforce
successfully. ) grew up with it:
10 11
\ TRA NS L A TOR 'S A P O L OG Y
There are no clear dates available for the life of Tunchatt \ . Piintanam N ampiitiri (referred to in this book as Puntanam)
Ramanujan Ezhuttacchan (commonly Ezhuthachan), but heis was bo m in 1547 of this era. Melpattiir NarayaI).a Bhagatirippa<;i
believed to have flourished between 1575 and 1625. He is called (Melpattur in this book) was born some twelve years later,
the father of modern Malayalam, for he liberated it at last from possibly in 1560. The fact of their being contemporaries- and
both Tamil and Sanskrit, and set standards of composition and contemporaries. of Ezhuthachan, at that- gives a delightfully
of writerly character which defined its growth. piquant touch to their coming together in these pages, which I
Ezhuthachan was from a low-caste Nayar family, but he will be at some pains to elaborate upon.
mastered both the Sanskrit sastras and the Tamil classics when a Though both were Namputiris- Aryan brahmins, as generally
youth. He set up a school in his village that all children could attend. though perhaps mistakenly considered- their careers were as
All this would have been impossible a century earlier, before the different as may be imagined. Sanskrit learning was a necessity
Portuguese arrived. He also gave Malayalam literature its most to the Namputiris until well into the last century. However,
enduring and best-loved translations (transcreations, really, and Puntanam was a dud. He never could attain to scholarship. That
of as much literary value as Tulsidas's or Kamban's works ) of is why he wrote in Malayalam.
Ramayana and Mahabharata, and revived the Bhakti tradition. But what Puntanam lacked in Sanskrit, his junior Melpattur
Dr K. Ayyappa Panikkar has summed up his contribution: gloriously made up for. He was exceptional even in an age- in a
sequence of many ages- when privilege threw up prodigies by
With his absolute sincerity, his adept skill in the use of the score. The Aitihyamala, a compilation of Kerala legends,
language, his total dedication to poetry and religion, his histories and folklore made in Malayalam a century ago (recounted
disarming humility, Ezhuthachan was able to create and in part by Abraham Eraly as Tales Once Told, Penguin, 2006),
establish once and for all a language, a culture and a people. gives many proofs of Melpattur's mastery of all forms of Sanskrit
In later times, whenever there was a deviation or distortion scholarship and, what is rarer, composition.
in the cultural trend, the return to the central native tradition Melpattur did not care for the vulgar tongue. His joy was
was facilitated by a true recognition and fresh realisation the full bloom of Sanskrit verse, of that purity and all too often
of what Ezhuthachan had done and stood for. He is thus many-meaninged intricacy which it would still daunt modern
a magnificent symbol, our greatest cultural monument. scholars to parse, and will never admit of an equal. His masterwork
is Narayaniyam, one hundred dasakas or decades which tell
What would be exaggeration in many another context is plain Krishna's life and, in brief, the story of each of Vishnu's avataras.
unvarnished fact here. Ezhuthachan's birthplace and samadhi It has been called the concise Bhagavatam (Melpattur is said to
in Tirur, in Kozhikode district, are still hallowed ground. have known the Bhagavatam by heart), but as a work of poetry
12 13
\ T RAN SLATO R' S APO LOGY
it soars above anything written since Jayadeva. It is the last great, , That's a misp;int-it is a mere 67 million and odd, Melpattur
hurrah of classical Sanskrit. . must have commonly used some fifty or sixty vrttams, all of
Very often, in post-classical Sanskrit, writers contented them with consummate ease.
themselves with delightful sounds, letting the sense take care M elpattur paid, though, for his mastery. Rather, he paid for
of itself. In a way that was Kalidasa's fault. He used the language his arrogance, f.or contemporary accounts leave no doubt that
so marvellously that his successors were driven to imitate his genius made him proud. Whatever the reason, he was stricken
him, and that was not an easy thing to do. They mistook the in his twenties by a disease that seems to have been a rare form
form for the marvel itself, and tied themselves up in tropes of arthritis. His peers were sure he had been punished for his
pride. He was never to be free from the malady,
and alliteration,
It needs a really remarkable mind to rise above that kind of For one hundred days and one hundred nights, it is said, in
thing, Sankara had one, but he was not into literary composition. his twenty-seventq year, Melpattur prayed and did penance at
The post-classical literary works which have survived qnd retained the great temple of Guruvayiir. During that time he composed
thei r health- Bal)a's Har~acarita, Kalhana's Rajatararygi1J i , l1inety-nine dasakas of his great work, and on the one-hundredth
Jai adeva's GUa-Govinda-were written by strong-headed night he was rewarded by the visvarupa , or vision of the cosmic
ch.uacters who refused to be swayed by their own sweet music. form of Krishna. This he described, in unparalleled Sanskrit, in
Melpattur's Narayaniyam belongs to this category. his one-hundredth dasaka, which is the one that appears here in
'There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,' tral1slation. According to tradition, this towering act of Bhakti-
sang Kipling. There are many, many more in Sanskrit. The and perhaps of catharsis-freed him of his ailment.
Sanskrit vrttam, or metre, is a wonderful thing. Apte's dictionary But not for ever. Puntanam had not been idle in these years.
of the 1890s gives, in an appendix, several different vrttams of Denied the heights of the Aryan tongue, and therefore the acclaim
each count from four to twenty-seven syllables per line. Apte of his peers, he poured out his Bhakti in his country's language.
H e composed a few long poems in Malayalam: notably Srlkr~1Ja
writes-merely to illustrate:
Kar1Jam rtam and Santanagopalam. Perhaps they would not be
, .. in the class where each quarter [of a quatrain] contains so well known today were it not for his Jnana-paana. Jnana-
six syllables, each of the six syllables may be either short paana is not only his masterpiece but, for another reason as
or long, and thus the number of possible combinations is well, a foundation stone of Malayalam literature,
... 26 = 64, though not even half a dozen are in general The story is a good one, and beloved in M alayalam folklore .
use; so in the case of the twenty six syllabled class, the Puntanam and ' Melpattur were both Krishna-bhaktas, and
possible variations are 2 26 or 87,108,864! habitues of the Krishna temple at Guruvayur. (Guruvayur's pre-
14 15
TRANSLATOR 'S APOLOGY TRA NSLAT OR 'S A P O LOGY
eminence among Kerala's holy places dates from their time and, , Kerala Ka la~a ridalam and thus directed the renaissance of
owes much to their works, but see Notes.) Puntanam and Kathaka li, Mohiniattam and other performing arts. He is
Melpattur, naturally, knew each other. Melpattur though younger the most influential cultural figure in Kerala since Ezhuthachan,
was universally considered the greater poet. One day, it must not discounting even such royal artists and Maecenases as
have been in about 1590, Puntanam humbly approached the Svati Tirunal. .
Sanskrit poet and requested him to listen to the Malayalam work It will be pointed out that the poems of neither Puntanam
which he had just completed. Melpattur scorned all who wrote nor M elpattur selected here approach Mr Chitre's definition of
in the lesser language, and vented that scorn on Puntanam. Bhakti as a 'direct relationship with' God. In neither does the
That night, goes the story, Melpattur was afflicted by a severe poet talk to his chosen deity as Tukaram does to Vithoba.
recurrence of his disease. As he writhed in pain, Krishna appeared Puntanam's poem is a straightforward relation of the advantages
to him and told him that Puntanam's Bhakti was dearer to the of the way of Bhakti, of its undemanding nature. Melpattur's is
Lord than Melpattur's vibhakti (erudition). As far as I know an equally straightforward description of his vision of the Lord.
there is no record that Melpattur did listen to Jnana-paana, or Neither poet holds any communion with God.
that he was thereafter less unbending with Malayalam writers. But the Bhakti cult, the wave of religious freedom that had
(It is said, though, that he appreciated Ezhuthachan's mastery swept over northern India in the previous two or three centuries,
of literary matters and often consulted him. Ezhuthachan w as not need ed as such in the south. All that 'personal
however was a Sanskrit scholar while Puntanam was not.) The relationship with God' doctrine which was the backbone of the
acceptance of Malayalam as Kerala's language owes something movements-as preached by KabIr, MIra, Eknath, Surdas, Nanak,
to this story. It is the subject of the third selection in this book, Jiianeswar, Namdeo, Tukaram- was old hat in Tamizhakam.
Vallathol's Bhaktiyum Vibhaktiyum . When Kalidasa and the others had been composing classical
VaHattol N arayal)a Menon (1878-1958) needs no introduction drama (by conventional chronology), the Sangam poets, and later
to anyone familiar with modern Indian literature. Had he lived the Azhvars and N ayanars- the Vai~l)ava and Saiva saints- were
a few years longer, he would certainly have won the first Jnanpith writing personal poems of great depth and beauty to their gods.
Award, which instead went in 1966 to his junior G. Sankara Therefore, Puntanam's and Melpattur's poems must not be
Kurup. With UHur s. Parameswara Iyer and Kumaran Asan, read as expressions of a Bhakti movement, but as personal
Vallathol formed a trinity who revolutionized Malayalam expressions of their own Bhakti. That they became so popular,
poetry and made it modern. ('Modern' in Malayalam literature to the exclusion almost of any of their peers except Ezhuthachan,
has different connotations from its meaning in European only testifies to their genius, and to the remarkable coincidence
literatures: I shall go into that later.) He also founded the by which each seized the same historical moment in literature.
16 17
\
I
One more point: Both poets were brahmins, and did not need. , Ul)l)ikrishl)an inanassil kalikkumbol
anyone, according to the varna code, to intercede for them. . Ul)l)ikal vere vel)amo makkalai
Despite his disease-perhaps he did read Puntanam's work,
and the Lord tempered his wrath-Melpattur lived to a ripe old which is Englished:
age, eighty-five at least. He continued to compose in Sanskrit,
and was always remarkable for his mastery of the language, the When the boy Krishna is playing in the mind
speed of his composition and the facility of his invention. Because What need then for other children of our own?
of Narayaniyam, he is counted among the Bhakti poets, but (lines 295- 96)
he is unique in combining devotion with scholarship. H is
Prakriyasarvasva (said to have been written in sixty days) is a It is probable that the death of his first son inspired Puntanam
commentary on Pal)ini's scheme of grammar; the Kriyakrama to write Jnana-paana. Only an abiding faith could uphold him.
studies Namputiri domestic ritual. His devotional works include But he lived a long life and had many more sons, and wrote
Srtpadasa ptati in praise of the Goddess. Melpattur was many more famous poems. Votaries of Bhakti would point to
patronized by kings, and wrote works they had commissio~e~ . that as proof of the power of devotion. Puntanam's illam is still
a place of pilgrimage.
He also composed a number of librettos for the folk Chakktyar-
KiUtu performances , Typically, defying the trends of his day, The tale of Melpattur's scorning of Puntanam is certainly
these were in Sanskrit. historical, as much as anything of late medieval India which is not
Puntanam was, as I said, not idle in the ninety-three years that about kings and battles, or engraved on beaten copper, may be
he lived. In his late thirties he had suffered a tragedy. His first and considered historical. It is a story that is ever fresh in the Malayali
long-awaited son was born. There was a ch6ru1;tu arranged, an mind. The Sanskrit vocabulary is still an integral part of Malayalam,
anna-prasnam (the first-rice ceremony), which is held when the and Sanskrit learning is esteemed, still, even more than knowledge
baby is six mOhths or so old. Puntanam hailed from a rich and of computer programming; but it is urtquestionable that something
mighty illam, or Namputiri house. Family and friends came by in that story forever freed the Malayali of cultural shackles,
the dozen. The baby had been laid to sleep in a dark corner of the May I now say something about shackles, cultural and
self-imposed?
room in the ladies' quarters where female guests were welcomed.
They threw off their upper cloths there, and as it happened the
cloths fell one by one on the child, smothering him to death. 'Gaccha, Gaccha'
Puntanam composed Jnana-paana soon after. There is one What makes a language sacred? Whar gives it that quality of
couplet therein which sums up his grief and his acceptance: holiness when to use it is to profane it?
18 19
TRANSLATOR 'S APOLOGY \! TRAN SLATOR'S APOLOGY
Age, usually, and otiosity. The earliest Vedic hymns are living" . When our dance, drama and literary forms modernized rapidly
breathing poems because they were composed in a living, in the last century or so, we found a framework ready to support
breathing tongue. The Vedic people had, as far as we know, no them, through their changes, in the Natya-Sastra. But the scriptural
other language. The speech of their magic and ritual was also status Bharata Muni's work had been given was, previously, an
that of daily use. There was really no distinction between the immovable obstacle in the way of change for two millennia. After
Natya-Sastra, no shades of grey were possible in Sanskrit literary
religious and the secular when all the world was new.
composition. Nobody could operate outside it; nobody did, at
But the language fossilized as old customs must even when
they are good. Younger, more muscular Prakrits-the various least. Heroes were all good, villains all bad, heroines always
vernaculars which evolved all over India either from the pure and hard done by. If the hero did something wrong it was
degeneration of Sanskrit itself or from a fusion of older local because of a divine curse or loss of memory. Good always won
in the end, evil always came away with hanging head or worse.
languages with the more accessible reaches of Sanskrit, and over
That dramatists of the calibre of Kalidasa took this seriously shows
the centuries developed into our forty-odd modern north Indian
languages-sprang up for the expression of living, breathing perhaps the power of the formula that Sanskrit had become.
people, and Sanskrit became unspoken, even unnecessary. (It was Modern audiences prefer Sudraka's play Mrcchakatika to the
also a storehouse of knowledge, but of knowledge that could not so-called classical dramas. Sudraka was a king, but his characters
speak Sanskrit only in the formal court scenes. (Sanskrit
be changed or adapted.) It is more than two and a half millennia
since Sanskrit ceased to be a popular language, and nothing was had become a lingua indica, a language of diplomacy and
communication across borders-no more.) Good does win in
done for more than a thousand years to resurrect it.
the end, but incidentally. The people are real, and speak as real
That the Buddha spoke in simple language and in the common
tongue helped ~pread his teachings. Surely, too; the simplicity of people do. A language not rooted in the common speech cannot
survive except as a curiosity.
those teachings energized the common tongue. What was
It was Sankara and some of his peers and successors who
Sanskrit doing in the millennium when the Prakrits flowered?
We have Panini's grammar-elegant, unsurpassed in logic and restored vitality to Sanskrit, and they did that by giving it back
science until the nineteenth century in Europe, but not for the the intellectual vigour which defines the ~g Vedic hymns and
many-headed; we have the Yoga Sutras of Pataiijali or others- the Upani~ads. It is no coincidence that they at the same time
important, but recondite; we have, possibly, Vatsyayana's restored the religion whose vehicle Sanskrit was. But that was
Kamasutra- essential knowledge, but esoteric, surely a world- after 800 CE, and the Prakrits had by then become distinct, vibrant
languages all over the north, with literatures of their own or at
beater had it been written in a Prakrit; and we have the Natya-
least the beginnings of them. In the south the Dravidian languages
Sastra and classical drama.
21
20
TRANSLATOR' S APOLOGY
\
I
TR ANS L ATO R' S APO L OGY
were long established; even Malayalam, the youngest, was being. father and sav<}rna mother, commonly called a dog-eater) to get
born (see Notes for a comparison). . out of his way. My father still remembers that call: 'Ydhi, ydhi',
Technically, 'Prakrit' applies only to the vernaculars born of which is Sanskrit for 'Go hence, go hence.' In classical times the
Sanskrit, the oldest of which is Pili. Malayalam is classed in the brahmins said 'Ga ccha, gaccha' , which means the same thing.
South Dravidian family, but it is really born of two languages The chandalsl ~ sked Sankara, 'By saying "gaccha, gaccha",
which are both classical. (Kannada and Telugu are older and are you trying to distinguish between matter and matter, or spirit
prouder languages which disdain the Prakrit tag.) What could and spirit?' Sankara had no answer. He was the prime advocate
the attitude of such a twice-born tongue be to its parents? (For of Advaita, the doctrine that there cannot be any distinction
Malayalam was twice-born, the first time as Manipravalam.) between the individual soul and the Universal Soul. He was
Why would one parent be revered more than the other? big enough to admit in the Panchakam, 'Whoever shows the
What is today Kerala was part of Tamizhakam until at least Way, be he a brahmin or be he a chandala, he is my guru- that
the ninth century CEo Bitter wars were fought over the land. The is my Resolution.'
political yoke of the Tamils was shaken off at last, but it took (The canny Namputiris later propagated the story, which is
three hundred years. In the civil turmoil which accompanied the widely accepted, that the chandala was Siva in disguise. This
wars, the Namputiris somehow managed to get on top of the effectively negated the influence of Sankara's example. A
social heap and stay there. We have no records of this power Namputiri did not have to own as guru any chandala beneath
struggle. the fact is, however, that Sanskrit wore the crown of the rank of Almighty.)
Kerala culture. Tamil scholarship was not a cachet. What M elpattur said to Puntanam was, in essence, this:
The influence of the Aryan varna system on the south is 'Gaccha, gaccha.' As a writer in Malayalam, Puntanam was of
tremendously cOlllplicated. Sangam literature makes it clear that low caste as a poet. He was beneath M elpattur's consideration;
there were classes, even hereditary classes, which made up the the Sanskrit poet would not defile his ears with the sound of the
society of the day in Tamizhakam. Yet the concept of pollution bhasha. H is was an elitist attitude, which called for punishment
did not exist. All this came-the conclusion is ineluctable- with from the Lord.
the Namputiris. My father remembers when 'untouchables' could An elitist attitude is not the property of a language, but of an
not come within a certain distance of a savarIJa, and they had to individual or of a class made up of individuals. If Sanskrit has
call out warnings when walking along the road. lost its pre-eminence, it is because its votaries said 'Gaccha ,
Sankara was a Namputiri and was brought up as a good gaccha' too often and to too many people.
brahmin boy. H is Manl~d Pa1Jcakam (Resolution-Quintet) begins To answer the qllestion which began this section- 'What
with his telling a caIJ4dla (lowest of the low, born of a sudra makes a language sacred? What gives it that quality of holiness
22 23
TRANSLAT OR'S APOLOGY
\ TRANSLATOR'S APOLOGY
when to use it is to profane it?'-a language becomes sacred, the plains to the south. A language very like our modern Sanskrit
\ .
and loses its sanctity, when the fact of its use is more important must have been spoken by the people who sang the hymns of
than the manner of its use. So it happened with Sanskrit. All sorts the Rg Veda, but it was relatively soon transformed into tongues
of people, not just writers, were judged and classified according easier of use. When Panini performed perhaps the most astounding .
as whether they knew Sanskrit, not how they used it. Sanskrit is feat of logic the. world had seen till then, he was not merely
not quite a dead language today, but it is being kept alive by creating a grammar for Sanskrit: He was creating the language
artificial respiration. Old Latin and ancient Hebrew and hieratic itself. The rules of prosody must necessarily have come after.
Greek became too holy to be profaned by common use, so they We who have been brought up in Anglo-Saxon attitudes find
died. We cannot let that happen to any language we prize; and much to deplore in Indian poetry. Those attitudes may sometimes
the first step in that direction is to prize all languages, to sanctify be ungainly, but they are the attitudes of one doing his
them all by common and pious use. callisthenics, striving to keep fit. What is muscular vigour in
English poetry is all too often replaced by ornamentation in
Indian; mere sentiment takes the place of psychological insight.
Prosody and Translation I mentioned a while ago Kumaran Asan as one of the trinity
That most Indian and European languages came from a common who led Malayalam poetry into the modern age. I have just
source does not, of course, mean they have more than a few been reading his famous Nalini (1911 )-or, rather, having it read
things in common. Certainly there must have been some rude and explained to me, for Asan studied Sanskrit in Bangalore,
(or even polished) bardic verse which dates back four or five Madras and Calcutta, and his Malayalam is difficult enough for
millennia and was common to the proto-Indo-Europeans, but the educated Malayali. The poem is full of emotion, it has no
in so far as prosody developed as a science, our tongues lisp in story at all, and alliteration takes the place of action. It runs
different number~. Moreover, modern English verse owes little to 173 quatrains, most of them in a forty-four-syllabled metre
to Latin, the European language Sanskrit can be best compared called rath6ddhata, or stately chariot- aptly named, because it
to in its perfectibility. It derives its vigour from old Norse, its does not flow but leaps a stride at a time. It is beautiful, even
themes (love of the land, for example) often from the Teutonic, I can see that. But it is beautiful for its decoration. It is, of
and much of its skill from French. English poetry's love of poetry course, untranslatable.
itself, its ancient respect for its practitioners as magicians, goes When I said two paragraphs back that we find much to
back beyond these to the Celts. deplore in Indian poetry, I mean of course Indian poetry
The Word must always have held some sanctity for the Indo- since Kalidasa. It is he and his compeers, possibly under the
Europeans, and it lost none of its holiness in the Hindu Kush or influence of Natya-Sastra, who replaced good storytelling of the
24 25
\
TRANSL ATOR'S APOLOGY
T RANS L A T O R 'S APOLOGY
Panchatantra variety and the complex characterization of to be, a signific~nt contributor to a poem's value. It is not so to
Mahabharata with swooning lovers beneath an eternally full\ , a lover of English-language poetry. But poetry is not something
moon glimpsed behind clouds pregnant with rain, and peacocks whose code has been written in letters of fire in the heavens for
dancing in the background. It is beautiful poetry, but it is not all to obset ve. Its virtues, and its idiom, vary from race to race,
real life. It is what has formed much of our classical art for 1500 from tongue to !ongue; and no language can claim it is more
years, and till recently informed most of our popular cinema. virtuous or has a more universal appeal than another- any more
Irawati Karve in Yuganta compares the story of Sakuntala as than M icrosoft can claim Windows is the ultimate in computer
it appears in Mahabharata with Kalidasa's play. In the epic applications simply because more people use it.
(actually history: itihasa, 'thus it happened'), both Du~yanta and There are so many reasons why translation is difficult,
Sakuntala are real people, with worldly aims, out for what they especially actoss a divide as vast as that between Malayalam
can get. There is no divine curse, no loss of memory, no wronged and English. A translator, I think, should start small. All he needs
maiden. Vyasa or Vaisampayana or whoever tells the story makes is not to laugh.
no concession even to the fact that Dushyanta, as Bharata's father, That sounds funny enough. But it is essential. The veteran
is the ancestor of the Kuru king to whom he tells it. Moreover, journalist T.J,S. George some years ago compiled a much-needed
Mahabharata and Ramayana, and all the Vedic and Upanishadic dictionary of Indian quotations, in his introduction to which he
literature before them, are written in good, honest, vigorous prose made some pertinent remarks about the less-known pitfalls of
or verse. There is no tinkering around with tropes, no mes~ing translation. T here are no really seemly words in English for
about with metaphors unless they are of immediate value. describing the heroine's well-rounded figure. Mention her shapely
It is really only in the last fifty years or so-I should suppose, buttocks, Or backside, or thighs, and you become risible. In
aftet the Marxists brought some rationality to our ways of Sanskrit, such descriptions are practically formulaic, though you
thinking- that Malayalam poetry has attained to modernity in can always be original. The point is, anatomy is not vulgar.
its European sense. But what is modernity? I ask again and again. Early translators of classical Sanskrit, such as William Jones
Wearing jeans and an iPod does not make you modern if at the and Max M iiller, took great pains to ensure that the results of
same time you insist on a dowry when you marry. You may be a their labours were not laughed at. They had in the process to
London-returned doctor running a five-star hospital with all the evolve certain conventions we still follow. Bill Buck points out
latest stereophonic equipment, but you are not modern if you in his 1970s transcreation of Mahabharata that the Sanskrit
use it for sex determination. European modernity is different word hamsa, which generations of Indians have grown up
from Indian modernity; that does not necessarily make it better. thinking to mean a swan, does not mean a swan at all. 'There is
To Malayali rasikas, ornamentation-alankara- is, or used no species of swan indigenous to India,' he sadly notes. "'Hamsa"
26 27
\. TR AN SL A TOR' S AP O L OG Y
is really the Himalayan goose.' But how unpoetic, had Jones o{ . 'Actually, Vijay, that's a very beautiful song. It says, "Whether it
Muller not changed it! 'Swan' sounds so much better in English. was Bhasa,! Or Kalidasa,! Or Veda Vyasa,! Or Shelley,! Or
Imagine Nala sending a goose-messenger to Damayanti! We Shakespeare,/ That poet's vision 1/ Praise, who first compared a
should all have been rolling in the aisles, had there been any woman with a tear! Brimming in the eye" [my translation] .'
aisles at Kathakali performances. Now that is the alankara, the ornamentation, which speaks
I have known English-medium-educated idiots in Delhi and to our souls. The M alayalam Muse is not shy, but she must be
Bombay who laugh at names like NIlakaQ.!ha (cunt-a, get it?). wooed. She delights in nature and is at her best among the pure
When I was a boy, MataI]gi was a not uncommon name among greens and blues that have been lavished upon Kerala. The
Tamil brahmin girls (sadly, it seems to be extinct now). It is running waters, the changing sea, the cries of birds, the rains,
Sanskrit for a she-elephant: The heroine of classical drama is the suns, the stooping reapers of paddy, the blessing mountains
often said to walk with the gait of a cow elephant. Western- all around-it is pens which colour paper WJth these hues and
educated ignorami would laugh, of course, because to them an their nuances that set her smiling. Human nature also she is not
elephant lumbers; but who can laugh who has ever seen the a stranger to, and she is interested in it, but it does not always
undulating majesty with which an elephant moves? make her smile.
A major obstacle to the translator is that there is practically In the last thirty years or so, however, M alayalam poetry has
no secular Sanskrit verse. Even the erotic is religious. This is changed. There is a greater and healthier body of critical work.
occasion for more belly laughs. A close relation of mine read a Alankara matters less; image and metaphor count fo r more. Or
literal translation of the Melpattur poem in this volume and so I am told. It may be so: to the critic, the scholar, the younger,
said she found it 'very funny'. She did not go to a Swiss finishing informed, educated reader of poetry. In my own experience,
school, either; she went to a common CBSE school like the rest speaking as one who has not studied M alayalam and has
of us and won a prize for Sanskrit recitation in the ninth standard. therefore not spent time with critics or scholars, alankara is just
I, too, have been guilty of the risus erroneous, to coin a phrase. as important to the lay reader as it used to be. It will probably
In the 1970s, there was a Malayalam film song that went: be different a generation hence.
Atu Bhasano/ Kalidasano/ Veda-Vyasano/ Shelliyo/

These Poems, This Translation
Shakespiyaro ... !
M alayalam poets can use, have used and do still use all the
That is the only line I knew of it. I sang it to a Malayali friend classical Sanskrit metres. They often do so sportively, in a spirit
in college to raise a laugh, but he looked at me gravely and said, of leela, but the poem may be on a serious subject. It is perfectly
28 29
\ TRA NS L A TOR 'S A P O L OGY
TRANSLATOR 'S APOLOGY
legitimate, for instance, to write four-syllabled verse on a murder. , when it is an adjective, and the second when it is a noun? So
investigation. A modern English poet could not write verse' of with practically every word. In languages derived from the
less than five syllables per line without making it comic. (The Sanskrit, a vowel is stressed when it is long (d'irgha); unstressed
only example of even five syllables that comes to mind is Dom when it is short (hrasva). That is all. So my name, Vijay, which
Moraes's 'I sowed my wild oats/ Before I was twenty.' ) I have has two short vowels, has no accents at all; my wife's, Kavery,
heard, in 2004, the now unhappily deceased Ayyappa Paniker which has three long vowels, has three.
recite his famous poem which begins with a line of one word. (There is evidence that when Sanskrit was a living language,
Each subsequent line has a fresh word prefixed so that the new long before Panini, there were accents assigned more at
line makes sense bu t bears no relation to the previous one; yet haphazard . Panini's own work suggests that in classical
the poem as a who' . : continues to make sense. Sanskrit-which he perfected-there were rules governing
With so much C loice, there is really no need for free verse. The accents in the spoken language. Now, alas, we can only discuss
modernity that Vr' dathol, Ullur and Asan brought to Malayalam prosody; though I find some of those rules still apply to spoken
poetry lqy in the lr choice of subject rather than in a startling Hindi, for instance.)
newness of form. [referred to Asan's Nalini a while back as creating In prosody, very basically, a syllable is either heavy (guru),
scarcely a rippk in my mind today. Well, what was new about it comprising two matras or measures, or light (laghu), comprising
was that the hero and the heroine are monk and nun; the hero is one. Long syllables are heavy, those short are light; besides, any
not in love with the heroine; and they do not come together at the vowel preceding a conjoined consonant (samyukta-ak~aram) or
end. Maiden's water to us today, but strong spirits a century ago. line-ending consonant is counted as heavy.
But why talk of modernism in modern times when we have Paana is, as I said, an indigenous metre (or Dravidian if you
Jnana-paqna before us? Puntanam's geography and cosmography prefer, though I dislike the term for its connotations) . When
may be a trifle out of date, his philosophy fails to enchant me, Sanskrit literature came south it was attempted to classify the
but his language is as fresh as anything wrihen today. This owes native metres according to the strict northern schemes. This was
something to the metre he used, the paana. not always successful. Paana, for instance, is categorized among
Paana is not a Sanskrit metre at all. It is popular in Malayalam the kakali metres (Sanskrit, 'indescribably sweet') and is supposed
bec~use it is simple and can be easily used to say simple things, to to have five matras for every three syllables, and a sum of nineteen
communicate. The line has eleven syllables-but first, a word about matras per line. However, this really depends on how you sing
prosody which I have forgotten in my keenness for profundity. it, lengthening vowels that ought to be hrasva.
A ccents, as used in English, seem remarkably arbitrary to The one thing that can pe averred about paana is that the
Indians. Why should the first syllable of 'gal-Iant' be stressed last two syllables of each line are always guru, and the rhyme
30 31
\ TRANSL ATO R 'S A POL OG Y
scheme involves the second consonant of each line in a couplet, . fourth, but hal~ this translation is end-rhymed. This is not entirely
(not necessarily the vowel). To make this clearer, each of"the my fault. I cannot hope to carry the attention of a reader used to
three translations printed in this volume is preceded by, first, the conventions of English verse by jarring her ears every second
the opening few lines in the original script; second, the same line. If she is used to end rhymes, why, end rhymes she must
lines transliterated; and third, a literal translation of those lines. have and shall. . The archaisms I have retained are deliberate ,
The English insistence on end rhymes appears childish to too, but there has not been much need to ponder over them.
an Indian poet. Poetry derived from the Sanskrit or Tamil is Puntanam was right there talking to me all the time in a language
accustomed to rhyme the first syllable, or the second; the fourth, I could understand.
or the fifth; the eighth, or the ninth; the sixteenth, or the Robert Graves has shown, in one of his essays in The
seventeenth, or the thirty-second, or none at all ... Sprung Crowning Privilege, that the old Norse sagas were composed
rhythms, hidden rhymes-Anglo-Saxons talk about these the and sung to help the oarsmen maintain the rhythm of their
way they used to say, 'Columbus discovered America.' Gerard rowing. (I wonder if the caesura- yati in Sanskrit- was when
Manley Hopkins wouldn't so much as get a rejection slip if he they feathered the oars to begin the next stroke, or when the
sent any of that 'morning's minion' stuff to the Mathrubhumi blades came abreast of the oarsmen so they had to put in that
weekly magazine. extra effort.) Folk songs are meant to make drudgery unthinking,
Nevertheless, a translator into English confronted by lines to make chores mechanical, not to enliven them. That is why,
of eleven syllables drifts naturally into the iambic pentameter. heroic though the Norse themes are, the songs are slow and
The iambus is not a well-mannered vehicle for philosophy (as measured to match the long slow pull of the oars. The same is
Pope's pap proves: If it's well-mannered, it's not philosophy, but true ofIndian folk metres. The vaqakkan pappu (northern songs)
a bumper sticker). Though domesticated, it is not mild by nature; of Kerala tell of the stirring deeds of the martial ka!ari houses.
it may wag its tail, but it also bites. The Romans claimed: Yet they are mournful in tone, even when they (rarely) end
Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo-Archilochus happily. Their lilt matches the movement of the arms as each
(probably a Greek, since they had a word for it ) avenged [his new fistful of paddy shoots is taken from the clutch of the left
insult] with the iambus, [which was] his invention. Cultured hand and thrust into the fertile earth waiting beneath six inches
Latins expressed themselves in the hexameter. of water, or the slow sawing of the sickle across the yielding stalks
But there is no help for it. Though I have tried to keep the when the ears are ripe and rich. The va!/a pappu (boat songs) of
peaceful tenor of Puntanam's way, even by drafting in that southern Kerala are more vigorous, but that is because the
eleventh syllable, I have slipped more often than not. I have vallams race over the backwaters, sixty or a hundred sculls to a
tried to keep the second-syllable rhyme, too, or failing that the boat, and do not have to contend with the heavy swell of the seas.
32 33
TRANSLATOR' S A POLOGY TR ANSLA TOR' S A P OLOGY
When hero songs are heroic in tone, they have usually been Oh, I suppose I could versify it:
commissioned, and are ascribed to a name. (Michael Schmidt in .
Lives of the Poets: 'Anon. is the greatest of the neglected English Sporting in so many guises,
poets.' ) Most classical compositions belong to the court, too, Sparkling with many surprises,
and tend to treat their country cousins as Melpattur treated With teasing replies he pleases
Puntanam. It was with great trepidation, therefore, that I Winsomely ea"ch young cowherdess.
approached Narayaniyam.
My first question, Which dasaka should I attempt?, was easily But, good grief, that is only one line out of forty-four, and
answered. Kesadipadavarnanam is the last of the hundred; it not the most powerful either. What of the alliteration? Where
makes a fitting end to the whole book; it is a description of a has the leela gone? I have already made thirty-two syllables out
vision of the Lord's cosmic form; I had known it since boyhood; of twenty-one. The vrttam is kusuma-ma1Jjari, or spray of flowers,
it is infused by pure Bhakti-never mind that Bhakti is meant to and my bouquet should have wilted ere r got to the third verse.
be the common man's communion and not one in a hundred of r do not mean to say translating Kesadipadavarnanam is a
Me1pattur's contemporaries would have comprehended it. task for any but the most self-assured. It is the hundredth and
Kesadipadavarnanam had another great attraction for me: last dasaka of a work which Melpattur knew was good, on a
It is not over-ornamented. Highly skilled though Melpattur was scale which few had even attempted for centuries and which
at all forms of alankara, he knew when not to abuse his gifts. would rank him with the greatest poets of his country. He bent
Some of his dasakas are so rich in decoration they make the all his considerable gifts to endowing this poem with grandeur
listener drunk with pure sound. They always fit the scene and and a vivid, majestic humility. r have in translating it had to
the mood, but how may they be translated? Take this line for take many liberties with the original.
instance, it is from Rdsakr/qdvaY/;tanam or Krishnaleela as the To begin with, the poem is in a vrttam called sragdhara
theme is popularly called: (Sanskrit srak , flower-garland; dhara, wearer). Each line has
twenty-one syllables in three kha1;t4as or divisions of seven syllables
Keli-bheda pari-lolita-'bhirati lalitabhir-abalalibhih each, which is impossible to get into any practicable English
metre. (That is sragdhara in Sanskrit prosody. Latin prosodists
which means, simply:
could consider it seven metrical feet of three syllables each- a
' ... with play of different kinds, everywhere stirring each molossus, an amphirtpcer, a dactyl, a tribrach, and three bacchii
one, with teasing replies he makes happy each of that to finish.) I have therefore converter the four twenty-one-
group of girls ... .' , syllabled lines in each verse into six of from fourteen to sixteen
34 35
TRANSLATOR'S A POLOGY TR ANS L ATOR'S APO LO GY
syllables. This number is easier to handle and is yet large enough \ , same place. On t):le' whole, I am pleased with the contrast,
for the line to move with stateliness, with a sense of occasiorr. even in translation.
To give you some small idea of Melpattur's mastery, this is Vallathol's poem I most enjoyed translating. It was easy, it
how his Sragdhara line runs: flowed, it told a good story, and it did not preach. Vallathol was
counted a mahakavj because he wrote a mahakavyam or epic,
1 Agre pasyami tejo/ nibiqa-tara ka!a-/ ya-vali lobhanlyam Chitrayogam (1910- 13), but some of his best-loved shorter
_ _ _ _ u _ _/uuu uuu - / - u - - u - - works were published in eight books called Sahitya Ma1Jjari.
or, in Eu~opean prosody, This poem is from the fifth volume (1923). The original is in an
- - -I _ u-/ - uu/uuu / u - - / u - -/ u - - ancient native (Dravidian) metre called kika, and unlike the
Sanskrit vrttams is not invariant. Each line has six feet, of three,
where as per convention '-' represents a heavy (guru ) syllable two, two, three, two and two syllables respectively. Each foot
and 'u' a light (laghu). Now every single one of the forty-four must have at least one syllable which is guru; so the sum of the
lines in Kesadipadavarnanam, without exception, fits this matras may vary from twenty to twenty-eight. The weight of
pattern, and eppur si muove, still it flows. How meretricious a the first syllable of the first line of a couplet must be echoed by
virtue, after this, seems what is called a command over English the first syllable of the second. Lastly, there must be a caesura
verse, and how frivolous my claim that the lines of my translation halfway through each line (this rule is sometimes relaxed).
run 'from fourteen to sixteen syllables'. Vallathol rhymes the second syllables of each couplet, and I
There are some conceits in any language which do not have found it easy to imitate that. Fourteen syllables are not so
translate well; I have for the most part softened their influence. easy, though. English is not suited to the Latin hexameter, and
All classical languages have formulaic phrases for certain the iambic heptameter, or the anapaestic, is not suited to this
contexts, like Homer's famous 'Rosy-fingered Dawn'. Sanskrit poem. I have brought the line length down to twelve syllables.
has more than its fair share of these, but Melpattur was a This necessitated some concision. The lines, I must confess, are
master of his craft and is stunningly original. The poem cannot again mostly iambi.
be made contemporary, of course. No contemporary of ours At the end of it all, translations offer the translator more
wakes in the morning having seen a vision of the Lord's escape routes than are good for him. He can tell authorities in
visvarupa and tells anyone about it without the thought police the first language that they do not understand the complexities
being called. This is a Bhakti poem from late medieval Kerala, of the second, and vice versa. If he happens to be translating
and I chose to translate it because of its striking differences poetry, as well, and ' has earned some kudos in either language
from another Bhakti poem written at the same time in the for his skill, he is practically writing the reviews himself.
36 37
TRANSLATOR'S APOLOGY TR ANS L ATO R 'S A P O L OGY
No, that was an oversimplification offered merely by way o( . The best I could try to ensure, then, was that my poem flowed.
contrast to real life. What really happens is that experts in the But here also the terrain was against me. Malayalam is a highly
first language deride the translator for missing all the beauties inflected laqguage-that is, you can tack on a series of suffixes
and nuances of the original, and experts in the second mock which change the original word-form to indicate tense, number,
him for his clumsiness. The poets in the audience say he might gender, case and so on. This makes it very easy to rhyme: An
just as well have written prose. English versifier can only contemplate bitterly the startling
Well. I do no! seek exculpation. I have been a professional rapidity and felicity with which a Malayalam poet can rhyme
writer for over twenty-three years and I went into this with my six or eight successive lines. Even Browning would be envious.
eyes open, knowing what I was letting myself in for. I started on It is also much easier to make the Malayalam poem flow, to
it because I fell in love with Puntanam's simplicity and his un spring rhythms, to uncork interior tensions and sublimate
unshakeable belief, neither of which I share. Call it the desire of them. The translator has, on the contrary, perforce to dig away
the moth for the star: The star does not need the moth, but and loosen the rock ahead of his sluggish verse, coaxing it onward
surely the moth can tell other moths about his love? I added a syllable at a time. If it appears that the best cour~e lies not
Melpattur's and Vallathol's poems because I am in love with directly ahead-that a little detour this way or that will favour
language, not with one language alone, and they seemed to round the attainment of the eventual and greater goal-he is bound in
off this volume so well. . all honesty to take it.
I used as an epigraph to a previous book (on honesty in writing) W hat I mean is, I have ta\<:en liberties with Puntqnam. This is
a quotation from the Austrian writer Karl Kraus: 'My language sometimes because the exact meaning wou ld be obscure in
is the upiversal whore whom I must make into a virgin.' Now English; sometimes because it would be irrelevant; and
that I am a translator, I ask myself a question which never occurred sometimes, as I have said, laughable. Sometimes I have only
to me before: 'Does she want to be "made into" a virgin? ' been doing myself an act of kindness.
M elpattur is very different. His poem is sung, of course, but-
abiding correction-I should think it stands more as a literary
Liberties, and a Divagation work than as a popular song. P. Leela's recording has sold well
The paana is a metre meant to be sung. Jnana-paana is a song over the years, but she was a gifted singer. It is not an easy song
which is sung. While a surprising number of popular English to sing, particularly since you have to know Sanskrit to sing it
songs (hymns, spirituals, light opera, rock 'n' roll lyrics, advertising with feeling.
jingles) qualify as poems, practically no Poetry is written to be Kesadipadavarrianam's Sanskrit is high classical, of that order
sung. Certainly not translations. which is not so much inflected as inflexible save in the hands of
38 39
TRANSL ATOR'S APOLOGY TR ANS L A TOR 'S A P O L OGY
a master. The Sanskrit masters revelled at adding words to each \ . the most charism.attc. But when he sang devotional songs there
other until they ran off the page: They would have thoroughly was a fervour to his voice and persona which none of his fellows
approved of a word like 'sesquipedalian' . This arrival at meaning could match.
by accretion is far too complex a skill for a simply structured Sanni (as he was affectionately called) never looked likely to
language like English. win the top prize, but he made it to the last ten or so, which his
The chief liberty I have taken with Melpattur's poem is the mere singing talent certainly did not warrant. But on two visits
alteration of the very form of the stanza. Four lines of twenty- to Thrissur in October 2007 I saw the banner of a 'Sanni Fans
one syllables each is insupportable by English. Fifteen or sixteen Association' requesting votes for him, and a hoarding announcing
is all the market will bear. Even so, to make the line flow; or to he would sing at a well-known temple on Vijayadasami.
make it flow into the next, I have introduced or amended a Just a couple of houses away from my ancestral home in a
phrase. Where I have introduced one of my own, of course, it village in Thrissur district is the home of a family of paT;lan-
has to a certain extent had to be formulaic in itself: That is, it pattukar, or hereditary singers. In harvest or festival time they
cannot depart from established forms of description of Krishna go about the village singing traditional songs to be paid in grain
or Vishnu. But I have tried to be original. or other kind; the rest of the year they have an occupation, usually
The classical will always remain the classical. It is most tailoring though in the case of our neighbours it is mason's work.
amenable to reinterpretation in the popular forms, as has been Sanni is a son of this famlly. He is earning his rice, as his family
done with great success in Indian drama over the last three has done for many generations, by singing.
decades. Ezhuthachan and Puntanam practically invented Bhakti The occupation of minstrelsy antedates Puntanam by a long
in Malayalam- Ezhuthachan, with his Adhyatma RamayaT;lam, few millennia. The Sangam books are full of bards; so is Puranic
a Bhakti meant to be read, and Puntanam's Jnana-paana one and for that matter Celtic and Achaean literature. But these are
meant to be sung. usually court bards, dependants of the king, and commissioned
How contemporary Puntanam's Bhakti still is was borne in by him to compose odes on such occasions as he or the prevailing
upon me every day in the last three months of 2007, as I religious order sees fit.
watched one of the most popular TV shows among Malayalis. The Bhakti minstrels march to a different drum, heard first
It is a (ha, ha l reality show which spots singing talent, sponsored by them a lone; and in Malayalam literature, if it was not
by one of the mobile phone companies, and the winner is Puntanam who tuned that drum, he at least struck a note on it
determined partly by the number of SMS votes received. One that still resounds. This might all appear a digression to non-
of the best loved singers on this show last year was named M alayalis, but no M alayali who has heard Sannidhanantham
Sannidhanantham. He was by no means the best singer, nor sing can fail to catch the echoes of Puntanam's voice.
40 41
j
TRANSLATOR'S A POLOGY T RANS L AT OR'S A P OLOGY
Debits and Credits have postulated a flood, an earthquake, a pestilence: There is

,.
no documentation of any such. Driven to despair, th~y have
We Indians are not a historiographical people. We do not keep
dreamed up stories about something happening elsewhere to a
records; we do not generally know the names of our grandfathers'
reigning family based in Kollam. Even this leap of the imagination
grandfathers. Any king who happened on a throne could inaugurate
has crashed-Koll.am was not a capital city. The year 825 CE
an era and insist that everyone followed it. Our climate, too, is
appears to have been a dull one, when not even ignorant armies
not well suited to the preservation of the palm leaves on which
clashed by night.
our forefathers wrote-leather (parchment) being unclean.
N evertheless, this is the year 11 84 Kolla-varshatn, and I
Kerala may have been, as Vivekananda said, a madhouse of
suppose only one born and brought up in Kerala can grasp and
castes; it is the seventh circle of hell to the historian in search of
accept the fact without question. So the reader of a history of
a date. The colloquial word for 'year' in Malayalam is 'kollam',
Ke r~la mU,s t be very cautious about admitting anything as
which is short for Kolla-var~am . 'Varsham' of course is Sanskrit
receIved WIsdom, and triply suspicious when the compiler of
for 'rain' or 'the rainy season' and it or a derivative means 'year'
the history is a gleaner like myself.
in most parts of India. Kollam is the town and headquarters of
What I tell you three times is true. I never studied Malayalam
the district of the same name, and lies some 60 kilometres north-
for~nally. ~t wasn't until I went to live (as opposed to spend
west of Thiruvananthapuram along the coast. It was perHaps
hohdays) m Kerala for the first time, in 1998, that I began to
named by brahmin migrants from Kolhapur in Maharashtra. The
pay attention to the language and to try to speak it well.
Portuguese had a major trading station there and called it Quilon.
My parents taught me very young to read and write but
The Malayalam New Year's Day, Vishu, is celebrated every
never having had much need to do either, I still lack flu:ncy,
year twenty-five days after the vernal equinox. That is, it is
Besides, the diglossal nature of Malayalam makes the literary
usually on 15 April, sometimes on the 14th. But the new year
language very difficult for one who has not been formally
begins on the first of the Malayalam month of ChiI)gam, halfway
educ,ate~. So I have no M alayalam or Sanskrit scholarship. My
through August. (Don't ask me, 01' anyone else, why.) The Kolla-
readmg IS of necessity limited to those scholars who have writteh
varsham 1184 began on 17 August 2008. We can infer from
in or been translated into English,
this that some event of an apocalyptic or at least historic nature
That is why I asked my father, two years ago and more, if he
took place in Kollam in late August or early September, 825 CEo
wo~ld supply me with literal translations of these three poems
But what was it? N obody has an answer. No dynasty was
whIch I could turn into verse. H e consented re adtly and
inaugurated around then. No great monarch began his reign.
unstintingly, He wrote them all down in longhand, though he
The city was not built then; it was not destroyed then. Historians
has used a keyboard before: He considers pen and paper as better
42 43
s
TRANSL ATOR'S APOLOGY T RANSLA TOR' S AP O L OG Y
befitting literary work. The virtues of this volume are due to my. As to referenc~ works: I have helped myself to liberal doses
father's scholarship and his patience; its inaccuracies, its otten of Professor A. Sreedhara M enon's A Survey of Kerala History
wilful faults, are mine alone. and Kerala History and Its Makers , also William Logan's undying
I thank my mother, too, for reading my drafts and encouraging Malabar M anual. I thank PremaJayakumar for getting me those
me. I thank Kavery for seeing possibilities where I all too often two last priceless v.olumes, and for her friendship.
see only doubt and despair. I thank my cousin Sumathy and her I thank Dr Meenakshi M ukherjee for permission to use the
husband, Dr Raman Nambisan, for putting up with me while I quotation from her recent collection of essays as an epigraph to
finished this work. I am especially grateful to Dr Nambisan, for this work, and for the example of generosity and rectitude she
he was always prepared to illumine my intellectual darkness, sets as a critic. I.
quoting verse (and chapter) from his store of Malayalam and I am grateful to Mr M. Mukundan, president, and Mr LV.
Sanskrit learning, never for a moment believing I could not begin Das, secretary, Kerala Sahitya Akademi, for their welcome, and
to know Malayalam poetry as I know English. for permitting me to stay at Kairali Gramam ip Thrissur until I
I am very grateful to Dr K. Satchidanandan, the poet and found alternative accommodation.
critic, for his acute review of this Apology and for pointing out And finally, I have been waiting to thank the three or four
my many mistakes. Listening to him makes me wish more than people who let me down badly at the last momtmt, thus giving
ever that I had some scholarship. this book its present shape, which affords me the beginnings
I thank Dr Gita Krishnankutty, protsdhanattinu, and for of contentment.
recommending Malayalam-English dictionaries. One of them I
have used: compiled by Professor M.A. Varier, Professor E.P.
Narayana Bhattathiri and K. Radhakrishna Varier (DC Books,
June 1999; 19th edition, April 2007). H. Monier-Williams's
Sanskrit- English dictionary (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1899; I
use the 1994 edition) has been a wonderful aid in times of trouble,
and its classification according to the root gives it a special value.
Va man Shivram Apte's Sanskrit-English dictionary (1890; second
edition 1970) has also been useful, particularly the appendix on
prosody. Not having brought either of these with me to Kerala, I
fell back on Ka1)ippayyiir's famous Sanskrit-Malayalam dictionary,
in its concise form edited by Akkittam.
44 45
\
I
\ ,
Two Measures of Bhakti

?-
\ .
Jnana-paana
(The Paana of Learning )
Puntanam Namputiri
\ .
Jnana-paana
The Paana of Learning
(JW~JmoLO J 6TT)6)!lJWdh cro<m>o

lmJmorll6Gl3u3 mO(lJl(802l6)8J6)(~::p\9Jo
nJlmlcw(6)cwlml.oo6TT)o mrllrllJ 6)5
mmm02lo cronD8JrllO.oo15J(lJO
gurunathan tUl)a ceyka santa tam

tirunamal)ga! navinmel-eppozhum
piriyate-irikkal)am nammute
narajanmam saphalam-akkltuvan
guru-nathan preceptor tuna-ceyka may (he) aid santatam always

tiru-namangal holy names navin-melon the tongue eppozhum
at all times piriyate without severance irikkanam should stay
nammute out (my) nara-janmam mortal life saphalam bearing
fruit akkituvan to make (possible)
51
]NANA-P AAN A
\ ,
My teacher, be Y0!lr 'aid with me always 1
That each moment of my life, the Lord's dear names
May cleave without estrangement to my tongue.
Achievement of a fruitful life will then be mine.
o yesterday the things we did not know would come! 5

And 0 the things we do not know will come today!
Now we behold those soon to pass away:
We are not told how long they'll stay with us.
So used are we to familiar faces:
But You alone know their span of days with us. 10
Two or four days, and one of the herd we know

To him we'll bow, if You but will it so.
You choose, and he who lives within his halls
Will lose it all and labour for his wage.
Some know this, for they see it all around. 15
Some see it all around and know it not.
That what they see is not the truth indeed
Is surely known to some before they see.
Mankind we're all, born into Manu's race;

Each mind will still find out its special place. 20
That diverse minds should understand this plain,
In diverse kinds the texts say it again.
For those who Do, and would know what it is
And why they Do, the scriptures explain it:
Of Samkhya's way and what is Yoga's way 25
They talk in ways unnumbered- let them be.
53
PUNTANAM NAMBUTlRI jNANA-PAANA
\1
On the world's wheel for us who still revolve \ . There are the deeds of grace and those of sin,
And wish to heal the wounds the world has caused There are the deeds where both are mixed within.
The great, who understand the simple truth But though within our actions three are found,
Have made it truly a simple truth to know. 30 Not less by one than other are we bound.
If you would learn to shake the world's cares free The chain which fetters may be made of gold; 55
Give ear and earn the easy path to bliss. Not less than iron does it tightly hold.
Made of gold mixed with iron is the third,
The chain which binds us, be it understood By which deeds mixed in nature hold us firm.
Again, is Karma, the deeds that we have done.
The world we see, with not one thing left out 35 From Brahma himself to the ant and fly,
Is One effulgence, encompassing all, The deeds we do hold us all bound thereby. 60
Which world is One that nothing can defile, The worlds were once created; they will last
Which world is One that nothing need engross, Till world-ending deluge annuls the past.
Which world is seen as many different things NOf Brahm,a himself can ever break ih two
And seen as One by grasping of one thing. 40 The chains of Karma holding both me and you.
Even the gods who rple the directions, 65
The ignorant will say the world revolves Eyen the gods are in this subjection.
Without a cause-this One is just that cause. Our smaller deeds too bind us to this fate,
Our smaller lifetimes and our shorter wait:
Not another thing can resemble this One, Our mothers' wombs we enter and then come
Nor any thing can be without its spark. Out into lives defined by deeds we'd done. 70
In hell's torment our sins are paid in tears
I '
Not another thing that is without a bond, 45 Our diseased minqs are healed with passing years.
Nor any thing that from It was not born. Our evil paid for, slowly we ascend,
In One the three are fused: this being known, At last are Dorn into the world of men.
The world is seep and seen as without peer. Ever moving upward by our deeds of grace, 75
Even in heaven we may make a place.
From One the world, from One the universe:
They are threefold, the deeds we do therein. 50
54 55
PUNTANAM NAMBUTIRI jNANA-PA A NA
There slowly passes all the grace we'd won, ,. We only can enjoy' what we have earned,
There sickness mars our minds, our time is done. And what is once won cannot be returned.
Once more we take birth in the world of men, As wasted days bring earnings to an end, 105
Once more do evil deeds, and die, and then 80 Exhausted Karma makes us start again.
For grace that's lost, for all our deeds can tell
Of evil done, again we go to hell. As each of us, when living far from home,
Is forced to bring his little wealth from home
A life that thus from heaven may be torn And spend it, so that each of us survives,
Among the best in our own world is born. So we expend our doings and our lives. 110
Mean deeds committed in this life ensure 85 This earth where we are born most surely is
Mean birth and meanness in the life to come. The earth whence springs the harvest of our deeds.
Demons even may be born again as gods, We dream of Karma's end, but it is not
Immortals may become as mortals are. Elsewhere that we can end what we have wrought.
An elephant dies and is reborn an ant,
An ant dying becomes an elephant. 90 To devotees, to those who pray for freedom, 115
A woman may retain nothing of woman, To even those content with being bound,
And no man dies who is not born again. How freely the Universal Mother gives,
A king who has no mercy, watch him squirm How sweetly the Earth enriches our lives.
When in his next life he is born a worm. How truly the One nature of the Lord,
A mouse dies to be reborn as a cat: 95 How fully it takes form in this our world. 120
Wonderful the Lord's workings in all that! Nine times before, descending to the earth,
Nine times he saved the good that gave us birth.
Thus racing up and down all creation, On that account alone this world we know
Thus facing the results of what we've done, Is paramount among the fourteen worlds.
As many deeds as done in this world of ours, So say the Veda-knowing sages, and 125
So many the consequences we amass. 100 So say the Vedas themselves, reverent.
Having done this and won that, we must die,
In other lives the consequences try. Set in the centre of the salty sea,
Ten lakh miles extends our shining continent.
56 57
:w
P UNTANAM NAMBUTIRI ) NANA -P AANA
Of the many lands which make up Jambudweep To Bharatam during the Kali age
The seven islands are said to be most blessed. no" They join their ha~ds in salute, pay homage:
There holding up the lotus of the world, 'To live there, even as a blade of grass
There ever stands the mighty mountain-lord. 'We Were nQt fortunate enough, alas! 160
In nine portions that lotus is divided 'We lacked the wort.h to attairt even this,
And finest of the nine is Bharatam. 'To come to birth by the high road to bliss.
The sages, held by good men in high esteem, 135 'To all humans who dwell in Bharatam
All say that this is Karma's fruitful field. 'And to Kali, we make salutation.'
To Brahma's halls the best of us aspire
But Karma's seed can only sprout below. Such is the cry from other nations heard; 165
If Karma's seed should be dried up for good So why should I reiterate their words?
And we be freed from this bondage of birth 140 For do we not live in the Kali age?
Then it is sure, except in Bharatam And do we not all dwell in Bharatam?
That we are born, salvation will not come. And are we not all human beings here?
So remember, all desiring to be free, And do we not all understand this clear? 170
Why our land is so great, so necessary. Have we run out of holy names to tell?
Or have we lo ~t our ancient fear of hell?
Of the four Yugas, this Kali is the best: 145 Or are we speechless born, without a tongue?
How easy it is to win eternal rest! Or do we think we will always be young?
No great effort do you require, no pains
Except only to say the holy names: Alas, for shame! Without a thought to these 175
'Krishna! Krishna! Protector and Destroyer! In the world's flame we burrt away our lives.
'Krishna! Govinda! Rama!' is the prayer. 150 Good deeds have brought us to this present life
They grieve at this, the nations not born here, And freedom we have sought for many lives.
Who live among the thirteen other worlds; How many lives we lay amidst the slime,
Who live upon the other islands six; How many lives we lived beneath the sea, 180
Who live within the other portions eight; How many in the earth, how many stood
Who live during the other Yugas three: 155 As tall green trees dreaming within the wood!
They know they cannot possibly be free. How many lives we spent disembodied,
58 59
PUNTANAM NAMBUTlRI JNA N A P AAN A
How many did we forage in the field! \ . Some prize their .w~alth above all other things,
How many did we die and live again 185 Their wives and parents lack enough to eat.
To be born at last into this world of pain. The wives of some, married with due ritual,
Innumerable lives we have forgotten; Can never come even into their dreams.
Innumerable deeds it took us to be born. Some find their conduct criticized by saints 215
Ten months we spend lying within the womb; But blind to advice, brand them enemies.
Ten years or twelve we live as innocents. 190 Some speak of saints, whom they should venerate,
Then we begin to flaunt our little pride: With taunts and taints, their egos to inflate.
What is within us we have not descried. Some solipsists, puffed up with worthless phlegm,
How can we know how many years remain? Insist the universe stands because of them. 220
And yet we go our petty paths in vain. Some brahmins, filled to bursting with their rank,
Think Brahma himself not up to their mark.
Within the bubble which this body is 195 Some of high caste, greedy for wealth and fame,
We see there wobble just a shade of life. Perform the sacred rites only in name.
When breath lasts we do not think of it;
When death comes we see it become thin and fade. Some sell uncounted gems, and some sell gold, 225
As long as that bubble lasts, so do we: How well they know the value of their souls!
Yet we cannot trouble to think of God. 200 They trade in elephants mad with their might,
They trade in horses quicker than the sight,
Some think of name and honour all the while Dispatch their argosies to stranger coasts:
And lose all shame in squabbling over these. How much they earn, and Lord! how much it costs. 230
Some dwell in ego, with ego compete: Unclean in mind, unseemly in their greed,
Unwell their minds, diseased with vanity. Undreamed their wealth, their souls they pay no heed.
Some are so sunk in pretty woman's wiles, 205 Though rich they are and vast their treasure-vaults,
They dance like monkeys to her every whim. How much they more, unsatiated, want.
Some find the grandness of kings' courts a lure When they make ten, a hundred will suffice; 235
And walk with banners tied around their heads. When hundred's made, a thousand is the price.
Some go all day from fire to holy fire, A thousand coins may come to hand, but they
Engaged to pray to earn a daily wage. 210 Grieve at the nine thousand that got away.
60 61
PUNT A NAM NAM BUTIRI ] NANA -P AANA
Hand over hand, up desire's slippery rope \ , In two months more the anniversary's due
They climb and climb and never lose their grip. 240 But who is invited to feast? Not you.
To those who wait below without a scrap 'I'll have a son, I'll see him married well, 265
They will donate of nothing but their scorn. 'And then his son-I should be there to tell.'
'The corner field, which lies so near the house,
They have no faith, no one has faith in them: 245 'Gives a good yield-we won't give it on lease.'
They break an oath without a moment's shame. Thinking his thoughts and living all his lies,
They rejoice in the wealth which soon will pass Stricken suddenly, the poor fellow dies. 270
And renounce all the truth of now, alas. 248
At time of dying, they clutch with empty hands: 243 So goes the story- why this boring list?
Even their winding-sheets they must leave behind. 244 Each knows it as well as each one may wish:
The significance of our every deed,
For how is Brahl1lan to be understood? 249 The fictions which we maintain for ourselves.
It is the truth, so truly think the good. 250 That Kali is the age where we are come 275
Without learning what learning has to teach, And that our heritage is Bharatam.
We know it all, self-proclaimed wise men preach. In Bharatam we took our little births,
A donkey carries, though unable to smell, So far how little we have done of worth.
A load of saffron on its back to sell. We know what guarantee there is of life,
We know how fit our strength is for the strife. 280
o Krishna! When I look around I see 255 We know the benison of the holy names,
Confus~on everywhere, born out of greed. We know the meaning that they give our years.
Second by falling second our years grow less: We know the terrors that hell has in store,
Moment by mounting moment greed increases. We know our errors, we know how to mend.
Harvest is here, the new year's some months old. Why pass in vain our useless years below? 285
When is the next festival to be held? 260 The path leads straight to heaven evermore.
Your next birthday, on such-and-such a day, When we come here we must come here alone
Is six months off, in such-and-such a month. And when we go hence we musr go alone.
62 63
PUNTANAM NAMBUTIRI ] NANA -P AANA
Between those lonely passages we stand: \ , Are scathed but ,always ready for the strife.
Why must we only fight our fellow-man? '290 Prostrating ourselves in reverence, let
With all the treasures of this life untold, Us greet good people whenever they are met.
Why must we measure our richness in gold? Immersed in Bhakti's overflowing sea,
When we can see the sun shine on our sight Let us dance, dan.ce, dance, let us madmen be. 320
Must we pursue the firefly's brittle light? Meeting the world on our own terms like this,
When the boy Krishna frolics in our minds 295 Our sins will end, we will partake of bliss.
Why so selfishly want children of our own?
When all the deeds that it is destined for
Why say we are alone? Have we no friends Are done, then flees the spirit from the flesh.
When they are there, all those who love the Lord! It sees the journey's end after long wait; 325
When illusion plays such tricks on our flesh It seeks to dissolve in the Ultimate.
Surely the flesh is but an illusion. 300 It needs to forget all the ties of earth;
The world holds many wonders dear to us: It is, alas, not yet of enough worth.
We live among them as if in our own house. Let not the mind be clouded by this fear:
We have one father, Father of us all, There still remain the holy names to hear. 330
One mother, who is Mother of all things.
Through all our days their protection endures 305 You speak of caste? Whatever his birth affirms,
To keep us safe so long as we are here. Lowborn, or brahmin as his books confirm,
For food, our hands are vessels big enough: Unless that he be born without a tongue,
How good so simply to be satisfied! Or else by evil chances rendered dumb-
Setting detachment as our noblest aim, Of all the countless names which praise the Lord, 335
Letting our minds dwell on the holy names, 310 If daily he says one, just that one word-
Leading the life of goodness till it ends, Says it when sitting at his tranquil ease,
Heeding each moment let us live as men. Or says it in a dream of passing peace,
Or says it lightly in some mirthful pause,
The moving beings and the rooted ones, Or says it rightly in another's cause, 340
We acknowledge each with salutation. Says it but once,utters it with his speech-
We bathe in joyful tears with joy of life, 315 Wherever he be, the Lord is in his reach.
64 65
u
PUNTA NA M NA MBUTIRI
Why even that? If some day, at some hour

\ .
The brave accents fall gently on his ears-
At that moment his human fate bears fruit, 345
At that moment he gains the Absolute. Kesadi pada varnanam
So Veda Vyasa says, that we are blessed; (Description from Head to Foot)
So says Sreedhara, mighty in the texts;
So say the Vedas Vyasa helped indite; Melpattur Narayana Bhattatirippad
So says the Gita, and just so I write. 350
Then speak! Then sing the names in boundless joy

And all the barriers to Brahman destroy.
If will is there, that is all you will need:
Fulfil your life, the names your only creed.
If I have said right, or if I have said wrong, 355

The Lord's benediction be on my song.
66
\ .
Kesadi pada varnanam
Description from Head to Foot
31ft ~ ~ f1f~scH "ffi'lffl<:f

ctlMllIl'*.11
411ql~IfCfdls"& ~ ~ ft:01:r ~ ~ I
dl'(lOlll{j:~ ~ ~ ~IJOjlf~dl~'
"UCftcf 11<~I~fcfMft5)qf11S1C( ~ ~~ II
agre pasyami tejo nibi<;latara kalayavalI lobhanlyam

plyii~a-plavito-'ham tadanu tadudare divya kaisora ve~am
tarunya-rambha-ramyam parama sukha rasa-svada romancitangai-
ravltam naradadyair-vilasad-upani~at- sundarI man<;lalaisca
31ft ~ I see before me ~: radiance f1f~Sd{ most dense

bunch of kalaya flowers"ffi'lffl<:f desirable as ~ amr ta
ctlMllIlClci1
~: 31t I am bathed in ~ then ocr. its ~ in midst ft:01:r
divine ~ ~ boyish form ~-3lW-'lf beginning of youth "{"Rf
attractive as ~. greatest bliss \B-~ tasting the essence
~ hair-raising ~: limbs 3Wfui having~: Narada and
the others ~ shining ~ set about ~ beautiful girl
~: -:q and group of
69
KESAD IPAD AVA R N AN A M
,, I see before nie such a radiance as lPight be coveted 1

By the deep-blue glowing KaLiya flowers. I am reborn
For in that glory's heart I see a boy, lovely with the charm
Of the years between innocence and strength; and lapped
in his light, .
Their hairs on end with bliss, around, adoring, stand the
wise sages,
The heavenly maidens, dazzling with brilliance greater
than their own.
My blinded eyes clear, and now I can see the noble forehead 5
Inf~tuating as the infant moon, marked with sandal paste
Still shining soft and compelling the gaze to be slowly raised
To the dark hair, whence midnight steals its blue; Cj.lfling
at its ends,
Woven in a braid tied with never-fading coral flowers,
Sef above with gems, around with peacock feathers,
shining-eyed.
His eyebrows dancing like wavelets upon the sea of mercy, 9

Whose bounds but he knows: dark and smooth above
the lustrous lashes,
Framing eyes whose shape is like the petals of the red lotus:
Those eyes whose glances from beneath the brows
bear his compassion
And by the act of seeing soothe the world: may those
same eyes fall
On me who am supportless in this world; may those
same eyes bless.
71
ME L PAT T UR NARAYANA BHATTATIR I PPAD K ESA D I PAD A V A R N A N A M
May I see that face when I see it not, as easily as now: 13 Whose glory the 4ia'm ond necklace and the pearl can
\ .
The high nose, the shell-like ears where hang two scarce obscure.
jewels shaped like fishes And on that breast are also garlands flung of forest flowers
Shaking and dancing as they meet their twins, mirrored Whose fragrance summons bees to adoration, as I adore.
as brilliantly
In the smooth sapphire of his cheeks. May I see and That body perfumed with the five pure scents which 25
remam seemg refresh the world:
The parted rows of pearl-annulling teeth whose smile That body which has taken to itself age after long age
love-laden The three universes, that they may rest themselves and
Flows sweetly through the lotus-tinged passage between be renewed:
lip and lip. That body vaster than the reach of mind, whose waist
may yet be spanned
The two hands smooth as blossoms coloured red: 17 By two small hands; that like a great sapphire set in
whose wrists bear brilliant new-melted gold
Bejewelled circlets; whose alabaster nails in turn take each Is robed in yellow: may that body ever occupy my thought.
Hued shaft of light to be their own, and cast that shade
upon the reed- What dares disturb the peace of Lakshmi's mind but 29
The flute of bamboo held to the smiling mouth as from those two limbs
it pours Which broaden upward from the fine-turned stems
Such music as was heard at the world's birth: 0 may above his feet?
that rapture Like two great caskets bearing all that we could wish to
Never cease to fill the hollows of my ears, and thrill the live for
world. His knees are fashioned . And so move my eyes to the
two deep thighs '
From that great gem he bears, which first woke when 21 Whose glow is chastely veiled by yellow cloth, as if
the seas were churned suspecting
The red rays shoot upward, illumining the high and Their sight may steal the hearts of all who see, and
handsome neck. shake the world.
Below upon the boyish breast is imprinted the mark divine
72 73
MELPATTUR NARAY AN A BHATTA TIRIPP AD KESAD I PADAVAR NANAM
With melodious tinklings his ankle-chains tell us always 33 No more. Twice they are Narayana's, because of you,
,.
That this is highest joy, to praise his feet: those feet byrne. .
whose upper parts My joy it was to write these lines, this great favour
Swell like the tortoise raising up the wor~d from the was granted
deep ocean, By him who grar:t, to all who hear these words, long 44
Raising the restless minds of those who love him from health and happiness.
delusion.
And what light dispels their darkness? His nails like
crescent moons
Are radiant. So say his ankle-chains, and so them I praise.
Those feet from which the wise sages never wish to 37

raise their eyes:
Those feet where the fortunate free from bondage dwell
for ever:
Those feet which are to worshippers shoots of the tree
in heaven
That showers on them all their desiring: 0 sea limitless!
o Krishna! Lord of Guruvayur, who know that those
feet stand
Steadfast in my mind, banish my tears and let me know
your bliss.
Not knowing all your greatness what I have said, 41

Lord of the world,
Forgive. These thousand hymns and more of praise
I have composed
Accept. They tell your stories, how you saved the
world-for your own sport,
74 75
\ .
Bhaktiyum Vibhaktiyum
fFaith and Erudition)
Vallathol Narayana Menon

,,
Faith and Erudition
({)6llS2CTX)!91dhcmOcm1 nJ(fl!}jll2l~8Jo(f1)cm
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L(f1)1 nJBo nJ6mlcmJruoaD dhoC1WlJmlm8cOOJdhcmoruoo
ral)<;iu nazhlkay-aYl pascima-jalasayak-

kUI)<;iileykk-iraIJglyig-akasa-panthan siiryan
yatraykku samud-yuktay-ayigill-ivitenin-
natta patal-ambaray-akiya sandhya de VI
dlp-aradhanay-inkal Guruvayiirappan tan
sri-padam pal)iyuvan kattu-nilkkukay-avam
randu nazhika two measures of time (almost an hour) ayi it has

been pascima western jalasaya ocean kundileykk(u) into the
pit of irangiyitt(u) since descending akasa-panthan sky-
traveller suryan sun yatraykku to depart samud-yukta ready
ayittilla has not become ivitenin from here atta acquired
patala pale red ambara cloth akiya having (become) sandhya
79
VALLATHOL NARAYANA MEN O N BHAKTIYUM VIBHAKTIYUM
dusk devi goddess dipa lamp(s) aradhana(y)-inkal at worship 1

Guruvayurappan Lord of Guruvayur tan his sri-padl1~ 'holy.
feet paniyuvan to bow before kattu-nilkkuka waiting avam The journeyer across the skies went down the west 1
could be An hour ago, into the pit which daily waits;
The sun is gon~, but still the goddess of the dusk
Is unwilling to change her robe of ribboned red.
She will not go, perhaps- the evening prayers near-
Until she's bowed before great Guruvayur's lord.
Has day departed? See, the domains of the Lord 7

Are blazing with the brilliance of unnumbered lamps.
Now sound his names of might, and even here, below,
The ground is hallowed by his own heavenly light.
Yet clearly through the chant, and through the throbbing 11

drum
We hear the magic of sweet Jayadeva's song.
And captured by the sound, their hands stilling their hearts,
Too rapt to breathe, the devout wait without the gate.
Like nymphs of heaven here and there among the throng 15

The sylph-like forms of women at their prayers shine
In spotless white, their skins all dimpled with fresh drops
Of water from their bath, their black hair hanging long.
80 81
VALLATHOL NA R A YA NA MENON B H A KTI YU M V IBH A KTI YUM
3 4
\ .
Behold! The doors are opened wide; another world 19 Now rises from among those seated just outside, 45
Unfolds its splendour in the temple's inmost heart. All wise and erudite, whose prayers never cease,
Has He who sees each deed now risen in the west? A man of Kerala. J;lis noble brow is marked
So flees the darkness when the stars amass their light. With sandal paste; and as he goes outside to make
So and forever smiles beneath the jewelled crown His triple journey round the triply-hallowed walls
The sandal-golden face, as only he can smile. His lips still tremble with the might of Krishna's names.
Eyes, do not shut nor turn! What bliss it is to know 25
Into my being flows the blessing of that smile.
The chain of fragrant, never-withering flowers
WOl.lld fain upon the holy breast for ever lie 5
Where presses fondly now a plate of gleaming gold
-Unless that it be lustrous Lakshmi herself there? 30 But now another rises, follows close the first 51
Now wafts in all directions the strong smell and the sweet And lowly is his bearing, low-voiced is his speech:
Of saffron, camphor, of incense and of flowers 'A work there is-or call it play-that I have made
Just as towards his Faithful flows the Lord's dear love I 'Where lurk such lapses-will yourself be pleased to read?
Who has no presence here and yet is everywhere. 'You cavil at the common tongue-but, Pagetf,
The bells hang silent in the nave outside, beneath 35 I have no comfort else. ' It's Bhattathiri then?
A spell of holiness, till searching fingers find Whose thousanp flowers wrought of seamless Sanskrit 57
Their smooth rouqd mouths. They awake then, and sing aloud verse
The truthful praise of One who gives all consciousness. This house of poliness and its great Master praise,
The air is gently stirred: The wind is wanting too Whose words ensure the good? It is indeed. To him
Its share of those offerings that the Lord has blessed. 40 The Lord has freely given of his choicest gifts.
Serene, the moon bestows its silver light upon Who pleads with him to cast his eye of majesty
The scene below, that like the milky ocean shines. On screeds which reek of sweat from common peasant
And when the wind plays with the trailing robes of those hands?
Who render homage, waves in that same ocean dance. It's Puntanam, whose poems all extol the Lord, 63
82 83
VALLATHOL NARAYANA MENON B H A KTIYUM V IBH A KTI YUM
Whose tuneful canticles rival the nightingale. \ ,

A gold chain roun.d his waist, which tinkles as he moves, 81
But Bhattathiri answers in a sharper tone: He holds a bamboo flute as one may hold a flower.
'These ditties in Malayalam, show someone else!' Now mutely does the brahmin hear what Krishna says;
Alas! That pride which comes of mastering the texts In flute-like voice thus speaks the bearer of the flute:
Should fasten on this knower of the ultimate.
'The M alayalam poet's grief you must relieve; 85
'Your malady can have no other cure but that.
'To learning indeed Bhattathiri has a claim;
6 'The burning faith of Puntanam is dearer far.'
o speech divine, perfected when the gods were young! 69

This deed of thine is ill, to spurn Kerala's tongue!
Puntanam, crushed beneath the weight of hopes belied,
Soon vanished from that place. But mark the sequel now.
That night the sickness fell which long in him had slept 73
And mightily it seized all Bhattathiri's limbs.
With straining sinews, writhing as if he is aflame,
In vain he struggles, crying, '0 Lord, 0 Krishna, help!'
And when at last he wins to this near side of sleep 77

A tender youth appears before his reddened eyes:
o rare is his enchantment! Yellow is his robe,
His hair a cloud of rain where plumes of peacock dance,
84 85
\ .
Notes
Translator's Apology
Page 3 Says Tuka-l: Selected Poems of Tukaram, translated from the
Matathi with an Introduction by Dilip Chitre, Sontheimer Cultural
Association, Pune, 2003 (first published in Penguin Classics, 1991).
4 Y.uganta: The End of an Epoch by Irawati Karve (1905- 70), SangaJ1l

Books, 1974; Disha Books, 1991 (both Orient Longman Ltd). Brilliant,
thought-provoking essays on the Mahabharata that have influenced
two generations at least of English-educated Indians; originally published
in Marathi.
7 I have recently, in the course of completing this Apology, heard a

theory propounded thar the Namputiris were those indigenous votaries
of the old (matrilineal, mother-goddess-worshlpping) order who became
enthusiasts of the new-fangled patriarchy (both divine and earthly) and
wor) promotion in the Aryan varna system. One cousin I met in Kerala
in late 2007 remembers as a boy being told by the illiterate sudra who
used to cut his hair, 'It was my forefathers [he used the word 'ammilman-
milr', or 'mother's brothers', being of a Nayar or matrilineal house]
who used to be in charge of these temples before you Namputiris and
NambIsans came along.'
87
NOTES N OT ES
My cousin adduces the fact that sudras playa small but essential area are named for ? ther flowering plants: Tamaray ur, Palayur, and
role in Namputiri and Nambisan religious ceremonies-they supply the so on. I am told the name ' Guruvayur' is not found before Melpattur's
laundered clothes and sever a symbolic lock of hair at the upanayanam Narayaniyam. T his phenomenon of upwardly mobile name-change
or sacred thread ritual, for instance-while they are utter pollution to is common wherever a classical language coexists with a bhasha, but
the Tamil Iyengars and Iyers, who are Aryan brahmins. (Such symbolism it is more proper to say that it occurs when a fashionable language
is common in cases of usurpation. I believe a Rajput king's coronation cohabits with a vulgar. T hus, in Europe, Latinization of the bhashas
is not complete until he has been anointed with the blood of a Bhil.) is widespread: 'Italy' and the river name 'Isis' in England are two
My cousin's thesis is that the 'old religion' was animist overlaid by Jain which have been sought to be traced from Latin. In England, though,
overlaid by Buddhist, and those who remained loyal to it in the teeth of French was for many centuries the language of fashion, and so, for
the Aryan domination were demoted in the caste system. instance, romantics attempted to derive the name 'Charing' in ' Charing
Nayars are sudras only according to the varna system. In Kerala Cross' from 'chere reine' (dear queen )- because it was one of the
their status is complicated: There are high-caste and low-caste Nayars. resting places of Edward I's wife Eleanor's body in 1290 cE- rather
Some of the Nayars were royal. Some of the even 'lowlier' Ezhava and than from the true Old English 'cierring' , meaning turn or bend (in
Tlyya clans boasted, even in medieval times, of proud lineage, much the road).
wealth, martial power and royal1patronage. 'Illiterate sudra', above, is M elpattur made 'Guruvayur' (or, rather, the grander 'Guru-pavana-
purely descriptive. pura ') famous with N arayaniyam, and Svati Tirunal, M aharaja of
Travancore in the first half of the nineteenth century and illustrious
12 A Short History of Malayalam Literature by Dr K. Ayyappa composer, drove it into the national consciousness. But it is telling that
Panikkar, Thiruvananthapuram, 1977. nowhere does Puntanam mention the Guruvayur temple in his works.
He refers only to the Krishna temple near his ancestral home. So perhaps
15 Guruvayur: Contemporary and no doubt revisionist philology the celebrated meeting never happened, or it transpired somewhere else.
derives the place name from 'Guru', Brhaspati, and Vayu, who are said
to have collaborated in bringing south an idol of Krishna from Dvaraka 21 A critic points out that Panini and Bharata Muni cannot really take
when that town sank beneath the waves. This is ridiculous. Krishna all the credit, or blame, for formulating the rules of Sanskrit grammar
could not have been worshipped in Dvaraka when his clan ruled there; and the performing arts respectively. Perhaps a millennium's settled life
he was not even their king. Vayu, the wind-god, would have been in the subcontinent ha"d allowed the culture to develop certain
necessary to bring a ship south from Saurashtra, but why resurrect conventions. T hese were those that worked , for both artisans and
Brhaspati, preceptor of the gods, unheard of since the Puranas? audience. The grammarian and the art theorist simply put them down
Harder-headed scholars have established that as recently as on paper. I take his point as regards Panini: A language needs a grammar.
two centuries ago the town was referred to in revenue records as But to give Natya-Sastra scriptural status is one of the most foolish
'Kuruvaiyur'. The kuruvai is a flowering plant, and villages in the things we Indians have ever done .
88 89
NOTES NOTES
21 Prakrits : The Indo-Aryan languages have displayed far greater which I read in my childhood in (of all journals) Reader's Digest. Menen
structural shifts than the much more conservative Dravidian languages. was the son of a M~layali father and Irish mother, and had an entirely
Thus, while today's Tamil is recognizably the same language as the O ld British upbringing which he struggled against in vain. One line I
Tamil of about 250 BCE, today's Hindi is a different language from Pali. remember from that piece about his father's mother, which sums up the
All the south Indian languages are, on this scale, old: The earliest extant Anglo-Indian divide after 1850 or so, is 'My grandmother thought
Kannada text dates to about S50 CE, Telugu to the eleventh century that any woman wno covered her breasts after marriage was iptent
and Malayalam to the twelfth. The first known inscriptions in these on adultery.'
languages are dated a couple of centuries earlier. Tamil did not come
out of nowhere in 250 BCE, of course; there was a proto-Dravidian 27 The Enquire Dictionary of Quotations compiled and edited by T.J.S.
language, though naturally much less work has been done on it than George; HarperCollins Publishers India, 2001. 'in any collection of
on proto-Indo-European. There is a north Dravidian family too, which quotations, the primary criterion has to be quotability without reference
includes Brahui, still spoken in Sindh. Links to proto-Dravidian have to the original context. By this test some of the great verses of Sanskrit
been postulated for Uralic (Finn, Hungarian) and Altaic (Turkic, become, in English, unquotable. The word "agni" has multifarious
Mongol) languages. classical nuances enriching it; in English it can only be the mundane
In north India the oldest Prakrit is Pali, in which the Buddhist canon "fire" . Some beautifully romantic imageries in Bhasa and Kalidasa turh
is enshrined, and which is still taught in Sri Lanka. The early Jain canon artless, even coarse, with English words like buttocks.'
is in ArdhamagadhL The most literary of the Prakrits is said to have
been MaharastrL
The most structurally advanced of these languages-
I 27-28 Mahabh arata retold by William Buck, University of California,
sometimes not classed as a Prakrit but as a langllage ih its own right, and 1973. My memory has failed
, I
me here. The notes are not Buck's but his
used by such as Kalidasa- was Apabhramsa, which lasted a millennium publisher's: '[Hamsa] is really a goose and flot a swan, but the latter
until the age of empires ended and regiohallanguages took its place. sounds more poetic.' However, as far as I can discover, there is no
The term 'HindvI' was used by Amir Khusrau in the thirteenth species of swan ihdigenous to India. 'Harrisa' in Sanskrit could mean a
century in a literary sense, but it is difficult to say where Braj Bhasa or swan, or a duck, or a goose, or any wa,terfowl.
Avadhi shades into H indi proper. The earliest Bengali (Buddhist) texts
are thought to date to the tenth century; Gujarati and Rajasthani i:o the 28 The sOflg is from the classic film PalJi Thiratta Vlq,U ('The
twelfth; Marathi to the thirteenth; Maithili, Assamese and Kashmiri House Where Work Never Ends'), 1973. The lyrics are by t)1e celebrated
the fourteenth; and Oriya the fifteenth. Each language must be thought poet Vayalar.
of as being at least two or three centuries older, as a language.
30 'Paana' is the name of a metre; it could mean a measure of something.
26-27 Aubrey Menen, a prose stylist unhappily not remembered these But since the word also has implications of drinking, it likely means a
days, wrote a piece called 'My Grandmother and the Dirty English', measure of something liquid- possibly one of the earthen pqts still
90 91
NOTES N OT ES
attached to the tops of toddy palms all over India to collect the precious Jnana-paana
nectar (pana means the toddy palm, hence the inference. ) This;s ~y
own nar6# or dried coconut shell, as Irawati Karve borrows the term Title 'Jnana' means knowledge; for 'paana' see above.
from Eknath: a worthless contribution. A noted scholar disagrees. He
thinks 'paana' is likely to be more straightforwardly derived from pattu, line 25 Puntanam is making it clear he is no scholar and there is no
that which is sung. In any case, I have used the meaning 'measure' for need for scholarship in understanding his poem.
the title of this volume.
34 In primeval Indian thought, there is no Original Sin or consciousness
33 The Crowning Privilege: A selection of lectures and essays concerned of guilt. There is only Karma: good deeds or bad. Even evil does not
exist as a force, strictly speaking.
with professional standards in poetry, first published by Cassell & Co.,
1955 (Penguin Books, 1959); this essay is 'Harp, Anvil, Oar' and was
originally delivered as one of the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, 35- 48 The repeated use of 'One' does not make these lines as clear as
Puntanam might have wished.
Cambridge in 1954- 55.
The function of the Nordic scop seems to have been two-fold. 145 I have an issue with this, the standard translation of two of
Not only was he originally a shaper of charms to protect the Puntanam's most famous lines. They might just as well mean, ' Of the
person of the king and to maintain prosperity in the realm; but four Yugas, this Kali is the best: How pleasant it is to win eternal
he had a subsidiary task, of persuading a ship's crew to pull rest,' that is, how good it is to get out of this life in the Kali or most
rhythmically and uncomplainingly on their oars against the corrupt age. The word used is sukham , which co uld have either
meaning in Malayalam .
rough waves of the North Sea, by singing them ballads in time
to the beat ....
Anglo-Saxon poetry is unrhymed, because the noise of 149 'Protector and Destroyer' are 'M ukunda' and 'Janarddana' in
the original. .
rowlocks does not suggest rhyme.
41 Sanni was eliminated in January 2008, and the show came to an 164 This is proof of Puntanam's naivete. Kali (who rules this Kali Yuga)
IS .one of the most mischievous supernatural beings, if not downright
end in April. The 2008 edition started in May.
Wicked (see the story of N ala in Mahabharata), and no scholar would
offer him salutation. Puntanam was if nothing else accepting of the
spiritual status quo.
92 93
N OT ES N OTE S
243-44 I have transposed these lines; in translation, they foJl.ow 33-36 'The tortoise' refers to the kurma-avatdra in which Vishnu took
better thus. the form of that chelonian to rescue the earth from the primordial ocean;
in some cosmologies the earth is supported by a tortoise.
295-96 These lines are autobiographical, as I explain in the Apology.
37-40 '0 sea limitless! ' is really 'Kiirunya-sindho!', 'Ocean of mercy! '
348 Sridharacharya wrote an important commep.tary on the Gita; also
the most celebrated exposition of the Bhagavatam. 41-44 Properly, this verse is a close to the whole Narayaniyam; however,
it is always recited as a part of this dasaka.
352 T his line has a pun in Sanskrit/Malayalam as well. 'Mati' ('will', 'Twice they are Narayana's': They describe Narayana, Vishnu; and
'resolution' in Sanskrit) is punned on with 'mati' ('enough', 'sufficient' they are by Narayana Bhattatirippad. Actually, this translation could
in Malayalam). be said to be thrice or even four times Narayana's: My father, who
made the literal translation, is named Narayanan, and if you go strictly
by Hindu naming laws so am 1.
Kesadip{ldavarnanam
Tide Kesa: hair; ad!: and so on; pada: feet; varQ.anam: description.
Numeration The original has verses of four lines each, so I have st~yed
Title Bhakti: faith; vibhakti: learning.
wirh that system.
See Notes, above: The story may not be historical. It is not even likely
lines 1-4 Tpe deep-blue kalaya (kdydmpu in Malayalam) is the flower
Guruvayur was such a mighty place of worship as the poem suggests.
of the ironwood tree, Memeeylon tinetorium.
Modern commep.tators, anxious to get every tittle of the erotic 12 Gita-Govinda has always been immensely popular in Kerala. It is
out of the texts at their command, usually translate vilasad-upanispat- usually referred to as A!itapadi, from its metre .
sundari-mandalaiseha as 'the Upanishads stand around in the form
of shining maidens'. But then those others should not be Narada and 53 There is a pun here in Malayalam too (and Sanskrit), on krti, 'work',
the rishis, either, they are the Vedas and Puranas standing around in and vikrti, 'play'.
the form of sages. The poet's intention is simply to show that all
heavenly beings worship here. 'Upanishat' merely means 'set about'. 55 'Paneri' is how an unlettered peasant might say 'Bharratiri'. Puntanam,
himself a Namputiri, wo uld not have addressed Melpattur thus; but
21- 24 t he 'great gem' is the Kaustubha; the 'mark divine' is the Vallathol is showing how much a man of the people he is.
Srlvatsa. I have tried to avoid all proper nouns natural in the Sanskrit
setting, because they are not natural in English. 69-70 These lines are in Sanskrit in the original.
94 95
\ .
Vijay Nambisan
BIHAR IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
With illustrations by the author

Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Preface to the new edition
Prologue
Laloo Prasad and the secret of democracy
Sisters under the skin
Biharis need to be kicked
I was kicking someone
I will be dead by forty
The fourth R is Revolution
Bihar rides the two-headed tiger
O ladies who have seen the light
Hum Maxim mangta hai!
Laloo puts it to the touch
Killing the divine king
Authors Note
Epilogue
Afterword to the new edition
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
BIHAR IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Vijay Nambisan has worked as a journalist in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bihar and Kerala. A selection
of his poems appeared in Gemini, a two-poet volume published in Viking in 1992. He is also the
author of Language as an Ethic (Penguin, 2003).
He is married to the novelist and surgeon Kavery Nambisan. They live in Lonavla, Maharashtra.
This book is for my editors
Probir Dasgupta
Adil Jussawalla
Nirmala Lakshman
but it is dedicated to the people of M____

Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.
(For any madness of their kings, it is the Greeks who take the beating.)
Horace, Epistles
Preface to the new edition
IM NOT GOING TO meddle with this book, though the temptation is strong. I went to Bihar eleven
years ago, in September 1996, and the book was published in August 2000 after two years work.
There is something Id want to change on practically every page. It is the habit of a professional
writer who sets much store by perfection to consider anything he has written, even as recently as
yesterday, as juvenilia. Six months from now Ill curse myself for wasting the chance to write a really
illuminating new foreword. Too bad. The poems I wrote when I was eighteen are the poems I wrote
when I was eighteen, and who can do anything about that?
The book was sent forth in 2000 with no ideaon my partof what reaction it might evoke. The
only bad reviews it received were from professional journalists, among whose ranks I ceased to
class myself ten years ago. That is not surprising, because Ive been caustic about mainstream news
reporters in the book. Now I should be more caustic still. However, Im glad Bihar Is in the Eye of
the Beholder has found a niche readership at least, and has stayed in print, and been translated into
Hindi. Some people I respect have said some good things about it. I could have expected no more.
How has Bihar changed in the last decade? Im not now qualified to pronounce judgement, and
indeed I never was qualified. I could say what I did because I had lived there and seen it. I have
written in this book that Laloo wasted an opportunity almost as golden as Rajiv Gandhis in 1984
when, sidetracked by the fodder scam, he put the entire and immense weight of his personality and
political strength behind the empowerment of the lower castes. What this amounted to was that
Yadavs could oppress the high castes. All this happened before my eyes.
Now Laloo Prasad has lost an election after fifteen years. Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi are as
keen on development as Laloo ought to have been. Yet the headlines coming out of Bihar are as
gruesome as they ever were. Murders, Naxalites, an ex-DIG killed while resisting dacoits, rapes,
lynchings, MPs wanted for murder but never arrested, MPs arrested and living comfortably in
hospital. Good news is not rare; but it is rarely reported. Late last year (10 October), the Indian
Express had one of those rare front-page items, about the sugar industrys revival in the state.
This is one thing wrong with our perception of Bihar as Indias cesspool: It is the perception we
are offered. Most editors, as long as Laloo or his wife was Chief Minister, simply did not want good
news from the state. With Nitish Kumar as CM, Bihar is only slightly less dirty a word in the media
and in Delhi. You have to dig for favourable stories. In early June 2006 I caught an interview with a
telecom tycoon on one of the business channels on TV. There were two idiots asking questions, and
when one of them mentioned the investment the tycoon was making in Bihar they looked at each other
and grinned slyly, as if it was some dirty joke they both knew the punchline to. The tycoon, to give
him his due, preserved his countenance.
Yes, Bihar is getting investment, but mainly remains a salacious joke in the media. It is a stupid
attitude, but a persuasive one. Blame it on Bihar! Biharis who make it in the world outside are often
ashamed of their roots. Prakash Jha has not made much difference with either his films or his
candidature in the 2004 elections. Most unhappily, the politicians and babus in New Delhi cannot
renounce the idea that Bihar is past redemption. I have written in this book: Given a statesman for
leader, and the political will, Bihar can be Indias showpiece in ten years.
However, looking at Bihar in context, one thing should be noted. Good news from anywhere is
getting rarer. States that were once showpiecesMaharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjabare
increasingly failing in good governance, and relying on demagoguery. I have also written in this book
that were all going down the trail Bihar blazed. By treating Bihar as anathemaexcept for its Lok
Sabha seatsthe Centre has merely given politicians from other states a powerful example of what
can be achieved in politics. It would have been politically more astute to redress Bihars wrongs. But
that requires vision.
Laloo Prasad does not lack vision. As Railway Minister, with a fresh and untainted map to draw
on, he seems to have realized that there are virtues in good governance, in development. He is young
as politicians go, and he will be back in Bihar. He is still the most important man in the state. The
NDA victory was fashioned around a pro-development but also consciously anti-Laloo movement,
and Laloos victory next time or the time after will prove his worth. He is still the one man who can
make a difference, if only because he is synonymous with the empowerment of the oppressed. And
oppressionzulmis still very much a fact of life in Bihar.
Prologue
IT WAS A BLEAK morning in one of the chilliest Januaries in recent memory, and if the clocks were
not striking thirteen, I felt, it was only because there were no clocks to strike. I stood outside the
Hospitals main gate, waiting to capture a passing rickshaw. At about 8.30, usually, the first patients
would begin to arrive from the railway station, but possibly the cold had put them off today.
The fruit seller who squatted just outside the gate was already at his post, however. Rickshaw? he
said. Ill get you one. He rose and walked up the rutted road that led to the railway tracks and across
them to the market a kilometre away. The road had once been pukka, but like much else in Bihar it had
not been kept in repair for years.
I walked alongside, and just to be friendly I said Id hoped to get a rickshaw bringing a patient
from the station. Wasnt this the time they generally began coming to the OPD?
The fruit seller yelled into a shack outside which there stood a vehicle. O rickshaw! The doctor
saab has to go to the tation, but the rickshaw-wala either wasnt in or had other things to do. The
fruit seller resumed his walk up the road, then turned to me. Patients? he said. If all the good
doctors go away, why will patients come to this hospital?
As I walked beside him, the bleakness settling on my spirit, I tried to rememberI could not
recapturethe euphoria that had accompanied us to Bihar only sixteen months ago.
Laloo Prasad and the secret of democracy
WE REACHED M____just after the rains, when the Ganga plain is painted its loveliest, richest
green. In all the Talthe flat expanse between the river and the southern horizonthere was no arid
spot, and water sparkled in the low-lying areas which flanked the road. It was my first visit to Bihar
(discounting the preliminary trip Kavery and I had made in May, when the Sisters at the Hospital had
turned on the charm and the skies had turned on the fire) and I thought we could live quite happily
here, if we didnt try anything foolish.
Id not thought of doing anything in the journalistic line, except an occasional review or essay and
the monthly literary crossword which Id been composing for a couple of years and am especially
proud of. No English paper needs a features writer in rural Bihar.
But everything about Bihar fascinated me, it was so different from anything Id ever experienced:
The culture, the politics, what people took for granted and what provoked them to rebellion. I was
always an outsider, of course: Sixteen months dont make a native of you unless youre Lawrence of
Arabia. However, there are events occurring daily in Bihar which in my innocence I thought never
happen in the South, and I felt impelled after a time to write about them. As I began to write I began to
inquire, and I read and listened, and learned.
It was around the time that then Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta termed Uttar Pradesh as being
in a state of chaos, anarchy and destruction that Bihar seemed to float into focus for me. Why was he
saying this about Uttar Pradesh? Worse things by far were happening in Bihar. Politics asideLaloo
Prasad Yadav was Chief Minister then and Guptas ally in the United Frontwas no one in Delhi
concerned?
Everyone said, of course, that Bihar is Indias most backward state; some estimates worked out its
backwardness relative to the Indian average as fifty years. The implication was somehow that nothing
could be done about it.
Bihar is actually one of Indias richest states. It has agricultural and mineral wealth in abundance (I
have no need to quote figures, and anyway I have promised not to do so). But it is the political
backwardness of Bihar that sets all right-thinking newspaper readers to shaking their heads. The state
is, in this sense, so backward that educated Biharis speak in admiring tones of neighbouring Uttar
Pradesh. If UP is foundering in chaos, anarchy and destruction, the men in New Delhi have given up
describing Bihar even in such terms. Any report of a caste-based massacre in Bihar, or a spate of
train robberies, or a political assassination, or especially another instance of corruption, is rarely
more than instant news in the national dailies: That is, it is not treated on a day-to-day basis. One
would suppose that the wise men in the capital merely mutter Bihar! and leave it at that.
For quite some time in 1997 and 98 Bihar got a lot of attention in the media. But that was
attributable more to Laloo Prasads antics than to any genuine concern. His striking appearance, his
confident attempts to speak English, his absolute indifference to what his interlocutors thought of him,
the flunky with the spittoon . . . He was quite possibly the most charismatic Indian politician since
Rajiv Gandhi copped it, and Rajivs charisma lay mostly in his genes. Laloo Prasad was, for months,
to every TV watcher, the Face of Bihar. (A friend of mine in Hyderabad said his two favourite TV
characters were Laloo and film actor Govinda.) And nothing could be more grotesque than thator
more irredeemably stupid on the part of the media.
Laloo is not an aberration. Nor is Bihar. What is happening in Bihar is happening all over India.
But Bihar is a microcosm of the whole; a laboratory specimen, as it were, most easily brought under
the microscope of analysis. For there is something going on in Bihar which is of great relevance to
Indias polity, and perhaps not to Indias alone. A study of Bihar as an organism, and not merely of
Patna as a stage, might provide a really radical yet thoroughly practical critique of our thusnessof
premises we understand as fundamental to our existence as a nation, particularly as a democratic
nation.
This has little to do with fodder scams and the role of Laloo Prasad Yadav as arbiter of destinies in
the state, but has everything to do with his years in office. I began this book about a month after Atal
Behari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second time, in early 1998, and am about to
complete it almost two years later, as Bihar prepares to elect a new Assembly. The last ten years
have been indisputably Laloos era, and now (as throughout the last three years) there is much
speculation about Laloos fate.
The last ten years have been Laloos era: But that is not the same thing as Laloo being
representative of Bihar. It is of course cheaper and easier for the media to work on that premise,
instead of focussing on the policies he sought in vain to implement, or the forces with which in vain
he contended, and why these battles of his were in vain. The impression the media convey is that
Laloo has brought Bihar to its knees. That is not quite true. And if Laloo has defeated Bihar, equally
Bihar has defeated Laloo.
I wrote for my paper in 98 that it seemed likely (at least to me) that Sonia Gandhi would find the
withdrawal of Congress (I) support from Rabri Devis government a handy brush to use in her
repainting job. That did happenor, at any rate, the Congress (I) went to the Assembly polls two
years later with savage anti-Laloo war-cries, and their subsequent flip-flops have done much to bring
laughter into our lives. A lot of other things have happened which I might or might not go into . . . No
doubt affairs will be clearer (or more clearly murkier) by the time this book goes to press. But it will
in any event be out of date when it is publishedeven though Ive had time to see what happened in
the Assembly electionsand so I talk of what I see as permanencies, using topical cases only for
illumination. The game of looting Bihar will go on. It is what Laloo represents that is relevant.
It was my chance receipt in April 1997 of a review copy of the literary journal Granta (the
celebration or whatever of fifty years of Indias freedom) and my chance presence at a local mela
which Laloo Prasad Yadav makes a point of attending, that made me think of Bihar not merely as
what-I-am-living-in-now but as a paradigm of the not-so-distant future: what-I-may-well-be-living-
in-ten-years-from-now, wherever in India I am. Bihar is developing into one of the political
possibilities open to democracy which increasingly looks like coming to fruition.
The two relevant passages in Granta 57: India (1997) I quote below:
More than ever, [those below the poverty line] and the people just above them seek political action to meet their demands: more
subsidized food, more government jobs. They vote for the people who are most like them. In this sense, India has never had such
representative politicians. Patrician, English-speaking leaders have almost disappeared, though English is the language of the new
commercial vitality and many of the people who have benefited from it. The forces of economics and democracy are opposed.
Ian Jack, Introduction
When Delhi newspapers publish articles on Bihars disorders and atrocities, they tend to make a point of emphasizing the states
backwardness. What is needed . . . they say, is development . . . But it seems equally likely that Bihar could be not so much
backward as forward: a trendsetter for the rest of India. The first ballot-rigging recorded in India took place in Bihar [in 1962] . . .
die first example of major criminals being awarded parliamentary seats took place in Bihar [in 1980] . . .
So infectious is the Bihar disease that it throws into question the whole notion of an Indian economic miracle . . .
William Dalrymple, Caste Wars
also in At the Court of the Fish-eyed Goddess
That the forces of economics and democracy are opposed is no secret. The high incidence of
corruption in our daily lifenot speaking of politicians or public servicesbears this out. Open a
new box of matches, the carborized 50s that are sold at anything from fifty paise to a buck, and count
the sticks. Id be very surprised if you found more than forty-five. And this is just a box of matches. A
consumer movement, and consumer laws, are surely on the side of democracy; but where does it start
when there is corruption involved in the sale of a box of matches?
And when economics and democracy are opposed, it is no secret either which side the politicians
are on. Bihar, one of the richest states of India, is also perhaps the poorest. In May 1998 there were
news reports that the state government had used only about one-third of Eighth Plan allocations. Why?
Because after the spate of scandals, those who run the state have become frightened of being caught
with their hands in the till even for purposes which are legitimate. Development be damned, and
democracy too: Those who need the money, who need development, dont have the money and are not
developed enough to ask for it.
Ian Jack is right up to a certain point; where he is wrong is in thinking the forces of economics are
linked to patrician politicians because both speak English. The forces of economics in India have
nothing to do with whether you can speak English; your success depends on how well you can use
existing conditions and shape developments to your advantage. Both politics and economics speak the
language of money, democracy has nothing to with either.
Dalrymple, who is at best a superficial kind of travel writer, has stated a superficial truth which is
nonetheless a truth. Bihar is a trendsetter for the rest of us. I can see young politicians from all over
the country being sent there as to a finishing school (an alternative career for Laloo Prasad if ever he
dares to quit politics: a new Dotheboys Hall) and coming back wide-eyed from a prospect of heaven,
having learned
how to keep the electorate ignorant

how to bully them if they persist in educating themselves
advanced populist finance
and no doubt other titles in the curriculum will suggest themselves to you.
These ideas are lying around everywhere to be picked up, and not only in India. But to me, they
were nakedly and brutally manifest in Bihar.
No one who has seen the Ganga plain after the monsoon and the annual flood, who has seen what it
produces despite more than two thousand years of intensive cultivation, can think that the state of
Bihar is a poor one. The soil is incredibly fertile: Poke in a seed and it sprouts. The first winter we
were there, potatoes and onions sold for a rupee a kilo. Ive seen roses and dahlias the size of
cauliflowers and cauliflowers the size of footballs.
Yet the irrigation system is positively medieval. There are no canals in the Tal to drain away the
vast quantities of water which stand in the fields to places where they might be more useful. (In
medieval times, before barrages and the enormous pressure of modern populations, canals were
presumably unnecessary.) Neither are there many tubewells in operation in the dry months.
A former Union Secretary of Agriculture whom I happened to meet in Hyderabad told me,
Irrigation is a State subject. Money is sanctioned from the Centre and in Plan outlays for these
schemes; but the Centre is not in charge of implementation, and all the funds are eaten up by the
engineers. I dont suppose the Centre worries itself sick about this in any case.
Neither do the big landlords. It is in their interest to keep the landless classes in their place
where their fathers and grandfathers kept them. At harvest-time crowds of the village poor flock early
every morning to fields often ten or twenty kilometres away, there to slave in the sun until well into
the afternoon and bring home, as their wages, a small fraction of what they picked: Maybe a kilo or
two of daal or mustard seeds or a small bag of grain. Not a paisa in cash; no food. In Kerala, now, not
even an unskilled labourer will spill his sweat for less than a hundred and fifty rupees a day, two
meals and tea . . . (There are other things to be said about Kerala, and I will say them later; at least no
one can deny that land reform and unionization have resulted in a high degree of social justice by the
standards of other states.)
Tractors, like tubewells, are a rare sight in these fields. Why waste money on such luxuries when
labour is so plentiful and so cheap? Even the old-fashioned wells, from which you drag buckets of
water up by hand, are not equipped with the elementary pulley wheel or drum windlass. But the
landlords have to be sure it will remain so, that the poor will have no opportunity to move on to
better things; and whatever the party in power, since Jayaprakash Narayans death the poor have been
denied even the opportunity for envy, because they do not know anything about the rest of the world.
And not only the poor. Most natives of Biharexcepting the millions of migrant labourers in
Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Nepalhave never travelled further west than Varanasi, not far from the
Uttar Pradesh border, and it is a rare man of the world who has even been to Calcutta, ten hours east
of Patna by train. I knew a doctor at M____whose brother found ajob somewhere on the Andhra-
Maharashtra border, and has since refused to return to his roots. Why should I come back to Bihar?
he asked on one of his rare visits home. There is no crime where I live, I can get a seat on the bus,
and my children can learn English in school. Those who know the Andhra-Maharashtra border will
vouch for the fact that it is no land of milk and honey.
Despite railroads, industries like the thermal power station and the Indian Oil refinery in the
Barauni area (where most trained workers are from outside Bihar), and a semblance of educational
facilities, little has changed in the dynamics of Bihar society. (I must say I never visited Jamshedpur
or the more industrialized south of Bihar.) Another doctor I knew took a week off from work at
harvest-time to help his family in a nearby village bring in the crop. Local criminals attempted to
extort a share from them; when they refused, the doctors brother was abducted and held for ransom.
A few days after he was released came the news that two of the gangsters had been killed . . . by
tribals armed with bows and arrows, said the newspaper report.
The Patna Medical College Hospital, Bihars most prestigious (if the word can mean anything),
according to a news report in early 1997 lacked essential facilities. Few of the ambulances ran, the
lone X-ray machine hadnt worked for a year or two, and the doctors were mostly occupied with
private practice. But, I later heard, there was a Janata Dal office on the ground floorprobably a
Rashtriya Janata Dal office now. I was also told that citizens who dwelt in the vicinity could
sometimes be seen jumping over the walls and making away with mattresses and cots. So what if the
mortality rate is high? Dead men dont vote.
Yet, while health care for the very poor is practically non-existent, there are fancy clinics in Patna
and even in smaller towns with all the latest fancy equipment.
You can do anything you like in Biharand avoid doing anything you dont want to doif you
have the right connections. The throwing around of political weight in all directions is a common,
almost an everyday feature of life. You cant sack any Class IV employee in Patna, you cant even
take action against an orderly in a government department, because you are likely to discover his
cousins uncles brother-in-law is an MLA, and the disciplinary action will be taken against you.
Before any political rally, gangs roam Patna city and block the highways, appropriating buses and
private cars all over the state. Ram Vilas Paswan is the patron saint of Bihar Dalits, and when he was
Union Minister for Railways, any time there was a big Dalit gathering the trains were virtually
hijacked by his constituents. But the entourage (meaning goons with guns) of any MLA or MP can do
that at any time without an excuse.
There appears to be nothing illegal about such appropriation of private vehicles. The police do it
too. The Pulse Polio programme is a major public relations exercise in Bihar, and the state
government makes a big media effort. To make sure enough resources are mobilized, private cars and
jeeps in Patna are commandeered in the public interest.
When the police do it, of course, there is almost no way of resisting such oppression. There is no
public resistance because those who travel in reserved railway berths and who have cars that can be
commandeered are not the public. The public travel without tickets in and on trains, even perched on
the gangways around the engine. They walk where they have to, or travel (in the city) eight or ten to
an auto-rickshaw and (on the highways) fifteen or twenty to a jeep.
*
Laloo Prasad Yadav came to power on a one-line platform: Bash the upper castes. This is nothing
new in Bihar, but no one had ever been so direct before. As I learned more about the man I learned
also who his enemies were. In all his election speeches in 1990 and 95 he had said: We will
destroy the Bhu-ra-ba-l. (This is an acronym for Bhumihar-Rajput-Brahmin-Lala, the land-owning
castes.) I was to hear him say it again in 1998.
Laloo Prasad said many other thingsthat people from the Scheduled Castes would be made
temple priests, for instance . . . I dont know if anyone actually got to be one. Laloo Prasad is a
powerful orator, and this kind of directness has a powerful appeal to the mass of downtrodden, for all
practical purposes disenfranchised voters. For two generations Bihar politicians had treated them
like dirt. In a sense, Laloo was true to this tradition; in another, he was reaping the benefits of
disenchantment with the upper-caste politicians who had preceded him in power.
It is naturally easier to destroy than to create, and once the Laloo Revolution in 90 had succeeded
it found itself at a loss for further action. Laloo had been all his life an opposition politician, and
perhaps he had no interest in development anyway. The fruits of power were tempting, and Laloo
took the obvious course of consolidating his bases and letting everything else go hang. His
constituents were unused to the good life, and possibly unaware that it was attainable: They didnt
mind. What they enjoyed was the sight of the Bhu-ra-ba-l being smashed.
But in the process of consolidating his power, Laloo had to treat with power-brokers; and this
eroded his own vote-banks. A classic little story, and it has been told before, notably by American
writer Robert Penn Warren in All the Kings Men, the sad and cautionary tale of Willie Stark.
American democracy, before it got sanitized between Franklin Roosevelts time and Martin Luther
Kings, was a good deal like Indian democracy today. No politician needs to keep it a secret that he is
after the fruits of power. In Raymond Chandlers The Lady in the Lake a police captain compares the
police business to politics: It asks for the highest type of men, and theres nothing in it to attract the
highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get.
What we get is by and large a gang of rogues, but it is difficult even for one who comes to
democratic office with the best of intentions to remain untainted by power. This is especially so if the
politician concerned is not linked to any time-tested ideology such as the Communists have, or had.
Gandhi had the right idea when he suggested that the Viceroys Palace in New Delhi be converted into
a hospital and that the first President of India be a Harijan girl. But Nehru and the Congress were
seduced by the appurtenances of the Raj: They felt they had earned them with all their tribulations and
years in prison.
So we adopted it all; all the paraphernalia and rituals that a conquering nation had used to glorify
its superiority; and we thereby assured that the attitude of the people to the leaders would continue to
be an upward-looking one. The flunkeys in archaic costumes, the chairs of State, the elaborate
panoply of Empire. (And no doubt it appears more ridiculous when we see, in the Chair of State, not
a patrician politician like Nehru but Laloo Prasad, and behind him a flunkey with a spittoon. Are we
deluding ourselves or is he deluding us?) Why do our newspapers still use the word rule when
speaking of elected officers? Why do we never behave to public servants as their masters?
Democracy is not a matter of statistics. Down in Kerala everyone is supposed to be able to read
and write. Many of the neoliterates, of course, know just enough to be able to sign for their
pensions. But theres no denying that at least seventy-five per cent of the population is genuinely
literate. Yet their attitude is not everywhere a democratic one: Many still fawn upon those
economically above them in a more or less feudal manner. There is a certain broad-mindedness
which is, to me, inseparable from the democratic instinct, which is lacking in much of Kerala: The
awareness which is the wellspring of civilization, democratic or otherwise, is absent. That
awareness must be of both rights and duties, of course. And if that is lacking in Keralawhich even
Mr Clintons speechwriters have told him is a model statejudge how much it is in evidence in
Bihar.
That people are literate does not mean they are educated. In countries which have evolved their
democratic systems, not adopted them, there is a stabilizing force, the good old Status Quo which
keeps the Ship of State on an Even Keel. This is what in the UK helps secretaries prevent their
ministers, of whatever party, from making asses of themselves. In the US the stabilizing force is
business: Whichever party the cosmetic face before the cameras on the White House lawns belongs
to, the power is with the faceless industrial, weapons and information consortia run by people who
can use politicians like toilet paper.
In India all the democratic apparatus tends to stress the aboveness of the elected representatives
vis-a-vis their constituents. Where is the answerability, the responsibility to the voters that democracy
at its highest calls for, outside the all too brief five-yearly episode when the voter is made to feel like
a god? What does Laloo Prasad see when he looks down from the manch? People, or voters? . . .
When your constituents appear to you only in the indistinguishable mass standing below the platform
from where you are delivering the same speech youve already made five times that day; when the
only constituents you meet face to face are the businessmen and party lords; then democracy has
ceased to exist, and you are a demagogue.
The secret of keeping power in the kind of system we have lies in an abandonment of vision. Yatha
raja, tatha prajaAs the king, so the people, says a Sanskrit proverb, and a ruler with blinkers on
succeeds in keeping the benefits of development from his subjects, because he himself, quite
honestly, cannot see them. Unlike Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen, who knew the signal for
disengagement had been hoisted but wilfully put the telescope to his blind eye, and perhaps unlike
predecessors such as the canny Jagannath Mishra, Laloo Prasad does not differentiate between the
uses of power and its abuses. Just as he is not immoral but only amoral, he is not illiberal but only
aliberal.
The mela at which I first saw, or rather heard him, is held every year in the Hindi month of Chaith,
that is Chaitra, in March-April. It is held at a desolate and arid spot (in summer; at flood-time it is
waist-deep in water) about 110 km east of Patna, in celebration of a local Dalit saint who vanquished
his Bhumihar adversaries in love and war about a century ago. (Singing the traditional song in his
praise will still earn you a beating in a Bhumihar area, for the hero not only ran away with a
Bhumihar girl but also soundly thrashed her relations.) Laloo Prasads energetic participation in the
fair in the 1990s made it a rallying point for Dalits, and probably won him at least a lakh of votes at
state expense.
The mela itself is like any other in the hot months in rural India: the temple (a crude plastered
building with an extension providing both shelter to the pilgrims and a platform to speak from); dusty
lanes lined with rows of shacks selling food, dubious coloured drinks and toys; and a giant wheel or
merry-go-round or some such special attraction. That year the attraction was a Well of Death, with
Marutis and not just motorbikes: The troupe had come all the way from Delhi, it was said in tones of
wonder.
As there were politicians attending, there was a lot of protective muscle, not all of it provided by
the police. Besides, every hospital in the area was expected to send a team, so there were half a
dozen white jeeps parked around the square where the command post and the first-aid tent were
located. I had volunteered to accompany the Sister, two nurses and some of the young men from the
community health department who comprised our Hospital team; so all through one long, hot, dusty
afternoon we took it in turns to sit gossiping in the jeep and wander through the fair, sampling some of
the eatables and buying souvenirs. I came away with some sealed glass tubes, each about eighteen
inches long, almost filled with coloured water in which bits of tinsel were suspended; also a booklet
in the local dialect containing the gatha in praise of the Dalit saint, with a commentary.
A helipad had been cleared for Laloo Prasad, who was expected to arrive by air. This, too,
provoked intense excitement, and every half-hour or so, moved by a whisper that he was arriving, the
crowds would flock to the enclosed half-acre of land. But he arrived, tamely enough, by road. He had
just that morning returned from Delhi where he had been helping to anoint I.K. Gujral (after all his
attempts to make a Bihari Prime Minister had failed) and he drove from Patna in a twelve- or fifteen-
car cavalcade which included several Gypsy-loads of armed police, an ambulance from the Indira
Gandhi Heart institute in Patna and another, inexplicably, from the Maternity Hospital (Just to make
up the numbers, I was told).
He watched the local Chaith dances, of which he is said to be very fond, and distributed cash
prizes to the dancers. Then he made a twenty-minute speech from the platform which extended from
the saints temple. He was some 200 metres away, and we could not make out his face or gestures.
But his figure in white was conspicuous enough, and his voice was borne strongly by dozens of
loudspeakers to a crowd of about a lakh.
Just as peddlers visit your villages saying, Choose what you like for four annas, he thundered,
the officers of my government will come to you with whatever you want. Free saris, free dhotis . . .
[A free clothes scheme was on then, but petered out; after Laloo abdicated in favour of his wife it was
discovered there had been corruption in the handlooms department too, and the scheme was hurriedly
abandoned. But it got a good deal of publicity while it was on, and no doubt a good number of votes.]
They will camp in your village . . . they are your servants . . . take what you want.
This is of course a thrilling prospect to the oppressedthose powerful sarkari babus, high-caste
and citified, doing their bidding. Laloo had probably said the same thing the previous year and the
year before. But the promise was still there, as genuine as the reality.
Perhaps deep down these voters knew that they were being had. But they were not used to having
promises fulfilled, anyway; and Laloo had certainly kept part of his promise: He had smashed the
upper castes. Not completely, of course, for there was nothing to fill the void which that would have
created in the power structure, but enough to let them know he could have finished the job had he
chosen to.
Democracy has often been warped, perverted and defiled; indeed almost the whole history of the
USA and Great Britain throughout the nineteenth century is a discourse on its abuses. But rarely in
recent years has it been wielded as it is in Bihar, where everybody does have the vote and there is a
free press.
Unwittingly or no, Laloo Prasad has arrived at the very secret heart of democracy, he has
succeeded in refining it to its fundamentals as no one before him has. He was, I think, the first really
humble peasant to battle his way to the top without a populist movement or a (Congress) party
structure. But the fact that he is a son of the soil does not mean that he knows what is good for his
land, or that he will ensure its welfare. Hemingway writes in A Farewell to Arms: . . . the peasant
has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and you will see how wise he
is.
Hemingway might not have known much about peasants either; but theres no doubt Laloo Prasad
could have been better prepared for his term in office. But then, is there any possible preparation, any
safeguard against the temptations of office? He overcame enormous odds to become Chief Minister,
and he had a chance to make a difference, much like Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. Had he not become Chief
Minister of Bihar, Deve Gowda could never have become Prime Minister. He has empowered the
downtrodden in a way no one else could, though it is perhaps not quite what Gandhi had in mind.
And this craft of the mastery of the democratic process he will bequeath freely to his successors.
For democracy at its rawest does not require vision; it does not insist on the betterment of the
human condition, it does not need the rule of order, it does not distinguish between the law-abiding
and the criminal. It does not require the granting of opportunity. It does not ask for transformation:
Indeed it is the status quo which contents it best. All democracy implies is that some large fraction of
the populace has the right to choose one of themselvesto do what? To represent them? No. To enact
laws? No. Only to do thisto wield power. In its starkest form democracy is the rule of the mob, and
it is only the decency and the foresight of a truly good leader which can resist the temptation to abuse
it.
Laloo Prasad Yadav is a very obviously powerful man. He tolerates no rivals; he kowtows to no
one. He is widely perceived as a man who has kept his honour, in that peculiar male way in which a
man can rob and kill and keep his honour. And in a still largely feudal society, izzathonourand
mardaangimanhoodare often valued higher than the nebulous temptations of development.
Laloo harnessed the might of the masses (while retaining the influence of the classes) . . . but to do
only one thing: retain power. That is the essential secret of democracy; every other ideal is a wraith
in the effulgence of that reality.
The fodder scam and other instances of corruption tarnished Laloos image, even with the poor of
Bihar. But he had done enough for large sections of them to ensure that, whatever happens, he has a
massive electoral base and proportionate clout. He has enough money and muscle power on his side
to make his followers boast come true, that there will be a bloodbath if anything happens to Laloo
Prasad. Yet he still has a dream, of being a statesman, of bestriding the national stage. He does not
want to be forgotten. And he cannot be forgotten. His legacy will remain untarnished and will
undoubtedly be a shining beacon for popular politicians. One of the promises of democracy, out of all
its many possibilities, is coming here to fruition.
As the king, so the people. Alternatively, as the people, so the king. And Laloo is truly
representative, as Ian Jack has noted in Granta. William Dalrymples interview with Laloo is
punctuated with remarks like Laloo scratches his groin. But few Indians are embarrassed by such
behaviour, and even fewer Biharis. They scratch where they like, they spit where they like . . . After
Laloos speech at the mela, the Hospital driver with some clever manoeuvres managed to get our jeep
right behind his party, so we wouldnt be stuck in the exodus. We jolted behind the convoy, eating
their dust. Halfway along the eight-kilometre dirt track to the highway, all the state vehicles came to a
halt. So, perforce, did we. A furlong or so ahead, half a dozen khadi-clad figures disembarked from
their air-conditioned cars, made their way into the stubble of the just-cropped fields and squatted
there.
Of course, this is good for the land. Perhaps, then, though Ian Jack thinks otherwise, the forces of
economics and democracy are not inevitably opposed. Besides, this was thoroughly representative
behaviour. It was a triumph of democracy.
Sisters under the skin
BECAUSE I DID NOT go to Bihar as a journalist, and resided there as a citizen for almost a year and
a half, these essays will be more valuableor less meretriciousif I simply record my observations
of life as she is lived in Bihar and carry on from there.
M____ was once a fairly important town, a node in the network of Empire. Before bridges spanned
the Ganga it was the only ferry crossing in a thousand miles or so where large cargoes could be taken
from one bank to the other, and also a major railway junction. Even now that the water traffic has
been abandonedthe Ganga being a temperamental riverthe road-and-rail bridge some twelve
kilometres from M____ is the only one across the river between Patna and Bengal.
M____ is celebrated in literature, too: Jim Corbett lived and worked here for twenty-odd years as
a coaling contractor for the railways before he made his name as an exterminator of vermin. He has
written about it in My India . . . and anyone who has read it knows what M____ stands for.
Alas, the days of its glory are gone and M____ is a small, mean place now. It could have been a
wealthy town, for it is excellently placed to serve the long-distance truck traffic on the Grand Trunk
Road, and it is still a junction for east-west and north-south railway lines; but a lack of vision and a
reputation for violence have driven away all capital. It has a bad name in a state which has a bad
name in a country which has . . . and now the only local industry is muscle. The gangsters of
M____are much in demand in other districts at election time, and their services have been exported to
Uttar Pradesh as well. Theres lots of money in the business, but you cant say it has trickled down.
The Howrah-Delhi line must be the busiest long railway route in the country, and one of the busiest
in the world, and the section from M____ for a few stations eastward is notorious for train dacoities.
But these are the small pickings. There areor were when we lefttwo big gangs in the town, who
are at outs with each other and occasionally fight gun battles in the streets.
Ive since been told that the leaders of both gangs are in jail, but its still business as usual for their
henchmen; when a State can be run from within prison, whats so difficult about running a few thugs,
most of whom are related to you by blood in one way or the other? The same blood is either in your
veins or on your hands . . . In the Assembly elections in 2000, one of the two capos in jail was
elected as an independent supported by the National Democratic Alliance.
Residents of M____can furnish the eager inquirer with a history of crime in the town and the
present ganglords spiritual descent from the First Criminal: a tale not unlike that of the genealogy of
the Kurus which you find in Adiparva. But it hardly matters to newcomers. The big rackets used to be
extortion and kidnapping, which fetched enough money to buy more sophisticated weaponry; now the
gangsters are guns for hire (albeit with political connections and caste loyalties), willing to go in for
anything which has money in it. Around the big shots flourish the small-timers, some of whom are
freelances and the rest ambitious types who broke off from the dadas to operate on their own and
occasionally get wiped out when they think too big.
But big shots or little, they all left the Hospital strictly alone. For one thing, they needed it when
they were sick or wounded; for another, in fifty years the Sisters had done a lot of good work and
made friends with anybody who was somebody in the area. Their convent, the Hospital, and the ten
acres or so of fertile land where both stoodwhich constituted a haven of peace in that troubled
regionhad in fact been practically a gift from one of the biggest and most powerful Bhumihar
landlords of the area. The ganglords, by the way, are also Bhumihar; in that part of the Ganga plain,
theirs is the dominant community.
We had a decently-sized flat in the doctors quarters in one corner of the campus, conveniently
situated so that we could look out of our eastern windows on to the road which led into town and to
the Ganga, along which often passed threadbare funeral processions with the monotonous chant of
Ram nam satya hai. More common even than that was the keening of professional mourners from the
Hospitals main door, only a hundred metres away, or from the door of the morgue which was even
closer.
The Ganga plain is packed tight with villages within a gunshot of each other, and M____ for all its
perils is the local market town. It was always crowded with townspeople and villagers. The traffic
below our windows did not trouble us much, as it consisted largely of cycle-rickshaws. But there
were always the familiar sounds of people and cattle near by.
Most irritating was the incessant bleating from the movie house in town. The owner had only a
couple of cassettes of music and didnt want to tie up his capital in a search for variety. Scarcely a
day passed without us being subjected to Jai jagdish hare and Maalik tere bande hum some half a
dozen times each. When national holidays came around the mood became sterner, and I sometimes
found myself marching around the flat to the strains of Ae mere watan he logon and Chhodo kal ki
baatein.
As for night life, it would have taken a brave heart or a couple of bodyguards to enjoy one.
Everything slept by nine, except the jackals in the countrysidethe campus was at the southern edge
of town. I remember, though, that a couple of times some pop group from the big city played in
M____, rendering the latest hitsPardesi pardesi jaana nahin was very big thenno doubt with the
requisite gyrations and special effects in all colours of the rainbow.
It was a life circumscribed in many ways. It was unsafe to go out after dark; even in the day there
was no saying when the town might erupt. (I went out about once a week, sometimes just into town,
occasionally to Patna by train or Begusarai by bus, but I dont think Kavery went into town more than
half a dozen times.) It was unsafe, we were told, to own a vehicle and drive around in a place where
we were obviously foreigners; it was unsafe to go to the cinema hall; it was unsafe and uncomfortable
to go out together for a cup of tea, and there was no way we could drop by a restaurant for a Sunday-
morning masala dosa as had been our habit in Madras, even had there been any restaurants or masala
dosas.
So I got on with my reading and writing, and Kavery was busy at the Hospital. It was very well
equipped and staffed (for a rural hospital) and the operating theatre, according to Kavery, was a joy
to work in. Only the narrow-mindedness and lack of vision of the Sistersmostly Malayalismade
the job less than desirable. Kerala is not very different from Bihar in some ways.
We had a maid who came in twice a day for a total of about four hours and whom we paid Rs 250 a
month; high wages, we were told, which would lead to ill-feeling among other householders on
campus. She was quiet and honest and suited us very well. A local boy came twice a week to take a
grocery list and do our shopping in the market. It was a peaceful lifein retrospect, at least; only
summer made it unbearable, but in 1997 we had a prolonged winter and the real heat did not set in
until the end of April. Then we came south for six weeks and so escaped the worst of the summer.
Winter, which is enjoyable even in Delhi and gives Madras its two months of the year which can be
borne, was a blessing in Bihar. For one, coming so soon after the rains and the flood, it preserved the
lush greens of the land which so soothe the eye; then it was deliciously chill under the razai and the
sunlight came as a benison. I would spend every winter of my life in north India under those
conditions.
Living in a well-made flat on a self-sufficient campus attached to a place of sanctuary, provided with
the necessities of life and insulated from its dangers, cannot perhaps be said to be living in Bihar,
although technically that was accurate. We had running water all the time and electricity most of the
time; as importantly, we had money and a support system. Our life was real enough to us and to our
neighbours: I dont want to echo those who attack Indians writing in English, saying that what they
describe is not the real India. Yet we saw events around us as if through a glass, not necessarily
darkly. I should say I saw, for Kavery was in daily contact with local people and local happenings.
She should be writing this book, but has more important things to do.
In many ways, though, I had the advantage, for I had the time and leisure to ask questions and in a
sensewith no object in viewinterview people, while she was too occupied with her work to get
interested or curious in the details of peoples lives except as they were vouchsafed to her as
symptoms. I went out a few times with the boys of the community health department of the Hospital,
which conducted weekly clinics at a nearby village; I volunteered for the Pulse Polio programme; and
I travelled many times to Patna by train. I also attended the big local festival, Chhatth (the second
consonant is an aspirated retroflex), which comes six days after Divali. And then, just because I am a
journalist, and my time was my own, and my wife was an influential member of the community, my
ear was used as a receptacle for confidences of all kinds.
One of the locals we knew best was the younger son of a family which owned a chemists shop and
a pharmaceuticals trading agency. The family had come from Marwar over a century agosoon after
1857, I gatheredand in the catholic fashion of Marwaris had adopted the local customs as their
own. Theirs was not the only family which came: There was a whole street called the Marwari
mohalla.
The Marwaris inevitable success in business had led to their being chosen as the first victims of
extortion at the beginning of the reign of terror in M____; and of the nineteen houses in the mohalla,
only six were now tenanted. Those remaining, too, were seeking alternatives. It was tragic that this
community, one of Indias most inoffensive and industrious, which brings prosperity wherever it is
settled, should have been hounded out of the town. The Marwari exodus had much to do with the
decline of M____ as the economic capital of the area.
Kishan, as I shall call him, was short and dark and full of a boundless energy. He reminded me of
one of those excited electrons of Rutherfords time. He was invaluable to us: He helped Kaverys
work by stocking items like tantalum mesh for hernia repair, and cancer chemotherapy drugs, which
the Hospital Sisters wouldnt out of ignorance and a refusal to be enlightened. (The success of
Marwari businessmen, I think, is attributable to the fact that they will go to any lengths to satisfy the
customer.)
Besides, Kishan would mail our letters in Patna, and send off articles and reviews by courier, and
buy for us miscellaneous items unavailable in M____. The mail was most important. Shortly after our
arrival in M____, we had discovered that the local Railway Mail Service was most unreliable. At
festival timechiefly Holi and Chhatththe sorter, or the postman, or both, would take a month or so
off to visit his village. Upon returning, if the number of letters to be sorted or delivered was
inconveniently large, he would simply burn them. Im not joking; we were told this by several people,
both locals and Sisters, and I know we lost a couple of dozen letters both coming and going.
Registered letters were more reliable but it is inconvenient and expensive to send all your letters
thus.
Banking was a major trial. Cheques from the south took between three and six months to clear, and
I finally had to ask the journals from whom my infrequent payments came to stop sending them
altogether until, on our visit home in the summer of 1997, I could open an account in Madras. Banking
is not, strictly speaking, a service in India; it is more of an ordeal (and this goes for the much-touted
multinationals as well); but in relation to what we had to go through in M____, any previous
misadventure was tinged with a roseate hue in retrospect.
The difficulty of staying in touch was one of our greatest quotidian sorrows in M____. The
telecommunications service there is a joke. It was almost impossible to get any telephone number
south of the Vindhyas, and quite often the meter would begin racing while we were being told in
soothing accents, All lines . . . on this route . . . are busy. This also often happens when you dial a
Bihar number outside Patna from the south: So its not that the telephone booth operator in M____was
feathering his nest. Some little scam, unnoticed among all the hundred-crore-rupee scams, but fetching
somebody a tidy little sum all the same . . .
Not, either, that the telephone booths owner was above feathering his nest. He was a Bhumihar
named Shyam Nandan Singh, an old-timer with dhoti tucked up behind him and typical north Indian
courtesy. Also a chamcha of the Sisters. He was, besides, an office-bearer of the local branch of one
of the Eastern Railway unions. I once asked him what post hed held in the Railways, and he
answered with the air of one inspecting a dead rat that of course hed never worked for the Railways.
The customs of Indian unions are passing strange . . .
Shyam Babu came from a rich family but had been defrauded by his brothers of his share in the
proceeds from his fathers death. So he was reduced to running the telephone booth on campus and
fiddling with the meterpastimes, it was generally agreed, beneath a Bhumihar. He did all right
though, for after 7.30 p.m. there were always five or six nurses in the cramped little room with the
telephone, calling or being called by Kerala. But I never had much luck with Madras or Bangalore.
A few months after wed left I sent off a long telegram to M____from Kerala. It cost me nineteen
rupees, ordinary class. It must have got to the town, but it didnt get to the person it was meant for: It
was never delivered. Just too much of a hassle for the local P&T. And whom do you complain to?
I had always been an indifferent letter writer, but in M____ I realized, too late, the value of
keeping in touch, and wrote letters as if I was making up for the wasted years. They were sometimes
six or ten pages long, and I felt aggrieved when I got no reply or a page-long scrawl three months
later. Almost all my friends are in computers and gossip by e-mail; my relations live in civilized
places and talk on the phone. My reformation was delayed too long; my spiritual progress had not
kept pace with the worlds technological progress.
So Kishan helped us immensely. He would also drop in sometimes, tired from arguing with the
Sister in the hospital pharmacy (who was somewhat impaired mathematically) and tell me what was
happening in town. I got to know his family quite well too, especially his mother, a loud-voiced
matriarch; it was at their invitation that I participated in the Chhatth puja on the Gangas southern
bank, and I also attended Kishans elder brothers wedding in Patna and danced in the baaraat.
Kishans mother bullied all her family, and everyone she met, without mercy. The only way of
getting on terms with herif you were someone she did not have to particularly respect, such as a
shiftless journalist who wrote in a foreign language and drank too muchwas to shout back at her. I
discovered this the first time I visited Kishans house for tea and paav-bhaaji. It was a Sunday, but
Kavery had been called for an emergency laparotomy. Why didnt you bring Doctor? the matriarch
yelled at me, and I surprised myself and her by yelling back, What can I do if she has an operation?
She was quite mellow whenever we met after that and I was respectful. But that evening I had to go
back home anyway and fetch Kavery in a rickshaw, the only mode of public transport in town.
Its always impressiveat least, Im impressedto meet a dominant female in a traditional
setting. In much of India it is not a comfortable thing to be born female. This is borne in upon most
Indian women especially poignantly when they are married and go to live in their husbands houses;
particularly in the Ganga plain, where most men no matter how affluent or professional live on in
their ancestral homes all their lives.
It is strange that older women do not remember their own situation of twenty-five years earlier and
take pity upon their daughters-in-law. Or maybe it is not so strange; as a species in the raw we have
not much heart-room for pity. I have often thought that it takes a strong-minded, determined wife to
make a success of being a daughter-in-law; for even where the husbands family is not malicious or
hard-hearted, they have to be seen to be treating the bride in a proper manner.
We saw this for ourselves at Kishans house, a month or two after his brothers wedding. The new
daughter-in-law was a sweet, pliant young thing, but Kishans mother, and even Kishan himself,
would shout at her: Bahu! do this! Get that! in a fashion which would have driven me to tears or
revolt. But then I was not reared to such behaviour, and Im not a woman. The girl took it meekly
enough, and of course her new in-laws were not in any way cruel. It was the usual thing: You havent
put enough ghee in the sweets! The tea is too strong! Cant you bring water, dont you know water
is to be brought for guests? She looked like Lucy Gray in an acre of seaweed.
But that was only her housebreaking, so to speak, and the manners were to some extent assumed for
the benefit of the company, who squirmed. I thought of Kishans mother and what she must have been
like thirty or thirty-five years ago when she entered this same house. Her mother-in-law was long
dead, but there was a marriage photograph on the wall, and she looked rather grim. Kishans father
was meek enough (and long-suffering, I thought) and perhaps his father had been too; yet Kishans
mother must have changed: and how and where did she summon up the spirit within her to adapt,
resist, and be herself?
And in a queer way, this led me to think of Rabri Devi; and even more queerly, of Sonia Gandhi.
I dont know much more about Laloo Prasad Yadavs early life than the official version reveals. Its
easy enough to find out, but Im afraid that would detract from the fun I have in writing all this. I dont
know much about his personal life, either, and I dont want to know any more than I do: What I have
heard is mostly unflattering and in some measure unprintable.
The public biography is thisthat Laloo grew up in a very poor family, in miserable surroundings,
and by sheer force and determination clawed his way through school and college. He graduated with
honours in political science from Patna University in 1969, and took his LL.B. in 1975. He was one
of Jayaprakash Narayans young firebrands (jailed during the Emergency), and president of the
students union from 1973 (having been general secretary from 1967 to 69 and then an assistant in the
Patna Veterinary College from 1970 to 72); his victorious running mate for general secretary in 73
was Sushil Kumar Modi, now state BJP chief.
There are Yadavs and Yadavs in the Ganga plain, and not all of them herd cows. The Yadavs of
north BiharMadhepura, for example, where two foreign Yadavs, Laloo and Sharad, contested the
1998 and 99 Lok Sabha electionsare landed and at the right end of the feudal stick. (The Yadavs of
course claim to be descended from Lord Krishnas clan, but that is a myth, as Iravati Karve says in
Yuganta. Those Yadavas were a warrior race, and were eliminated and supplanted by a nomadic
people who were cattle-herdersI think this is found in the Svargaarohanaparvapossibly the
Ahirs, who, as so many peoples did before written records were kept, adopted the name and caste,
the condition and gods, of the vanquished tribe.)
But it is true that the Yadavs of central Bihar are by and large miserably poor, and much of their
lifestyle has to do with cows and buffaloes. Laloo Prasad herded cattle when he was a boy, and has
spoken of his resentment at the treatment of his people by the higher castes. He has never forgotten
that (and what he seems to have forgiven is only out of political expediency), and it has played a
formative role in making him the kind of politician he is.
Laloo rose out of this wretchedness, becoming a man of the world, but it cannot be assumed that his
wife and family rose with him. Much laughter has been occasioned by the names of his children:
Kursi (chair) and Misa, for instance. But it is actually quite sensible to name a child for the
circumstances of its birth, or for some everyday objectit probably has some mnemonic value as
well when you have twelve or sixteen childrenand it is a common practice among the backward
Yadavs. Name a child Apratiratha or Swargasundari and see how it bears the burden of
expectation. I was told by a doctor at the Hospital in M____,In my village I know a Yadav family
with children named Chaurasiya (Eighty-four) and Athasiya (Eighty-eight) for the years of their birth.
These are names, not nicknames. Misa is named for the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, under
which draconian piece of legislation Laloo was in prison when the child was born.
Laloos wifes name, Rabri, of course, means the milk-based cooling drink which may briefly make
you thankful for the ferocity of the Delhi summer. Its a sweet name, yet many sophisticates laugh at it
who call their spouses Honey or Kissums. (The name Jalebi is also found among the Yadavs, and
for all I know Laddoo . . . But then, one of the meanings of Misra is sugar. And if you suggest that
Rabri is misnamed, so is Madeleine Albright: She is small and rich, but shes no piece of cake.)
One of the cruellest things Laloo Prasad ever didin a career not marked by ruthwas to
pitchfork his wife into the Chief Ministers chair. It was a bad time for mentors, who were then being
betrayed at the rate of about one a week by their protgs and protges in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka and Delhi; and Laloo was taking no chances. Rabri Devi had no option but to be a puppet,
given her circumstances and rearing.
But consider the feelings of a quiet, not very educated middle-aged Indian woman who has all her
life quietly accepted the mores of an extremely hidebound society, whose duty has lain in looking
after father and brothers, husband and in-laws, running the house, providing meals on time, bearing
children, being faithful and patient and uncomplaining no matter what the provocationconsider her
feelings when she has to sit in a plush chair in an air-conditioned office, meet and listen to strange
men without her husbands or brothers familiar (if not protective) presence, address vast crowds of
people whom she would be much more comfortable among than above; and all this after seeing her
husband taken off to jail, pilloried in the press and insulted in the Assembly. Would you be able to
take it? I dare say only one with her training could have; for her training as daughter, wife and
daughter-in-law was to accept, accept, accept and obey, obey, obey. And she did it all with a certain
quiet dignity, so that in the end you could not laugh at her, or if you did it was as you laughed at
Falstaff or Don Quixote, not Malvolio or Johnny Lever.
What did she think about it all? Her own pronouncements in public were for a few months limited
to a couple of lines written for her which she read out like a schoolgirl. Later she blossomed
somewhat, even cracking a joke about presswalen, and picking up some of the nuances of political
oratory when she defended her husband, which she rather often had to do. But what did she think
about her sudden, starring role in Democracy?
My own guess is that she didnt think much about it. Her duty was to her husband, not to the people
of Bihar.
That is our singular feature as a democratic nation, the discrepancy between our constitution and
our Constitution: We do not think or act as if we have any duty to the nation. We do what we do, first,
for ourselves and our families; then for our caste community; then for our state, defined in linguistic
terms. In fifty years we have not been able to change this way of thinking, perhaps because we
perpetuated fifty years ago a system of governance which had found in this way of thinking a handy
tool to govern with. Besides, in the ancient Hindu framework, since monarchies supplanted republics,
there is no such thing as Nation (and this reduces the BJPs attempts to invent it and at the same time
proclaim it to be an ancient Hindu concept, to farce).
When a politician gets into power, he is called a fool if he does not first ensure that his family will
not have to do any honest work for at least three generations; then he does something or the other for
the members of his caste-fraternity; then for his constituency or his state. He does not lose honour,
according to this way of thought, if he is caught and has to go to court or to jail: His wife does not
refuse him her bed, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts do not avoid all mention of his name. His
neighbours do not turn their backs on him, his fellow-partymen are moved more to emulation than
contempt.
So criminals are picked as candidates again, and returned to power, whats more. One reason why
they are not drummed out of their constituencies is demagoguery, which we see in the person of
Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu; another is that they have not actually defrauded their constituents, which
explains Sukh Ram in Himachal Pradesh; and the third and simplest reason, evident in Bihar and
increasingly elsewhere, is simply lots of muscle and an overwhelming willingness to use it. And the
clever ones are careful to take only a percentage of their earnings for themselves, giving the rest to the
Party, which thereupon renommates them.
After all, in a democracy you only have to keep half the people happy; and in a multi-party tamasha
such as ours a mere third will do.
(Its no different anywhere else in the world. Bill Clintonwhose middle name is taken from the
man who wrote the US Constitutionis perhaps just as amoral as Laloo Prasad Yadav. There have
been reports that he had no qualms about accepting money from the Chinese government to get re-
elected, even if the required quid pro quo harmed US interests. And since a lot of the moolah was
also used to elect Democratic senators and representatives, they fade off into corners when hes
caught with his pants down. This amorality is what voters in any democracy have come to expect
from their leaders; at the time when Clinton was being caught with his pants down every other
Saturday, he had one of the highest approval ratings of any second-term US President, even though a
majority of those polled also said they did not believe him.)
I think Rabri Devi also sees her husband as any other housewife sees her husband: A man going out
to work every morning to keep the family going. He makes a little more than most husbands, true; but
then he works longer hours, and holds a much more distasteful job, which entails being insulted in
public places and drawn and quartered in print.
So if Rabri has to hold the fort while her husband spends a few months in a luxuriously appointed
state guest house rather than his own mansion, well then, shell do it, for the kiddies sake. And shell
repulse all attacks on his name and position to the best of her ability, for the sake of family honour.
And the strange thing is that, as an Indian with a sense of bloodline, I can actually almost see the point
in all this. Rabri Devi is not very different from Rani Lakshmibai or Shivajis mother, who also did
what they did for their dynasty and not for some mythical national honour, and were yet remarkable
women.
*
For the Colonels Lady an Judy OGrady
Are sisters under their skins!
Kipling, The Ladies
There were few sympathetic voices in the media when Laloo abdicated in favour of his wife. Almost
without exception commentators and editors clad themselves in stainless steel and trumpeted their
indignation at this Travesty of the democratic process. One of the few who actually defended the
transfer of power wasI did a double-take when I saw the nameMani Shankar Aiyar.
Laloo was perfectly within his rights, wrote Aiyar, to nominate a successor so long as that
successor was a Member of the Legislature (or was elected within six months) and had the
confidence of the House. Thats what is written in the Constitution. Well, yes. True enough. The spirit
of the Constitution is somewhat different, but things spiritual had been on the decline since Aiyars
master Rajiv Gandhis time, and even before that in the time of Rajivs mother. But when had Mani
Shankar Aiyar become such a literalist?
Literal or not, he is seldom subtle, and his drift was clear upon cogitation: He was making out a
case for Sonia Gandhi becoming Congress (I) president and thereafter, hopefully, Prime Minister. One
dynasts right to the throne is just as good as anothers, and so is one queen-dowagers. Sonia Gandhi
had inherited a legacy just as untarnished as had Rabri Devi.
Theres another remarkable woman for you: Sonia Gandhi. Born into a wealthy Italian family (and
Italy is much like India in one respect, that if youre rich you can do pretty much as you please and
ignore the world . . . I suppose most countries are like that, really), she has done all that she has done
for love. But for love of Rajiv and the dynasty, not of India. She didnt even become an Indian citizen
until she had to, and who can blame her? Oh yes, shes from a very different background to Rabri
Devis, and left to herself she would prefer to stay in her Janpath ivory tower with a fat government
pension. But she, too, is doing it for the kiddies. And if Rabri sets a precedent for her, well and good
especially for chamchas like Mani Shankar Aiyar.
But the propaganda exercise building up Sonia Gandhi is on a vastly larger scale, and far more
skilfully managed, than anything Laloo Prasad can drum up. A lot of people fall for the Oh, shes
such a nice lady, so sweet line; others remember how fair-complexioned and fine of feature her
husband was. Why do people who should know better find it so hard to accept even the possibility
that Rajiv Gandhi might have been corrupt while heaping execration upon Laloo? Just because Rajiv
had a better profile and could wisecrack in English? After all, they are products, even shapers, of the
same system.
Sonia Gandhis attitude to Indian democracy reminds me [this was written before the series of
setbacks which followed the 2000 assembly polls] of an adult indulging a gang of unruly adolescents.
Like Sweet Alice with Ben Bolt, Congressmen weep with delight when she gives them a smile, and
tremble with fear at her frown, and for as flimsy a reason. Shes the only person who can make you
feel sorry for Sitaram Kesri . . . and those in the media who espouse her cause have a good reason for
doing it. But whatever our political and press kings may say or do, what do the voters think?
In Bihar, in February 98, Sonia Gandhi got a lot of attention. Here, too, the media effort was an
exercise in exaggeration. A college lecturer and news agency stringer told me and fellow journalists
in Begusarai (where we had stopped on our way to Madhepura) that the rally Sonia Gandhi addressed
in nearby Lakhisarai had attracted two lakhs of people. But the veteran Patna journalist I was
tagging along behind told me later, cynically, There is no place in Lakhisarai to hold such a crowd,
unless the Ganga dries up.
I got the impression that people went to see Sonia, all over India, not as they would go to check
out a bride for the son of the house, but as they might go to the circus. It was a satisfying experience,
but the number of sightseers perhaps misled the experts. Some of the biggest crowds were in Uttar
Pradesh, where the Congress (I) did not win a single seat.
Say what we will about it, there is something sound and strong at the core of our democracy. I
could not live here if I did not believe that it is only the top of the tree which is rotten, and I live on in
hope of a tree surgeon coming along some day who is both well-qualified and honest, integer vitae
scelerisque purus.
Bihar was, I thought, among the worst affected by the rot, until the returns from Tamil Nadu (in 98)
came in. This is a cycle that has gone on too long: Misgoverning for five years, getting booted out in
elections, then waiting five years for the other gang to get kicked out so you can misgovern again.
Something has to snap, and I devoutly hope its the top of the tree that will.
Corruption in Bihar is nakedly open to the eye, and smells of sweat and earth. More expensively
perfumed people rob us with an air, as if theyre doing us a favour. As I wrote in the first chapter,
Kesris Congress supported Laloo Prasad for old times sake, and when Sonia Gandhi began
whitewashing her party, refusal of support in Bihar was an obvious, simple, and potentially richly-
paying step (until the Assembly election results were declared for 2000 and the Rashtriya Janata Dal
did better than anybody except I had expected).
Democracy is often a matter of theft, particularly at election time, when votes have to be stolen
from the electorate with soft blandishments (in Delhi) or by twisting their arms (in Bihar). Someones
pinching your wallet leaves you the poorer, even if shes cooing soft words into your ear at the same
time. Theres no such thing as a stainless steal.
Biharis need to be kicked
ONE EVENING IN EARLY June, towards the end of our first year in Bihar, Kavery and I were
walking up and down the wide cemented path which leads from the Hospital to the doctors quarters
when there was an urgent call for her. It was still hot though the sun had set half an hour ago, but near
the gate the tubelight which all the doctors had been demanding for months had not yet been installed,
so at least we were spared the swarms of summer insects.
The gate cut the path in two, separating some hundred feet on our side (on sunny winter mornings I
used to incessantly pace there, and it was forty of my paces long) which was the doctors preserve,
from the Hospital and the rabble. The gate was for our protection, and there was always supposed to
be a security there to prevent members of the public from troubling the doctors at home; but as the
members of the public were often armed or drunk or both and the security was some puny cast-off
from the police, without a gun, he used to let them through. We had a lot of trouble at one time or
another over this.
Anyway, the message said a police officer had an abdominal bullet injury and would Kavery come
at once. Shed had a hard day as usual, and we were due to leave next week on our first trip home in a
yearso she wouldnt be around to attend to post-operative complications after a few daysand she
was tempted to refer the case to Patna. But the victim was a) a policeman and b) gutshot, which meant
he might not survive the three-hour road journey to the city; so she said shed come in ten minutes.
The operating theatre staff, having had plenty of experience, needed no instructions about getting
ready for an emergency operation and would already have started the process. On impulse I said,
Can I come and watch?
I went back and changed, got to the operating theatre, and was shown how to scrub. Kavery and her
assistants were already at the table and there was some banter about my fainting and which way to
fall if I did. The operation was fascinating, and I realized for the first time (at first hand) why an
operating room is called a theatre. Under the sharp white lights, with the head theatre Sister sternly
but unobtrusively marshalling the nurses, and three gowned and masked figures at the centre of things,
the scene was drama.
The cop was about five-eight but very well-muscled, and Kavery peeled back layers of fat and
muscle which I thought remarkably thick. An entry and an exit wound were obvious, one on either
side of the abdomen. But they had to go a good way down to find the colon, the large intestine, which
was literally cut into three pieces. It took a while to sew it up, or resect it as they say. Then another
wound had to be attended to in the neck, where the bullet had somehow missed any vital body part.
Kavery works extremely fast but it was still long past dinner time when they had finished. I stood
or walked up and down, staying out of the Sisters way, occasionally climbing on to a stool to see
better, being summoned to the table to see some gory organ or witness some tricky procedure, taking
part in the banter when the difficult bit was done. Two hours and fifty minutes. Without a cigarette.
Why? I had never asked to see one of Kaverys operations before, and I would have if I had been
curiousnever having been invaded myself either, because Ive always enjoyed rude good health,
rude being the operative word: rude enough to know I wouldnt turn squeamish at the sight of blood
or bowel.
But Id just recently begun to see Bihar in a journalistic way, having a few days earlier sent off to
Madras a 3,000-word piece. In Bihar as nowhere else I had seen, in a few months, how close death is
to life, how weak and easily extinguished a life is and how domitable the thought of imminent death.
So I wanted to see for myself that brown-and-white-and-red thing on the table, under the pitiless
lights. I wanted, if you like, to get closer to my theme.
*
Picture yourself a darogasomething like a headconstableyoung, ambitious, and fearless too, for
whatever thats worth. Youve just been posted to a town known in the area for its violent crime. It
doesnt faze you: All the more opportunities for promotion. You are, yourself, from down in the south
of the state, from a tribal community which has distinguished itself in military service and in sport.
You take leave of your aged parents, promising to come back with sweets at Divali or my next
promotion, whichever is earlier.
Soon after joining at M____(you have already scornfully noted that the thana is understaffed and
under-armed for a town with such a high degree of criminal activity, that the man who gives you
orders and dresses like a cross between Shatrughan Sinha and Clint Eastwood is taking handouts from
the local bosses, and that the rank and file are demoralized and willing not to trouble trouble)soon
after joining, youre told off one evening to patrol the market. You march briskly from the thana, with
the constables, lugging their old-fashioned and unwieldy rifles, following you rather less briskly, and
enter the market street.
Its a northern small-town market street much like any other: dusty, with clouds of insects around
the streetlamps and tubelights, a few cows still to be herded home . . . Many of the shopkeepers greet
you. Namaskar saab. You nod briskly and walk on, looking to right and left and with the corners of
your eyes open as you were taught to do, alert for any hint of lawlessness.
Is there a smile on the faces of the shopkeepers behind you? Either you dont notice or you dont
care. Everyone knows who you are, of course; there are few secrets in a town like this one. You
march onbriskly. Night has fallen.
Suddenly there is a confused murmur behind you. You turn: Your men are excited. Saab, Sanjay
Singh is there. In the chowk next to the Pipalwadi basti. He is alone in the open.
Sanjay Singh! Youve never seen him but you know his features well enough from the mug sheets of
wanted criminals. And hes unguardedbut is he?
Suspicion: Where are his men then?
They say hes sent them to the Marwari mohalla again.
Extortion? And so early in the evening? But why not, even jackals are fearless when the
watchmans drunk. And in M____ the watchmans in the jackals pay. But never mind. Sanjay Singh is
sure not to be totally unprotected, but you have four men and even these spineless wretches seem
enthused. Quickly you give orders; send one man back to the thana, and take the shortest route to the
Pipalwadi basti with the rest.
You leave the shop lights behind; the houses along the narrow lanes are feebly lit with yellow as if
from deep within a well. There are no women, no children in the streets, hardly any men. You know
the geography of the town, though youve been here so short a time: The importance of such
knowledge was impressed upon you in the special short-term course you took. Your legs move along
the galis, take the correct turns, step over broken bricks and ruts in the path, as if of their own
volition.
The next right turn, and theres the chowk, suddenly lit by a tubelight from above; and there in the
middle of the thirty-foot square, surrounded by dark doorways, sitting all by himself on a steel chair,
alone, casually handling an automatic weapon, is Sanjay Singh. Youve never seen him but you know
his face by heart.
You pull out your revolver. At the back of your mind is the sick envy that these sons of dogs have
better guns than you. You intensify the thought into an iron hate. Surrender!
Piss off.
As you half-turn to your men the thought strikes you that youve heard no footfalls behind you since
you took that last right turn. Therefore your men have not made that last right turn into the chowk,
therefore youre . . .
Sanjay Singh fires first, and your shot follows just as a searing sharpness cuts through you. Out of
the dark doorways all around, gunfire sounds, with an enormous and frightening thunder which must
be worse than actually being hit. You feel a blow on the neck which half twists your head off. You
dont feel the pain at once, then suddenly you do and know its worse than the sound of gunfire. But
even sharper is the thought that youve been suckered.
*
Thats more or less the story as I pieced it together from occasional laughing remarks and sly hints.
The inspector came rushing from across the river, the SHO (station house officer, a sub-inspector)
had already got all his men on a war-footing, all the cops were frantic with rage and fear. If youve
read enough American stories of big-city crime you know the one thing cops dont forgive is an
assault on one of their own. Even in M____ it was thought that this time the criminals would be
wiped out. A contingent of armed police arrived from Begusarai.
In Patna a ministeror it might even have been the local MLAwas given the message by a
furious IPS man.
Kyaa? the man drawled. Shot a policeman?
Hanji. Condition is very serious. Shall I order action?
Those silly cowboy heroes, the MLA thought. Always wanting glory, the young fools. When would
they understand that Sanjay Singh and his gang, the criminals, were worth more to him for three
months every five years than they would be in their whole careers?
No, no, he told the IPS man. No action.
So for three days the armed policemen sat in the thana, looking very grim and efficient, and after
that they softly and silently vanished away. Once more it had been demonstrated where political
power comes from, and the people of M____knew who their masters were.
The daroga lived; his youth and fitness and excellent musculature helped to get him out of hospital
without any permanent harmto his body. Kavery didnt even have to postpone our trip south, he was
doing so well a week later. But I guess he would not have marched so briskly out of the thana on
evening patrol ever again, at least not in M____. He, too, had been shown who his masters were.
The citizens of course had to turn it into a story against the cops. They laughed behind their hands
for days. It was more than their self-respect was worth to think how they had been suckered too, and
at what little cost to the ones who did the suckering.
I have always had a great sympathy for Indian policemen since I spent a day in a thana in Old Delhi
when I was much younger. I was writing a Day in the Life kind of piece, but what the cops told me
out of the corners of their mouths has influenced me, ever since, to stretch a point when it comes to a
minor bit of propaganda or just unofficial helplike stopping to give a policeman off duty a lift
home. They are underpaid and overworked; in the cities they stay for months without a sight of wife
and children.
They are also undertrained. After all, they come from the same class as do the criminals: Are they
taught to love those they guard? Are they taught to be humane, apart from the occasional PR exercises
put on by the top brass? Is any effort made to soften them or put a gloss on their appearance and
actions?
Most hurtful is the political control of police work. Its worse in Bihar than anywhere else that Ive
seen, though I suppose its pretty bad in UP and the militant-affected states; and in Bombay the
politician-gangster-police game is in a different league altogether. In Bihar, the only reason for the
proliferation of such well-armed, organized criminal gangs is political patronage. They are there
because they have become necessary to the winning of elections.
And the gangs of Bihar do not operate only in Bihar. Sri Prakash Shukla, who was killed by a
police party in Ghaziabad near Delhi in October 1998, and was said to be plotting to kill then UP
Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, was trained in Biharby Sanjay Singh or his arch rival, I dont
remember which. Singh himself, or maybe, again, it was the rival gang, murdered an Uttar Pradesh
MLA in Lucknow a couple of years back. The criminals have become valuable mercenaries in the
north Indian political arena.
The gangs of M____, when they can be spared from election duties, are often called to other
districts of Bihar where the musclemen are too moral to kill easily, or too effete, or just not as easy
with a gun. And now those they trained are more and more visible in the other districts of Bihar at
election time, and are proving to be worthy disciples.
In M____ the gangs have made a lot of money from extortion and contracts, and own the town in
one sense or another. And speaking of contracts, they are legally contractors too, mostly for railway
projects. Indian Railways is a major source of income and employment for the region; but these
modern contractors have unorthodox methods of getting the job. All they do is ensure that no tenders
are handed in but theirs. Other, legitimate contractors have almost been put out of business, because
any punk with a couple of automatic weapons can stop them from making a bid for the work. And the
punk doesnt even have to do the work, as long as some of the money he makes finds its way to the
appropriate minister, MP or MLA. The higher incidence of accidents and unpunctuality in the
Railways has not entirely to do with obsolete technology and an increasing ratio of passengers and
freight to rolling stock and line length.
*
Travelling south ten days after the daroga was shot, on one of Indias most tedious trainsthe Patna-
Cochin Passenger, euphemistically called an Express in the official handoutswe heard a middle-
aged fellow-sufferer talking to his wife and a friend about the work culture in Patna. He was
obviously a Tamil, and I gathered that he worked in the Income-Tax department. He had been in Patna
eight months and was already seeking a transfer to Bombay, no matter that Patna was miles cheaper a
city to live in.
You have seen the walls in the Secretariat building? he asked. To a height of four feet they are
covered with paan-juice. Why Secretariat, even Chief Ministers office is like that. And work culture,
what work culture? Class IV fellow will come at eleven, go home at two after lunch. You cannot do
anything to him or he will tell some MLA and you are in trouble.
Yes, yes, I admit it is very cheap. But where is the safety? And if you cannot do any work what is
the point in saving money? At least in Bombay work culture is there.
Perfectly true. And the paan-chewing is one of the Biharis least endearing habits. (The addiction
cuts a wide swathe across society. Laloo Prasad made a resolution to give it up on New Years Day
1996, but the stresses of the last few years appear to have broken his will.) As a matter of fact, the
men lower down the social scale rarely chew paan; what they are constantly masticating and
expectorating is khaini, tobacco. Wherever you go in Bihar you will not escape it.
Its prepared for consumption in much the same way that we used to process grass in college, and it
forms a social bonding in much the same way that tobacco chewing in America did as Mark Twain
describes it in Huckleberry Finn. The man powders it between his palms for many minutes and with
great application, peering at it every now and then to see if its fine enough. When it is, theres a great
slapping of the palmsa tremendous sound which jerks your head up on its stalk the first few times
you hear itand a great puffing at the precious stuff to get rid of the dust and waste. He then passes it
around to his cronies or any social equals with whom he may happen to be conversing, who each
takes a pinch and tucks it into one cheek, and theyre all set for an hour or so.
Khaini has a decidedly intoxicating effect, and as you can get a days supply for a rupee or two
(much cheaper than paan or zarda) it no doubt takes the place of food and drink for a while, which is
important to the poor Bihari. The married women of course chew paan, and its a pity to see so many
pretty young matrons with discoloured teeth. The poorer Biharis spit where they like; in the houses of
those with pretensions to gentility, you find pink washbasins. The women of some castes, and the men
of all, smoke beedis.
As to work culture too, the gentleman from Income-Tax was perfectly justified in sounding off as he
did. In Patna city almost the only people who seem active are the thousands of rickshaw-pullers; and
even their body language as they push the pedals suggests that they dont have to do this and would
rather be sitting in the shade chewing khaini. The other energetic class is made up of the railway
station touts and people of that persuasion.
Even in the fields there is no great suggestion of activity. As I said, there are practically no tractors
or tubewells, so everything is done in the lazy unhurried motions of what Nirad Chaudhuri called
timeless India. My enduring image of the rural Bihari in the mass is men and women squatting, idly
talking, doing nothing. Except in Orissa, where the addiction to bhang produces an even greater state
of natural indolence, Ive not had a more deep-felt need to kick peoples butts and say, Do
something!
But what is there to do? If they do not earn a desultory living in the villages or go to Patna to
starve, where do the poorer Biharis find work?
One of the most amazing sights I ever saw in Bihar was at Patna Junction early one November. The
Kurla Express was about to pull in on its way to Howrah, and when the announcement of its arrival
was made my companion pulled me away to the back of the platform. Watch out, he said.
And when the train came in hardly any of it was visible. Roofs, couplings, windows were all one
struggling, writhing mass of people. I had seen enough of train travel in Bihar by then, the ticketless
perched in great droves atop and the frantic day-of-judgement maelstrom at each carriage door. This
was on a larger scale, but there was something else to it, I thought as the train trembled to rest and
great streamers of people flung themselves off and tangled with the rush of Patna-dwellers going
further east.
Then it struck me: All these people had luggage. Suitcases, nylon holdalls, denim bags. They were
better-dressed, too, than the general condition of the roof-travelling railway passenger permits: jeans,
sneakers; polyester saris inside the compartments.
All was made clear. These were Biharis paying their annual visit home for Chhatth, which comes
six days after Divali and is the one festival no native would care to spend away from home. Bengalis
under the pressure of work will not come home for Puja, expatriate Malayalis feel less and less the
call of Onam, to Punjabis it hardly matters any more where they are on Gurupurab or Divali; but
nothing will excuse the Bihari who is not on his native soil at Chhatth. They were coming from
Bombay, from Pune and Nagpur and Bhopalbut mainly from Bombay, and some from even further
afield, from the Gulf. They were the lucky ones, who had got jobs in a city which was not Patna.
But what jobs? There are, Im sure, relatively few Bombay executives who return to Bihar for
Chhatth and have to travel on the roof of the Kurla Express. These were Bombays lower classes: the
third division clerks, the peons, the restaurant waiters, the hairdressers assistants. And no doubt the
sweepers, the construction workers. And yet they were the lucky ones, and on every railway platform
in Bihar they stood out in their aura of affluence.
Bihar exports millions of these menials. You find them in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta, where they
form a majority of the rickshaw-pullers. You find them breaking stone and carrying bricks all over the
roads and towns of north India. Of course, construction workers in the north come in their hundreds of
thousands from Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu as well. But to none of these states do they
return as the better-off.
In Nepal there are thousands of Biharis from the northern districts, illegal entrants, stateless
citizens. Even in Nepalnot a rich countrythey are looked down upon and exploited, often ill-
treated by the police. The Indian Consul does not rush to their defence; in fact the High Commission
pretends they do not exist. Theyre wanted by nobodyuntil they come home for Chhatth.
*
It is always possible to find some work, wherever you are in the world. It only matters how desperate
you are. What follows is not a story about Bihar, but it seems appropriate. Ten years ago, the Bombay
magazine I was then working for carried a lead story on gigolos in the city, carrying interviews with
many of them. It was written by Mohan Deep, who has recently produced a biography of Meena
Kumari. Mohan was our expert on sleazewhich is easy to find in Bombay but slips from your
fingers when you try to dig for itand especially good on anything relating to films and the gangs.
Mohan was a tough, sensitive, reliable man with his head screwed on very straight.
Mohans gigolo story evoked a number of responses, many callers wanting to know how they could
get into that line of work. We had expected that, and brushed them off. But then quite early one
morning, about ten-thirty or eleven, there wandered into the office a thin, sad-looking youth carrying a
cheap briefcase and dressed in long-sleeved shirt tucked into his trousers, and black shoes: I thought,
a clerk in some office.
I was alone that day, as I always came in early when sober. I sat the visitor down and asked what I
could do for him. Sir, he said mournfully, taking a copy of the magazine out of his briefcase, please
tell me how I can become a gigolo.
I asked what his problem was. He said he had come up from somewhere in the Andhra backwoods
for an interview, his pocket had been picked and he had no money for a ticket back. And no one he
knew in Bombay. So I called Mohan and had him read my guest a stern lecture, gave the chap a
hundred bucks for a ticket and sent him on his grateful way. I didnt know whether to laugh or cry. But
I got back my hundred, by money order.
There are always ways to make money, to get enough for what needs to be done. If my visitor
hadnt been too much of a small-town boy, he might have turned to crime. That he asked about the
flesh trade only shows how much of a small-town boy he was.
There is no doubt that much of the blame for the Biharis poverty can be laid upon his own
unwillingness to work. Surely two generations of incompetent administration, lack of land reform, a
decaying and corrupt educational system and a political regime based on manipulation and terror
have had something to do with it; but ask the professionals, the educated and well-employed Biharis,
and they usually have nothing but contempt for the less privileged. For the professionals you meet,
almost without exception, come from the upper castes, and they have in a sense been freeloaders on
the system all their lives.
I did not notice much of a work culture among them, for that matter. The Bihari born and bred and
employed in Bihar has a curious reluctance to work to achieve something when it can be done without
workthrough connections, or with a bribe, or with a dharna. Professional professionals are few;
and of these you will find a large number have been educated in Delhi or Bombay or, of course,
Jamshedpur or Ranchi.
The newly-returned FRCS will set up a clinic at once; then he will meet the minister for health, a
couple of MLAs, all the druggists and scanner operators in the area and sit back, assured of a steady
supply of patients no matter what he does to them. The fresh graduate will get a hundred of his ilk and
stage a demonstration in front of the Chief Ministers house, asking for job quotas or reservations.
The hack will send her manuscript to Khushwant Singh, hoping for a mention in his next column
which she can peddle to a publisher . . .
Of course this happens everywhere in India, and Im not for a moment insisting that no one works
in Bihar: After all, someone must be doing it, or all of them must be working some of the time. What I
find absurd, amazing, about Bihar is the prevalent attitude of cynicism towards ones profession, and
of contempt for the impoverished citizen who cannot or does not work.
In October 1997 I spent a week in Muzaffarpur district in north-central Bihar, reporting on a
teacher-training programme for UNICEF, who were partly funding a visionary educational project
but that will come later in this book. It was an exercise in social integration as well, and one of the
trainees was an ambitious 31-year-old Brahmin who was teaching in a school where almost all the
children were Musahars, the lowest of the low.
Mrityunjay Kumar Sharma wore city clothes, close-cropped hair and an incongruous tuft. He was
very much a Brahmin, but fiercely proud of his studentsthe bright ones, that is (the point of the
programme was not to discriminate against less intelligent students, but he thought that didnt make
sense. Perhaps it doesnt. Anyway, it was his first experience with a new teaching system).
Give me two more teachers and Ill educate the whole village! he said like a latter-day
Archimedes. How will you do that, I asked him, when people dont see the advantages of
education? By punishing people, he answered at once. Tell them they wont get their rations if they
cant sign their names. In two months theyll all have learned to read and write. Some fear is
necessary to spread these movements. Biharis need to be kicked to get somewhere.
Again and again I heard this: Biharis need to be kicked. From both trainees and tutors in this same
programmewho all realized they were being left behind and were desperate for the state to move
forward; from doctors sitting safe in their living rooms on the Hospital campus in M____ while
gangsters took over the town; in casual conversations on the train. Those who said it were, of course,
the ones supposed to do the kicking. I never heard any of the kickees volunteer: Kick me, I want to
get on in life.
This is, essentially, an NRI attitude. Im not part of this society; Im looking down from above; Im
doing all right, Jack. But just watch those lazy bastards down there.
I remember sitting in a Birmingham suburb ten years ago, sipping Scotch and listening in horror as
two Indian doctors settled in the Midlands agreed upon how to revitalize India. Sanjay Gandhi had
the right idea, said my host, whod left hisand mynative village in Kerala thirty years previously
and now had a flourishing practice. Compulsory sterilization, thats the only thing. Catch everyone
who has two or more children and tie their tubes. The other doctor nodded sagely. This was too much
for me. Why didnt he have it done to himself then? I asked. They looked at me, surprised. But he
had only one child, they said in unison.
(Imagine it: At a checkpost on the UP-Delhi border, a luxury bus is stopped. State officials with
scarves around their faces swarm aboard and drag out a tall, lean, clean-shaven man with long
sideburns and black-rimmed glasses, dressed in kurta-pyjama and shawl. They tear off his clothes and
bring out the gelding knives, glistening in the moonlight. But I have only one child, he cries, mouth
wide in anguish, as the men prepare to do what they must do for the good of the State. I have only one
child! You cant do this to me . . . ! Ah, sweet dreams . . .
Such expert opinion is practically unanimous in holding that Indianor Biharisociety cannot be
awakened from within. (Even the parties of Hindutva, for all their talk of swadeshi, of atom bombs in
the Mahabharata and autogyros in the Ramayana, must go to Enron for a power project.) Laloo
Prasad Yadav went on a brief NRI shopping binge himself, after hed won his second term with a
comfortable majority and before he got embroiled with things like cattlefeed.
This was in October 1995, and he made the same old US-UK tour that every Chief Minister makes,
selling agro-based industry, power projects, mining operations . . . Then in December the NRIs came
to Patna for a Meet in which Laloo indulged his addiction to rhetoric, promising them uninterrupted
power, cheap labour . . . The only memorable part of the show was that Laloo attended the formal
dinner dressed in sola topi and dressing gown: Hed been supervising the demolition of unauthorized
constructions in the Patna city centre, for which this was his preferred garb, and had come straight off
the streets to the dinner. A photograph of him dressed thus, royally enthroned among suit-and-tie-clad
NRIs whore obviously uneasy, is among my prized possessions.
With Bihar politics and society being what they are, no major investment from abroad seems likely
to be made; but late 1995, with the Janata Dal still united and possessed of a majority in the Bihar
Assembly, was a more hopeful time.
Yet, what could the NRIs have done for Bihar? Look at the big industrial complexes that do exist in
the state. Along the Ganga, in the power stations and refineries, little of the top management and
skilled workforce is composed of native Biharis. I should think much the same is true of the Tata
plants and the mines in the south. As I said in the first chapter, Bihars mineral wealth does not enrich
Bihar; Laloo Prasad has a genuine grouse in this regard. But bringing in NRI investment is not going
to motivate Biharis to honestly enrich themselves either.
*
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?
Shakespeare, Hamlet, II, ii, 561
There is a limit to how much government- and UNICEF- sponsored programmes can enthuse the
people. A spirit of free enterprise can prosper even in a nationalized economy; but the only wildly
successful kind of private enterprise I have observed in Bihar is criminal activity. And in a way even
that is government-sponsored.
The main Bihar roads are unsafe after dark, but before any important Hindu festival they are unsafe
in the daytime as well. Gangs of young men and boys not yet sixteen will halt your car on the highway
every few kilometres and ask for a donation. (This forced subscription, or chanda, was first heard of
in Bombay many years ago, but it is in Bihar that it really provides an alternative to employment.)
Saraswati Puja, Ganesh Chaturthi, Ramnavami, Janmashtamino matter what, they will take at least
ten bucks (the minimum may be more by now) or else not allow your vehicle to proceed. The amount
accepted is higher for trucks and buses, naturally.
This happened a couple of times when I was travelling with the Sisters in one of the Hospital
vehicles, and I was impressed by their polite but adamant refusal to contribute. But why is this kind of
extortion tolerated at all by the public? The government allows it, of course, purely because
unemployment levels are so high. The answer is surely to create more gainful jobs, not permit
hooliganism.
An interesting parallel to this custom is found in the old English tradition of hocking. According
to Brewers classic Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Hock Tuesdaythe second Tuesday after
Easterfor long commemorated an English victory over the Danes in 1012. (There is a description
of Hocktide festivities at Elizabeths court in Kenilworth.) Brewer quotes Brands Antiquities:
Hoke Monday was for the men, and Hock Tuesday for the women. On both days the men and
women alternately, with great merryment, obstructed the public road with ropes, and pulled
passengers to them, from whom they exacted money to be laid out in pious uses.
Pious uses indeed . . . How much of the tolls exacted on Bihar roads (at festival time) is spent on
pujas? Brewer adds that landlords received an annual tribute called Hock-money for permitting their
tenants and serfs to celebrate the daywhich is to say the local dons get their cut.
Idle minds in Bihar and everywhere can be downright destructive. From not being gainfully
employed, to taking pride in not being gainfully employed is a short step for mardangi to takeand
its not much further to interfering with those who are going about their lawful business.
One winter morning, stationed as a volunteer in the Pulse Polio programme at some little village, I
was approached by a couple of young men. Who is funding this programme? they asked me. Is any
money coming from videsh? No, I lied, its all Bharat sarkar: All right, they said. If it had been
foreign money we wouldnt have supported itwhich means theyd have prevented any children
from being brought to our team for immunization.
Just look at the attitude of these people. Immunization is necessary, that they accept. They wont
arrange for it to be done themselves, but theyd rather it wasnt done at all if foreigners are paying.
The attitude to Deepa Mehtas Water has something of the same schizophrenia: Widows may be
leading miserable lives in Varanasi or Vrindaban, but its not for a foreign film-maker to depict it,
whether in a striving for change or not doesnt matter.
So who needs to be kicked? And who decides who does the kicking? Go to the root of it: Who
decides whos privileged and whos not?
I have seen one man whip another in Patna, and in M____ I heard of one famous kicking at least;
but these are properly methods of social interaction, not of encouragement, and as such belong in the
next chapter. Kicking as a metaphor is a reference to the feudal attitudes which still rule Bihar
society.
The entire dependence of the people is on the mai-baap sarkar: Whether benevolent or tyrannical,
what the Guy on Top says is The Law with which theres no arguing. Not only is it The Law, nothing
can be achieved without His setting things in motion. The gangsters of Laloos rule were the
mercenaries and police spies of Chandragupta Mauryas. Under the feudal system, theres nothing you
can do if these guys kick you.
(Is this true only of Bihar? After the stunning Congress-I victories in Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh in the Assembly elections of November 98, Ashok Gehlot and Digvijay Singhwho had
striven tirelessly, often in the teeth of opposition from their own party rivals, to ensure successboth
gave all the credit to Soniaji. Digvijay Singh even said, If the Congress loses, the blame is mine. If
it wins, the credit goes to Soniaji. He was willing to be kicked, or at least he was willing to say he
was.)
Why do the people of M____ let the criminals rule their town? It is difficult to argue with AK-
47s, butwhy did they let it all begin? They all thought someone else high up would stop it. But they
knew Bihar politics; they knew the value of the gangs to the politicians. Now all they can do is hope
to be useful to the gangs, or hope to be left in peace. They were willing to be kicked, and they are
being kicked.
In Muzaffarpur when some of the teacher-trainees and I were talking about how to initiate change,
they were unanimous in saying that the motivation has to come from above. I said, Why do we call
ourselves a janatantra, then? They nodded, struck by the cleverness of the argument. But they were
not convinced.
A feudal set-up, with power percolating from above, has great stability in a society whose
members have no idea of bettering themselves: It gives them security. This might sound strange to
outsiders, but most native Biharis are homesick when they leave Bihar. They do not willingly leave
the state even if the move promises a chance of betterment. So do Punjabis and Malayalisto name
two of our farthest-faring racesfeel homesick; but they go to another city, or to another country,
make their pile and then often come back, to enjoy in luxury what their native lands afford.
In M____, a local named Durga Paswan (his elder brother worked in the kitchen and was named
Ram Vilas) did all our shopping for groceries. Twice a week hed come home, take a list and
sufficient money from me, and return an hour or two later. He was honest and willing, and literate; not
only literate, butrare for a Paswana matriculate.
Kaverys sister and brother-in-law in Coorg just then needed someone trustworthy to work in their
house, and we thought Durga would fit the bill. We had come south by then but by means of registered
letters and telephone calls (put through with great difficulty) we managed to get across detailed
instructions on how he should make the long and arduous journey to Madras, then Bangalore and
finally Mercara, where he would be met at the bus stand. He made it, and we were relieved; on his
behalf too, for if he proved hardworking he could get a more responsible position on the estate itself,
and . . . Coorg is full of outsiders who have bettered themselves and ended up with estates of their
own.
Imagine our surprise and shock then to be told two weeks later that Durga wanted to go home. I
spoke to him on the phone and he would give me no reason, just kept repeating, Mujhe gaon jaana
haiI want to go to my village. They had to let him go; they gave him some money and instructions
on how to get home and sent him off.
I was furious and wrote to the friend in M____ whod passed on our instructions, He could easily
have made a life for himself down south, and hed have made enough money to support his mother in
comfort too. But what can you do with people who wont take advantage of their opportunities?
That was one Bihari Id willingly have kicked.
I was kicking someone
A BHUMIHAR CAME ONE Monday to Kaverys out-patient clinic at the Hospital with a sprained
knee. She asked him how it had happened. Oh, he replied matter-of-factly, Main kisi ko maar raha
tha. I was kicking someone.
The Bhumihars are the richest and most influential caste along the Ganga plain. They own most of
the land (as their name seems to imply) and where they rule they have practically absolute power. It is
said that their ancestors, 2,500 years ago, were early Brahmin converts to the sangha. When the
temporal power of Buddhism began to wane a thousand years later they sought readmission into the
(for want of a better word) Hindu fold, but were not given back their original status in the caste
hierarchy. How true this story is there is no saying. They conduct themselves more as warrior-
chieftainsbut that could be because they are landlordsand invariably bear names ending in
Singh.
I have written in chapter one that Laloo Prasads campaign platform in 1990 (though he later
denied he had said it in so many words) had been that he would smash the Bhu-ra-ba-lthat is, the
coalition of Bhumihars, Rajputs, Brahmins and Lalas (or Kayasths): the upper-caste land-owners and
businessmen, and traditional Congress supporters. Once he had come to power, of course, Laloo
realized he could not quite smash them. At least, not without a redistribution of land and authority on
a massive scale, and he was not yet ready for that: He did not have the numbers in the Assembly.
It is doubtful if Laloo ever really meant to reform the zamindari system, but its possible he might
have begun to do it in his second term when he had consolidated political power in his hands. Just
then, however, the fodder scam, the first in a long list of corruption scandals, came to light, and Laloo
had to think of his survival. Hes still having to think of it and will have to do so for a long time to
come. Meanwhile the pattern of land ownership remains what it has been for generations, except
where leftist armies and Dalit senas are making their own justice.
Another problem Laloo had was that not all of the Bhu-ra-ba-l were his enemies. The popular
alliance he mustered on his side, radical though it was, was not the result of a complete polarization
of society. Some of his trusted lieutenants were Bhumihars; there were many he could not afford to
displease. Dilip Singh, the Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA for M____ in our time, is himself a Bhumihar.
So are Sanjay Singh and Suraj Bhan Singh, then the two top gangsters in M____. And so are many
businessmen and old-time politicians all over Bihar whose support Laloo still needs or covets.
When the first American Sisters came to M____fifty years ago, there was nothing there but a
railway station and a ferry crossing. Also a shrine to the Virgin built by a railway owner whod had a
dream, and a Jesuit priest who had done such good work in the area that at his request the Bhumihar
landowners willingly donated some thirty acres for a mission. Bhim Singh, who gave most of the
land, is still around: Hale and erect, though he must be at least seventy-five, he walks through
M____every day to his fields, which are beyond the Hospital and convent. He and the one or two
other Bhumihars who continue to own the greater part of the land in and around M____ are not
disturbed by the criminals who are probably related to them anyway by blood or marriage, if not by
the ties of power.
The Sisters have left the social structure practically undisturbed. In Bihar as elsewhere in India
where the Church has a hold, it is the Fatherswho do not have the security of the cloister, and most
often have to work alone in uncharted areas a hundred kilometres away from the headquarters of the
diocesewho get caught up in land reform or social movements and end up being slaughtered;
sometimes by Naxalites, sometimes by the landlords.
The American nuns, however, knew nothing about castes and hierarchies, and treated all manner of
men in the same way. It is still remembered how the last American administrator of the Hospital,
Sister Mary Jude, would travel second class on the train to Patna every week to do the Hospitals
shopping, would offer a chair to anyone, landlord or sweeper, who came to her office for whatever
reason, and was so loved by all that when she died the rickshaw pullers and railway porters of
M____ crowded her funeral.
The Hospital, and all the Orders other operations in India, are now run by Indian nuns, mostly
Malayalis. They have degrees in management and hospital administration, and go to Patna by car
more often than by train and to Bombay and Delhi and the USA by air. Born and bred here, they are
keenly alive to social distinctions: You wont catch them offering a chair to a sweeper or calling him
anything but tum to Bhim Singh and his fellows they are all respect and attention.
The Christian missions have struck an easy and profitable balance in their mission work. They
offer medical care to all sections of society, which is a very necessary service and not always
performed for money; but they strive to convert only the Dalits, whom established Hinduism does not
have much use for. The missions dont have much use for the converted Dalit themselves; but they
have taught him English and he can hold down a post in the office; also he swells the head count,
which is always of use back in the States or in Germany and Holland, where rich Catholics give
generously but want positive statistics in return.
This kind of social commentary is not going to make me popular, I know. The most innocent and
well-founded observation on the Churchs activities now brings forth shouts of Hindu bigot! and
anti-minority! In November 98 the Malayalam scholar Dr Sukumaran Azheekode got into trouble
when he observed that some Christian priests drink more than is healthy for themselves and for their
followinga perfectly legitimate and well-meant observation, because he was advocating total
Prohibition. (Some time earlier he had got into trouble with the RSS for criticizing the leisure
activities of a certain order of sanyasis.)
And those who are Hindu bigots are equally stupid. They protest against conversions. But the
conversions are taking place among the very classes of society whom they or their fathers reviled and
cast out. They could prevent the conversions by accepting the Dalits and assimilating them; if theyre
not prepared to do that why shouldnt the Dalit convert to Christianity or Islam? He is not assimilated
by mainstream Christian society either, but at least he gets an education, a fair chante of a job, and the
shelter of the Church . . . but more of this in a later chapter.
The shelter of the Church is not to be scorned, not in M____. We could live comparatively safe
lives amidst all the violence because we were attached to a hospital, which was attached to a
mission. Everybody needs medical care, and the nuns had a certain nimbusit cannot be deniedof
good works about them. In almost twenty years there had not been an instance of the criminals
violating the sanctuary, not since 1979 when the parish Father, an American Jesuit named Martinsek,
was shot dead because hed asked for the return of a power generating set which had been pinched.
*
Bhim Singh came to see us one day. Sturdyof that broadness you get at the akharawith a rugged
face, grey hair combed back from a profile as good as Gregory Pecks, and an iron moustache, you
wouldnt have thought him a day over fifty-five. He wore a simple collared kurta and a dhoti girded
up at the back, both of which had once been white. I wouldnt have known who it was if our maid
hadnt seen him out of the kitchen window and urgently whispered a moment earlier, Bhim Babu,
Bhim Babus here.
It was about 7.30 in the morning and Kavery had finished her breakfast. I said Namaskar to the
old gentleman and invited him in.
So, he said, how do you like this place?
I said we liked it very well and would like it even better if we could leave the campus
occasionally and see more of Bihar with any assurance of safety.
He nodded his head sorrowfully. There are such bad people about, he said. M____is not what it
used to be.
Having by now heard enough stories of what M____had used to be like, I could discuss the subject
intelligently.
When Kavery came in, of course he didnt get up. They said namaskar to each otheror rather,
she ducked her head at him and he joined his palms and said pranaam, which is the preferred mode
of greeting in Bihar, only they pronounce it parnaam. He then lifted from near himhe had brought
it in and put it on the floor at his side but I had pretended not to notice ita string bag with a few
cucumbers and other local vegetables in it. (I dont know the words for some of those vegetables in
Hindi or any other language. And to my uninstructed ear, they all seemed to be called the same thing
in Bihari: ga- something.)
Kavery adores fresh vegetables, and could not keep the delight off her face. You like them? Bhim
Babu asked, grinning broadly. Hanji, Kavery assented. Good. Then I will bring more, said Bhim
Babu. And fish? You like fish? We said we liked fish, knowing we wouldnt have to clean it. And
ghee? I eat one gilaas of ghee daily, thats why I am still healthy. He expanded a wrestlers chest.
My wife makes it, from the milk of our own cows. Good. I will bring you some. And he departed,
evidently pleased that, though not Bihari by birth, we could yet love the highest when we saw it.
He came a couple more times, bringing a few vegetables and I think on one occasion freshwater
fish. Kavery would have gone to work by thenit would be mid-morningand I would chat
courteously with the old man, give him a glass of water and then one of tea. He never stayed long.
Then he wanted a favour.
There is a Central Reserve Police Force centre some ten or twelve kilometres east of M____, and
their sick were always referred to the Hospital. One day the sons of two CRPF jawans had an
altercation, and one stabbed the other. These were boys fifteen or sixteen years old. The victim had
been lucky: He had to stay in hospital some days, but the knife, which was short-bladed, had glanced
off a rib and only torn a lung. A case was registered against the other boy, naturally.
The parents of the culprit tried to mobilize influence on his behalf, and now Bhim Singhwho was
recognized as someone with clout at the Hospital, of which he was in a sense the protectorwanted
Kavery to change her police report. The case was medico-legal, and charges and sentence all
depended upon whether the surgeon called it grievous harm or simple injury. Of course, with a rib
scratched and a lung punctured, Kavery couldnt call it simple injury, and she said so. The judge
will laugh at me, she told Bhim Babu. He went away without further attempts at persuasion, and he
was just as affable if I met him on the road, but we got no more vegetables.
It was a month or so later, when Kishan (our friend, the medical representative) had dropped in for
a smoke after exchanging insults with the pharmacy Sister, that an unexpected side to Bhim Singhs
affability was revealed. You know all those vegetables he brought you? said Kishan, the paan juice
clogging his speech. Well, hed just walk along the market road with a bag and say, Give me some
of that, and the man would put in his choicest cucumbers or whatever. Thats where you got all those
vegetables and fish.
Apparently everybody knew this, and no one was surprised; but Kishan, with his fine cosmopolitan
Marwaris intuition, had divined that we might not know the true state of affairs. It had never crossed
our minds that Bhim Singh was not giving us produce from his own land.
*
What do you do if you are selling vegetables off a pushcart in the marketplace and the richest and
most powerful landlord in the area walks up with an empty string bag and says, Give me some of
that? Youre probably growing the stuff on land rented from him anyway; or else he arranged for a
loan for your daughters wedding, or got you out of trouble with the police. Thats the way feudalism
works: it cuts both ways.
So also, if youre a landless peasant working on a Bhumihars fields, you dont retaliateperish
the thought!when he kicks you. You cower and maybe smile to show youre pleased at the honour.
After all, it could be worse than kicking; he could have killed you, and fixed it so your brother was
arrested.
Paul Zacharias story Bhaskara Pattelarum Ente jeevitavum, on which Adoor Gopalakrishnans
film Vidheyan was based, portrayed just such a feudal set-up which is now happily extinct in the
south (or do I speak too soon? There are still big landlords in Andhra, and other big people
elsewhere, and absolute power always co-exists with a recognition of inequality). But Adoor could
have gone to Bihar and filmed it from real life any day of the week. I dont know about jus primae
noctis, but all the other trappings of sovereignty are there if you look. One reason the criminals rule
the area without opposition is that they are Bhumihars; other castes are used to taking it from them.
The only people who are powerful enough to stand against them are also Bhumihars, like Bhim Singh,
who tacitly condone the gangsters activities so long as their own interests are not hurt.
Behind the doctors quarters and outside the Hospital campus was an old ruined building. Its roof
had fallen in, and only the old rusty red brick walls stood, twined around by green, on an abandoned
plot whose ownership was probably disputed. One morning there were curious people hanging
around on the road which ran past the Hospital and the ruin: town loafers from the tea-shop, passing
villagers, a few rickshaw pullers. I asked what the matter was and was told a girl had been brought
there at night by one of the gangs, raped and murdered. At first there was some attempt at arousing
public indignation, but it was put about pretty soon that the girl was not even from M____but from a
neighbouring village, and was besides a Majhi, from a caste pretty close to the bottom of the scale.
Interest waned. Though plenty of people went in to take a look, I didnt see any cops. They took the
body away after a few hours. I doubt if any investigation was made, whether a case was even filed.
To those who told me the story, it was just another of those things.
*
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
But four times he who gets his blow in fust.
Josh Billings
The Naxalites had no presence in the area around M____, east of Patna. But their various armies
had begun to make trouble for the landlords in peripheral districts in the early 80s, and they soon
virtually controlled large areas of Bihar. As it has turned out, their rule has not been any more
beneficial to rural Biharis than zamindari has. They rule by terror, too, and kill and kiss just as
arbitrarily.
The original Naxalite movement in Bihar, a spillover from Bengal, split up into factions early on,
and there are now more splinter groups than one can easily recall. The major ones are the CPI(M-L)
and the CPI(M-L)-Party Unity. While both of these believe in land reform, the Party Unity is opposed
to elections. The only major non-Naxalite Leftist group is the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC),
which believes in total annihilation of the ruling class.
(Postscript: Ive lost touch in the last couple of years with the dynamics of the Leftist underground.
But there have been reports of more dissension about the form action should take, and of tie-ups with
the Peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh, which is bad news. Already the Naxalite terror is
manifesting itself in Madhya Pradesh, and a large swath of east-central India could pass out of the
hands of political control at not too distant a date. It must also be mentioned here that the CPI(M-L)
won six seats in this years elections and has a lot of clout in a hung Assembly.)
Their power is not to be laughed away by those in the south who remember Naxalism as a
movement that failed. The two main Naxalite groups (not their front organizations, but the fighting
arms) have more than 6,000 soldiers and some influence in two-thirds of Bihars fifty-five districts.
The MCC has at least a thousand fighting men. And all the armies have modern weapons, including
AK-47S and -57s.
To counter these militants of the left, the upper-caste landlords have in the last ten years formed
armies of their own, the best known of which is the Ranvir Sena. The Sunlight Sena, which gained a
reputation for cruelty in the early 90s, has only local influence now. In many districts, it is open war
between the landlords armies and those of the Naxalites and MCC. The police come on to the scene
after the battle is fought, count the dead and clean up. They are often victims, too, of the Naxalites and
MCC. In as many as forty-one districts there is extremist activity; eighteen are more or less out of the
governments hands (these are statistics quoted by The Times of India). Not all the districts where the
state is powerless are ruled by the armies; a few have a high proportion of freelances. One of these,
West Champaran, is even referred to in some circles as West Apaharan, or abduction.
The fight is no longer ideological: Extremism is big business. The MCC and Party Unity are both
commercial outfits now, and they make crores from their levies on timber, tobacco and illegal mine
operations. In the areas they control, they use extortion and kidnapping to keep the people terrorized
in much the same way as the gangsters do in M____. Indeed, the Leftists are worse because from time
to time they may rub out somebody for no reason except vaguely stated ideologies; while the
gangsters only kill the innocent by accident. It is, of course, mostly the poor who suffer on either
count.
In the last year or two, the Leftist armies have been concentrating on wiping each other out: They
have actually made a truce with the Ranvir Sena while they battle each other. The Ranvir Sena is also
making hay: While the Naxalites and MCC are otherwise occupied, they have offered their services,
for payment, to backward-caste landlords who need protection. Ideology be damned; and even caste
is not as powerful as lucre.
All this sounds unreal to journalists who were trained or conditioned to have at least a sneaking
sympathy for the Naxalite heroes of the 70s. When I went to Bihar I had no idea that Naxalism was
viable anywhere, andperhaps because of thatI, too, shared the sympathy. I didnt actually visit
any Naxalite-controlled areas, or meet any confessed Naxalites. But I heard enough to conclude that
the Leftists in Bihar are no more morally armed than any other terrorists, people who like violence
but like to have an apology for it. The Jehanabad killings of 1 December 1997, when sixty-two
backward-caste villagers were butchered one night, were initially blamed on the obvious culprits, the
Ranvir Sena; but it has since become at least a possibility that one of the Naxalite groups was
responsible.
What is amazing is the openness with which terrorist activities are conducted, without any
concerted retaliatory or preventive effort to rid the state of these vermin. All the armies have front
organizations, many of which contest elections. The others may not take part in legitimate political
activity, but their party headquarters are perfectly visible. Their connections with recognized political
parties, too, are not hidden. It is an open secret that the RJD has a special relationship with the
murderous MCC. During the 1995 Assembly polls, the MCCs overground leader Vinay Kumar
Arya was seen accompanying then Chief Minister Laloo Prasad on the campaign trail, travelling in
the same vehicle.
How much of Bihar is actually under the control of the government? Id say the Legislative
Assembly building and the Secretariat and most of Patna city all the time; and the rest of Bihar for
varying periods leading up to election time.
Until Laloo Prasad came to poweror lets go further back, until JPs movement took off in 1974
Bihar society was fairly stable. It was built on a basis of gross inequality, but it was more or less
undisturbed, static if you will. Laloo Prasads victory in 1995 marked the culmination of the populist
movement of two decades earlier. But it did not eliminate the inequality; Laloo just institutionalized
it. On new, heterodox terms, thats all; now Yadav can terrorize Brahmin instead of it being all one-
way.
Bihar is a stew, a khichdi, a goulash of casteist and economic tensions, stirred hard every now and
then when elections are due. It is never given time to settle. And whatever floats to the top is scum.
*
So its not possible to say any more that the Bhumihars and the other landowners are on top of the
heap everywhere. They are in M____, but in other parts of Bihar they do not necessarily dominate so
much. In the north-eastern districts, its actually Yadavs who have the land and influence; and they
look down their noses at the rabble of Yadavs from the south and west, such as Laloo Prasad.
But in M____, as I say, they have a pretty cushy time. One Bhumihar who came to Kaverys out-
patient clinic was insulted when Kavery asked him what he did for a living. Hum khaate hain, peete
hain, sote hain, aur kya? he saidI eat, drink, sleep, what else?
Many of the younger Bhumihar men go to college, and some actually find jobs which do not wholly
consist of kicking people. In M____we got to know a young Bhumihar who was a medical
representative (and thus in a sense Kishans competitor). Bipan was lean and poker-faced. He seemed
a bit unbalanced, perhaps because he had to reconcile his status as a Bhumihar who could kick people
with impunity, to his job as someone who had to win friends and influence people. We were told he
indulged in sudden fits of temper sometimes, as when he went to the Hospitals accounts department
to get a bill cleared and when shown there was a discrepancy in it began to rant and rave about fixing
the accounts man. He had strange silences and sudden smiles and a jerky way of biting off his words,
and it was generally rumoured that he was on something more invidious than Pan Parag.
I remember when the company he represented hosted a conference for the local doctors. It was to
be held in the guest house of one of the local public sector giantsBharat Wagon perhaps. All the
doctors were ready and all the ladies dolled up and we got transport to the venue. A banner hung
outside the guest house announcing the conference and the sponsors name; and that was the last
reminder of any medical meeting.
Inside we were all seated on sofas and chairs both sides of a central aisle; there was a lectern in
front and a roving video team. There was Fanta and Coke for the ladies and whisky with a choice of
Fanta or Coke for the gentlemen. By and by first Bipan and then his Patna boss made speeches in
laboured English, and a presentation in the typical style of the medical rep in a doctors office
holding up a folder whose pages were turned one at a time to each of the various sovereign specifics
manufactured by the company while its virtues were extolled in a medical-rep tone of voice. That
was the end of the conference; we were given dinner and a plastic file and a plastic water-bottle each
and bussed home.
No one thought there was anything strange about this. After all, the only difference from the
hospitality provided by pharma companies in the cities is that its usually more subtle. Besides,
there had been a video camera, and everyone was looking forward to seeing themselves immortalized
on magnetic tape.
Some-days laterit was a Sundayour neighbour in the doctors quarters aroused Kavery and me
from our afternoon siesta and insisted we come watch the videotape. We went across grouchily and
watched an hour or so of eating and drinking and selling. Luckily there was no soundtrack. When we
ventured to suggest that the money would have been better spent on a days free clinic in the town or
something like that nobody actually responded but there was an air in the room of Where did these
plebs come from? All the doctors and their wives were intent on the film. I came away only with a
dreary recognition of how awful I looked clean-shaven and a resolve to at once begin growing as
much beard as was compatible with being able to see and eat.
Forgive the digression, I wanted to put this down before I forgot and it does give a glimpse into the
professional way of life in Bihar. Perhaps it should have been in the previous chapter . . . I was
talking about Bipan. He once called all the doctors home for dinner. I forget exactly what the cause
for celebration was: something like a childs mundan, or a wing added to the ancestral house. Bipan
lived in town, and Kavery and I went early so as to escape dinner; I had an article to finish. He sent a
car for us, a battered Maruti 800 but in M____that was safer than a brand-new one. We had to go
through the market and down a couple of narrow, dusty galis to reach his house, an old-fashioned
two-storeyed building which extended a good way from the road.
One thing about these northern small-town and village houses, you cant tell anything about the
house and who lives in it from the faade, or how rich or aesthetically attuned the inhabitants are. In
Bihar especially, the surest way to have demands (that is, extortion) made on you is to go in for
ostentation: Better to pretend there is a wolf at the door than have a gangster there in actuality,
complete with automatic rifle.
We went in through the door and across a small unpaved yard where dinner was cooking: tandoori
chicken, daal, puris . . . Bipan met us, pranaaming from his waist, and led us into the house proper,
into his room.
The way these joint families live is invariant andto mestifling. It seems to be common to all
communities and castes: Ive seen it in the Marwari mohalla, in Patna and in the villages. Each
married man gets a room, usually not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. Most of this is taken up
by a double bed, built to last. Then there might be a chair or two, a steel almirah, a couple of icons
holding up the wall, and among the more affluent a two-in-one. (Bipan also had a TV, and a sofa set.)
Here they spend their days; the communal life of the home is in the kitchen, but this is where they rest,
sleep, quarrel, procreate and bring up their young.
Other guests were brought in and seated, on the bed, on steel folding chairs. Female members of the
family stood. Bipans wife, an anaemically pretty thing, displayed her baby; other children of the
family clustered around. We made polite noises about being unable to stay for dinner, and were given
tea and snakes. Kavery had to listen to a list of ailments on the distaff side. I asked Bipan about the
house.
Ah, he said proudly, with the air of one who had ancestors and was not ashamed of them. My
great-grandfather built this house ninety years ago. He had four sons, youve met the youngesta
toothless old man who was squatting on the floor. They had sixteen children between them and in my
own generation there are sixty-four. Most of us have children . . . I worked out, with the help of a
fascinated look and a couple of careful questions (but no one in M____minded my questions any more
I was a journalist; besides, its always good manners to show interest) that the house, not more than
twenty-five metres along each side, presently housed one hundred and sixty-four people of all ages
from eight months to eighty years.
It had become dark by the time we left, driven by Bipan in the Maruti. We had had to be introduced
to a couple of local doctors and agency stringers who were drinking in a pandal outside. I was a little
worried, because the criminals had been active of late; a corpse had been picked up that morning
near the railway crossing. But the streets were deserted. The other doctors and their families, the
wives heavily silk-saried, powdered and bejewelled, were just getting ready to go to Bipans party.
An hour later our dinner of puris, tandoori chicken and its appurtenances was couriered to us. You
might have insulted Bipan by disparaging his status, but you would have insulted him more by
impugning his hospitality. And it is so everywhere in Bihar.
The postscript was, as usual, provided by Kishan on one of his visits. Bipan told the criminals that
he was giving a party and nothing should go wrong, he said. In fact there were armed men posted at
the street corners. You didnt see them? He laughed at my bewilderment. Bipan, it seemed, was well-
connected to the gangsters, and he had an alternative method of making his way in the world should
the pharmaceuticals business at any time fail him.
*
Some weeks later, Bipan threatened Kishan. There was a lot of extortion going on at the time, and
Kishan had been asked for a lakh and a halfnot by Bipan, of course, but by one of the freelances. As
I have mentioned, Kishans was one of six Marwari families that had not yet fled M____: The
Marwari mohalla was almost deserted. The medical wholesale and retail business run by Kishans
uncle, father, brother and himself still made money.
Kishan could not (or more likely would not) pay, and had to run around town trying to find
influence to bring to bear on the criminal who had demanded money (the extortion rackets always
made demands)a small-timer named Dom who lived just outside the Hospital. (Because of the
way it was pronounced, I dont know if Dom was the mans Christian name or a derogatory
reference to his caste.) With the help of a couple of doctors Kishan succeeded in scaling down the
demand to a few thousands, but he was under a cloud for many days.
Bipan and Kishan had been friendsindeed, it was Kishan who had introduced Bipan to us. But
there seemed to be some problem now, when they met by accident they would hardly speak to each
other. Bipan would be stony-faced and Kishans lip would be curled. Kishan endorsed the view that
Bipan was under some kind of nashaaddiction. One day Bipan met Kishan in the market and told
him hed set the criminals on him if Kishan didnt get out of town. Kishan must have lost all patience
with the gangsters and their demand; he just said, Arre jaa, jaa, Ive seen lots of people like you. He
must have known he could get away with it, but it seemed to me a foolhardy thing to do. Anyway,
there were no dire consequences.
After that Kishan made up his mind to get out of M____. By then Kavery had given notice of her
leaving, and he asked us to find some opening for him in the Pharmaceuticals business in a southern
town with opportunities. If not drugs, anything would do: steel, furniture, cloth. I felt saddened at the
way M____got rid of its brightest; but I had no apprehensions for Kishans success once he got out of
M____ alive. He had tremendous energy, he was a real go-getter. And hed never do anything really
crooked.
That incident threw into sharp relief for me the difference between Bipan and Kishan, Marwari and
Bhumihar, cosmopolitan and Bihari. The whole world was Kishans oyster, he would discharge his
family responsibilities and still be confident of doing well on his own, in a strange country whose
language and customs he was ignorant of, even in a new trade. While Bipan, though college-educated
and in a professional field, would in a crunch fall back on family, would assert his status, threaten
instead of compete. Could he do so outside Bihar? No. That was really why these so-called upper-
caste professionals were homesick away from their state: They lost the sense of caste and status
which identified and defined them.
*
I shall be an autocrat: Thats my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: Thats his.
Catherine the Great
Kishan could not get away from M____ at once. There was his elder brothers wedding to be
conducted. Gopal was no live-wire like Kishan, he was rather dull and stolid, with an eldest-son aura
about him which seemed too weighty for words. Kishan had to do everything himself and Gopal let
him. Kishan was incredibly speeded up in those days: He consumed Pan Parag and cigarettes at a
frantic pace, speech spewed out of his mouth as if there was never enough time to be intelligible. I
found it difficult enough to understand him when he was normal.
Ill describe the wedding and all that later, but there is just one incident from our Patna trip which
belongs here. I was walking beside Gopal, astride his white mare, in the baraat, when an altercation
across the street caught my eye. A distinguished, elderly gent in spotless kurta-pyjama and shawl was
lashing away with a horsewhip at a tonga driver. The old chap had a grim, furious expression; his lips
were pressed together into a straight line. The tonga driver was sitting in his place looking back,
making no attempt to defend himself. He was trying to keep from laughing.
It appeared that the tonga had splashed through a puddle close to the patrician, and a little dirt
thrown up by the wheel had soiled the bottom of his stainless pyjamas. He had seized the drivers
whip and was flogging himnot very scientifically, for they werent cutting strokes. The people on
the road laughed at this scene, as did the baraatis, and the tableau soon dissolved.
Tell me, where else in India could this have happened? Hindus are supposed to . . . well, Hindus
are not really supposed to do or not do anything, in the sense that there is no really binding
commandment. But the general understanding is that Hinduism considers all life as equally sacred. In
practice today this only seems to work out to mean that killing a man is no worse than killing a fly;
that you can own a man as you own a cow and whip him as you whip a bullock. Individual, family,
caste: Thus run the circles of sympathy, of belonging.
I dont know . . . We had a good chance fifty years ago to make a new start, to wipe out our
centuries of degradation. I dont mean what was done to us; I mean what India did to itself. The more
I let my mind dwell upon what I saw in Bihar, the less hopeful I feel that we can amount to any
condition which deserves the name of humanity.
I will be dead by forty
THEY ARE A SOURCE of constant delight to me, the clippings I have saved from the Patna edition
of The Times of India. They conjure up, when I peruse themtwo years and two thousand kilometres
removedall the oddities and peculiar stresses which are a state of mind: the state of living in Bihar.
The other day I found one from the paper of 16 April 1996. Headlined A bizarre case of in-laws
burning youth, it dealt, in a way, with what we have come to call a dowry-death. According to the
report, Manjur (sic) Alam was married to Shahnaj (sic) Begum of East Champaran district in 1995,
but, said his father (who rolls bidis in Nepal for a living), The relation with the brides family was
not very congenial since the very beginning because they had insulted the baraatis. So we decided not
to send back Shahnaj to her parents house.
In course of time, the report continues, Manjur found a job near his wifes village and banked his
savings with his father-in-law. But when his father came to hear of this he ordered the young man to
bring back the money. On 12
March, his wifes family took him to their home saying they would pay him in full, and tried to
burn him to deathhow, the report does not say. When last heard of, he was struggling for his life
in a private nursing home in Motihari. As with most such human-interest stories in our papers, there
was no follow-up the next day, nor any attempt to find out what had happened to Shahnaj, who was
not sent back to her parents house.
Fascinating though this story is, its not likely to set a trend. Bihar has set many political trends
such as booth-capturing and the election of known criminalsbut something tells me nothing in the
way of equal opportunities, with regard to either bridegroom-burning or the reservation of seats for
women in Parliament, is going to be given the great leap forward in Bihar. Agreed, Rabri Devi has
emerged as a politician and mass leader; but she has not done so in her own right. She was booted out
of the kitchen and on to the stage by her husband, and he did it only because he couldnt trust anyone
else. Could you call Rabri Devi emancipated?
Talking of women in politics, another bit of reading matter from which I have got a lot of pleasure
recently is a wonderful book called Laloo Prasad Yadav: A Charismatic Leader (Har-Anand, 1996),
which purports to be a biography of the man. It has been written by one Neelam Neelkamal, who is
(or was in 96) a professor of English at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University,
Muzaffarpur and also District President of the (then) Janata Dal Womens Cell in Muzaffarpur.
She tells with endearing frankness what high connections she has, why despite being a Kayasth she
threw in her lot with Laloo (who calls her deviji, as he reportedly addresses all women), and how
her husband reacted to her going into politics.
I shall have occasion to quote from Dr Neelkamals biography repeatedly, its too remarkable and
revealing a document to keep away from for long. (Oops, quotes from this book are out. For some
reason Har-Anand have refused permission to carry extracts from the book. It surprises me; I didnt
think theyd object to a little free publicity. My guess is that Neelkamals unhitched her wagon from
Laloos star and joined the Samata.) But it does appear that she is, by Indian standards, an
emancipated woman. She wouldnt be out of place in most of our larger cities; but in Bihar she stands
out like a pillar of salt.
The women we saw most of in M____were the Sisters, of course, and the nurses and nursing
students. More than half of both groups came from Kerala, and this is not the proper place for a
discussion of the status of women in Malayali society. Kavery naturally saw dozens of local women
every week, but she rarely had time to go into issues other than medical. Then there were the doctors
wives (Kavery was the only female employed as a doctor in either medicine or surgery and the two
senior gynaecologists were nuns).
The doctors wives were all well-educated but unemployed. They usually produced a child every
two yearsBihari men who get into professional courses tend to get married in their first or second
year, so that the dowry will cover the fees and also the initial expenses on beginning to practise. But
this fecundity was not the reason for the women not working. One had an M.Sc. in Zoology, at least
two of the others were graduates. But it wouldnt have looked right if they had taken jobsit would
have brought dishonour to the husbands family. No Bihari, unless he is orphaned, is cut off from his
village and his roots, and every Bihari professional invariably makes a visit home at least twice a
year. These are important occasions, and any rumour that his wife is working would provoke
comment:
Shes working? In a job?
My cousins brother-in-law had gone to Khagaria last month and he saw her teaching in a school.
But he is doing daktari, no?
Maybe hes not making enough.
Maybe some people never have enough. But what about the children?
Maybe her family didnt give the full dowry.
Hai, hai. The poor children. Who will marry the older one? So pretty she is too, but somewhat
dark. Must be getting it from the mother.
What would his father have said if hed been alive? To have a bahu working in a job! Tch-tch!
This is serious business (if you will excuse my Indo-Anglicisms: Ive been reading a lot of R.K.
Narayan recently). A married woman working may well find her daughters chances of a good
marriage imperilled. It is not quite so bad in the citiesbut Patna is only an inspissated sample of
rural Biharand lady doctors are respected, especially when they marry doctors and set up a
private nursing home in Patna. (One such couple had their business raided when we were in
M____and fifty-eight lakhs in cash was found in the house.)
Our medical-rep friend Kishans brother, Gopal, married a graduate in commerce, who was of
course not allowed to take up a job even had she wanted to. As I described in chapter two, the whole
family was getting down to the business of breaking her in very soon after the weddingwhy,
immediately after the wedding. I remember the sight of the couple in their chairs of state in the pandal
constructed on the terrace of her familys house in Patna: He as if preparing to be autocrat of the
breakfast-table and she with her eyes fixed on her toes and her head draped, as we all filed past to
offer our badhais. Later I saw a couple of his friends hanging around the pair, one actually leaning
over her where she sat, and teasing her. Gopal looked ahead with the air of a Solomon who is putting
Sheba through some age-old test of purityor a comparison with Rama and Sita on their return to
Ayodhya would be more apt. I didnt like the sight. I hadnt fallen for her or anything like that, I just
didnt like the sight . . . Gopal was not a graduate, she was taller than he and much more sightly, but
he was clearly conferring upon her the honour of becoming his wife. Theres no chance shell ever go
to work, certainly not in a job, even if the family find themselves in straitened circumstances.
Dr Kishore, who lived in the flat across from ours, was the seniormost male doctor at the Hospital,
with the exception of the Medical Director, who had been there since 1958 and was called Papa by
even the Sisters. Kishores wife, Ratna, was a lively, warm-hearted lady who had her hands full with
her husband and two boisterous young sons; but she would find the lime to chat with whoever passed
by, and to bring us occasional sweets or meat curries she had made. I thought she was not in fear of
anyone or anything, until Kishores mother paid a visit.
After more than ten years of marriage, Ratna was still the bahu. She withdrew into the background,
spent most of her time in the kitchen, smiled little and was generally subdued of tone and countenance.
Kishores motherher husband had been a big-time politico, a well-connected Rajput, and she knew
how to handle peoplecomplained about Ratna, loudly, to anyone who would listen, including
Kavery. She said that the children were given too much or too little freedom, that Kishore was eating
too little or too much, that he should set up private practice back home in Gopalganj. Everything was
Ratnas fault. We all defended Ratna, but it was not much use. I still havent figured out if this
daughter-in-law antipathy is put on: whether it is part of the training, or whether it is genuine. But
after ten years either youve trained her or you havent.
Ratna complained about her mother-in-law to Kavery, but only a little. There was nothing Kavery
could have done, after all. Theres nothing anybody can do.
*
The Bihari woman we knew best was the one who worked in our apartment, doing the floors and
dishes, and washing the clothes. She was sent by the Sisters a couple of days after wed moved in,
and we never had occasion to complain or want her changed.
Her name, she told Kavery when she first came, was Pushpa, and thats what we called her. But
some months later I heard Ratna, across the landing, call her Anjali, and I became aware there were
others who referred to her by that name. I asked her one day, What is this Anjali? Is your name
Pushpanjali or something? but she only giggled and went on into the kitchen. I never got the thing
sorted out. But we continued to call her Pushpa and she responded.
Pushpa didnt live in, of course; that was unnecessary and anyway we were too cramped. Pushpa
lived somewhere in town, in a one-room shack as she described it to us. There are slums not only in
the big cities of India; there are slums in the villages, there are slums even in the slums.
Pushpa would come to work about eight, just before Kavery left for the Hospital; shed sweep the
floors, do the dishes, wash the clothes and leave by eleven. Shed be back at three for an hour or so
of chopping vegetables, making chappatis, washing dishes. She did her work well and efficiently,
once wed shown her the way we liked things. I didnt bother her and she didnt bother me. She got
used pretty soon to the strange phenomenon of the husband lounging around the house while the wife
went out to work. Or else she was used to it already, because thats what her husband was like.
A worthless fellow, from what she said, who had gone off to Calcutta to do casual labour some
years ago and visited M____a couple of times a year to scrounge money off her and perhaps try and
father another kid. She had a son, about six years old, and a daughter aged about four, when she came
to work for us.
Though illiterate and uneducated, Pushpa was not at all unintelligentexcept when she bugged us
by not considering important the way we wanted things. Once a week or so shed buy fresh vegetables
for us in the market: Id give her money and a bag and a list (committed to memory) in the evening and
shed come a little late to work next morning, bringing her purchases. No matter how many times we
told her to put the tomatoes on top of the other stuff, shed come back with them halfway down the
heap. Theyre going to end up cooked and squashed anyway, seemed to be her argument; why take all
the trouble?
She did not seem to get the best bargains either, and we thought that surprising in a native until it
struck us that perhaps she was not permitted to pick through the heaps of vegetables for the best
specimens. She was probably of a lower caste than the shopmen and with gentlemen like Bhim Singh
running the show there were probably heaps of differing qualities for different castes. But we never
fell sick, and we had no inclination towards doing our own shopping on a regular basis.
Pushpa was thin, dark and short-statured: Women working as she does age quickly, but she must
have been in her mid-twenties. She always, in the street or when men were by, wore her pallu draped
over her head. She had a sense of her own dignity, andwhat is more rareof others. And she was
above all a realist. She knew there was injustice all around her, and she was its victim in more ways
than one, but she also recognized there was nothing she could do about it.
She was very much a realist about the mores of society. In the flat she would talk straight to me, not
averting her eyes nor draping her head, answering my questions and sometimes volunteering remarks
of her own, though naturally she was much easier of manner with Kavery. But if she happened to
leave the flat after work when I was pacing the cemented walk downstairs, waiting for Kaverys
return, her head would be draped and her eyes low and she would answer monosyllabically if I asked
her (for instance) if shed remembered to put sattu in the rotis. I realized why after a few such
colloquia and stopped embarrassing her. It wouldnt be an embarrassment in rural Tamil Nadu or
Kerala.
Pushpa had once worked in the Hospital itself, as an ayah, but had been let go of. The Sisters said
there was nothing against her but implied, darkly, that there was something. Pushpa herself told us,
when shed got to know us fairly well, that there had been an incident with some young men. They had
teased her, probably knowing her husband was away and she defenceless; the Sisters had got to hear
a distorted version of the episode, and they, whited sepulchres, had sacked her. But they recognized
she was a rare worker and recommended her to us. Pushpa did not say all this in a tone of complaint;
she said it baldly, without any self-justification.
There was of course a vast gulf between her perception of society and ours. She saw this and
attempted at times to explain things to us, but was usually not successful. It was partly her Bihari: We
talked to each other in Hindi, but we could manage only the simpler sorts of conversation. When the
discussion became complex she would fall back on her native dialect, and we werent terribly good
either at getting metaphysical concepts across in Hindi.
I remember once, after Kavery and I had established one night that there were mice in the house, I
tried to convey the fact to Pushpa next morning, desiring her to procure some poison. Very strangely, I
thought, she did not seem to understand my reiterated chooha, which I had thought is standard Hindi
for mouse. Much air-painting of the size and shape and characteristics of a mouse did not
accomplish anything either. I attempted a murine squeak which died away in embarrassment. Finally I
summoned up my Sanskrit and said mushika. Oh, moosa, she said, her eyes lighting up. I
wondered what Marshall MacLuhan would have thought.
When Kavery discovered that Pushpas son was not attending school, in fact had not been
registered, she tried to convince her to enrol him. (It was no use talking of both children; we thought
we would make a start with the son and then get to work on the daughter. She had reported quite
openly to us, without any sense of its injustice, that she gave more food, and what better clothes she
could, to her son than to her daughter.) By then it was November, and Pushpa said school would be
closed soon. Kavery renewed her efforts in January. The parish ran an inexpensive school near by,
and we offered to pay the fees and other school costs. Pushpa would not listen, she just smiled
vaguely and waved it away. Some months later, the subject came up again when Kavery was with her
in the kitchen.
Dekhiye, Kavery said, if he has an education hell get a better job than just cheap labour.
He wont get any job, said Pushpa, the realist. I realized later, when Id gone deeper into the
subject, that this was true. He would be the wrong caste, or something; in any case, the only jobs
worth getting were sarkari appointments, which necessitate a down payment far more than anything
Pushpa could have afforded. He would end up among the educated unemployed, like Durga Paswan,
which is more miserable than being among the illiterate and occasionally employed.
But see, Kavery insisted, when you grow old he can look after you better if he has a regular job.
And he cant do that without an education.
Why should I worry about that? asked Pushpa, laughing. I will be dead by forty.
Kavery was so horror-stricken she couldnt say anything more, and when she reported the
conversation to me, sowas I. It seemed incredible that a woman in her mid-twenties, in the year of
grace one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven, in a democratic republic which purports to guarantee
the welfare of all its citizens, could make such a statement. The most horrible thing about it, of course,
was that it was true.
*
Pushpa however got on well with her mother-in-law, who lived a few kilometres out of M____ along
the road to Begusarai. She visited her every now and then, and never failed to go to her husbands
house for Chhatth and Holi. I suppose the old lady (whom we never met) appreciated her sons
worthlessness and Pushpas realism.
We paid Pushpa Rs 250 a month, ridiculously low by city standards but, as I have said before, it
was high for the area, and the doctors wives admonished Kavery not to pay more or their maids
would be resentful. We gave her gifts at Holi and Chhatth, of course, and odd things now and then
such as sweets for her children.
When the harvest season drew near Pushpa asked if she could come to our flat just once a day, at
three in the afternoon or so. We asked why and she said she would go to work in the fields. With my
memories of hired labour in Kerala, I thought this must be a rewarding few weeks for her, and we had
no objection. After the first few days her face was burned almost black with the sun and she was
clearly weary. Only then did I think to ask about the conditions of her work on the land.
I have gone into this briefly in chapter one: Pushpa and her neighbours would rise before dawn and
walk to fields sometimes as many as six or seven kilometres away. These were probably not Bhim
Babus lands, but maybe she worked on them as well. There was certainly no transport laid on for
them. They worked in the sunand the sun of the Ganga plain scorchesuntil well past noon, when
they set out on the walk home. I suppose they were given water to drink, but certainly no food; and for
pay they got no money, but a fraction of their pickings, never more than a kilogramme or two of
mustard or daal.
We tried to make it easier for Pushpa: I did the washing-up in the mornings, Kavery gave her some
food to take home daily for the children and suggested that she rest for a while at home before coming
to the flat. But she was too conscientious to accept that suggestion. Some afternoons she was almost
faint from exhaustion and would sink onto the living-room floor as soon as she came in, and I would
attempt to revive her with cold water or a cup of tea.
Pushpas brand of realism needs some thinking about, at least from my point of view it does. She
took all that she had to undergo as just part of life, her life; she accepted it all as consistent with her
understanding of life. She knew there are rich and idle people; she knew there were injustices being
perpetrated all around her on a daily basis; and she knew they were part of her existence. But that did
not affect her actions: She did what she had to do, she does what she has to do.
I would not have, I have not had the strength to do that. My instinct is to get out of an unpleasant
situation, and my advantages of birth and whatever else goes with it have made it possible for me to
contrive that the change of scene works to my benefit. Education is, I suspect, the determining factor,
even ahead of will-power . . . no, thats not so. Laloo Prasad Yadav had the power of will to leave a
setting where the best he could have hoped for was a job as a peon in a government department, to
work through school and not only to work through a political science degree but through another in
law, fighting in JPs movement all the while. That took some strength, it took a sense of hurt which
was transformed into strength. He may not be a better man than I, but he certainly is a better man than
I am.
Does Pushpa feel no sense of hurt? Its worse for her: She is a woman. She has been conditioned, I
suppose, and also her kind of realism has its strength in knowing she will suffer much worse if she
fights what carries her along. Much of what activates Laloo and gives him his power is mardangi,
manhood and pride of gender. This cannot be done to me, he declares, and does something about it.
Pushpa is denied access to that strength. So am I, for that matter, but never have I had to feel its lack
except in situations of stress and in Bihar, and the life I have fashioned for myself permits me to get
along without it, or with a reasonable and temporary simulation of it.
What imitation can console Pushpa or armour her? Damned by being born into her caste, damned
by being a woman, damned by her circumstances (not least damning of which is the fact of being a
citizen of Bihar and of India)who can help her but herself, or the gods? And neither she nor I places
much reliance upon any probability of a gilded papier-mch chariot zooming down through the
clouds and Nitish Bharadwaj or some Amar Chitra Katha hero beaming his silly smile upon her.
The English phrase a place in the sun means a situation of comfort or prominence. There are many
Indian writers who parrot the phrase like fools, when a place in the shade would mean more to us.
Well, Pushpa had her place in the sun all right, she would be burned black by it and she fully expected
it would kill her by the age of forty.
Hers is a life whose grimness I flinch from, whose realities I am still too much of a coward to
confront. I suppose its an appreciation of reality which drives idealists to Naxalism and pragmatists
to social work, or vice versa. Im only writing about it.
*
Another Bihari woman we knew pretty well was the lady who brought us milk every morning orher
cows were erratic producersevening. Girija Devi was a cynical old lady, with a broad, hard, flat
face and a gap-toothed smile which could set into harshness very easily. She was probably not really
old; like Pushpa and all her tribe she led a life which had aged her quickly. If she was not actually
buxom, her many tattered draperies at least lent her that appearance; and her grey hair was always
covered. She had an easy-going contempt for our ignorance and took advantage of it whenever it
offered.
She would come, in the mornings, a little before Pushpa (whom she did not seem to have much use
for, perhaps because Pushpa never took advantage of us) and squat just inside the door with her can of
milk while I got a vesselKavery was usually getting ready to leave for the Hospital. We had only
her word for it that the can held a litre, which we paid her ten bucks for, rather high I guess for those
parts. Every month or so we would have to upbraid her for the aqueous composition of her supplies,
and she would always have some excuse handy: The cow was about to calve, the cow had just
calved, the cow was sick, the cow had jumped over the moonwhich last she could easily have said
because she spoke exclusively in Bihari, in a high-pitched contentious snarl. (That is to say, she spoke
only Bihari to us, she might have known Hindi perfectly well.) Then the quality of the milk would
dramatically improve after a week or sowhich delay lent artistic verisimilitude to her excuse,
whatever it wasand continue thus for a couple of weeks, after which it would begin to decline
again.
Girija Devi had her troubles too. Her husband was a habitual drunkard who would lie in wait at
the beginning of each month to take away the money we and a couple of the other doctors paid her; but
she was usually too much for him. He brought the milk a few times, but I cant even recall his face.
Girija Devi was smarter than Pushpa in some ways (maybe she had had more advantages): Her son,
sixteen or seventeen, was in the upper echelons of the local high school. We met him once or twice.
He was smartly dressed and obviously more polished than the average denizen of M____ . Of course
Girija Devis daughters, of whom she had a ragged assortment, were not sent to school. They tagged
along behind her sometimes, shy and uncouth.
She was a woman of force and character, Girija Devi, and she was surely past forty and far from
being dead. She seemed to have handled matters better than Pushpa had. She has sent us a couple of
letters since we came away (one asking for money); she has found someone to write them for her.
Pushpa, though we asked her to stay in touch and write if she needed anything, never has. Its a bit
worrying. In all my letters to M____in the last two years Ive asked for some news of Pushpa, but no
one there mentions her in their letters.
Girija Devis second name leads me to think she was a Yadav. Ever since Laloo Prasad pushed his
wife on to the gaddi, I have occasionally amused myself by wondering how different women might
have adapted to such a situation. Rabri Devi, also a Yadav, has managed though not without enormous
difficulties in the beginning. Girija Devi, Im sure, would have handled it with aplomb. I dont
believe Pushpa would have been able to handle it; but I dont know the depths of her courage and
realism.
One Bihari woman who would have seized the chance with both hands is Laloo Prasads
biographer, Dr Neelkamal. Her book is a remarkably engineered, endearingly nave blend of haughty
self-satisfaction and abasement before the Leader, and has for me something of the relentless
fascination which the basilisk is said to have for its victim. For one thing, she is quite honest about
her efforts to enter politics, and what she expects from it.
No, I should have no worries about any trauma Dr Neelkamal might suffer if offered the Chief
Ministership. The problem would be how to get her out of office after her term. As far as my
experience goes, she is not a typical Bihari member of her sex.
*
There is no doubt that women in Bihar, or for that matter in India at large, get a worse deal than men
I am speaking very generally, you understand. From childhood on their needs of food, clothing,
education are given less priority than their brothers. Why, many of them are even denied the right to
life on being born, and many more shortly after marriage.
In his collection of journalistic essays, No Full Stops in India (Viking, 1991), Mark Tully quotes
from a feminist essay in Seminar:
With Sita as our ideal, can sati be far behind? It is this overarching ideology of male superiority and female dispensability that
sanctions sati and leads to its glorification, and accepts the silent violence against women that rages in practically every home
across the country.
Tully himself adds:

That statement, suggesting that raging violence is tolerated in practically every home, is surely an insult to Indian women.
Tully has of course twisted the words around: Silent violence raging in practically every home is
not the same thing as raging violence tolerated in practically every home. But Tully has a point.
A patriarchal and in many ways basically unjust system is tolerated in silence by the great majority
of Indians. This does not necessarily constitute violence. It is a system born out of the centuries, and
most Indians would feel lost without the moorings they have developed within it. For one thing, much
of the violence is condoned and actually committed by womenespecially in the framework of the
in-law relationship.
Kavery saw, in her work at the Hospital in M____, many burns cases involving young married
women. In one, I remember, the woman had sixty per cent burns and was brought to the Hospital by
her parentswho would not pay for or authorize treatment, because they insisted that their daughter,
having been married, was the responsibility of the in-laws. While they debated the matter, the young
woman died.
But Kavery also saw cases of accidents and stab wounds and illness where the grieving husband
remained for days at his wifes bedside, attending to her every need as devotedly as a daughter,
allowing himself rest and nourishment only at the insistence of the medical staff. One husband of a
stab victim, himself thin and malnourished, was desperately keen on donating blood, and could be
dissuaded only when he was told his blood group did not match herswhich was untrue, though he
didnt understand the explanation anyway. Rishta ek hai, khoon ek hi hai, he kept mutteringhow
could their blood be different when they were husband and wife?
There are peace, and harmony, and love, and other consolations even in an order based on
inequality. That is what I think too many of us citified liberals gloss over when we are too intent upon
scoring points over the other side.
*
A sufficiency of money makes most crosses bearable and most lives worth living; no doubt in Patna
and elsewhere there are women in affluent and Anglicized (why is that a dirty word?) families who
live liberated and liberal lives. I do not claim to paint a picture of Bihar society in its entirety: I only
write of what Ive seen. I just didnt get to meet too many liberated women (other than some of the
Sisters) and the loss is mine.
In traditional (why, and how, is that also a dirty word?) society, it appears, a woman can be free
only when she gets to the position of Matriarch. Kishans mother was pretty unfettered. So also was
the wife of Papa, the Hospitals medical director. (Papa and his wife were Catholics with a
Portuguese name I was surprised to find in Bihar, but that was only my ignorance.) She was never
called Mama; everyone gave her a wide berth, including Papa when he could. She had a caustic
tongue and a cynical, seen-it-all expression. They had two daughters and two sons. The sons were
married to sisters whom I could never tell apart. From time to time they would descend on campus,
silks fluttering and perfume scattering on the winds. Their lives seemed to be less circumscribed, but
who can tell?
The one class of privileged women in M____, beyond all question, were the Sisters. Of course
there were divisions and degrees among themfor instance, the Bihari nuns were generally spoken
disparagingly of and discriminated against by the elite group, most of them from Kerala. But on the
whole they lived and ate better, and existed in more secure conditions, than their lower-caste sisters
outside the walls.
But it is better for them, in every way, to stay within the walls . . . There have been few incidents of
violence on the campus in the last two decades. Around 1980, two novices walking from the railway
station (about a kilometre away if you cut through the railway colony) were raped and murdered; two
years later the Jesuit priest of the parish was shot dead. Neither of these gruesome happenings
actually took place on the hospital campus, though.
The reason there is no violence directed against the Sisters nowadays is probably because the two
big local gangsters have a vice-like grip on the area. Both are Bhumihars, related in one way or
another to the big Bhumihar landlords, who themselves, Ive written before, are on terms of perfect
cordiality with the Sisters, who in a sense exist under their aegis . . . I suppose everyone looks every
other way, when theyre not scratching each others backs.
A couple of weeks after we reached M____in September 1996, a saathisomeone who attends on
an in-patient and is allowed into the wardsslapped a nurse. He was drunk, and perhaps not
affiliated to any of the gangs, though he was reported to have been armed. The Hospital closed for a
day, a silent march was taken around the town, led by Dr Kishore (who because of his political
connections and Rajput family was respected by the gangsters), and speeches were made on the
Hospital lawns by the Block Development Officer, the police thanedar and other local bigwigs. The
criminals need the Hospital, and the Sisters dont let them forget it.
The Order has of course the solid strength of the Roman Catholic Church behind it, which is not to
be taken lightly in Bihar or anywhere else. The Sisters, as I said in Chapter Four, dont go in at all for
missionary activity among the higher castes, confine their public health camps to villages and
mohallas where the underprivileged and backward castes live, and do not upset the social order.
They are looked upon as harmless if they do not go beyond their bounds.
*
None of my examples is representative of Bihari womanhood. Who is? Perhaps Rabri Devi? Laloo
Prasad may well have intended great things for the women of Bihar (one innovation to be applauded,
introduced soon after he became Chief Minister in 1990, was to sanction two days special leave
every month for working women in the government servicesthis is from Dr Neelkamals book), but
most of his agenda for social change has been thrown off the rails.
Somehow I cannot think of Laloo Prasad as an ordinary politician. I have no doubt he meant to do a
lot of good to the social order when he entered politics, and that he made his plans to carry out
reforms when he first became Chief Minister in 1990. But he did not have the strength of character to
hold to the straight path, which is also, always, narrow.
Ten thousand crores of rupees seems to me a small price to pay for change in Bihardevelopment,
and empowerment, and enfranchisement, and justice. Speaking for myself (an infant crying in the
night) I would let Laloo Prasad get away with it if he can deliver on his promises. A professional
deserves to be paid. Let him keep the big bucks; but let him give change.
The fourth R is Revolution
If you go south out of M____, past the Hospital, you come upon the highway, with the broad lands of
the Tal spread before you. Turn right before the highway and you pass the colony of pukka houses
where Laloo Prasads government resettled the Majhis. At the other end of the colony there is a broad
compound of perhaps an acre, with a couple of dilapidated buildings standing at the further end. Set
into the main building is an inscribed stone which says in the chaste Sanskritized Hindi affected by
bureaucrats with a feeling of inferiority, and incomprehensible to most of the populace:
BIHAR SARKAR
The inauguration of the Charvaha School of M____ was auspiciously performed [susampanna] by the blessed lotus hands
[paavan kar-kamal] of the Honourable Laloo Prasad, Chief Minister (Bihar Government) at a function presided over by Dilip
Singh, MLA, on 7.10.94.
Little more than two years later, the school was obviously not a temple of learning. The concrete
slabs which in rural schools serve for desks and benches were pitted and unswept; in the corners of
the classrooms there were unmistakable signs of inhabitation by cattle. A watchman came out of the
other building to ask our business, but my companion was a government employee and put him in his
place. No, the watchman said, classes were not held there any more. There was no teacher. Yes, the
cattle took shelter there in the rains.
One of the Majhis we knew fairly well, a young man named Sunil, who was, remarkably, a college
graduate. Sunil did some part-time fetch-and-carry work at the Hospital; that was all his degree had
got him. His caste, however, had got his parents a pukka house in the colony. Sunil did get a sarkari
job as teacher in a village school, but nine or ten months without a salary had dampened his
enthusiasm. It was for the same reason, he said, the Charvaha school teacher had abandoned his post.
It is not uncommon for money meant for such minions of the state government to be eaten up by
babus along the line. The commission is an immemorial Indian custom, and villagers still have to
pay a cut to get their money orders. Only, in Bihar, the percentage of the commission has been
increased with reckless audacity until, as with the rural schoolteachers pay, nothing is left at the end
of the line. Sunil had been to Patna to plead his case, but an audience with even a lowly babu comes
expensive.
However, one thing was clear as we talked to Sunil. His househis parents, reallystood out in
that colony of the underprivileged. It was neat, the tablecloth-sized yard was brushed and clean, and
he even had a garden with roses and hibiscus probably sprung from cuttings he had taken from the
Hospital. Elsewhere in the colony, pigs rooted in the filththe Majhis are traditionally pig-keepers
and pools of stagnant water, aswarm with mosquitoes, gleamed dully among the weeds and
overgrown plots of land. You could see almost as if it had been written that this house belonged to
someone with an education. On our way back my companion pointed out the only other house in the
colony belonging to a graduate, and it too was sparkling.
*
The Charvaha schools were a good concept, but like so many of Laloo Prasads societal initiatives, it
fell through in the execution. In M____ the school stands on the periphery of a large expanse of
pasturage, where boys from M____ and some nearby villages take the cows and buffaloes out to
graze each morning. The idea was that they would leave their charges within easy distance and spend
a few hours being educated. (Charvaha if Im not thinking of something else means grazer.)
There were a few dozen of these schools inaugurated by the lotus hands of various dignitaries in
many Bihar districts. Laloo Prasad did his share, for he took a personal interest in the scheme. But in
only a few districts were they functioning at all in 1997, as many newspaper reports attested. Most of
them shared the fate of the school in M____.
The Charvaha school was not, of course, the only school in M____ . There was a parish school,
under the supervision of the Church, with a nun as headmistress; there was a school run by a Marwari
trust, founded by Kishans grandfather; and there was the usual quota of government-run schools. The
parish school charged fees of only thirty or forty rupees a month: trifles to us, but still beyond people
like Pushpa.
The Catholic Church has always known that the best way to spread the Faith is through education,
and Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier and their Jesuit followers founded schools which were for three
centuries some of the best in the world. In Bihar, the best schoolsoutside Jamshedpur and Ranchi, I
supposeare still Christian. The way to spread beliefs is to catch em young, and it was very foolish
of Laloos revolution to neglect this.
Laloo, having himself clawed his way to two degrees, realized that education for all had to be the
cornerstone of his social revolution. But there are too many interest-groups to satisfy; and education
for all has joined the herd of milch cows kept by a corrupt bureaucracy.
College lecturers and professors do usually get some part of their salaries most of the time. But in
1997, the universities of Bihar were in severe financial crisis. For several years past, teachers had
been drawing only about two-thirds of their pay; their provident fund contributions had not even been
deposited. The government, it appeared, was unable to pay the required sums of money to the
universities. Magadh University, it was reported, was owed Rs 111 crore.
Given such hardships, colleges and universitiesor at least certain individuals concerned with
running themfound ingenious ways of supplementing the pay they received.
On 11 May 1999, The Week reported the Vigilance Department filed an FIR against former Bihar
Minister of State for Education Jitanram Manjhi, Primary and Secondary Education Secretary S.K.
Negi, and Vice-Chancellor of Lalit Narain Mithila University Jai Kishan Yadav for involvement in a
fake B.Ed. degree racket, later naming Vice-Chancellor of B.N. Mandai University Dr A.M.S. Abdul
Mogni as well. Eighty-four persons are accused altogether; thirty colleges affiliated to four
universities (Magadh and Vinoba Bhave, besides the two above) are reportedly tainted by the
scandal.
It used to be common practice for Biharis to return to their state with well-sounding degrees from
fictitious colleges elsewhere in the country. Now with typical Bihari enterprise, the business has been
indigenized; more than that, it has almost been legitimized. A cheapjack artist sitting in an attic and
turning out forged certificates is one thing; the Vice-Chancellor himself affixing his signature below
the names of students who have not passed their examinations is entirely different.
Thats putting it broadly. The Vice-Chancellor himself didnt sign anybodys degree certificate.
What Mogni did, apparently, was to permit affiliation to the university of various private colleges,
some of which did not exist, without referring them to the University Affiliation Committee. The
National Council of Teachers Education has reported that only nine of forty-six B.Ed. colleges in
Bihar had full affiliation. The racket is making Rs 200 crore a year, and buyers come mainly from
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
You cant say Biharis dont think big!
*
And they attend to the details too. The doctors at the mission Hospital in M____, all MBBSs, were
forever writing the exams for admission to post-graduate courses. They never made it, not because
they werent bright enough but because they had not been trained well enough during the degree
course. One of them told us how preparations were usually made for the PG exams: There are ten
papers, so ten of us get together and pay Rs 10,000 each. With a lakh, we can bribe the university
clerk who handles these things to give us seats next to each other, in the same row. Once that is
arranged each of us picks one subject to learn thoroughly and then were set.
Copying from each other, and the use of unfair aids generally, is such common practice in the
northern states that it hardly needs to be written about. A year or two ago when the Uttar Pradesh
government planned to introduce a piece of legislation that would provide for stricter invigilation,
students across the state protested so violently that the bill had to be shelved.
In Bihar MBBS students need some kind of advantage, because they are taught very little during the
course which they cannot gather from textbooks. They commonly finish their six or eight or ten years
in medical college without ever having witnessed the simplest of surgical operations, much less
having performed one. A professor hesitates to pass on his skills, because next thing you know the
student might be setting up a private clinic down the road from his own.
Medical students in Bihar are often married in their first or second year, as I mentioned in an
earlier chapter: They need the dowry to pay their fees. All in all, its an expensive business getting a
medical degree, if you count sundry expenses such as Rs 10,000 to ensure the right seat in the right
hall, and perhaps a tip to the invigilator on your way out.
Its not very much better in the south. Capitation fees, donations and so on ensure that you complete
a professional degree course in debtat least to your own familyand any ethical sense you had on
starting will have been leached out of you. You get out of college wanting to, needing to make money,
and you dont care how you do it. Why blame the doctors and engineers? All they are guilty of is
following examples set by the leaders of the profession and of the country. And the leaders are the
fellows who jet to Texas for an appendicectomy at state expense.
As some columnist recently pointed out, V.P. Singh has been in London for quite a while now for
medical treatment. So he does not have much faith in the quality of Indian doctors. And what has been
responsible, more than anything else, for ensuring their poor quality in the last decade? (Postscript: I
read recently, in a newsmagazine, that V.P. Singh spends six months every year in London because he
needs dialysis, and the water in India isnt pure enough for it. Why cant he use Bisleri?)
*
I dont know how many crores went down the milch cow channel with the Charvaha schools. But in
October 1997, with much fanfare, the third phase of the District Primary Education Programme
(DPEP) was launched in seventeen districts of Bihar, and many other Indian states. The cost of
DPEP-III in Bihar alone is a little over thirty-five crores of rupees; but its not the governments
money. It comes through the World Bank, from Japan and Australia among other countries, and is
disbursed by UNICEF.
I was lucky enough to get a look at primary education in one district of Bihar, because UNICEF
asked me to do a reportnot on DPEP but on Ujala, the teachers training component of the Bihar
Education Project (BEP), which had been instituted some five years earlier. Someone at UNICEF
Patna knew the Sisters, and so . . . it was what has been called the Keralite mafia at work, you can
say. Anyway, my visit to Muzaffarpur coincided with the inauguration of DPEP-III and all the
associated tamasha, and I spent the best part of a week in the district visiting schools and observing
teachers training programmes, and so can offer some privileged information.
The best way to begin is to quote my report for background information. Muzaffarpur is not
typical of Bihar, but the extent and variety of its problems are.
Muzaffarpur, with an area of 3,122.78 sq km and a population of 29.538 lakh, is one of North Bihars larger and more important
districts. (The Division is also headquartered at Muzaffarpur town.) It is still largely rural, and most of the workforce is engaged in
agriculture, with the few industries (plastics, pharmaceuticals, concrete casting, pipes and pumpsets) centred on the one town of
importance.
Demographic trends are disturbing: The 1981 ratio of 963 females to 1,000 males had fallen to 904 just a decade later. Literacy
rates are also not a cause for pride: In 1991, the male literacy rate was 48.3 per cent, the female 22.43, and the overall rate 36.11
all lower than the figures for Bihar, which are themselves below the national average.
Among the Scheduled Castes, who at 15.72 per cent make up an appreciable fraction of the population, the literacy rate among
females is a mere 4.59 per centlower, again, than the state average of 7.59. [Ye gods, what dismal statistics!] Though the Gross
Access Ratio of 74.79 per cent and the Gross Enrolment Ratio of 74 are both considerably higher than the state averages, the
Retention Rate of 22.5 is much lowerreflecting the widespread use of child labour, particularly at harvest time. [This
gobbledygook refers to the childs easy access to a school, the percentage of children who actually enrol and the percentage who
regularly attend school.]
Social barriers to literacy and empowerment in general are conspicuous. So is gender discrimination. It was for all these reasons
that Muzaffarpur was one of the earliest districts picked for implementation of the BEP, in 1992-93, and going by figures the drive
for enrolment especially has met with success.
I shall quote verbatim from the report wherever it helps, since I have permission to do so from
UNICEF. But to start with, Ill put down what the strangest part of the whole experience was: The
bhaav which my Kerala origins generated. As the launch of DPEP-III was happening at the same time,
I attended not a few functions at which Kerala was lauded as the great beacon of hope in many
speeches, and in more than one song about literacy.
Also, many people were not quite clear just what my role was, and word got round that I was a
sarkari babu on some kind of tour of inspection; that I had come from Kerala to see what was being
done in Bihar. One headmistress even requested my intercession in some matter of transfers from her
school. It was all very embarrassing.
And I was even more embarrassed when we left Bihar and moved to rural Kerala, where Kavery
worked briefly in a hospital near Thekkady that we had heard shining reports of but which turned out
to be run by a charlatan and a crook, who was locally revered because he invoked the name of Jesus
every few minutes. Thats when I realized that a high literacy rate can coexist with a great lack of
social awareness; and anyway Keralas hundred per cent literacy rate is in part just a business of
juggling figures.
*
From Patna the road to Muzaffarpur crosses the Ganga by the never-ending Danapur bridge and
passes through Vaishali district, which is as beautiful as its name. The national highway near
Muzaffarpur is one of the most horrible roads Ive been on, with great excavations pitting and
seaming it and making travel an agony as youre hurled from one side of the bus to the other.
After a night at the District Education Office hostel in Muzaffarpur town I got a lift to the District
Institute of Education and Training (DIET) in Muraul a couple of hours away, a really beautiful spot
by the Gandak river, or rather one of its canals. Hereall the primary schoolteachers in Muzaffarpur
district already having been trainedthere were two batches of teachers from Bhagalpur and Purnea
who had already started their ten-day training course.
I attached myself to the Bhagalpur batch, mainly because of the senior trainer, Shiv Shankar
Pandey, a short undistinguished gentleman with immense belief in what he was doing. Undistinguished
only at first glance. Pandey ji really had tremendous presence; and when he adjured me on the third
day not to drink in my room in the evenings I obeyed at once.
The training exercises are simple games, designed to get across simple concepts. I wont describe
them; there are enough professionals from many fields involved in the DPEP, including journalists.
The teachers, of all ages from twenty-five to fifty, participated with gusto. The students of many of
them must have been amazed to see them behaving like children. Pandeyji handled them very well.
The one concept the trainees had difficulty withperhaps because the trainers didnt seem to
believe in it wholly eitherwas that of Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL). Essentially, this means
its more important to bring every student up to a certain level of competence and knowledge than to
coach the brighter ones and let the less bright fall by the wayside. At primary school level, I suppose,
this makes sense; but in our weirdly competitive school systemthrough which all these teachers had
themselves struggledthe glory which a good student brings offsets half a dozen whore not going to
make it anyway, and will only have to write their names when they need to collect money orders or
fill out sarkari forms.
In the chapter headed Biharis need to be kicked I quoted Mrityunjay Kumar Sharma, the Brahmin
teacher in a Musahar school who advocated spreading literacy by cutting off PDS (ration shop)
facilities to the illiterate. I spoke to him at length, because he was the most impressive of the
Bhagalpur batch, impressive because ambitious. Alone of all whom I met, he attempted (with fair
success) to speak consistently in English. It was an uplifting and saddening interview, for he is a
model of so many bright young citizens who cannot get to do what they want to do, yet do not give up
hope.
Mrityunjay was thirty-one, a teacher for two years and the only teacher at a primary school near
Sultanganj, with seventy-eight students in Classes I to V, ninety-five per cent of them Musahars. When
I asked him why he became a teacher, he said, I wanted to become a doctor. But my family is very
poormy father is a farmerand I couldnt afford to write the entrance more than once. Also I have
five younger brothers and a sister.
I needed some job. I worked for some time in an office but I didnt want to be a clerk. Since I was
denied the chance to become a doctor, I wanted to do some other service. For four or five years
before doing this BPSC selection I was giving English tuitions. My students did well. Some of them
got into engineering, another into the IAF. He came and touched my feet. . . All this gave me the
impression this is the right job.
Mrityunjay enjoyed the training (it gives us inspiration from within) but wasnt sold on the MLL.
The biggest thing for me was, I was always very result-oriented. I always gave special attention to
the more intelligent boys I was tutoring. In my school too I have been giving more attention to ten
good students. I devote one hour to them alone.
Here with MLL the emphasis is different. I had discussions with my colleagues; they ask is it fair
to pay more attention to certain students. I thought about it for one whole night. And I decided I wont
leave those ten. They are my pride. But now I think I was doing something wrong in neglecting the
others. Ill give more time to them.
The interesting thing is that Mrityunjay personally had no caste problems about his students.
Musahars are the lowest of the lowas their name implies, they are rat-eaters, anathema to
practically everybody else; Mrityunjay is very much a Brahmin, wearing a token tuft with his city
clothes. . . I only call this interesting because not being from Bihar, or indeed from a background
where caste was at all important, I did not know the dynamics of such a situation. But Mrityunjay was
aggressive about it:
I was once teased by boys of the Brahmin mohalla about teaching Musahars. I told them, Very
well, you bring the brightest boys from your school and well have a competition. They agreed and
my boys did better. Since then the Brahmins have been asking me to accept their sons as students!
He was full of pride as he said this, not the social pride of one who has scored off the Brahmins
but the pride of the teacher whose students have added lustre to his name, the pride of Drona after
Arjuna captured Drupada and brought him back as gurudakshina. The society is strong which has
such teachers; but that same society, with its bureaucracy and government regulations, makes the task
of those like Mrityunjay even more difficult than it naturally is.
There are no qualified science teachers in any middle school in Bhagalpur, he said when I asked
what he thought of the system. We who are B.Sc.s are wasted on primary schools, because all
postings are based on seniority. Why should this be so?
My colleagues in the district who are my own age, were young and eager to change things. We
made a suggestion to the BEO [Block Education Officer], put those of us who are good teachers and
anxious to achieve into one school, let there be one school like this in each Block. Then see what we
accomplish in one year. The BEO said it was beyond him.
The suggestion is, of course, against all such democratic concepts as MLL. But the systems
reaction, and its style of functioninghowever democraticdo much to ensure that quality doesnt
get found out, either.
*
Two days later I visited a Musahar school. It wasnt, of course, a Musahar school officially; but other
castes refuse to let their children associate with Musahars, so any school in a Musahar locality
becomes quite soon a Musahar schoolassuming of course that the Musahar children attend it. The
headmaster of this school was an elderly Maithili named Jha; he, like Mrityunjay, had no personal
fears of caste pollution. But he had faced problems from high-caste neighbours who reproached him
for allowing his students to bring water from the well for him to drink, or tea on occasion. He did not
have Mrityunjays fire to challenge his neighbours to a contest; he was an old man and clearly thought
education was above all these trifles.
The Musahar children were almost all unwashed and underfed, with the straw-coloured hair and
pot-bellies which accompany kwashiorkor. It was difficult to get any direct response from most of
them, though one or two grinned impudently at the strangers. The one room (maybe fifteen feet square
the school had become pukka but three years ago, and the building had come from the Jawahar
Rozgar Yojana) held some thirty children from four to fifteen years old. The students themselves were
in Classes I to V; and its common for school-going children in the villages, particularly girls, to take
younger siblings along. The oldest girl had just been married and covered her head proudly with her
pallu and would not look at us. The others had no inhibitions after a while, and when Pandeyji, for my
benefit, put some of them through a rudimentary test while Jha looked on paternally, they participated
with gusto.
The room was fairly clean and the walls were covered with the bright charts and pictures which
properly go with the New Education. That is one blessing trained teachers have brought to rural
schools. Jha was a prime mover in local cultural programmes, and the children sang out their lessons
in words he had written, to tunes he had composed. He was proud of them; but he lamented their fate
once they passed Class V, for they would not dare attend the local Middle School, which was in a
forward mohalla. However, he said, even if these children did not go beyond Class V, they will
send their children to college.
There was no question of textbooks in that school. But the children had been taught to recognize the
alphabets, and to write their names. To find so many children in school was itself unusual, but the
harvest was long over and the floods had not receded. The best time for rat-catching is before the
harvest when the field-rodents are rife amidst the grain. The Musahars have traditionally performed a
most useful service.
We went to at least a dozen schools in the four blocks around Muraul in four days. The others were
very different from the Musahar school. Large bare buildings, the roofs usually tiled or tin-sheeted;
large bare playgrounds. The children wore uniforms, though most went barefoot; the classrooms were
equipped with all the usual accessories, but play equipment was largely absent except for goalposts.
The DPEP, of course, targeted only primary schoolchildren, so while their classrooms were bright
with charts and pictures and games the middle school still learned as I had in my schooldays and no
doubt my father and grandfather had done in theirs.
The school buildings were not well-maintained; they could not be. One headmistress told me that
the Rs 2,000 she got annually from the BEP was insufficient for the schools upkeephers was the
best-kept school I sawand she had to appeal to the local MP or MLA for doles from their
discretionary funds.
In more than one school, classes were held outside. The rooms were usually leaky, or cramped, or
unwholesome. The best room was usually used to store grain inparents of school-goers get a few
kilos every month as an incentive or compensation for the loss of a pair of hands in the fields. One
school was fortunate to have a large banyan in the grounds, and all the children were ranged in
orderly rows in its shade, with their teachers in chairs before them.
The campuses I saw were all neat and sanitary, with no toilet or garbage stinks. The lack of
playground equipment was probably the worst hardship, but teachers who could devised ingenious
ways of getting round this. The banyan-tree school included among its teachers an ex-Army man who
was at least fifty but amazingly fit. He had induced the girls to play kabaddi, and produced a
champion team.
While we were there they put on a match, junior girls against senior. The juniors won handily. They
were quite good. Often denied opportunity and always denied privilege, the children were yet
encouraged to make use of their talents. More than once I was told that this girl had won the district
competition for best singer, or that boy was the fastest runner in five blocks. Life in the villages of
Bihar is not what we know it to be in the cities; but its foolish to think these children must be
underprivileged because they are Biharis. Bihar is not the malaise, but perhaps a very visible
symptom.
*
My visit to Muraul coincided, as Ive mentioned, with the inauguration of the third phase of the DPEP
in Bihar, and a number of functions had been got up with dhoom-dhaam and tamasha to mark the
occasion. On 27 October all the schools we visited had speeches and some cultural programme to be
sat through; also doubtful samosas and jalebis and very sweet tea, later in the headmasters room. I
vividly remembered the description in English, August of some more high-powered party: The green
chutney which accompanied the samosas seemed to look up at him and say, Hallo, my names
cholera, whats yours?
The biggest function was at the middle school in Dholi Bazar, run by a formidable headmistress
named Veena Chaudhary. She stood up in front of the local politicos and teachersall maleon the
dais and made a speech saying We women will get our rights only when we take them. Not a
sentiment which endeared her to them, as sour looks and sour remarks testified. But there was no
doubt she ran the school well, if the way she ran the mornings proceedings was any guide.
Chaudhary had a formidable record as well. She had been teaching for twenty-five years, she said;
and when rural and urban teaching cadres were merged in 1978 she was the first teacher in all Bihar
to leave the city for the village. In 1978, there were seventy-five students (two-thirds of them boys) in
the six standards. Now, in Classes I to VIII, there were about 750. Two-thirds were still boys, but 250
of the whole were from the Scheduled Castes and 200 from the Other Backward Castes. Attendance,
according to her, varied from sixty to seventy-five per cent, which is pretty good for a village.
Training, she said, had a positive impact; but as only primary school teachers are trained under
DPEP, only Classes I and II benefited. The ones from Class III onwards are no good. They are from
the city [Muzaffarpur], they cant teach and are spoiling the students. I banned them from bringing
their knitting to class. I make sure they lose attendance if they dont sign in time. Thats why they go
around saying Im the most badmaashi headmistress in the block.
But training was, to her, a tool, and not the most valuable one either to a teacher. Listening to her I
found just what havoc a rigid and reasonless bureaucracy can wreak on the educational system. Two
years ago nine male teachers were transferred from here and in their place I got six women who are
no good. I have no maths or science teachers. A science teacher, a B.Sc., was promoted to be
headmaster of a primary school on account of seniority. Is there any sense in this?
Mrityunjay had told me the same thing. Naturally, I had not known about it; but equally naturally,
given the ways of government, its bound to happen. A young science graduate who teaches science in
a middle school will grow old enough to be promoted to headmastership; but he will get the smallest
school going, which will be a primary school where science is not taught. The teacher the middle
school gets in exchange is likely as not to be an elderly person without a degree who will be lumped
with science anyway.
There is a certain beautifully screwy logic to all this, like in a badly-planned murder whose
perpetrator remains undetected.
I learned a little about the problems of running a village school from Chaudharynot least of
which is how to ensure that children attend. You must understand that most guardians [officialese for
fathers] here are small businessmen [Dholi Bazar, as its name implies, is a local market]. They dont
want their children to stay on at school after lunch, but to help with work. What we do, we make them
leave their books here when they go to lunch and shut the gates after them, so they have to come back.
Besides, we dont distribute grain under the noon-meal scheme to those with less than eighty per
cent attendance, or to those who run away after lunch. Such norms are strictly beyond her competence
to decide; but she had in twenty years won the guardians support:
At the beginning there was opposition to me because I am from a forward caste and most here are
Harijans. But in 79 I called a mass meeting of the villagers and told them that I am not from any
caste: Teacher is my caste. There are now students from twelve nearby villages here, and more
Harijans than in any other local school.
Training was important to Chaudhary; but she said again that it was not the most valuable of a
teachers tools. Primary education can only be successful when parents are enlightened. Their
attitude is, After education there are no jobs available, so why educate? And unconsciously
echoing Mrityunjayand probably a host of other teachersshe added, We are liable to punishment
if we dont work properly. There should be some such punishment for parents too. But strong-willed
lady that she was, she had won over most of the guardians of her wards. I tell the parents at festival
timeChhatth and Holiif you are planning to buy your children new clothes, buy them school
uniforms. And did they? With the ghost of a smile she answered, They have been very supportive.
And as a government teacher for twenty-five years, Chaudhary knew her teaching was not what
made her most valuable to the government. We have so much extra work to do, she mourned.
Censusand not just people, livestock too; then election duty, distributing grain. . . Why cant we be
allowed to just teach?
*
I dont suppose the mandarins at UNICEF liked it very much that the teachers I found most
impressive, in their philosophy and in their classrooms, I also had to report as being least impressed
with the whole business of training. But maybe they had already had such reports from the other hacks
whod visited the districts; maybe no one reads the damn reports anyway.
Time after time I was given statistics off the cuff about the number of teachers who are born
teachers, the number who can be motivated, the number who dont improve no matter what training is
given. . . and these figures (apart from the first category, born teachers) differed very widely
depending upon who was giving them and what her or his place in the training scheme was. But Ill
never forget what one teacher told me, and she the most motivated I thought.
Praveena Roy handled Class VIII at a Girls Middle School (in reality coeducational) in Dholi, not
far from Mrs Chaudharys school. Id seen her in the classroom on a visit and was most impressed by
how she could be kind without losing her firmness. The best teachers are, I think, like that. She was
also a strikingly beautiful woman. . . Later I saw her at Dholi Bazar during the function and Mrs
Chaudhary seemed to think highly of her. Then one evening she visited the Muraul DIET.
For some reason, the trainer, Pandeyji, stuck around during most of my interview, and I couldnt
very well ask him to leave. Perhaps Mrs Roy was perceived as a bit outspoken. She wasnt very well
liked, possibly, also because though never trained herself under the BEP she had often attended the
DIET as a trainer. This was because the former principal of DIET, one Dr J. Jha, had also been
impressed by her and sought her assistance.
An MA in history from Jabalpur, she later took a two-year diploma in teaching from the same
university. She had been a Bihar government school teacher since 1990. Though introduced as Mrs
Roy, she wore no bindi; I heard later from Pandeyji that her husband, a local Bhumihar landlord but a
progressive one, had been killed by one of the leftist senas a few years earlier.
Mrs Roy was hesitant to speak out in Pandeyjis presence.
But at times she could be scathing: When Dr Jha was here the teachers at the DIET were
disciplined. They are not now; they dont remember they are role models for the children [since Dr
Jha left the institute had been without a Principal]. And there are some aspects of their personal
behaviour I dont want to speak about for the record. Its very likely that her widowhood had made
her to be thought easy prey; not that the marriage tie means much to goondas in Bihar, or almost
anywhere in India. But teachers are not goondas by profession.
Later she said, In primary school it is more important to build consciousness than to impart facts.
Children run away from their books if learning becomes like work. . . Here the main problem is
poverty. A boy has to collect and bring home fodder and firewood, a girl has to go to the fields and
help with the harvest.
Students have no caste-consciousness; but teachers and parents do. Its a great barrier to literacy.
Caste and party affiliations . . . how do we tackle problems like these, when there is no value for
teachers here?
Why did she say that, I asked, and she echoed Mrs Chaudhary, There is more of a burden placed
on teachers by the government than by the school. Census, Pulse Polio, elections, health testsall
these paper horses (kaagazi ghode) are more important than teaching, apparently.
Yet she was happy teaching. I could have had a wide choice of professions, with my education,
but from when I was a child my father told me, You will teach children. And I never want to do
anything else.
When Pandeyji had quit the roomsomeone called himMrs Roy was bitter about teachers who
thought of their work as a job, and of their salary more than their students. Her view was that if you
need to undergo motivational training to do your job well, you had no business taking up the job in
the first place. Of course, she was from a background which obviated any necessity to work for a
living, and far too many teachers are not.
Earlier, seeing her reluctance to comment on Pandeyjis enthusiastic support of training schemes
such as Ujala, Id ventured to say, I think Praveenaji is not a great believer in sarkari projects. . .
She had only nodded then, but when Pandeyji was away she said with vehemence, I have no belief in
any project. Motivation is from the individual; communication has to be with another person. After
all, language is that which the other person understands.
Im supposed to be a writer, and I thought about that for a long time.
*
Shiv Shankar Pandey himself was very keen on training, and not I think because his job behoved him
to be. In the absence of a principal he was the senior man at the DIET; though headmaster in Motipur,
he had been for over a year on permanent deputation at Muraul. He had been a teacher since 1977; in
1996 he had taken his BA in Hindi and also been one of thirty-odd resource persons chosen by the
BEP in a state-wide competition.
He lived very simply in one of the small houses allotted to trainers at the DIET. When I visited him
there one evening he seated me on the bed, offered me refreshments, and called his teenaged son and
daughter in to touch my feet because, he said, it is our custom. He followed all the rules of his caste
and family as strictly at home as he disregarded them outside; or, rather, in the classroom his caste
was Teacher, the same as Mrs Chaudharys.
Im not going to relate any more of what I was told about training; but Pandeys ideas of his role as
teacher chimed well with Mrs Chaudharys and Mrs Roys, and are worth giving:
The point is to make oneself a model that children will respect and follow. For example, here I get
food in the mess for myself because I work here. But I dont get food for my family: That is not
ethical. From my own daily routinein the mornings I can be seen working in the garden, or
collecting firewoodI try to set a model for the trainees, be they adults or children.
My attitude is this. Say Im training, at one time, thirty-five teachers from fifteen schools; then at
least 1,500 students are going to be influenced by one word I say. I have more responsibility here;
thats why I opted to leave my school and come here.
After all, a child is a bank draft for one crore or one arabwho knows what it will become?
He had had the same problems in his village which other Brahmins have when they teach lower-
caste children. The Brahmins of my village once threatened to deny me food and water [the local
form of excommunication] because I interacted freely with the Musahar children. I dont take them
seriously. Refusing food or water because it is unhygienic is one thing. Caste has no place in
schools.
*
Once teachers leave the cloisters of the DIET and return to their schools, I can imagine that the first
fine careless rapture imparted by trainingthe games, the concepts, the fellowship, the community of
idealismbegins to evaporate a little. There is the intolerable burden the government places on them
every month or so: Officiating at elections, keeping records. . . each involving much weary
paperwork.
Then there are the local problems, the old ones of caste and community; persuading children to
come to school in harvest time; coping with leaky buildings; managing without textbooks,
blackboards, sports facilities.
And on top of all this is the heartrending fact that the sarkar is mightily uninterested in their hard
work. No one from the District Education Office bothered to turn up, I was told, at any of the DPEP-
III functions in Muraul block; also there were no inspections, no guidance, no answers from anyone in
that office at any time.
And then think of the middle school headmistress whose science teacher is transferred as
headmaster of a primary school just weeks before the yearly examinations, on account of seniority.
Think of the fresh and eager B.Sc.s who are set to teaching six-year-olds while science is taught to
those about to enter high school by old-timers with Intermediate degrees dating back thirty years.
With all this, indeed, Why to Teach?
*
The last two people I interviewed in Muzaffarpur district were unusual in being highly qualified yet
working in a field which did not appear to give them opportunities commensurate with their ability.
The first was a thirty-year-old trainer, Nagendra Kumar Paswan, with visionand ambition
seemingly beyond his scope. He had taken his MA in Economics some ten years earlier, taught in a
private college for two years and in a primary school for four before joining the BEP, where he had
been engaged for two years in training. (Much as I hate to bring this up, his castehe was a Dalit
had probably made it difficult for him to get a better job: He was not only ambitious but also very
intelligent.)
He began by saying, Theres too much emphasis on training teachers and not enough on training the
community. VEC [Village Education Council] training was different in the beginning when we had
just a few schools in each block. Now that were broadbased, VEC training is non-existent.
What happens is that the mukhiya [headman] or some other powerful person grabs hold of the
VEC and packs it with chamchas. Or teachers manipulate its working to get decisions in their favour.
(The VEC is meant to play an important advisory role. Mrs Chaudhary had earlier told me how she
had swayed opinion within it, though she was the wrong caste, by force of argument and personality.
This can cut both ways.)
After detailing his views on training, Paswan went on to motivation. Ten per cent of teachers are
born. [How often Id heard this phrase by then!] Even without training theyre effective. Other
teachers dont want to work. Theyre into politics or dalali [touting], or theyre MPs or MLAs men.
Or else Teachers Association mentheyre all kaamchors [shirkers].
Its true what the slogan sayswhen you educate a man you educate a man, but when you educate
a woman you educate a family. The Mahila Samakhya [these Samakhyas are organizations of women
in the villages who set themselves certain social tasks; I have heard good reports of their work even
in the Champaran districts] is a very strong concept; but here most members are themselves illiterate.
. . Attendance [in the schools] is still very low, about forty to sixty per cent on average. But its still a
start, and its improving all the time, because our commitment is genuine.
Look at it this way: You need community and social awareness to bring about total literacy. But
you need literacy to bring about awareness. You see the problem?
That had already occurred to me. But the fact that the problem has been solved elsewhere means
that awareness can be produced among the illiterate. Think of the Independence movement; think of
Kerala. (I put into my report to UNICEF some thoughts on my home state which might have been true,
but which I may have put less idealistically after what I was to experience there quite soon. . .)
I met twenty-eight-year-old Amarendra in Muzaffarpur town the morning that I was setting back for
Patna and thence M____. His qualifications were quite stunning. An MA in economics from Agra, he
had also taken a Ph.D. in rural development from the (highly esteemed) A.N. Sinha Institute of Social
Studies in Patna; and he now had a deferred Fellowship to work on a comparative study of poverty in
South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, D.C.
What is really stunning about all this is that you dont expect to find someone with qualifications
like these in a small Bihar town, and then to be told he is only an Assistant Resource Person in the
BEP, while practically overseeing teachers training in the whole district. This is where seniority-
based norms for promotion and the generally red tape-snarled functioning of the BEP at the
government level gut the systemfor Amarendra told me, off the record, that he was bitter about his
lack of opportunities, despite some backing from UNICEF, and that he would be leaving to take up his
Fellowship pretty soon. Hes across the black waters by now, I guess, and will he ever come back?
I asked Amarendra why he had decided to work in the field, and he replied, The hypothesis of my
Ph.D. was that poverty alleviation programmes have not made a dent on poverty in Bihar. There are
several broad reasons why: Poor implementation; the structure of society; the lack of awareness . . .
But to my mind primary education is the key factor. For instance, the uneducated cannot know what
schemes are available for their benefit. I wanted to get first-hand knowledge of this lack.
Did he think people are overly dependent on such schemes and projects, on the mai-baap sarkar?
No, the reactions of the people at large are always that the government will not do anything for them.
What we doif we are messengers of changeis to make them do it themselves. We are only
catalysts.
Amarendra, at my request, then defined the Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) more clearly than
Id ever heard it done; he also spoke about the lack of resources: In Muzaffarpur district we have set
a target of 300 more teachers by the year 2000. You see, in DPEP-III the World Bank has set a
condition that any existing vacancy should be filled by the state government. Future vacancies will be
filled at the Banks cost. To this extent, we are dependent on the Bihar government. Yet they treat this
project as another source of money, while we deal in faith.
He added, Caste and social problems have diminished in the last few years, since the backward
castes were empowered. The main problem as I see it is that teachers are aware of their
responsibilities but dont want to teach. For them, its a jobnot a mission.
*
This chapter is very different from the impressionistic style Ive perforce used in the rest of the book,
and maybe Ive gone to such lengths just to show I am capable of conventional journalism. Maybe
not. I know there are a number of journalists and social workers and NGOs who have been associated
with DPEP all over India, and Im sure they would be interested in whats going on in Bihar.
But having caught some glimpses of the work thats going on, I am intensely interested too. Surely
there is truth in Amarendras contention that primary education is the key to poverty alleviation, even
if its not the whole truth.
Above all, Ive quoted at such length from my UNICEF report to show there is good work going on
in Bihar, and no scarcity of motivated workers. Those who write off the whole state, those who
persuade themselves nothing can be done, are doing so for selfish reasons.
No, there is no dearth of schemes and volunteers. The thirty or so women who were raped by
goons of a local politician in mid-1999 had assembled at the local centre of one such scheme for
training. And despite their experience, volunteers will still come forwardas they are doing in
Rajasthan, in Andhra Pradesh, in Mozambique, Nicaragua and Vietnam.
As Ive been saying in every chapter, Laloo Prasads coming to power in 1990 was the first ray of
hope for the underprivileged in Bihar. He has, unhappily, let his chances go, and his time is so taken
up now by just staying alive that every spot of brightness on his original agenda has been dimmed and
dirtied by its use as a weapon in the battle against his enemies.
Laloo Prasad is still the most important man in Bihar. But he is not synonymous with the state
except to media analysts with fifteen seconds worth of wisdom for the camera. Someone else will
turn up. The things that have to be done will be done.
Bihar rides the two-headed tiger
All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Alfred E. Smith
Indeed, you won the elections, but I won the count.
Anastasio Somoza, replying to an accusation of rigging
I. The sixty-percenters
A Bihari gentleman wrote an angry letter to my paper after my first essay on living in Bihar had
appeared in its pages: Who is this fellow, where does he come from, and are things so wonderful
where he is?
Touch. No, things are not wonderful anywhere. It was after our Bihar experience that we moved to
my home state of Kerala, and there are a lot of crooks there too. Theres a lot of violence everywhere
in India, and theres a great deal of corruption. But nowhere else Ive been have the two settled down
so happily together and begun to raise a brood of healthy children.
The jewel of my collection of clippings from the Patna Times of India was pinched by someone at
a party in New Delhi in 98. I recommend a search of the files for 1997 to anyone who can. I wont
remember names, but the gist of the news report was that a group of intellectuals were in a state of
terrible indignation and planning to complain to the Bihar Governor and the Supreme Court about a
minister in the state government. (He was in charge of either Public Works or Human Resources, or
maybe something else.)
The intellectuals had met the minister to protest about the high incidence of corruption in the
departments in his charge. The minister had yawned and told them in a friendly way, just instructing
them about Life, See, graft is all right up to sixty per cent. If it exceeds that only do you need to
complain.
I dont think Kerala could beat that.
*
Laloo Prasad Yadav, in his seven years as Chief Minister, did many good works for the
disadvantaged of Bihar. Among the most important affected the fundamental machinery of democracy.
Prior to 1990, polling booths at election time, in most of rural Bihar, were located in the mohallas
of the forwards. The Yadavs and Dalits were saved the trouble of walking to these areas and
standing in line for hours in the sun: Their voting was very kindly and diligently done for them.
It was only after Laloo became Chief Minister that polling booths were established in the
backward mohallas as well, thus literally enfranchising those who had had no say in government.
And if this was done, in some instances, at the expense of the forwards, I dont think it was any
great loss.
It is also true that Laloos personal feeling for the disadvantaged is deep and genuine. His own
travails as a boy herding cattle, insulted and used by the landowning castes, are vivid in his memory
and responsible for much of his original political agenda. There are stories about how, when he
drives out of Patna through the Majhi slums by the Ganga, he stops and asks after the residents by
name . . . Phuluwa Bai! How is your son? Good, good. Tell him to keep going to school, theres
nothing like education. Haan, look here, Ill be coming back this way in the evening, so take this
hundred rupees and get a chicken and make sure youve a good dinner waiting for me.
This is powerful stuff. Does anybody think Phuluwa Bai and all her neighbours wont vote for
Laloo Prasad without thinking?
And yet that isor wasnot why he did it, not just to get votes. There is a profound empathy
between him and his constituency. And his gestures towards their aspirations, their empowerment,
have also a touch of the dramatic which we Indians cannot resist. I have heard that he once turned out
the Patna Fire Brigade and dispatched them to a Majhi mohalla to give the inhabitants a good bath.
Clean water is hard to come by even on the Gangas banks.
But how did Laloo Prasad come to power in 1990 anyway, if the dice were loaded against him?
How did he enfranchise his constituency when they could not cast their votes? He did not have the
vision of a Jayaprakash Narayan or a Mahatma, the moral power to inspire a non-violent mass
movement. Quite obviouslyobvious to himhe used the weapons of the power elite against
themselves, and those weapons are not lightly cast away once used. They have a tendency to stick to
your hands; if you drop them, they will be used against you. He who rides the tiger does not get off it
again with any degree of impunity.
Stories of rigging, booth capturing and even assassination are easy to come by in Bihar in election
time. Also large scale bribing. Essentially, the power brokers were bought overand dont tell me
high-souled statesmen like V.P. Singh knew nothing of all this (Im speaking of 1990). Where those
who controlled the election process could not be bought over, the unempowered were empowered,
literallythey were given arms and told to go out and seize their democracy. A resident of a Dalit
mohalla told me of how he and his neighbours were woken up at midnight and given fifty guns and as
many bombs.
Laloo Prasads tactics enabled his fellow Yadavs to be just as brutal, exploitative and
undemocratic as their former oppressors. And not to them alone: For the Yadavs are just as much part
of the caste hierarchy as the Bhumihar-Rajput-Brahmin-Lala (Bhu-ra-ba-l) coalition, and when they
got the chance they turned quite naturally to oppressing those below them, the Paswans and Majhis,
the Doms and Musahars, as well as the Brahmins and Bhumihars above them. There was good cause
for the bitter rivalry between Laloo and his former henchman Ram Vilas Paswan; also for the battle
between Laloo and Nitish Kumar, who is leader of the Kurmis who are also backward.
That second rivalry does not qualify for the term bitter; Laloo Prasad does not appear to have
abandoned the Kurmis as he has the Paswans, hes just shelved them. In a speech in the Bihar
Assembly during this years NDA fiasco, he is reported to have actually said (Outlook, 20 March
2000) that Nitish and he had been like Billa and Ranga, but unfortunately, you left me. (What on
earth does that mean? That they were both confessed rapists and killers, but Nitish Kumar reformed?)
However, though Laloo Prasad had the votes of his fellow Yadavs and other traditionally
depressed castes, he could not have brought them to his side without enlisting the support of a portion
of the power elite. Here, of course, V.P. Singh, from a former royal family, and other forward Janata
Dal leaders helped him immensely. And there was no way he could just dump them once he came to
power; no way, then, that he could ensure a completely successful social revolution.
With a corrupt power elite in place, corruption remained the force behind government. The newly
powerful too used corruption to cement their hold on power: Corruption became a means of ensuring
social justice; it also became the end, the proof that a just society had been constructed. Any Bihari
patriot can point to a newly rich Paswan or Yadav and say, This is successful democracy. Bombay
exhibits much the same evidence of a democratic systems success. By the standards we have set for
ourselves, our democracy is a success because anyone, regardless of caste or creed, can use corrupt
means to rise.
Kipling called India, in Kim, the only democratic country in the world. But the fact that a Muslim
can deny a Hindu his vote, or a Jat swindle a Bania, or an Oraon murder a Bhumiharor a Sikh
convert a Christianis not proof of an equal or just society. Its merely proof that human nature can
transcend social boundaries.
Corruption is a great leveller. In Bihar it is slightly more inevitable than death and a great deal
more so than taxes. Anticipating my Bihari correspondents rejoinder, Yes, there is corruption in
every state of the Republic, but nowhere in so pandemic a form as in Bihar. We all got so worked up
over Bofors ten years ago, but what were the takings there?a measly sixty crores or so. The fodder
scam alone has been worth a hundred times that to the men who have governed Bihar in the last
decade and a half; and that means not only Laloo Prasad but everyone since the forgotten Karpoori
Thakur.
*
In every chapter of this book, corruptionthe use of money and therefrom poweris the principal
character. It pervades every sphere of life, every field of activity. Bofors! It was the centre of national
attention for half a decade. But in an earlier chapter on education I have quoted the National Council
of Teachers Education as stating that the fake degree racket in Bihar was worth Rs 200 crore a year.
And it doesnt even make the front pages.
Why is there no popular resentment of the level of corruption? Thats easy to answer. You only hear
the privileged grumble about the scam, because its their moneyor money which would have been
put to use for their benefitwhich is being eaten up, and the privileged are relatively few in Bihar.
The poor do not pay taxes and have no use for civic amenities, and the all-pervasive graft is usually
scaled down to within their means by the time it reaches them. And the well-off do no more than
grumble for one of two reasons: Either they have their own little piece of the action, however
infinitesimal; or to do more than grumble would swiftly invite a look-in by the other head of the two-
headed tiger the state rides, which is violence.
When I was working in Bombay, ten years ago, I was told that there was placed on the Chief
Ministers table in Mantralaya every day one crore rupees in hafta money; cash. I have also met a
printer and sometime journalist in Delhi who carried one lakh in cash in a briefcase to the bedroom of
a former Finance Minister, even now a big shot in the Congress (I), as commission for having been
given the contract to print the Partys election posters. One lakh over two decades ago means a lot
though it sounds like chickenfeed now. The biggest problem with journalism in this or any other
democracy is that you cant print all you know, even if you want to . . . but well go into that later.
Yet despite the emasculation of their democratic power almost everyone you meet in Bihar is
politically sensitive to a point which seems ridiculous to an outsider. I wonder how many who read
this would be able to name their MP and MLA, let alone those of a dozen neighbouring constituencies.
In Bihar chance-met citizens will tell you all the names of all the areas politicos, trace their
antecedentspolitical and genealogicaland confidently state what particular pie each of them has
got his hands in up to the elbows. This is a staple of everyday conversation.
At the Hospital in M____, too, political talk was common. Soon after we got there the fodder scam
became big news, and we heard references to bullocks riding scooters and tankers full of cattle some
weeks before such items made the national press. Dr Kishore, our neighbour, was a politicians son,
and Kishan, the medical representative, was always full of the latest gossip from his frequent trips to
Patna, and we were kept well-informed. They would drop a dozen names in the course of a quotidian
dialogue. Yet, is this political awareness? It means nothing; it only begins to matter when people use
their knowledge to do something for themselves.
The bachelors who dwelt in single rooms upstairs were, I think, all or almost all Dalit converts to
Christianity, who most of them worked in the community health department of the Hospital. They did
not speak much in front of the doctors, but as an outsider I struck up a rapport with one or two of
them. I accompanied the community health team on several visits to nearby villages: This was always
refreshing and taught me more than the drawing-room gossip ever did.
One of the villages on the regular menu I shall call Mailpur, and it was fifteen kilometres away. A
dull and bumpy drive in the hot season; but in the big floods of every ten years or so, an infinitely
more adventurous trip by boat. We drove one morning, after an early breakfast, some three kilometres
in the departments jeep to a point where the road became only a thin cart-track; there Ashok, the
driver, left us having been adjured to return at 3 p.m. A boatman from some nearby village had
already been engaged, and we climbed into his craft: I know nothing of boats but this was a flat-
bottomed scrap saved from the junkyard, some fifteen feet long and five or six in the beam.
I have described in a previous chapter how the Tal is one vast lake during the big flood, beautiful
and useless. It was pleasant in the morning to sit in the boaton the thwarts; there were no seats
and talk. There were seven or eight of us: two Sisters, two of the community health boys and two or
three nurses and I. There were also two boatmen. By the way, it was no rowboat, it was a punt. For
some distance there was enough clearance for the skipper to use his fifteen-foot pole, but as soon as
the main channel of the flood diverged and strayed among the fields, the first mate had to get out and
tow. Those twelve kilometres from our point of embarkation took the best part of the morning.
It grew hot, too; there was nothing much to see except water and more water and spoiled fields,
and desolate pump housingbefore flood-time the wise farmer unbolts his pumpset, if he has one,
and takes it home, or it will be stolen.
Now and then in a tree we would see a long brown snake coiled among the branches. There was no
other sign of life for miles. We came to a village at last and drew past it, and the ladies muffled their
noses. The name of the village I have forgotten, but the ladki-logas the boys referred to the nurses
changed the sound of its name very slightly and called it Paijna, which is crude dialect for
toilet. The smell was incredible, and the flood waters distributed its cause impartially.
There was nothing to do for three hours but talk, and wonder at the unbelievable waste of water. A
few months ago the parched hectares had been crying out for it, and now they cried against it. The
rains had ceased, but the land would not be cultivable until the water had evaporated in the fierce sun.
And soon after that water would be scarce again. Even now the dry districts to the south needed
water.
How easy to build and maintain a simple irrigation system, a few canals and dykes and bunds. In
Tamil Nadu, I remembered, the tanks and anaicuts built by the Cholas were still in use after more
than eight centuries. The Ganga plain had been cultivated for even longer. Surely in Asokas time the
blessed water had not been wasted like this.
It wouldnt have taken much money to do it, but all the money was being eaten up. And things were
worse every year. As I was writing the first draft of this chapter I heard floods in Bihar in the 1999
season had claimed 221 lives, and thats only what the government was willing to admit. And what
about the loss to property, what about the invisible and incalculable loss because the water is not
used?
Akhilesh, the leader of the community health youths (who taught me much about Bihar) was thinking
the same thing. Yes, he said, a few canals to carry the water to where it is needed, and both that
area and this would benefit. Then, he added half to himself, yahan sona ugalega, sona. Gold will
grow here.
I remembered the Manoj Kumar song:
Mere desh ki dharti. . .mere desk ki dharti
Sona ugale, ugale heere moti. . .
Only in college we foul-mouthed and lustful youths used to sing it differently:

Mere desk ki dharti, khul gayi dhoti
Dikh gaye heere moti . . .
I wondered if people like Naipaul and Nirad Chaudhuri had been correct; if this was a land that
had been raped so often its cultivators had no longer any rights, if its inhabitants had lost that essential
spark of humanity which provokes people to fight back for themselves, to better themselves.
It had been a rich land and productive untiluntil when? For more than two thousand years
successive empires had made their centres of power here, armies had conquered and conquered again
and always the land had tempted, because the Ganga brought its riches every year. The sixty-
percenters had always been lured here, and always lifted the dhoti and taken away the family jewels .
. . Democracy had changed nothing, at least not this corrosive brand of democracy, born of
blandishment by banditry, a brew of taxation and pillage so Finely blended one could not be told from
the other.
What was illegal any more when a minister, having taken his oath to the Republic and sworn to
protect the Constitution, could tell a delegation of public figures that sixty per cent off the top is only
reasonable?
II. The other face of the tiger

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter
noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness
Ill write about what went on in Mailpur elsewhere; but our voyage back was much swifter and more
comfortable than the journey out. The wind was in our favour, and the skipper and his mate jury-
rigged a kind of mast and attached to it something like a ragged bed-sheet, or perhaps his spare dhoti.
This worked remarkably well, and no punting had to be done.
More than two-thirds of the way back, just before we drew into the swollen main channel again, I
saw something round and white, with black strands attached, lying in some reeds at the foot of higher
ground. Akhilesh had seen it too, and he said with an uneasy laugh, Kisi ka sar kaat diya
someones head has been cut off. It was indeed a skull, and a womans presumably from the long hair;
it had been cut off, most likely with a sword, and though the cut seemed clean the lower jaw appeared
to be missing.
We passed perhaps five metres from it, and all our eyes were fixed on the ghastly object. No one
said anything. What was there to say? Swords are common enough even in this age of Kalashnikovs;
and in Bihar you dont have to go particularly far out of your way to see an intimation of mortality.
There wasnt any point in going to the police, of course; they had enough fresh corpses to ignore or
inter.
PATNA, June 27. At least 88 human skulls were seized at Patna railway station today, according to police.
The Government railway police officials told PTI that the skulls were found in a polythene bag lying unclaimed in the room of
ticket collectors. They said so far no arrests have been made. An investigation had been ordered . . .
A 1999 newspaper report
The staid dictionary I subscribe to doesnt admit it, but Im pretty sure skull was once used as a
colloquialism, in either the US or Britain, for a ticket to a show or game. Perhaps some connection
with scalper, too. . . How fitting, how congruous, to find eighty-eight skulls in the ticket collectors
room.
Ive seen many weird things at Patna Junction, but never a skull in the bare sense of the word. This
grisly news item reminded me at once of the skull in the fields Id seen almost two years earlier.
Eighty-eight skulls all in one bag could have almost any explanation in Bihar; from being the fetishes
of some grotesque cult to being the relics of passengers whose train had suffered an unusual delay.
Of course the truth, which a newsmagazine later made clear, was more prosaic. This bag was only
a token of the racket which supplies medical colleges with portions of the human anatomy. It was
illegal, naturally, and no one claimed the skulls.
But I wondered, that day sailing back from Mailpur, if we had seen not one skull in the field but
eighty-eight, what would we have done? I suppose we should have reported it: Even in Bihar, eighty-
eight skulls in one spot takes some explaining. But say five or six?
Im not sure. I guess wed have sailed on by.
I just hope those eighty-eight human beings were dead before their skulls were detached.
*
Violence was something we could expect every time we stepped out of the Hospital Campus. I dont
say it ever happened; but it could be expected. It wasnt unlikely. One evening Kavery and I were
walking outside the quarters when we heard the rapid chatter of automatic gunfire from the town. We
stood outside, waiting for Kavery to be called to the operating theatre; but in a few minutes two of the
boys who lived upstairs came screeching back through the gates on a scooter. William Williamson,
whose scooter it was, was a Tamil from Jamshedpur who had just recently joined the Hospital as X-
ray technician. He was unused to the pace of life in M____ and was ashen and stuttering:
Id just gone to the market to buy eggs. Id given a ten-rupee note to the shopkeeper when someone
opened up at the top of the street. He was firing down it in our direction. The shopkeeper downed his
shutters at once, we just jumped on the scooter and fled.
Ranjit, the laconic and handsome local on the pillion who worked in accounts, was clutching a bag
of groceries and was more casual about the whole thing. It was just some guy skylarking, he said.
After half an hour I heard them drive off again to get the eggs. The shutters would have come up again
in five minutes if it had been just someone skylarking, and Ranjit was right.
We had heard stories about the violence in M____, and in Bihar generally, before coming, but we
had had no idea how common it was. We had reckoned on occasional murders and dacoities, not
things that went bang in the night every other night.
Everyone, even in the south, has heard stories of the violence in Bihar. A classmate of mine in
college, Krishnathis was fifteen years ago or moregot his first job after graduation with an
engineering company which was putting up conveyor belts at some power plant in the Dhanbad area.
He had an old Bullet then, which he had spent much time and money on maintaining and was keen to
take with him. I remember he used to go out to the Marina with it and practice making U-turns in the
sand in top gear; because, he said, hed heard the dakus in South Bihar specialized in blocking a
lonely road at night with a felled tree, and the only thing you could do if you came up against
something like that was to turn right round and make tracks in several opposite directions.
In our time, the roads were so bad it wouldnt have been any trouble making a U-turn. You never
would be in top gear, even if you were foolish to drive alone on a lonely road at night.
Krishna didnt take his Bullet with him, but he came back with a few stories. He told us of how the
tribal people were being corrupted, how they were persuaded to sign away their rights to the land for
a few cases of country liquor. Id only read about that before, with the American Indians and the
Polynesians.
Some days after wed first reached M____ in 96, a shopkeeper in the market was shot dead in his
sweet shop, in broad daylight, for a few kilograms of mithai. Five men had come to the shop and
asked for the sweets, then refused to pay. The shopkeeper naturally, but stupidly, refused, at which
angered by his lack of bonhomieit was the festive seasonthey shot him point blank.
I went into M____ many times, to buy this or that, to catch a train to Patna or a bus to Begusarai,
usually returning after dark. I never had any trouble, but it wasnt really advisable for a foreigner to
do it. The gods who look after fools and madmen and drunkards guarded me. But there were many
times, especially on the trains, that I felt violence only a hairs-breadth away.
More than once there was a dacoity on the railway line the day after one of my trips. In one of
these, a doctor from the Hospital was among those robbed. Of course nobody on Bihar trains cames
much money: He lost a couple of hundred bucks, and his watch chain being unlinked it had ridden up
his loosely rolled sleeve so the dacoits didnt see it. After that I carried most of my money in my
shoes, and wore a cheap watch; but I kept something, 200 rupees or so, in my wallet so that the
dacoits wouldnt shoot me out of frustration.
With Kavery I went by train once to Delhi and twice to Calcutta (the first time we had been to that
lovely and paradoxical city, which I hope is never renamed Kolkata because thats a rice ball Tamils
eat). To Calcutta the first time we went second class, and if Kishan hadnt been there to see us off we
wouldnt have got our berths. They were occupied, but Kishan with his usual chutzpahhe was only
five foot four or sorousted out the big man sleeping on one of the berths and bullied him into going
elsewhere. The second time we travelled AC sleeper.
Our tickets to Delhi I found to my horror had been booked second class in one of Kaverys
moments of mental aberration. It was too late to change, and we risked it. We must both have been
mad, I more than she because Id enough experience of Bihar trains, mad for she actually wore jeans
and a T-shirt during the journey. I almost got into a fight to save her izzatizzat is a very precious
commodity among us Biharisbut Ill tell that story elsewhere.
*
Train dacoities and fights are small-time stuff. The real violence was in M____, almost palpable at
times even in the cloister we were residents of. There were two gangs of criminals in the town, and
when trouble flared up between them a hush fell over the Hospital campus too. We became used to
hearing the rat-tatatata of automatic arms, often in the middle of the night, sometimes soon after dusk,
once or twice around dawn.
After the first few such incidents we became resigned to the fact that Kavery would almost
inevitably be called to the operating theatre. Oh shit, I would mutter as I got from under the razai
and out of the mosquito net and stumbled towards the intercom while Kavery got out of the other side
of the bed and struggled into her clothes, saying, I hope theyre dead.
This is not really as nasty as it sounds, for on almost every occasion those killed and injured were
criminals. On one horrific morning it was different. We heard the gunfire very early, long before a
winter sunrise. One of the gangs had ambushed the other. Among those killed was an eleven-year-old
girl who had been brushing her teeth on an upstairs terrace and had leaned over the parapet to see
what was happening. But usually the gangsters were considerate enough to only eliminate each other.
There were plenty of willing, and able, replacements.
Other people shared Kaverys sentiments, and some of them had been put to more trouble by the
gangsters activities than merely being routed out of bed at two in the morning. In late 1996 the
lieutenant of one of the gang leaders, a much-wanted man named Ashok Singh, was brought by the
cops to the Hospital with two bleeding stumps where his hands had been. He had been carrying a
couple of country bombs to do a neighbour a good turn, but theyd gone off early as often happens.
Ashok Singh was also, it transpired, a Calmpose addict, but Kavery didnt know that as she looked
down at him and saw the glazed, desperate look in his eyes. The police daroga outside the theatre told
her casually, Marne deejiye usko. Let him die. She retorted, Thats your job, mine is to save him,
and went in. Laterafter an operation which consisted of tying the blood vessels and nerves,
trimming the forearm bones and closing the stumpsas she went on her rounds she found his mother
and brother with the still unconscious Ashok Singh. They were both well-dressed and respectable.
The mother was weeping but not in the turbulent rustic way. Doctor saab, the brother burst out in the
policemans own words, let him die.
Ashok Singh was removed to Patna Jail. For all I know hes there still. If he ever gets outhe had
a few murders to his namehes unlikely, without hands, to find an opening in his trade again.
*
Thinking about it, why should Ashok Singh have been carrying country bombs? The gangs are
equipped with the very latest weapons, and theyre quite cheap. They tote AK-47s and even -57s
while the police go around with the equivalent of Lee Enfields (the only relatively well-equipped
police force is the Patna Armed Police, and even they dont have Kalashnikovs). Everyone in M____
knows where the arms dropped in Purulia a couple of years earlier went.
But country bombs are also popular, and there is an unfailing demand for them. One morning in late
1997 a boy of about fourteen was brought to the Hospital with a gangrenous hand. It was obvious that
the original injury was the result of an explosion. It had not been treated for a while, and the wound
had become septic and was now actually crawling with maggots. (This is not uncommon in rural
areas, where hospitals are resorted to only when it is too late.)
Questioned, the boy said a firecracker had burst in his hand. But Divali was still a month off, and
the doctors dragged his story out of him a word at a time. He said he had been working in a bomb
factory.
Much has been written about child labour in the fireworks factories of Sivakasi; should we be
surprised to learn that children are cheaper to use and more dispensable in the manufacture of illegal
arms as well?
The boys story was backed by such strong circumstantial detail that it was impossible to
disbelieve. He said homeless boys like himself were picked up in the cities and brought to Bihar. He
himself was from Old Delhia curious instance of reversing the flow from the villages to the town
which everybody deprecates.
The boys were set to work in groups of two or three beside the Ganga, each group a couple of
hundred metres from the next in case of accident. And there were many accidents, quality control not
being terribly important to the manufacturers. When something went off bang and the workers were
injured, the Ganga was a handy means of disposal. This boy had somehow escaped and got to town
whence some Samaritan had brought him to the Hospital. Of course, his hand was a write-off, and he
was told most of his arm would have to be amputated. He protested, but the doctors told him there
was no alternative. Next morning he was missing. He had probably slipped away in the middle of the
night to catch a train to Delhi.
Arms manufacture is a cottage industry in Bihar, and probablylike the fake degree racketbrings
in crores of rupees. Its a lucrative business, since there is no tax, and no bribes to be paid to
government inspectors. Not two kilometres from the Hospital campus there were shacks by the Ganga
where a single-shot pistol could be bought for Rs . . . But why should I give that away, or the method
of manufacture? I might want to go into business myself one day, with the help of friends whore
qualified engineers. Or I might want to eliminate someone, and the way things are going in this
country that will be sooner than I would want to think.
By single-shot, above, I mean the pistol can only fire once, after that its unusable. But one shot is
enough to settle a feud, that is if the thing doesnt blow up in your hand. . . Either way the feud is
settled. Sophisticated weapons are also cheap: You can buy an AK-47 in M____, if you have the right
credentials, for just about what a handgun costs elsewhere in India if acquired through legal channels.
But simpler weapons are still used. I have seen reports of tribespeople using bows and arrows to
kill gangsters who had threatened them (chapter one). The senas of the landlords and the left both
have the very latest in automatic hand-held weapons, but their victims are often reported as having
been hacked to death (. . . this is an interesting Indianism. In my childhood the mofussil pages of the
newspapers were never complete without one or two reports to the effect that Periasamy Gounder
had hacked Chinnasamy Gounder to death. The weapon was usually an aruval or hatchet. But were
getting on. In a recent report in The Week on vigilante killings in Bengal, the term used twice was
lynched to death. I searched the page in vain for the method used: Ah, the mysteries of Indian
journalism). . . or sometimes burned alive. I have never asked anyone in a position to state the reason
with authority why they should use such antiquated implements, but I would imagine it is simply to
make a point and frighten the victims friends. God knows there is nothing soothing about bodies
riddled with bullets, but what can be done by an imaginative person with a sharp edge, or fire, is
much more horrifying, as we saw in the Graham Staines incident.
But in M____ we quickly grew accustomed to all this. At least I never had to see the victims of the
gang wars, and those who work in a Hospital are very soon inured to human suffering. If they dont
learn to shake off what they have seen when they go off dutythat is if they havent already been
conditioned by medical collegethey quickly find other jobs.
Kishanour medical-rep friendthough he once had his troubles from one of the criminals, was
not the man to go in awe of anyone, and he was friends with some of the gangsters. I suppose if your
town was M____ you had grown up and attended school with some of the guys, or you did business
with them in one way or another. They might have bought aspirin from him, or arsenic. The day after
the Divali of 1997, Kishan came to the Hospital on work and dropped by at our flat for a smoke. He
was quite hung over, which is usual for the day after Divali. Theyd had a wild time the previous
night, he said. Early in the evening theyd run out of fireworks, so they set some bombs in a row and
touched those off. It had been a jolly Divali.
How many people do you know who can procure country bombs when the fireworks run out on
Divali night? Bihar certainly broadens the mind.
*
Sher Shah Suri was the last good administrator to come out of Bihar, though contemporary old-timers
speak wistfully of the days of S.K. Sinha, Chief Minister from 1946 to 61. Sher Shah was from
Sasarambetter known now as the late Jagjivan Rams Lok Sabha constituency.
To Sher Shah as to all absolute rulers violence was a tool.
He used it to drive Humayun out and establish his short-lived empire; but once he was the monarch
there is every evidence that he was fair. Besides, he had worked his way up through the ranks of the
Lodi and Mughal revenue service, and used his insiders knowledge to thoroughly reorganize and
revitalize the administration. Its much the same system we have; Akbar and later the British only
improved upon it (from their point of view), they never saw the necessity to change it altogether.
Perhaps thats whats wrong with it. The system was not designed for a democracy, it was built to
serve an autocrat; so why should we be surprised or stricken when it throws up one autocrat after
another, each using violence as a tool? To be fair to Sher Shah, none of his successors has approached
his own high standards as an administrator.
Tigers, as far as I know, do not sustain a democratic system for themselves. You can scarcely
expect those who ride tigers to do so.
O ladies who have seen the light
The nuns at M____ belonged to an order of Sisters of Charity, and like all such orders derived their
mission and its laws from Vincent de Paul, who had the bright idea (at around the time the Three
Musketeers were performing their inconceivable deeds) of enlisting lay women to help in nursing the
poor and sick.
Until then all religious orders of women had been cloistered; nuns who took the solemn vows
stayed within their walls and were dead to the outside world. But to de Pauls help came the wealthy
ladies of Paris, some no doubt getting a kick out of Causes as socialites do today, but even so they
gave of their wealth to establish hospitals. With one noblewoman, Louise de Marillac, de Paul
founded the Daughters of Charity, whose combined strength today numbers over 50,000.
The Daughters of Charity formed a congregation of the laity and not an order of nuns. But all the
various religious orders of Sisters of Charity have sprung from within that fold, and all have done
praiseworthy work among the sick and poor and war-wounded. For some reason the Orders of
Charity have been especially popular in North America, and the Sisters at M____ belonged to an
American order I will not specify. Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity also derive from de Paul.
The younger nuns at M____ were a trifle disparaging, or else uncommunicative, when I asked them
about the Calcutta-based order. They were not, they implied, such publicity-seekers. Or perhaps I
imagined it.
Vincent de Paul was canonized in 1733, and Louise de Marillac a century and a half later. Quite an
amazing chap, de Paul, when you read about him. In his youth he was captured by the Barbary pirates,
which (as anyone who has read Rafael Sabatini, or Ben Hur, knows) meant hard labour for life at the
oars of a galley. He escaped after a year.
He would have been quite at home in M____.
*
Kavery had first made friends with two of the nuns in medical college. They were much older then
she, having taken their vows and a baccalaureate before being sent by the Order to learn medicine.
They had also been to the Mother House in the States for training, and in the college mess primly ate
bananas with knife and fork until they were laughed out of the practice. The other girls used to hang
around outside their rooms to catch a glimpse of what they wore under their wimples. How dyou
solve a problem like. . .
When we were both feeling somewhat unsettled, in Madras, one of these nunsSister Alberta, Ill
call herwrote from M____ asking Kavery to join their Hospital as head of surgery. Kavery had
been there many years earlier, when the last of the Americans were in charge of both Convent and
Hospital, and remembered her brief time there with fondness. I too jumped at the chance to leave the
city. Also, there was a thrillit cannot be deniedabout going to Bihar, something today in the name
which permits you to put your chest out and lends a swagger to your walk.
I was impressed as all hell, too, by what Kavery told me about the nuns. Id not studied at a
mission or convent school or lived in Kerala, any of which privileges some understanding of Sisters.
We knew they were devoted women, living simply, working for the downtrodden, healing the sick . . .
and all this in Bihar . . . Wow.
*
The sisters from America had come to M____ fifty years earlier, at the request of the local Jesuits
who saw there was good work to be done here by women. M____ in those days had nothing but a
railway station and a ferry across the Ganga, both vital to transport of goods and passengers within
Bihar. (Now it has no ferry, but it has, or used to have, the best hospital for fifty kilometres in every
direction.)
Some time in the 30s a Briton, who owned one of the small railway lines in those parts which
carried coal and timber, had a vision of the Virgin Mary. He built a shrine to her which is still the
focal point of the Parish. When I first saw it I gasped: It was as if the Taj Mahal had littered and one
of the brood had been brought up by a preternaturally Presbyterian architect. But we got used to its
looks in time, and since The Shrine (as it was always referred to) was surrounded by some dozen
acres of landscaped, well-tended lawns and flower-beds with paved walks and pavilions, it was the
favoured evening pleasance of all the denizens of the Convent and Hospital. It was very soothing of a
sunset, with tall trees limned against the western clouds and great flocks of fishing birds arrowing
across the sky, returning from the Ganga.
The annual festival at The Shrine, held every February, is one of the biggest in Bihar. In 97 we
watched busload after busload of pilgrims drive through the campus, swinging past the doctors
quarters (narrowly missing the gate) and on to The Shrine. I didnt go there during the festival, but I
was told at least 50,000 Christians had come from Hazaribagh and Ranchi, from Gaya and Siwan and
Dumka. So had big shots in the Church from Patna and Delhi and Kerala, and even a papal legate
from the Vatican. (The Times of India, Patna, which is a newspaper always worth a laugh, actually
referred to him in a photo caption as Mr Papalnuncio).
It was a vast mela. The grounds around The Shrine had been looking their best, with the black
poppies which we so loved and the huge roses and dahlias and the smaller flowers in all their glory.
When the pilgrims left everything had been trampled down and the grass had turned brown. But the
Parish priest and his men quickly cleaned up again, though the flowers were through for the year.
About the Sisters. . . In the ten years following their arrival they had established their Mission and
built the Hospital. We have talked to some of the nuns who were novices then, and it was a wild and
dangerous place, without electricity but with plenty of snakes and scorpions and jackals. The jackals
can still be heard not far from the campus, howling in the night. They were brave women then who
came from the USA, and brave women who came to join the Order from Kerala, and if I do not agree
with their ideas of what constitutes salvation, of what is right for India and Indians, thats my business
but I admire their spirit.
But by the time we came to M____ things had changed a great deal. The Hospital was now run by
young Sisters in their thirties and forties, mostly Malayalis with a few Mangaloreans and the odd
Goan or Tamil or Bihari, with degrees in hospital administration and finance and management usually
from the US where the Mother House had its own colleges. Perversely, the better qualified they were
to run the Hospital, the less motivated they were. The service ethic had withered.
Ill illustrate what I mean with an incident which jolted both of us. Two months after wed been
settled in M____, a young girl (about seven years old) was brought in with burns suffered in a Divali
accident. She was the elder of two little daughters of a Punjabi family in Barauni, where her father
worked at the refinery. Her name was Anjali but she was called Sweetie, she had all the angelic
looks of Punjabi girlhood, and in a very few days she was the pet of the Hospital. She had a private
room in the burns ward near the office of the nursing superintendent, Sister Namrata, who looked the
type you wouldnt want to meet down a dark alley. Nurses off duty would gather in Sweeties room,
nurses on duty would try to get assigned to her ward, and doctors too would find an excuse to visit
her. She had a sweet nature, as well, and we all gave her gifts for her birthday (I wrote her a poem in
Hindi, the first such composition Id attempted since leaving school).
But she was quite badly burnedabout sixty-five per cent of her body area, with only her face
unscarredand quite deeply too. Kavery did her best, and at first Sweetie seemed to respond. But
with children you never can tell, because you cant explain things to them too well, and after a month
or so she began to rebel against the incessant torture of her body. She had to be bathed, and her
dressings changed, every day; and that was unbearably painful to a child who cannot tell why the
adults are subjecting her to such torment. The corridors rang daily with her shrieks, and her parents
and the more soft-hearted nurses could not take her reproaches any more. Only Kavery could bear to
be strict with her. She did three skin-grafts, but Sweetie had lost the will to live. She contracted
septicemia and died after more than two months in the Hospital. To coin a clich, I should think there
was no dry eye on campus that night, and enough Masses must have been said to float her soul to
Heaven had the angels been on strike.
A month or so after that another burns case was brought in, a young man whod had an accident. In
a place like M____ any in-patients are put in the general ward until they ask for a private room (as
Ive said earlier, you cant tell whos rich in rural Bihar by the way they dress or live, because
ostentation is sure to attract crime). Later that day the family asked Kavery to get him a private room,
for they were well-off. Kavery was quite sure he would recover with skin grafts, and so passed on
the request. Itwas more money for the Hospital, after all.
Next day she was flabbergasted to hear the young man had left, Against Medical Advice as the
jargon is, but really because he had been refused a private room. She couldnt meet Sister Namrata
that day, but I had the opportunity (I was a privileged outsider with access to the Hospital and
Convent; perhaps it hasnt turned out a good idea, from the point of view of the nuns anyway) and
brought up the subject innocently.
Oh, shuddered Sister Namrata, lifting to her brow an arm which could have knocked me flat with
one back-handed swipe, I couldnt give him a room in this ward. No, and she reached for her
handkerchief, I can still hear Sweetie screaming, and I dont want another burns case near my
office.
Many months later, when we were on terms of almost daily confrontation with the nuns, I brought
up this incident while I was arguing with another Sister, and asked what about the service motive,
what about caritas, which is the root of charity but in Latin means something closer to affection, and
is a word to be found in the mottos of most orders of Sisters of Charity. She said nothing, just changed
the subject. What about it, was the answer.
*
I was going, in a wicked moment, to call this chapter Mercenaries of Charity. But that would be
unfair and untrue. Many of the Sisters, of the younger generation as well, were our friends, and decent
and honourable people. The trouble was, as in any other walk of life in this Management Age, the
decent and honourable nuns were sidelined. They never got anywhere near running the Hospital
itself, and most preferred it that way, for they knew that power corrupts. They were satisfied with
using their undoubted talents to run the department which their talents best fitted, and the
administration was content to leave them that way.
There is certainly going to be much in this chapter which will suit the priest baiters of today. But I
will not leave it out on that account. It is a chapter central to the book, because it is about the people
who brought us to M____ and with whom we spent much of our days. Had this book been about my
brushes with Hindu, or Muslim, or Sikh missions and their attached fundamentalists, I would be just
as honest as I know how. I am against all organized forms of religionif anybody is interested
which seek to dominate others or taint them. Its one reason to keep writing.
After all, why would I spend two years on this book if I didnt believe it was worth it? I have
enough ego to think my work is importantif not as important as that of the Sisters who work in
social causes, certainly as important as the work of the Sisters in administration. Tom Wolfe put it
well in an essay on journalism: If a writer isnt convinced that his work is among the most important
activities going on in contemporary civilization, he should move on to something else that he thinks is
. . . Like hack work for a house magazine, or editing the stuff in other peoples websites.
Kavery once worked for a hospital in Uttar Pradesh run by a Hindu mission, a great and famous
foundation which has done wonderful work all over the world in the name of its founders teacher.
The founder had believed implicitly in the communion of worship and of humanity. One of the tenets
of the mission itself was not to recognize caste. Yet on feast-days, at the meals provided for the
public, Dalits were fed apart from the higher-caste Hindus. When Kavery remonstrated with a Swami
about this, his answer was, Yes, we believe it is not so, but we must respect public sentiment. Only
those without self-respect put public sentiment ahead of their own.
Once again, Kaveryshe was why I was in Bihar, so youre not going to escape her presence in
this bookattended a medical college run by Catholics, and most seats were reserved for students
who had perforce to attend Chapel and Mass. But there was also a special hour set apart one
afternoon a week, again for the Catholics, which they were reticent about. The other students couldnt
discover what transpired during that hour until a sheet of paper fell out of a Catholic students diary.
Cyclostyled on it was the topic for next week:
HOW TO SAVE OUR HINDU SINNERS.
There was much hooting, and finally the authorities were shamed into abandoning the project.
How to save any of us? And preferably without damning the rest?
*
Kavery, because she worked in the Hospital, was soon brought down to earth by the essential if
somewhat mechanisticor should I say ritualisticpragmatism of the Sisters, but I had to find out
for myself how naive I had been in Madras. On our reconnaissance in May 96, the Sisters had been
charm itself, and had either assented readily to all our requests orinvaluable gift for a manager!
given the impression that they assented without actually committing themselves to anything.
The first time I became personally aware that my naivete had foundered on the rock of the Sisters
cynicism was in the matter of the jeep. Wed had one in Madras, which it was impractical to bring to
Bihar; but I didnt want to spend the five years wed promised ourselves in M____ without ever
being able to drive. So in May Id very nicely asked Sister Supriya, the administrator, if I could
occasionally use their jeep when we were settled down at the Hospital, and very nicely shed said
yes.
Once we were settled and I asked to borrow the jeep for a weekend trip to Patna, Supriya equally
nicely said it wouldnt be possible. She said the Parish priest had asked to borrow it, shed checked
with Sister Cassandra (the assistant administrator and as tough a cookie as youd want to meet)
whod told her it was against the rules . . . She appeared to feel so bad about it that I found myself
consoling her for having let me down. Only much later did I realize Id been had, and using classic
management tactics too. Supriya was the good guy and Cassandra the bad guy, and she was hard as
nails and didnt mind being the bad guy. These tactics are common in any organization, but what
brought me down to earth was that not even nuns would scruple to tell lies. Supriya had said we
could have the jeep, to get Kavery to the Hospital; now that Kavery was safely there, she could say
we were not to have the jeep.
I never drove in Bihar until I went back for the elections in February 98 and took the
Ambassadors wheel part of the way back from Madhepura.
Of course, that was purely a private affair, and perhaps youll think it trivial, as Kavery does. But
it meant more to me than just not being able to drive. I felt . . . as you would if you were lied to by
someone whom youd not only trusted but looked up to. As I said, what Sister Supriya used is
standard management strategy, and the history of the Catholic Church for a millennium and a half quite
clearly shows it has never believed the means are unjustifiable by the end. But there were many more
things besides ideology wrong with that Hospital which Kavery fought in vain against.
One thing was the very Hospital building itself. The original building, which Kavery remembered,
was suited to the climate: brick and plaster and high ceilings and lots of windows. The new building
was a concrete monster with low ceilings and the general appearance of a honeycomb. From March
to September you sweated in there, and froze in winter. We found that some German foundation had
donated the money for the building on condition that the design be theirs, and the architect had gone
ahead and planned something with central air-conditioning, and the Sisters had had to take it or lose
the money.
The sensible thing would have been to refuse it, for there was no chance of getting an air-
conditioning plant fitted. Anyway the new building together with the old would hold almost 200
patients, and that kind of demand simply did not exist: One more old-style block added to the original
buildings would have been ample.
I wonder if they tried to convince the donors about the unfeasibility of centrally air-conditioned
hospitals in rural Bihar. Sister Supriya said they had, but I now suspect they didnt want to see the
money get past them and would wait twenty-five or fifty years for another sucker to come along with
money for the air-conditioning.
Plenty of this money flows into Asia and South America, mainly from rich Catholic individuals and
organizations in the US, Germany, the Netherlands . . . usually countries with a Protestant majority. I
suppose its the insecurity of the minority that leads them to propagate the faith. Silly sods. Once or
twice teams came to the Hospital from, presumably, donor organizations, to see that the work was
being done. On such occasions everybody put on their Sunday clothes and participated
enthusiastically. Of course, the donors are not primarily interested in the medical facilities; what they
want to see is evidence of mission work, and as Hindu sinners we were not privy to those meetings. .
. but well go into mission work later.
Sister Supriya was an excellent front for the administration, tall and slim and perpetually smiling,
with a ready gift of tears when called for. Like all the Sisters, she spoke excellent Englishin this
case, Bluegrass Malayalam, which does not compare with Oxford Punjabi for the pleasure it affords
connoisseurs but can sound very sweet. Sister Cassandra was the real steel in the combination, and
she didnt mind being blamed for things the administrator couldnt help doing, which was most
helpful to the administratoras in the case of my promised jeep.
There were about thirty Sisters and novices who worked in the Hospital, and all but the Sister on
duty went back to the Convent for meals and at night. There were some twenty-five more Sisters who
resided there: Some worked in the Parish school, some taught the novices, some had more or less
retired, the rest had assorted duties. The nun in chargetitles like Mother and Superior had been
abolishedwas a really efficient and (once you got to know her) likable person, Sister Beena, who
ran the community health department attached to but not part of the Hospital.
I forgot to say that none of the Sisters wore habits any more. No wondering what was beneath the
wimple. That had been done away with some ten or twelve years earlier, and now they all wore saris
or the occasional salwar-kameez. Though many wore the simplest saristhe beige variety which is
seen on nuns all over India now, even in the south, or simply printed cottons and polyesterssome
were dressed quite expensively. Nothing flashy, of course, but then neither does Sonia Gandhi wear
flashy saris. When Kavery asked one or two of them about their wardrobes, they said, Oh, our
families gift them to us, how can we refuse? Bloody hell, she told me later in the flat, I cant afford
to wear saris like those to work.
Theres a tailpiece to this. One of the older Sisters, a quiet and self-effacing type who was the
senior gynaecologist at the Hospital, had an accident and broke her arm a few months before we left.
She had to wear her arm in a sling for some weeks, and naturally being unable to get it through a
blouse-sleeve, switched to salwar-kameezes, of which she acquired quite an extensive collection, for
we never saw her wear the same one twice in two weeks.
Very many of the Sisters were from Kerala, as Ive said, and some from Tamil Nadu and the
Konkan coast; but for the last few years there had been a steady decline in the supply from the south
and west. So the locals had had to be recruited. We didnt meet too many Bihari Sisters, they were in
their novitiates mostly; but we gathered that the senior Indian nuns looked down upon them.
Our apartment had only Indian-style toilets, and I have a troublesome knee, hard-earned from four
years of football in college. As of course the existing facilities could not be ripped out and replaced
with Western-style pans, I asked Sister Supriya if the Hospital maintenance staff could rig up an
appropriate movable arrangement for me. She agreed, and said with a look of distaste, In the
Convent all the toilets used to be Western-style, but now with these Biharis coming in were having to
replace them with Indian-style commodes.
That was a rare instance of one Sister commenting about another, or others. In general they kept
their mouth shut about their sisters doingsas when I mentioned Sister Namratas reaction to the
burns caseand quite rightly so. What are fraternities and sororities for if they cant keep secrets?
But here, though I was not a Catholic, I was a Malayali who could use Western toilets and be witty in
English and use a fork and knifenot all at the same time of courseand that put me higher, in
Supriyas estimation, than a Bihari Sister; though that was not very high.
Do you think Im being mean? Then just contrast my expectations, when I left Madras for Bihar,
with what I found among a community whose members I had already placed on a pedestal. Some
amount of religious disagreement I had supposed would take place, but I know my Bible well enough
(better, it turned out, than some of the Sisters did) and the question of divinity apart was ready to
acknowledge the message of the New Testament. But the Sisters had no thought of doctrinal
discussion with a kaffir.
To look at it another way, among any small community whose members are brought together not by
commonality of interest and shared sympathies, but by laws held in common, you can expect to find
friction. Shouldnt dissensions, however, be secondary to their mission, especially when it has been
proclaimed noble and sacred and they are sworn by solemn oaths to honour and protect it . . .? But
who am I to preach to the converted.
I have written in an earlier chapter, how the American Sisters, not having that fundamental grasp of
the caste system native to all of us Indians, treated Bhumihar and coolie the same. With most of the
Indian Sisters the caste hierarchy was naturally the basis of their interaction with anyone. After all,
Christians, Muslims and even Sikhs in India for the most part follow the caste distinctions of their
Hindu ancestors; I even had a Parsi landlady in Bombay who asked me my caste when she first
interviewed me. So when a Sister in the Hospital, on hearing that one of the junior doctors had
applied for a government job, told Kavery slightingly, He wont get it, hes low-caste; or when
another Sister whispered to us about a gynaecologist whod just joined the Hospital, Actually shes
dhobi caste, no one else will take her, we shouldnt have been surprised.
Or should we have? Should we expect people who have devoted their lives to serving a faith
which is supposed to make no distinction between man and man (woman is, of course, still the
weaker vessel) but which has really built and perpetuated a hugely powerful empire by simply and
with sophistication playing upon those distinctionsshould we expect such women, many of them
poorly-informed and ill-read, to shrug off, to extirpate from their conscious and subconscious minds
their vicarious centuries of training? The question of their motivation in devoting their lives to the
faith needs to be considered, and I do that a little hence.
Looking at it another way, the Sisters were simply affirming the reality of their society, they were
being true to it as the American Sisters could not (in India; in their native land, Im sure, most of them
could as easily lose their thirty or forty years of Indianization). There is undoubtedly some virtue in
pragmatism; but I do not think it goes well with any belief in social and gender equality, in justice if
you will. Unhappily, journalists who believe injustice and still have to report on social realities are
caught in a cleft stick, and the Indian media are making no attempt to find their way out of it. Ill treat
this subject more extensively in a later chapter.
In many of the older Sisters, and in a few of the younger, I did find that spiritual element which I
suppose I hunger for and which hunger prompted us to answer the Sisters call. There was a Sister
who lived in the Convent: quite a senior nun (she had been the Provincial many years earlier) who
would periodically travel to one of the various Houses of the Order all over India to organize
spiritual retreats. As she was also in charge of the Convents librarywhich contained much matter
of a secular nature, ranging from old Readers Digest condensed books to The Godfather and Peyton
Place (almost embarrassingly non-ecclesiastical)I met her to get the key to the library about once a
fortnight, and when she could spare the time I enjoyed talking with her.
Sister Teresa Rose had come to M____ some thirty years earlier from the US; she was from
Arkansas and we discussed Clinton once, though she had left the state at around the time Clinton had
smoked pot and not inhaled. But she would never speak of controversial subjectsnot that I ever
dreamed of debating the infallibility of the Pope with her, of course, but even when I went to take
leave of her before we left M____, and I spoke of what was happening to their Order (becoming
somewhat emotional as I usually do in such situations) she would not say anything, though Im sure
she thought and felt much. She was one of those persons immersed in a Greater Cause who will not
waste their energies upon the trivia that detract from its efficacy; though I do not consider such
circumstances trivia, and think they harm the goodness, the essential morality of the Cause as well as
its greatness, I cannot help but admire such people.
She also lent me two volumes of a fictionalized history of the Order, taking it about as far as the
War Between the States; it had been written by a Sister with Papal approval or whatever and I found
it insufferable in its attitude to the pagans (our Hinduand Protestantsinners). But it helped me
understand them.
There were two even more elderly Sisters we got glimpses of now and then when they visited
M____ for some meeting or the other. One of them had, at the age of eighteen, been part of the original
American shipment fifty years previously, when the party had been accidentally split into two and two
or three of them, without any escort, had made the five-day journey overland from Bombay while the
others rounded the sub-continent by ship. This lady, though practically living history, was still
working in the field, near Gayaone of the most dangerous districts in Biharand the other Sisters
would tell me admiringly of her adventures, as how she had alighted from a bus which had broken
down somewhere in the wilds and hitched a lift on a passing motorcycle. But most of the younger
nuns, though they spoke glowingly of these exploits, were far too happy cocooned in their Convent
involved with Hospital administration or balancing the budget or whatever they were called upon to
doto emulate those in the field.
Motivation too has an economic side to it. The American Sisters, one can safely assume, were all,
or very nearly all, those who had heard the Call and joined the Order. In India, in Kerala, large
families with ten or twelve kids, half of them girls, and not much to spare for dowries, produce a
different motivation. One of the Malayali Sisters herself, one with whom we both got on well and
whom I would sometimes visit in her department, told me of this economic angle. (Other nuns, of
other Orders, have since told me the same thing.) She also told me that respect for nuns in Kerala was
waning: Non-Government and voluntary organizations were doing better work and demanding less
bhaav.
Families in Kerala, I suppose, also tend to produce fewer children these days, and more of the girls
are going in for professional courses. The Churchs grip on the state is just as unrelenting as it has
been for forty years; but its the Fathers who represent that strength, and the people behind the
Fathers. . .
So it is in Bihar, though they dont have that kind of power yet. Father Jose, the Parish priest (who
lived in the same house from which Father Martinsek had been summoned and shot twenty years
earlier over the theft of a generating set) was a pleasant, inoffensive man we always liked to talk to.
But he had a dangerous job, and my belief is he would have been a lion when it came to fighting for
his Faiththough they dont use that kind of language outside the seminaries. The Church picks out
her bravest sons for lands inhabited by savage infidels, and the Jesuits are even more careful. They
also have their pick of the best young men.
While the nuns, for the most part, stay behind walls and carry on their work unobtrusively (free
medicines, education, that kind of thing) the Fathers proselytize more aggressively. To be fair, they are
doing a lot of work which needs to be done and which few others are doingcertainly not those who
protest most violently against conversionslike helping tribespeople and Dalits obtain their rights,
organizing them to fight against the oppressing classes; and they get killed doing it. When we were in
M____ a priest in one of the southern districts was hacked to death by members of one of the leftist
armies, who have abandoned their own objectives of class war and are getting rich from extortion
and the timber racket; also, a priest who taught in a school in Dumka was paraded naked around the
town for allegedly sexually assaulting a student.
I have a photograph of that, from a newspaper clipping, and it sickens me how humans can do that
to a human being. The faces of the crowd are visible around the edge of the photograph, and they are
grinning. . . Since then, churches in Gujarat have been burned and desecrated, Graham Staines and his
sons burned alive and Arul Doss impaled by arrows. . .
The fact is that these priests are doing good work, and work which needs to be doneleprosy
clinics, educating and organizing the poor and marginalizedbut there is also no doubt that they are
proselytizing. Does it matter so much? The people they work with will not be helped or allowed their
rights by the higher-caste Hindus, the very same men who compound their crime of omission by
another of commissionof murder and assorted acts of terrorism.
Gandhi once said, If all Christians in India behaved the way Christ teaches them to behave, there
would be no Hindus left here. He was of course being ironic; but if it could ever happen, there would
be no Hindus, and a damn good thing too if Hindus are expected to behave like those apes in Dumka.
But why malign the apes? Dara Singh may or may not be guilty of the atrocities attributed to him; but
his name has become an icon of the kind of man, Hindu or Christian, whom we can do without.
*
There is no point in going into the details of our confrontations with the Sistersor, rather, the
Hospital administration, for we had little quarrel with the Sisters as such. Suffice it to say that
Supriya and Cassandra were running the Hospital into the ground. Ive often seen that people with
MBAs and the like, if they lack creativity, turn out to be actually destructive.
The Hospital had a capacity of almost 200, and the census rarely rose above half that. (The
surgical wards in Kaverys time were almost full.) People were set to jobs not suited to their skills
for instance, there were two Sisters who had been trained in radiology, and one was put in spiritual
care and the other in charge of stores. Those who were not Sisters were not given the facilities or
equipment they needed, and doctors were often treated demeaningly. Even the locals were being
alienated, and towards the end of our stay were almost literally up in arms.
It was as if the Sisters were destroying the Hospitalto which patients came from a hundred
kilometres aroundon purpose. We heard of new and modern hospitals opening in nearby Begusarai,
the trading post. Modern facilities, modern prices: Theres plenty of money in Bihar. When we said to
the sisters that we ought to change with the times (not going high-tech for the sake of it but generally
streamlining procedures) because there would soon be competition, one of them (the maddest of the
lot, Ive thought) exclaimed scornfully, Compete! Why should we compete?as if they held some
divine charter.
Sister Supriyas sweetness didnt last long. Five months after Kavery took her post she went to the
administrator to ask for some of the perks she had been promised verbally the previous May. Supriya
not only denied all knowledge of them but said, You should have got everything in writing; otherwise
you might come back after three months and ask for even more.
The administrator, though a local bigwig, was pretty low down the pecking order. The affairs of the
ProvinceIndia and Nepalwere run from the Provincials office in Patna, and the Provincial was a
Sister whom Kavery had known earlier and trusted to be fair. Though she was shattered by Supriyas
remarks I got her to write a letter to Sister Bridget in Patna and things were soon set right. After all,
the Sisters had asked Kavery to come up to M____; it wasnt as if she had begged for a job.
But the whole business didnt do much for our relationship with the administration. Supriya took on
a syrupy dangerousness, and as I never can resist a confrontation she must soon have come to loathe
me heartily. Kaverys relationship with most of the nuns continued to be affectionate, and when she
fell ill, as she twice did, they nursed her with genuine love. And I wouldnt say I wasnt on good
terms with the Sisters: After all, I came back from Bihar thinking I had had a good time, so it couldnt
have been bad, could it?
*
Theres no inviolability about conversions. You can buy religious adherents just as you can buy votes. For a poor person it really
doesnt matter.
Fali S. Nariman, senior Supreme Court advocate, when he resigned as the Gujarat Governments standing counsel to protest
attacks on Christians in 1999.
Rice Christians. What a wonderfully evocative term. I understand it carried the same connotation in
Eastern Asia, Japan and the Philippines and coastal China, when the Church first sent its missionaries
there in the sixteenth century. It means converts who become Christians not out of belief in what the
Church teaches but for the advantages the Church can give. And to be quite honest the Church does not
teach that all men are brothers, but that the sufferings undergone in this life will be made up for in the
next world. It does not offer Dalits and Adivasis a chance to rise above their lowly social status in
this world; but it does give them a chance to better their economic condition.
Those who had been trained by the missions and accepted the pre-eminence of the Church made
wonderful workers. Like the operating theatre staff at the Hospital. The discipline, the routines
established by the earliest American and Irish doctors were still followed unswervingly, without
cutting corners, and Kavery said it was one of the best shed worked in. Though much of the
equipment they used was a quarter-century old, it was maintained in excellent condition. The staff
comprised some eleven women, all tribal converts, all smiling and silent, held together by the will of
Sister Bernadettenot a nun but we used the honorific since shed been there forty years and knew
the work as well as any doctor. Ive watched her order things into place, waiting for the surgeons
next demand, with just a move of her head. . . But those who chafed under the discipline, who were
not willing to be just obedient servants, saw things differently.
The half-dozen boys who lived upstairs and worked with Sister Beena in the community health
department or (one or two) elsewhere in the Hospital were bright chaps, mostly Dalit converts who
had a sense of self-worth, partly the result I suppose of Parish school education but very much the
legacy of Ambedkar. But they were still ordered around by Sister Supriya, the administrator, and her
gang; put to any odd jobs which someone had to do.
I dont mean sweeping and washing clothes, of course. I mean like fixing the stage for a function, or
getting something done in Patna, or some piece of equipment repaired in town. Hardly community
health work, unless you mean the nuns community. They were always addressed familiarly as tum,
but showed no resentment. These were bright young men; one had an LL.B., another wrote and
designed skits for the community health department and, in a major competition in Patna which teams
from all over north India attended, was adjudged best director.
The chap with the LL.B., Akhilesh, I got quite friendly with, and he gave me a lot of information
about life in Bihar. He wouldnt say anything about the nunsnot because he was scared but because
he had his pride. But through him I met a few young men like him, one of whom (a bit more
firebrandish) I shall call Anandalso a Dalit and a convert with a B.Com. and an LL.B. and a go-
getting attitude.
Anand was loosely associated with some NGO or voluntary outfit which was doing something in
the outback, and his ambition was to set up an NGO of his own. After that he would be in silk and
lavender for the rest of his life. (This is a common ambition in Bihar, I discovered.)
I didnt understand; but then Ive not had much to do with NGOs, which become important only in
an area where the government is doing nothing, which is most of Bihar. Anand explained to me the
rationale behind setting up NGOs:
All you have to do is register your organization, and to do that you need a recommendation from
someone already established in the fieldlike the Churchwhich is a non-profit organization. Then
with their contacts you get in touch with some foreign foundation which has an interest in the field you
have said youre specializing in. They give you annual funding; you use about ten to twenty per cent
for your work and keep the rest for yourself. You can do enough with that much to impress them,
because they dont understand that a dollar can buy much more here than in the West.
He told me about people he knew who lived in what were practically palaces, owned three cars
and ran hospitals using this essentially simple method. All you needed was a glib tongue and a
persuasive manner, and both are anyway necessary adjuncts to success in this Management Age. They
probably did good work with the percentage of donations they put to use, and perhaps it was nearer
fifty than ten per cent. Fifty per cent of a dollar donation, tax-free, goes a hell of a long way in this
country. As Cecil Rhodes is reported to have said, Philanthropy is all very well in its way, but
philanthropy plus five per cent is a good deal better.
As for the institution which made the recommendation, he said, its fee, off the record, was ten per
cent of the original subscription. In Bihar this was collected on behalf of the Church by. . . but I wont
name names. Its a Father who is probably one of the most powerful men in the state and certainly is
very powerful in the Church, much more so than the Bishop himself. If hes still in Patna, I think a lot
of people will understand whom I mean . . . a Malayali of course. I dont think he took it for himself,
but the Church also needs money and has trained its fund-collectors well. Its also true that ten per
cent is, in Bihar, very small skimming off the top.
If the Church can do it, argued Anand, knowing its against the law of the land and against Christian
morality, why cant I?
Anandand many other Dalit converts I met at one time or anotherwere especially bitter about
Malayali priests and nuns. In the Christendom of Bihar they were kingmakers, if not actually kings.
Why, asked Anand, do they not ordain more of our people? It was a legitimate question. Four
centuries ago it had been asked of European priests in every land from Peru to Macao, Goa to
Kyushu. The answer invariably was, You are not yet ready, my son. The very fact that you ask the
question shows that you are not ready. That was the answer the Bihari Dalits got now, from the
Malayali Establishment.
For the Church needs uncomplaining, unquestioning obedience. It does not need foolish martyrs; it
needs clever ones whose martyrdom will further the Cause. Its institutionalized shrewdness
sometimes makes me shudder.
Small wonder the younger Dalit converts were angry. They were given no role in the Church; and
with their education and convent Englishand especially because of their caste, or lack of itthey
were fitted for few roles outside the Church and institutions run by the Church.
Now they, too, had seized on to the reservations idea.
When the idea of reservations was first mooted as a Constitutional proviso, identifying the
communities/ tribes/castes who would enjoy the new facility became an enervating and sometimes
very enriching task. The Church nobly refused on behalf of all its congregation. But now the Bihari
Dalits feel they were defrauded,
Had they, or their fathers, not converted, they might even be better off. Representations had been
made to the Bishop of Patna, who was a Dalit, but the Church did not like the idea on principle. Now
the Dalits, some of them, were actually talking of a march to Delhi. The Church, said Anand and his
friends, doesnt want us to have reservations because theyre afraid that if we get any political clout
well go against the Church.
There is small fear of that in the presenterfundamentally surcharged atmosphere. As
Christiansand very likely as Dalitsthey will be mistrusted by the propagandists of Hindutva, who
have already announced that they are against reservations for Dalit Christians. (At the time of the
Popes visit in November, one of their rallying cries was that this demand be withdrawn.) Dalit
Christians are unlikely to get reservation without support from the Church. There are sections in the
Church who support their demand, but it is a political demand and therefore dangerous to anyone with
power.
Anand and his brothers were Christians but had no say in the Church; Dalits but had no political
power. They wanted something and they were damned well going to get it. Words havent come to
blowsyet; because they are outside existing power structures and lack a godfather.
*
I said earlier that foreign donors to mission foundations are not as interested in the work of medical
institutions as they are in evidence of conversion. Its the hot topic of the last decade of John Paul IIs
papacy. Ive got to watch what I say here, and am not going to quote authorities; but delve a bit into
this business and youll find clear proof that there is, literally, a bounty on the heads of converts. Ive
heard how much the bounty is, too, and its not insubstantial. Just ask yourself why priests of the
Eastern Churches in Kerala, who have all along prided themselves on their descent from some one of
the 400 Nambudiri families converted by St Thomas, should suddenly, these days, be talking of their
work among the tribals. . .
And since John Paul II became Pope, too, the distinction between various Churches has become
nebulous. India is seen as fertile ground, No Mans Land, ripe for claiming by either a benevolent
Church oras they see itby the savage hordes of Islam. Remember the Popes parting words after
his visit to India last yearabout the third Christian millennium witnessing a great harvest of faith
on this vast and vital continent? That he could say it at all argues a power not likely to turn aside.
And so much for that, and not that I give a damn anyway about who converts to what. Im against
all forms of organized religion. And before you start throwing stones at me for Sangh Parivar talk
(He who is not with me is against me), just toddle along and check for yourself. And remember that
for the sake of peace I have not recorded some of the worst abuses of religion I have witnessed. The
half hath not been told thee.
*
To return to the Sisters of Charity, Catholic Christianity as I suddenly saw it after so many yearsI
hadnt been into a Church since I was a child, and only dimly remember anything about the
appurtenances of the religionwas amusingly adapted to the local paganism. The nuns all wear saris
in Bihar; the priests, at Mass, wear a saffron shawl-like vestment over their white robes, which are
also redolent of the East. And talking of redolence, they use Indian lamps and agarbattis liberally
(though of course the Catholic Church has always gone in for censers and dousings of holy water; in
fact much of its superficial appearance is like Hinduism, and reminiscent of its Eastern origins). I
went to midnight Mass one Christmasof course I didnt take Communionand felt quite at home. It
wasnt all that different in substance or tone from some ceremonial you might have witnessed in a
math.
Then, the laityHindu or Christianwere encouraged always to use the salutation Jai Yesu to
the Sisters and Fathers. But in sermons it was never Yesu, but Prabhu. Local festivals were also
adapted. Kavery told me of how, during her first stay at M____, she heard a Divali sermon: Is din
par Prabhu dharti par aaye (On this day Prabhu came to earth)an ingenious formula which also
incensed her. I took it as it came and it afforded us some fun.
The funniest part of the Rice Christian angle in the Hospital was provided by the spiritual care
department, staffed by two or three Sisters at least one of whom was mental. On our brief visit in May
96 this ladylets call her Sister Elizahad entertained us with witticisms like this one:
Thisholding up a forefingeris Abdullah. Now whats this? and she would waggle her finger
up and down. We all professed not to know.
Its Sheikh Abdullah! and she would dissolve in gales of laughter, more decorously echoed by her
Sisters.
Now Sister Eliza took her job in spiritual care very seriously. No PJs there. She and her two
somewhat more subdued partners in crime would tour the wardsafter the doctors had done so; all
the doctors except Papa, the medical director, were Hinduand preach to the patients for hours. They
would also leave behind printed material which was so crudely evangelistic no one could have taken
it seriously, of the Believe in Christ and you will be well variety. (But many who are Christian take
it seriously, as we found in Kerala.)
I suppose some of the victims of spiritual care were driven out of Hospital sooner than medical
opinion would have thought possible, which is a cure of a sort; some others must have taken it
resignedly as another affliction to be endured. But some young men of M____ who happened to be in-
patients used it creatively. They would pretend to be influenced by the drivel Sister Eliza droned out,
and later when the fancy took them they would leave the ward. When stopped by the nurses on duty
they would say they were going up to spiritual care to listen to some more preaching, and naturally
they had to be allowed out. Then they would walk out of Hospital, take a rickshaw to town and enjoy
a good day with their friends before returning in the evening much refreshed. The doctors soon found
out and put an end to visits to Sister Eliza by in-patients, though they could do nothing about her visits
to them.
Sister Beenas work with the community health department I will leave for another chapter. But no
chapter on the Hospital will be complete if I dont write about the nurses. The duration of the nursing
course was almost four years, and then the graduates had to serve a bond of one year. So there were
some two hundred girls aged from sixteen to twenty-two staying on campus, mostly in a tall barracks
next to the Convent. The earlier batches had been made up almost wholly of Malayalis, but the state
government had a year or two previously stipulated that at least half of each batch of forty or so
should be locals. It was no trouble to attract girls: The nursing school is one of Indias best, and its
graduates attract starting salaries of almost Rs 4,000 a month (plus free board and lodging) in the best
hospitals of Calcutta, Lucknow and Delhiwhile their poorer cousins back in Kerala are lucky to get
half that and are more often than not cruelly exploited by quacks.
They were therefore very bright girls; and life in M____ made them hardy as well. Its no easy job
for a twenty-year-old girl on the night shift to control a ward full of Bihari men some of whom are
drunk and many of whom have pistols tucked into their waistbands. And at the same time to look after
their two or three juniors assigned to the same shift and ward. . . Did I say they were well-trained?
The nuns taught well, and were strict but affectionate as if to younger sisters. There were fines for any
breach of discipline: for instance, speaking Malayalam on duty. Only Hindi and English were
allowed. At least Hindi is a compulsory subject in Kerala schools, and though the nurses
pronunciation was sometimes funny they didnt have much trouble with grammarapart from the
objectionable habit of addressing the locals as tum, which the Indian Sisters had initiated.
Of course, the girls were in much the same situation as girl boarders at a convent schoolexcept
that their duties in the Hospital were much more onerous than PTand broke rules and giggled and
teased the nuns as girls will. We enjoyed being in their company, and made it a point to call the girls
of each batch home for high tea at intervals of a month or so.
That was really fun. In the first place, it was no easy job in a room about fifteen feet by thirty
already cluttered with three cupboards full of books, a hugeish dining table, a cane sofa set and
assorted items we hadnt found room for anywhere elseto seat thirty-five or forty girls. I had to tidy
the room, one of the tasks I most enjoy but only when in the mood for it, and make the seating
arrangements. Durga (Paswan, who for a time ran our errands) would have been sent earlier in the
afternoon to buy hoards of samosas and cake and mixture.
Some of the girls were naturally shy; some were made more so by my presence, or Madams; but
there were always a few really smart ones to keep the conversation going, or to sing. Some sang very
sweetly, but usually modern Hindi film songs. I would urge them to sing old Malayalam classics. And
at their prompting I once sang that Malayalam film song delighted in by connoisseurs which goes
Ente kanmaniyute kavulil oru dimple;
Aa dimple-inte kumbilil oru pimple.
Ente kaamugi nee etra etra simple!
Ninte kannukalil twinkle twinkle little star . . .
but I could see they didnt believe the song (which had been recorded long before they were a gleam
in their mothers eyes) existed. Of course they were accustomed to a vastly different standard of
Malayalam film music. For that matter, I only half-believed the song existed myself until we heard it
wafting from a wayside radio in Munnar last year.
Then after sufficient entertainment and gossip we would make tea and hand around the eats. We
would have somehow dredged up enough plates for the whole bunch, but there would be drinking
utensils for only about half. So when twenty or so of the girls had had tea I would take their plates and
cups/tumblers/glasses into the kitchen. Invariably a dozen or so of the girls would crowd in after me
and begin washing up. However much I protested that only the cups needed to be done, the rest could
be left for Pushpa in the morning, they would ignore me and relentlessly scrub everything in the sink.
On one such occasion I cried out to Kavery, who was talking with the other girls in the drawing-room,
Kavery! Help! but I was swept aside and out.
The girls would leave in time for dinner, which I am sure they did justice to though they
complained loudly of its quality. Growing childrenand thats what they were, though when you
think of the work they would be doing in a very few years, and the training they were then undergoing
for it, you have to wonder at the spirit in them.
They were well-looked after by the Sisters, and given ample opportunity to show their extra-
curricular skills as well. For a week leading up to Nurses Day (Miss Nightingales birthday, 12
May) there were competitions and speeches. There were as Ive said many excellent singers among
them, and the nunsmost of whom of course sang like angels, having been trained in choircoached
them as much as they had time for.
One nun, Sister Cassilda (Ive never been sure of the spelling) had an especially enchanting voice,
and had even studied music. One Christmas eve I had accompanied Supriya and some other of the
Sisters, including Cassie, to Patna on a shopping trip in the Hospitals Tatamobile. It was dark
before we were halfway home, and the nuns began to sing carols. It was lovely: Their voices and the
cold and the darkness and speed somehow created the Christmas spirit, conjured it out of our souls,
though it was different, but then Christmas always is different . . . Cassie sang a carol Id never heard
before, about a little drummer-boy, and all through the Christmas season if there was any carol-
singing I begged her for it. I didnt sing in the car, I cant sing, but my facility with arithmetic helped a
bit with the Partridge-in-a-Pear-Tree one.
Sister Cassilda also surprised me one day when I dropped by her office to say helloshe was then
in charge of accountsand when we were talking of music she praised Jesus Christ Superstar and
sang a snatch of it. Id never expected someone of the Church to talk highly of that musical, and it
rounded out my admiration of her voice and good nature.
The Nurses Day functions . . . There were skits and fashion shows and dances. Many of the girls
had been trained in classical dance, especially bharatanatyam; but the Sisters would not allow them to
perform dances set to Hindu stutis. We thought that intolerant, and besides there is nothing more
pathetic than a poor girl in classical attire dancing bharatanatyam to some impromptu nonsense in
praise of Yesu. So most of the entries for the dance competitions were filmi dances, set to filmi
tunes; and though the girls did them well, with a verve and abandon that might have been envied in
Bombay, to us (brought up in a more prudish age) there was something obscene in these sixteen- and
eighteen-year-olds gyrating on stage a la Madhuri or Urmila or Shilpa. The nuns did not disapprove,
and I think they were at fault. Even a stuti to Ganapati or Devi should be less offensive to the Church
than the effusions of whoever has the option on vulgarity in Hindi films these days.
*
When they came, they had the Bible and we had the land.
Now we have the Bible and they have the land.
African saying
I have said, and am going to say, many things in this chapter which will be unpalatable to modern
secularists. A religious majority has, I agree, a moral duty to be more tolerant of the customs of
minorities; but the minorities also have a responsibility not to use that advantage to excess. Time after
time I have noticed at secular institutions that Hindus are expected to, and do, attend Christmas
celebrations and solemnly acknowledge Christian sentiments; but Christians on the whole stay away
from functions held for Divali and Vinayaka Chaturthi.
Its no skin off my nose; as Ive said, I dont care who worships what as long as they stay off each
others back and off mine in particular. But institutionalizing this kind of intolerance rubs my nose
raw. Im sure there is evident, in this chapter, a certain malicious glee at the misfortunes of the Sisters
in M____ and of the Hospital since Kavery left. Too bad. Im sorry for it; but Im being straight about
how I feel.
I hate generalizations, especially when I make them myself, and when I say Hindus or Christians
I mean most or many. I must add that my observations of Christiansand Hindus, for that matter
are more relevant to the backward districts: Idukki in Kerala and the region around M____, for
instance.
I sincerely shared the attitudes of the newspaper I write for until I went home to Keralawe
were in Idukkiin 98. That experience has disabused both Kavery and me of certain notions which
go with the Establishment secular attitude, for there I saw how both secularism and Christianity were
used by the Church and those who control it, how the mass of Christians were owned and their minds
and attitudes perverted by the rich. Its too much to go into here, and one observation about Kerala
will inevitably lead to another irrelevant to this chapter . . . A Malayali friend of mine has suggested
that I write a book about Kerala entitled The Last Malayali.
I have not been to Bhagalpur, and since I did not go to Bihar as a journalist I made no particular
effort to find out how Muslims and Hindus lived together, but I was never conscious of any friction
it may be because I wasnt looking for any. In M____ there was a sweeper named Ghulam at the
Hospital, who had attached himself to the household of Dr Kishorewho lived in the flat opposite
oursin an ex-officio capacity. Ghulam greeted us traditionally at Divali, and played Holi, and we
greeted him traditionally at Id and respected him for his observance of Ramadan. But I never thought I
should subsidize a trip to Mecca for him. . .
Kishore told me that during the strife of December 1992, when there was evidence of trouble in the
Muslim mohalla, Ghulam took refuge with him for a couple of days. During that time he did his namaz
in the puja room.
Incidentally, as I have written elsewhere in this book (but you may have skipped it) there was no
trouble in M____ in December 92 or since. The criminals issued a fiat that Muslims were not to be
touched, and that was that. Presumably they had orders from Patna. The Janata Dal was one big happy
family then.
I can bring myself to understand the feelings of those who sincerely deplore the skewed secularism
which deprives Hindus of self-respect. But I cannot begin to understand those who channel these
feelings and use them for their own purposes. Hindu or Muslim or Christian, we are our own worst
enemy.
The doctors at the Hospital in M____ both resented and feared the nuns. Besides Papa (the
seniormost), Kavery, and the two nuns who were the senior gynaecologists, there were six or eight
younger men and the junior gynaecologists who were all of a different persuasion from the Sisters. Dr
Kishore had been there longer than anyone but Papa, and though he disliked most of what the Sisters
did they had a hold over him and he was not above carrying tales to them. He hoped to be medical
director some day. Papa was due to retire, and he was only medical director because he agreed with
everything the administration had to say.
(Postscript: I might as well say that Dr Kishore had a certain addiction problem and since [as
theory has it] excessive dependence on a drug is caused by low self-esteem, he had not enough faith
in himself to break free of the Sisters and the security afforded by a job at the Hospital. The nuns used
it, too; Sister Eliza from spiritual care was a regular visitor after a bad spell and spent hours alone
with Kishores wife Ratna, presumably telling her to Believe. Ratna was too scared to tell Eliza to
get lost.
(Supriya tried it with Kavery once, asking her, Why does Vijay drink so much? Kavery told her it
was none of her business. And as I have no problem with self-esteem except perhaps an excess of it
there was no reason I should fear to confront Supriya whenever I thought the need had arisen.
(Im glad to report that Kishore has recently resigned and set up shop in M____ itself. He wont
lack customers.)
Not to put too fine a point on it, the Sisters in administration treated the junior doctors with the
elegant contempt they felt they owed them. They were not Catholics; they were Biharis; their English
was halting and often faulty. Medically speaking they did the best they could given the limitations of
their background and training. The Sisters were much more respectful to Kavery and me (and those
not in administration were truly affectionate), because after all we had opportunities. We didnt have
to have their damned job. And after my first essay on Bihar appeared in The Hindu, they were
perhaps a little afraid of me. At least Id like to think so. Journalism is an area of dark and awful
mystery to the layman.
The juniors for their part were always writing exams and attending interviews, desperate to get an
MD seat or a public sector job. Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension. . .
yes, but when there are no choices how do you get the security you crave?
Kavery stood up to the Sisters unreasonable demands whenever she had to, which was too often to
suit her temperament, and the three juniors in surgery soon perked up. It was sad to see how eager and
anxious they were to do the simplest procedures, how little opportunity they had been given in
college. But they were sharp enough; by the time we went south on annual leave in mid 97 they could
handle an appendicectomy. Gunshot wounds and emergencies and almost all elective cases of course
had to be referred to Patna in Kaverys absence, by taxi if it could be afforded. The Sisters had an
ambulance, the Tatamobile, but it was kept for their own uses. I suppose it might have been foolish to
hire it out on the ninety-kilometre drive to Patna; besides, it had enough to do as things were.
There was one of the junior doctors who did stand up to the nuns. Dr Arvind had an irascible
nature and an intense pride. Any affront to his dignity would be met with a flare-up. He didnt hesitate
to tell the Sisters what he thought, and that made them a little wary of him. He was a little man, like
our Marwari friend Kishan, but without his extroverted verbosity. He was a nice chap when you got
to know him, and Kavery thought highly of his potential. He is one of the two people then in M____
who still keeps in touch with us.
Well, more than two years have gone by since we left M____. Theres a new administrator, Sister
Cassandra, the former assistant; most of the Sisters we loved and respected have left the Hospital and
gone, as they had wished, to farther-flung areas, in Bengal and the North-East and the hills of Uttar
Pradesh and south Bihar. Amelia in the lab, who was an accomplished herbalist, is still there as far as
we know; but Rose in physiotherapy who also practised homoeopathy, and Beena of community
health, have both left to do work which is more real.
Only one of the junior doctors we knew is still there. One or two of those who have left are in
private practice (which means a clinic in the village; but what else can they do?) and Arvind has
joined a hospital in Kishanganj as senior resident in surgery, which is great news; one has got into
that public sector haven called the Coal Board, which the doctors used to talk about as the Crusaders
talked about Jerusalem. The senior nurses Kavery worked with and cared for are all over the North,
and a few in the Gulf perhaps; an occasional letter flutters in from one of them to Madam.
Papa has retired after over forty years at the Hospital. Dr Kishore has left. The new medical
director is Sister Alberta, who was Kaverys classmate and who first wrote her in Madras asking her
to come to M____. She was in Garhwal when we were in Bihar; and on one of her visits to the
Mother House I remember spending an afternoon telling her of all the ills the Order had brought upon
itself, even quoting Matthew 7:3 at her. She must have thought it was the Devil himself, and she later
wrote Kavery sorrowfully, You let your husband influence you too much.
The punchline is Arvinds. In his last letter, just before leaving M____ and joining the Kishanganj
hospital, he wrote us that the whole Hospital is deteriorating day by day and future of this Hospital
looks dark, which doesnt surprise me in the least. Then he added:
Now Dr Alberta is new CMO of the Hospital. After seeing Dr Albertas behaviour I am surprised
that she was your friend . . .
*
Postscript: Im unhappy with this chapter, theres no denying it. I do not relish the possibility that I
may very well have provided ammunition to the egregious but puissant idiots who are vitiating our
national, societal and cultural integrity. Maybe when Im older and wiser Ill figure out a way to be
the kind of writer I want to be without hurting anyones feelings. But methinks I do protest too much . .
. What I have written I have written.
Hum Maxim mangta hai!
There was damn all to amuse ourselves with in Bihar. We didnt have a TV, on principle; the Patna
edition of The Times of India was highly amusing but for the wrong reasons; and we didnt
particularly want to visit the local movie hall, where during the intermission the manager paced the
aisles with a gun in his hand to deter presumption. The girlsthat is, the nursesoften went, but only
during the day and in large groups.
Kavery would often be filled with an urgent desire to see a movie, and while I can leave Hindi
fillums strictly alone it would be a break even to get to Patna for a weekend. We would borrow the
community health jeep or the Tatamobile from the Sisters (for a fee per kilometre plus some standard
charge: It worked out to less than Rs 300 for the weekend) and the driver too, and set off usually
Saturday morning before it had become too warm and the chill off the Ganga was still in the air.
Winter drives were lovely, the fields on either side of the road golden with mustard and a glimpse
every now and then through the trees of the silver river pushing at its banks less than a kilometre
away.
Shivkumar, the driver of the Tatamobile, was a weatherbeaten and taciturn chap whod seen it all
but whose rare grin lit up his face. The drive to Patna was accomplished with all possible speed,
which means a thirty kmph average.
We usually broke the journey halfway, at the Sisters house in Bakhtiarpur. There was a small
hospital there, the in-patients all being women in labour; it was a place for hard-working nuns. I
remember the towns en route to Patna: Barh, Bakhtiarpur, Atmalgaula, the bridge across the Punpun
with a colossal and crudely coloured statue of Bajrangbali next to it, Fatuha (which always reminded
me of Salman Rushdie) . . . strange names to a southerner and romantic too. There was another bridge
before Fatuha, an old stone structure where the road curved slightly, with low stone walls sloping up
from nothing and down again to nothing. It was very old, no one I asked knew just how old, and I
could imagine Clive riding across it. It was a long and weary way from Pilasi to Avadh, though the
roads would have been better in his time.
Patna must be the ugliest and most squalid state capital in India. Monuments of tourist interest
include the shopping complex owned by Shatrughan Sinha and the several-storeyed mansion of the
chap who built the Sulabh Shauchalayas, which I was told has twenty-six bathrooms . . . I never made
it to the Museum, which has some exciting Buddhist relics; I was always thinking (until it was time to
pack) that wed be in Bihar five years, thered be another chance.
But there is one building in Patna which is surely unmatched in any capital city anywhere in the
world: a huge grey breast rising some dozen stories from a hectare of land. It is a granary built by a
British Resident, John Garstin, in the nineteenth century to provide, in times of plenty, against famine.
The natives, bearing their baskets of grain, were supposed to troop up a staircase which winds round
the granary, empty their precious burden through a hole in the top, and troop down a corresponding
staircase. I dont know if it was ever used. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it couldnt be,
because the doors at the bottom opened inwards. The whole things monstrously Freudian; or,
alternatively, it looks like a stupa with a malignant growth.
When we went to Patna together, making a holiday of it, wed check into some midmarket hotel (all
the deluxe ones are called Magadh and Maurya and Gupta, but theyre for people who want to keep
Patna out) and after complaining about the plumbing, trying to get the TV fixed and wangling a clean
towel or two we might go to a movie or to dinner. I remember at one classy restaurant I saw a largish
cockroach walking along the back of Kaverys chair, and I drew the headwaiters attention to it. With
a catering-institute smile he simply reached out and plucked it away in his hand, then made off for the
kitchen presumably to return the creature to its native habitat. Maybe it was a pet of one of the cooks.
We left that place hurriedly and without tipping, though I turned at the door to see Kavery trying to
slip the waiter a tenner. I stopped that, but she was protesting all evening that it hadnt been his fault.
This irreverence to Hygieia is certainly not peculiar to Patna. When Kavery was a child in Delhi
her father once took the family out to the Ashokthen New Delhis only deluxe hotelfor a
pineapple juice (seven bucks; this was in Nehrus austere days). Her mother expressed a wish to
inspect the kitchens. They entered, inspected and left; at the door her mother turned just in time to see
one of the chefs pause in marinating a chicken, lift his finger to his mouth and lick it appreciatively.
Not that the private sector is any better. When I worked in Bombay ten years ago our office-boy (a
round-faced Shiv Sainik named Janardhan who still owes me 600 bucks) moonlighted as a waiter at a
major hotel. On his first evening there he cleared a table, bore his tray to the scullery (or whatever
they call it at fancy hotels: La Scullerie perhaps) and began to wash the silver in soap and hot water.
Up came the head-waiter, his moustache bristling with indignation, and snatched the fork out of his
hand. Maa ke laude, he said, do you think were paying you to waste your time like this? This is
the way to do it and he wiped all the silver clean on his napkin with a few brisk strokes. It was a
good lesson Janardhan taught me; I guess it was worth 600 bucks.
Back in Patna, the movie houses werent much better. At onewas it called Elphinstone?we
stood sweating in the black hole they called a lobby until the previous show was over and the
previous herd trampled all through us. Kavery and I got seats at opposite ends of a long row. The film
was Raja Hindustani (Pardesi, pardesi jaana nahin was all the rage then, the nursing students at
M____sang it constantly) and I simply had to get out and breathe some fresh air when it came to the
final scene. (Later, when we saw Dil To Pagal Hai in a much better-appointed Calcutta theatre, I
realized it hadnt been the movie house which had made me sick.)
After the show Shivkumar would invariably be waiting outside with the car. Hed have had a good
time in some downmarket theatre, watching a refreshing dishum-dishum film without frills.
We could do a little shopping in Patna: at the Khadi Bhandar, and at the couple of good department
stores, dating from the Raj, which are on the Dak Bungalow Road-Baileys Road corner if Im not
mistaken. Thats where we got cheese and sauces and cosmetics and stuff. A whole bunch of modern,
glitzy shopping plazas have sprung up in downtown Patna in the last three or four years; theres
plenty of money there, most of it black and much of it certainly having been made in politics. The
salesman ethic in the shops is still, however, Take it if you want and get out of here.
When I went alone to Patna it was a more adventurous journey. The distance by railroad is about
ninety kilometres, and an express usually does it in two and a half hours. Leave home early in the
morning, catch one of the expresses on the Howrah-New Delhi line between 6.30 and 7.30, and return
by express late in the evening, was the general idea. However, early during our stay in M____ I once
got to the station about ten and was foolish enough to take a passenger instead of waiting an hour for
an express.
Dantes ninth circle of hell was nothing to that ride. The train took four and a half solid hours of
sweltering summer (that should be liquid hours, I guess) to cover ninety kilometres, and it stopped
thirty-four times on the way (not counting Rajinder Nagar and Patna Sahib in town). Of course there
arent thirty-four railway stations between M____ and Patna; mostly there was just a wooden pole
stuck in the ground with a crude hand-lettered placard on it announcing Jayaprakash Narayan Halt or
Laloo Prasad Halt. These Halts are common all over Biharonce in late 97, to my delight, I saw
a Rabri Devi Halt near the UP border.
The Halts are another sign of rural empowerment during Laloos Raj. Theres nothing official
about it, of course; but any passenger train driver who doesnt stop at one of them is risking a stoning.
And chain-pulling is also routine, even on the expresses; its so common and unremarked upon that a
couple of times I was tempted to have a go myself. One day Ill do it when Ive nothing to lose; I think
the thrill is cheap at a thousand bucks. Its only the or one years imprisonment which deters me.
Bihar is the place to do it in if youre similarly tempted.
The passenger train had also been thoroughly and completely vandalized. Not a single light fixture
or fan remained, and Im not too sure there actually were any alarm chains. The electrical and
hydraulic lines (am I getting it wrong?) between bogies are also often stolen. (Once there was a
general hold-up at the railway station at M____ because the Deputy General Manager, Railways, was
due on a visit and the cables of his train had been severed somewhere down the line.) Many times
Ive returned from Patna, late in the evening, in the kind of darkness which should be accompanied by
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Carriage after carriage was darkeven on expresses. Nobody gnashed
his teeth, and theres wailing only when a dacoit gang seizes the moment.
Youre lucky if you get a seat on one of these trains. If youre travelling unreservedand most are,
even on the expressesyouve to get to Patna Junction early and hope for the best. Some of the
expresses are intra-Bihar and less crowded; the thing to do is get to the station early, buy a ticket and
wait. (I did most of my waiting at the Embassy hotelor is it the Ambassadornext to the station,
where theres quite a decent bar with a lot of fish floating around in a tank.) Theres never much of a
queue in the current booking office, as most people travel not only unreserved but ticketless. I never
saw a ticket inspector on the Patna-M____ route but once, and that was when my sorry passenger
reached Patna.
Patna Junction is not a great place to wait. When we went to M____ in May 96 we had return
tickets from Patna, not M____, and they were only on the waiting list. Id got a senior journalist in
Patna to confirm them, and he told me hed spoken to the Deputy General Manager. Of course they
werent confirmed; our fellow-passengers laughed at me and said you needed at least a minister to get
it done. The Sisters had offered to get the tickets confirmed (or should it be consecrated?) by the
Bishop of Patna, but in those days I had far too much faith in the power of the press . . . Anyway,
waiting at Patna Junction I thought Id never seen such a foul railway station in my life. There was no
order, no cleanliness, no fresh air, no reservation charts, and I had to keep my hand on my wallet all
the time we were there. But they had done up the station next time I visited it. Platform 1 is all tiles
and marble and litter bins now, and the red splotches are cleaned up almost as soon as they appear.
You wont find litter bins anywhere in the city, so dont look. Dak Bungalow Road and Bailey
Road and Rajendra Prasad Nagar and Anne Marg, the road leading to the airport past all the big
shots houses, are clean enough (though there arent any bins there either) but the rest of Patna is
steeped in squalor. Gandhi Maidan, about which Id heard so much, is a vast dust bowl, but I never
had the luck to see it during a rally.
Patna was once a lovely cityfor the British. An English correspondent of Kaverys, on learning
we were in Bihar, wrote her a nostalgic letter: It was such a beautiful city [in the 30s], so well-
maintained . . . Some of the British flavour, but very little, lingers near the junction where the old-
time supermarkets are, with old-timers in colonial moustaches and their wives in print dresses
occasionally sighted in the shops. Perhaps its to be found in the clubs as well.
Once when I was travelling back to M____ an elderly gentleman in coat and dhoti, followed by his
wife and a porter carrying their cases, got on at a mofussil town. Apparently there was some back-
chat from the porter about his fee, for suddenly the old chaps voice rang out: Hum Angrezi zamaane
ke hain (we belong to the days of the British). His rates of pay must also have belonged to those
times; the porter looked at him contemptuously and said the obvious: Woh zamaana guzar gaya
(those days are gone). You do see these old fossils about, though I never got to meet any. Those who
really rule Bihar belong to a much more ancient era than the British, but theyre not fossils.
Traffic in Patna is not too badwell it is actually, but otherwise its not too bad. The roads are
lousy; but the way to travel is by cycle-rickshaw. (Autos are usually on a shared basisyou say you
want one all to yourself and the driver rapidly revises his charges upwards, and even then will ask if
its okay to pick up a passenger on the way providing he sits in front.) Swaying along the road from
the junction, wheel to wheeloften actually scraping wheelswith another rickshaw pedalled by
another scrawny citizen suffering from not enough nutrition and more than enough brown sugar,
scooters weaving in and out of the mayhem, and lungs full of Patnas dust: Its really not such an
unfamiliar experience in India, but it sums up Patna.
*
As the suburban trains are Bombays most significant expression of its psyche, so are the express and
passenger trains Bihars fundamental expression; by which I mean to say that the quickest way to
understand and appreciate the complexities (and simplicities) of Life in Bihar is to do a course of rail
travel. Its no more dangerous than Bombay; and far cheaper, since you dont have to buy a ticket
unless you want to.
The Biscuit Bandits who figured in southern dailies and magazines in the latter half of 1999 made
their first appearance two years earlier in Bihar. Their technique is simple. Gang members fall into
conversation with fellow-passengers and since, on express trains in India, second-class travellers
soon become more intimate than friends, it is natural to buy each other tea and share each others
food. A packet of biscuits is broached, the Bandits take a couple and proffer the packet to the mark,
who takes one and wakes up in the Railway Hospital in Patna, or Khagaria, or wherever, despoiled
of all his wealth.
As this modus operandi became known and biscuit-offerings began to be refused, the gangsters
became Banana Bandits. Theyd inject whatever tranquilizer they were using (Lorazepam is the drug
of choice) into some of a bunch of bananas, eat the safe ones, and . . . Soft drinks were also thus
treated, especially those that come in tetrapacks.
There are more directly physical ways of coming to grief on Bihar trains. The first flashpoint
comes at daybreak, when short-distance commuters whove just got on to a sleeper car in an express
rouse those whove reserved their berths and are enjoying the last, blissful half-sleep of dawn before
they have to get up and brush their teeth: Uthiye, uthiye, chheh baj gaya! (Get up, get up, its gone
six oclock!) Peaceable Bengalis whod got on at Howrah, Dilliwalas and southerners traversing
Bihar for the first time, may object; after all, theyve paid for the use of the whole berth all through
the journey. Their resistance is met with a genuinely baffled Yeh kya paagalpan hai? (What madness
is this?) The Bihari simply cannot fathom the attitude of a man who is taking up five feet of sitting
room when two dozen commuters are crowded between the toilet and the sleeper-car partition.
This kind of adjustment is intensely irritating to someone from the south or a city-dweller, but it is
an endearing Bihari trait when you become familiar with it.
Sure, the Bihari will insistto the point of using physical forcethat you share your seat with
him, but he does not bear a grudge; and two hours later when he fishes out his parathas and achar he
will hand you a share with a twinkle in his eye. He is very like the rural Jat in these matters. The
difference is that in most of India you will only meet with this kind of adjustment on the slow,
mofussil trains; the expresses speed between Bangalore and Madras without a thought to the other
India. Bihars geographical position, and the compulsions of the Railways, bring the two Indias into
collision.
The hell with it. Im sounding like William Dalrymple or some other jumped-up Fleet Street hack
sent on a two-month mission, all expenses paid, to bring back the message of India. No two Indias
for me. I dont believe in retailing wisdom like Our India is not as real as Their India or echoing
Gandhis wistful The Real India is in the villages or resuscitating that amber-preserved timeless
India which Nirad Chaudhuri kept as a pet until it died of nostalgia in Oxford.
Where I am, where I have been, what I have seen and heard, there is my India.
To come back to adjustment: Its a very popular Indian word, and it has taken on shades of
meaning which range far beyond the dictionary definition. In Karnataka you can hear Svalpa adjust
maadi, in Delhi Thhoda adjust karo na. I heard, at the Hospital in M____, the community health
worker Akhilesh and our neighbour Dr Kishore discussing the South, to which they had each been on
a month-long trip. One of their grouses was No one will adjust on the train. Indeed, I thought,
imagine asking anyone on the Brindavan to move over a bit, unless youre pregnant or have a limb
missing and medals on your chest.
We travelled long-distance on second class only once in Bihar (apart from two overnight trips to
Calcutta, which dont count) and that was when Kavery by some oversight or overconfidence booked
us second class returns to Delhi. The train was bulging at the seams and only Kishans aggression got
us through the clutching, grasping, elbowing, screaming ten-foot deep flesh at the door and into our
compartment. Once there he cleared enough space for us to sit, with a little extra for Kavery; not even
he could clear two berths, and given his Bihari upbringing it would have gone against the grain to
attempt it.
There were about twenty people sittingfive or six of them on the upper berthsand maybe ten
standing in that compartment, and we soon got to know the principal personalities. Sitting opposite us
was a smiling, dark-eyed Marwari matron with whom we soon became friendly. Standing in the aisle
was an elderly gent in white dhoti-kurta who, soon after the train started moving again, began to
expatiate upon the evils of not adjusting. Ive travelled all over India, he said with baleful glances
in our direction but apparently speaking to the air, and Bihar is the best state for railway travel. I
was stunned, but soon got his drift. Only in Bihar are there sajjan who adjust, he continued.
Nowhere else. In the South, theyre very bad. I gathered that he wanted Kavery to uncross her legs
and shift nearer the window so he could sit down. Attack is the best form of defence, so I began a
soliloquy of my own. Yes, I said, in the South we believe in buying tickets and confirming our
reservations in advance. Thats the problem with Bihar. Nobody buys tickets. The young man next to
me started laughing, and the old chap soon faded away. He probably hadnt bought a ticket.
Much later, in eastern UP, two maharajs in holy ash and saffron, complete with trident, entered the
compartment, andIndia hasnt changed much from the days of Kimeveryone moved over to give
them room. The Marwari matron opposite, with whom wed been having a diverting conversation
(her ancestors had gone to Delhi from M____ and she might even have been a distant cousin of
Kishans) at once switched her attention to the swamis.
They said they were going to Ayodhya, which immediately increased their unholiness in my eyes.
Recent reports have shown that a lot of bogus characters have gathered there since 92. The Week has
even carried pictures of supposed sants gathered around a bottle of rum; and while Im certainly not
against drinking, there is a touch of puritanism in me which tends to Dr Sukumaran Azheekodes
views on holy men doing it.
But the Marwari matron, a devout woman, had no doubts. The garb, for her, sanctified the wearer. I
remembered Totakas verse in Bhaja-Govindam:
The ascetic with matted hair; the shaven one; the depilated one; the one who assumes various robes of saffronthe fool sees and
sees not that these disguises are only for the bellys sake.
In fifteen minutes she was prattling on about the spiritual discourses she helped organize in her
colony in north-west Delhi and the various maharajs who had blessed the congregation there. The
holy men nodded sagely and partook of her parathas. And then, to our horror, she was giving them her
Delhi address and inviting them to stay and sanctify the colony.
I hope shes still alive.
*
Returning from our touch of culture in Delhi the train wasnt crowded until we reached Bihar. There
was a group of young men in the compartment, in jeans and sneakers, and a middle-aged man opposite
me in the window seat. The young men were friendly and polite. They had a curious but enterprising
line of work. They would scour the bazaars of Delhi for novelties of any kind, get a good lot of them
at a discount, and flog them in Bihar at 200-300 per cent profit. This timeit was getting close to
Divalithey had acquired some wonderful firecrackers, with attributes it needs a Hans Christian
Andersen to describe: fireworks, they solemnly assured Kavery, which would perform in the sky like
a Brahmastra and settle in your hand like a dove. They would make a killing from Bihari
businessmen eager to please their children, and were in good spirits.
The gentleman opposite was going to Monghyr, further down the Ganga, where he had a small
business. He soon began to exhibit an embarrassing interest in us. Where was I from? Where was she
from? What did I do? What did she do? Its only polite to display interest, and I tried to reciprocate.
Finally he asked, Was it a love marriage or an arranged marriage? at which I snarled Ki farak
painda! and returned to my book.
This inquisitive gentleman was responsible for a near-fracas after Patna. One of the young men had
got out there to get a snack, and the train started without him. Patna onwards, of course, it was treated
as a local, and the compartment filled up. One of the standees, a young tough with a denim cap and
hanging from it a face I disliked on sight, claimed the vacant seat. The middle-aged gent objected, and
soon there was a face-off, both standing with clenched fists and noses touching. The sensible thing, I
now realize, would have been to let him have the seat until and unless its possessor returned. But the
heat and the long journey had got on everyones nerves.
At this point Kavery, who should have kept her mouth shut, was unwise enough to intervene on our
fellow-passengers side just as the young tough was telling him, Jaa, jaa, tu budda ho gaya (Go
along, youre an old man) and he turned on her and said Chup!
Now honour called on me to stand up for my wife when she really should have been spanked. A
woman simply does not thrust herself into an affair between menthats one of the ground realities in
Indiaat least not in Bihar, and not when shes dressed in T-shirt and jeans. But what could I do?
Mardangi had to be fulfilled. So now I sprang up with my blood hot and it was an embarrassing
couple of minutes before we all took our seats, the young tough as well, which we could have done
long ago.
This matter of fights precipitated by wounded honour is a fascinating subject for study. Some
sociologist should go into it. In my first year at college a street-smart Malayali classmate from Delhi
told us Southies how such fights were conducted in his part of the world.
First the exchange of insults, which may peter out with no harm done. But when one of the parties
decides that things have gone too far for his honour to be placated without blows, he flings his head
up and sticks out his chest and curls his lip and yells, Chhodo mujhe! Chhodo! (Leave me! Let me
go!) At this his comrades seize his arms and hold him back while he makes ineffectual lurches
towards his opponent, whose comrades are doing the same comradely thing by him.
This is how most street fights end in the light of day. But if the affair really is seriousor more to
the point, if one of the parties decides that it ishe gets his gang and goes round to the offenders
house after dark and hacks him to bits. In Bihar or anywhere else. Queensberry Rules? But honour
comes before pride in conduct. Or rather, honour is pride in conduct.
This is something to remember very, very carefully in Bihar. And it applies in politics as well, as I
said in the first chapter.
*
Bus journeys are very different. I only made two in Bihar that could be called long-distance, when I
went from Patna to Muzaffarpur to do a report on the Bihar Education Programme and when I
returned: Those were made in the lap of luxury (relatively speaking) except that every few minutes
Id be precipitated vertically out of my seat and come down with a bump. Occasionally the ruts were
so close togetherthis was on a national highwaythat, coming down into the lap of luxury, Id meet
myself going up again. But I made several trips to Begusarai by local minibuses, to buy provisions
unavailable in M____ yet not worth going to Patna for.
They were short trips, made at top speed, of forty-five minutes to an hour and a half for some
twenty-five kilometres. Pleasant trips too when I got a seat, for the road crossed the Ganga on a
bridge almost two kilometres long; and the industrial township of Barauni, comparatively well-
planned, lay en route. Standing, naturally, was no fun.
The ticket those days cost nine rupees; it must have gone up by now. The interesting point was that
you could travel atop the bus for half-price. I never did, I was too scared; but a saving of Rs 4.50 is
still a great deal for many people in our wonderful era of liberalization.
Passengers were not supposed to be carried on the roof, of course; and there was always a five-
minute interlude at a police post near Barauni when the man with the tickets went in to pay his dues.
*
Six days after Divali comes Chhatth, the peculiarly Bihari festival. A puja to the sun, by a river, is
especially auspicious; and those living by the Ganga, as all inhabitants of M____ do, are triply
favoured. Every family, and each member of the family, may make offerings to Suryabut while the
men dont really have to, every woman, maiden or matron, absolutely must. Kishan had invited me to
accompany his family in 97, and I was very glad, because it was a rather special gesture of more
than friendship.
Chhatth is a very big deal in Bihar. Even Laloo Prasad was let out of jail (such as it was) to offer
aarghya to Surya along with his wife, as a photograph on the front page of The Times of India, Patna
(8 November 1997) attests. I reproduce the caption, word for word:
It was happy but temporary reunion for the fodder scam accused and national president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Mr
Laloo Prasad Yadav, with his chiefminister-wife, Rabri Devi, and children at Pahalwanghat on the banks of the Ganga on
Thursday. The occasion was the annual offering of aarghya (milk to the Sun God) on the occasion of the two-day Chhatth
celebrations which ended on Friday morning. Laloo had been granted special permission by the Patna High Court to participate in
the festival.
Rabri Devi is the first chief minister to offer aarghya in the Ganga. She came barefoot to the Ganga in a bullet-proof car with her
children and a large number of relatives on both days. Security was tight. Laloo arrived 15 minutes later to a warm welcome. The
CMs family watched the proceedings from a specially erected red cloth enclosure.
The photograph had a headline above it: Laloos day out. It was my day out too. I walked the long
road to Kishans place, setting out at five in the morning. The road was unusually clean: I heard later
that the local gangsters ensure it is so, and indeed do the work themselves, abandoning their
Kalashnikovs and picking up brooms. But there are always a couple of them on guard; what better
time to wipe out a rival gang than when they are engaged in cleaning the gutters? The road was
brightly lit, tubelights strung on wires along its entire length. I reached the Marwari mohalla and
Kishans house by six, and changed from jeans into dhoti, worn Kerala style, not as they wear it in the
north. After tea and snacksKishans mother subscribed to the view that guests perish without
regular nutrition-supplementswe set out for the Ganga.
On the way Kishan pointed out several buildings; practically everything of a charitable nature had
been built by his grandfather. At the riverbank there was already a goodly crowd; it was just before
sunrise, and families were already wading out into the river. Kishan took a number of photographs,
one of which has been reproduced in The Hindu.
The Ganga was lovely, with the sun just rising to our right (the Ganga made a bend there) and the
denizens of M____ all gathered around to meet it. They were dressed in their best clothes, especially
the marriageable girls, who were all silk and gold, and the young men. Kishan wore jeans. I waded
out into the water with him and his family, my dhoti doubled to my waist. I didnt offer aarghya, but
helped (with my elbow mostly) Kishans mother and sister through the throng. Families didnt try to
outdo each other in the ostentation of their offerings as so often happens in India. We were at the
general ghat; a little upriver was where the Bhumihars did their bit. And some eighty kilometres
further still upriver, Laloo and Rabri were doing theirs.
*
In the last chapter I briefly mentioned Sister Beena, who was in charge of the community health
department at the Hospital. She was to us, when we first met her, an unremarkable woman who wore
thick glasses. She was in charge of the convent (in the post of what used to be called the Superior)
and was therefore a person with some responsibility; the community health department was also in
many ways independent of the Hospital administration. However, we found out all this only much
later, and only after a few months did we begin to appreciate Beenas common sense and fundamental
goodness.
My first outing with a Hospital group was to the mela Ive written about in the first chapter, where
Laloo made an appearance. My next was when I volunteered for the Pulse Polio programme; I was
bored of sitting at home and wanted to see the world. It was an excellent idea. All the nurses and
students volunteered, of course, and most of the twenty or so Sisters who worked in the Hospital.
They were divided into some thirty-odd teams, to be distributed among the surrounding villages.
Akhilesh, Sister Beena, Supriyathe administratorand others who could organize toured the area
through the day, tallying statistics and doling out more vials of vaccine as the need arose.
I went on three Pulse Polio campaigns, each time to a different village with a different team, and
remember each time fondly. First the gathering early in the morning (7 a.m. in December is just about
sunrise, and quite chill) when names were read out and people assigned to various teams; then the
getting-to-know-each-other: I knew most of the Sisters, of course, but the girls were always shy to
begin with; then the distribution of drugs and packed lunches.
And then the jolting journey in the Tatamobile or a hired minivan, over fairly good roads at first but
then village roads and finally cart-tracks, as one team after another got out at its point. Wed find
our post, usually at the village school or some panchayat building, commandeer a room and spread
out our trinkets as we waited for the natives to arrive.
And arrive they did. The villagers in the Ganga plain may be illiterate, but theres a great deal of
social awareness among them; which is also traceable to Laloos Raj. Laloo took a personal interest
in the Pulse Polio programme, and though there are the usual allegations of racketeeringin 1997-98
it was variously reported that several thousand vials of the precious vaccine were broken or out of
date or spurious, and deaths due to polio drops set off an alarm in Bhagalpur Divisionthe
campaign has attracted tremendous response in Bihar in the last few years. (I was surprised when we
got to Kerala to find that its no big deal there; anyone who wants a child immunized has to bring it to
a government hospital. No wonder Kerala is touted as such a model in Bihar.)
The immunization itself was not a very exacting business.
The girls took care of the actual administration of the vaccine; once or twice I took a hand. One
important job was the collection and tabulation of data: Name of child, age, fathers name. This was
necessary because the vaccine has to be given twice, about six weeks apart; so if those who came on
December 6 did not come again on January 17, they might as well not have come the first time.
It was the backward villages we covered, mostly, and mother after ill-nourished mother would
come, baby in arms, often with one or two scrawny (but bright-eyed) children hanging on to her sari.
It was tough getting facts out of them:
Bachche ka naam?
Tuntu.
Pitaji ka naam?
Here the woman, sari pallu already half covering her face, would draw it completely across, turn
coyly away, titter and tell her neighbour, Tu batao.
Sometimes the neighbour would be just as reluctant, and some male hanger-onthere were always
two or three of thosewould either give the information or, if he didnt know the family, bully it out
of the woman.
The customers came in waves, and at times we were hard put to it to keep up with the flow. At
other times the bright rectangle of the door would be empty of silhouettesthere was never any
artificial lighting in the rooms we occupiedand the hangers-on would be sent to drum up business.
Then I would wander over to the edge of the village, never very far away, and smoke a meditative
cigarette as I studied the brilliant gold of the mustard fields and the long, soothing miles of green,
broken only by a silver cascade from a pump or the deceptive shimmer of the videotape which
ingenious farmers string around their plots to scare away the birds.
The villagers were always hospitable. It was necessary to their honour to feed and water and tea
us; and although we would have brought along our lunchsamosas and mixture, maybe sandwiches
and a slice of cake (either pre- or post-Christmas) we would have ample contributions of litti or
tekwa as well.
These delicacies are pretty much indigestible to a non-Bihari stomach, and it took me some months
in Bihar to get used to them. Kavery, though, loved them at first taste, and she was especially fond of
the Bihari staple, sattu, which is just ground roasted dal and gram. The poorest simply mix it with
water, as the Highland Scots used meal; but even the richest use sattu as a stuffing for their rotis. Both
of us missed it in our chappatis when we came south.
On, I think, my second Pulse Polio expedition, there was a novice (Sister) from Tamil Nadu with us
as one of the volunteers. She was terrified of anything Bihari, and though I talked to her in Tamil, she
was just as terrified of me. One of the better-off families in the village where we were posted called
the team home for tea, and we sat on rickety chairs in a walled-off courtyard maybe ten feet square
and talked about this and that. When the tekwa came, it was due to our honour and our hosts to eat it
all, but the Tamil girl just could not. She gagged and ran out, and we all felt ashamed.
But the Malayali nurses had no such problems. (Litti and tekwa were probably ambrosia after the
mess grub anyway.) Some were shy, of course, but not maladjusted; and some joked and laughed with
the villagers as if they were boon companions. They were a wonderful advertisement for the
Hospital.
So was Sister Beena. On that memorable boat ride I have described in an earlier chapter, to
conduct a free clinic at a backward village named Mailpur, we saw a couple of snakes coiled in a
thorn tree to get out of the flood. Have you eaten snake? she asked. None of us had. She had eaten
snake, however; she had also tried frogs, termites and grasshoppers. Most of these dishes had been
sampled in the North-East. I forget now whether she had tried the local delicacy which the Musahars
live by. but it wouldnt surprise me at all if she had. Not that any of these would make my stomach
heave; I just havent been lucky enough. I wouldnt go after fried field-rats, but if a Musahar invited
me to lunch Id go along happily and take pot-luck.
The Mailpur trip was noteworthy to me for the boat-ride. The clinics were held twice a month and
it was old stuff to the community health boys and the Sisters, but they would take along different
nurses each time to let them have a feel of real rural work. When wed got to Mailpur the boat was
moored at a crumbling bank and we disembarked and clambered up some steps on to firm ground. We
went through the village, filthy like all the Bihar villages Ive seen where backwards live, with the
waterpump surrounded by garbage and pigs rooting in it.
We were taken to the mukhiyas house; I never made out who he was but perhaps he was away. In
floodtime the practice of agriculture has to cease, and its a good opportunity for the men to earn
something in the city. It was a two-storeyed pukka house; a couple of cows and a frisky bull-calf were
tethered on the ground floor, just inside the door, and we had to step carefully.
The clinic was conducted upstairs on a terracereally of course a room which had not been
completely walled or roofed over but would be when funds sufficed. The patients trooped up, most of
the village population it appeared, all with minor complaints like sores and itches and eye infections.
There were lots of flies. We had no doctor with us, so anyone suffering from something serious was
asked to come to the Hospital. Sisters Beena and Rose (who ran physiotherapy) were both
experienced diagnosticians, however, and doled out judicious quantities of the less expensive
medicines. Akhilesh and I had nothing much to do but take down names and walk around the village.
I know very well I would not like to live in a village in Bihar. Could I do the work the community
health department was engaged in doing? No; it was all very well as a days outing and as a
journalistic experience. As I wrote earlier, you need the right mix of pragmatism and idealism to do
such work without thinking of profitsas I had discovered several of those who run NGOs do.
*
We left M____ for good in the first week of January 98, so I could only go along for the first phase of
that winters immunization. Our team got a village on the Patna highway for a change, and we were
assigned to a large school building right on the road. When, in mid-morning, our second batch of vials
was being unloaded from the Tatamobile, two young men from the village came over and accosted
me. Was the campaign, they asked, being funded by any foreign country?
I dissembled. Yeh sirf Bharat sarkar ki yojana hai, bhai saab, I said, though I knew the funds
came from the World Bank and UNICEF and Japan and I dont know who else.
They were satisfied. If there had been any foreigners involved we would not support it, they said.
They seemed to be hard-core swaraj types, typical of this paranoid era, who wont do anything about
the ills of their society but wont let anyone else do anything either.
Later, when business was slack, a robust muscular chap in his forties ambled over and asked if I
was from Kerala. He was a merchant sailor on leave, and many of his mates were from Kerala and
Tamil Nadu. Hed often been to their housesin Kochi, Alleppey, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin. The
Malayalis and Tamils, he said, were both great drinkers, but the Malayalis knew how to hold their
liquor while the Tamils did not . . . I had, regretfully, to cut short this promising conversation and
attend to customers.
The Pulse Polio programme is an excellent introduction to our villages. If I had my way the
government would put in a little money of its own and ferry teams of college students across India to
volunteer in some state whose culture is as far removed as possible from their own. You could even
get corporate sponsors; after all, they fund those inter-college Festivals which are increasingly
beginning to look and sound like the same synthetic cyber-kitsch whether in Lucknow or Bombay or
Gummidipundi.
*
The last few months of our stay in M____ were marked by several high points. There was the Jubilee
of the Sisters Order in India, two days of festivity; there was the Christmas Mass I attended, and the
old-fashioned procession of carol-singing nurses with the tableau of the Holy Family; and there was
the brief revolution against the Sisters which the medical representative Bipan (see I was kicking
someone) attempted to spark, for which he tried to enlist our support. I still have the pamphlet Bipan
had printed:
Honble Administrator of Hospital
Sir,
With all respect we the people of M____, draw your kind attention on the declining services of Hospital. This Samavitan Qutfit is
playing with the health of suffering masses as one cuts Vegetables The shortcomings of the ____Hospital are as follows:
Mount of defects in Hospital Administration.

Misconduct with patients and cases of slappings with the attendants.
There is installation of Ultra Sound but all without a Radiologist.
Operation theatre but all without an Anaesthetist.
The hospital but all without a Surgeon.
The hospital without Blood Bank.
No ambulance facility for the patients to be carried in emergency cases.
Exodus of good doctors from the hospital is frequent.
Bungling of medicines in the pharmacy Department is at the zenith of malpractice, i.e
supply of medicines manufactured by fake companies.
11% tax charged on the medicines supplied by the Hospital Pharmacy. However, 7% tax is
applicable in Bihar.
No electric (power) facility after 10 p.m.
We the people of M____, kindly request you to make a kind perusal of the problems aforesaid and help the suffering masses
recover their health instead of going to the grave all due to medical neglect.
With regards
Yours faithful prayees
Bharat Press.
I was impressed by the diction. Points 3, 4 and 5, for instance, could easily be a paraphrase of
Ecclesiastes. Some of this stuff was true, but Bipan with his political ambitions and unstable
temperament was not very reliable, and I suppose Bhim Singh and the other Bhumihars who
controlled the area must have shut up their clansman.
This was Bipans first foray into politics. His elder brother, if I remember right, was with the
Samata Party (Nitish Kumars local number one he said, but that might have been exaggeration) and
Bipan was throwing his lot in with someone else because (he said) hed wanted to meet Nitish Kumar
once and hadnt been granted an audience. But there was probably more to it than that. Powerful
families prefer to have alternatives, and Bipan and his brother joining rival parties is analogous to the
custom among the nineteenth-century English gentry and nobility to send the eldest son to Parliament,
the second into the army and the third into the Church.
But I divagate . . . Ive been waiting two years to describe in print the wedding of Kishans brother
Gopal, and am not going to deny myself. I have mentioned it a couple of times earlier, just to tantalize
you. But heres the full story.
Gopal, as Ive said, was very unlike Kishan. Kishan was mercurial and energetic; Gopal was
merely stolid. But he was the Elder Brother, and deferred to in everything. His marriage was arranged
with the daughter of a Marwari family in Patna, a graduate (he was not)and everyone on the campus
and indeed M____ was invited. Finally only three of us could make it: our neighbour Dr Kishore, the
serious and soft-spoken Ranjit from accounts, and I, who of course had no work to do and could
always saunter off anywhere at any time.
The three of us got to the Marwari mohalla pretty early in the morningby six I should think.
Kishans house was abuzz with activity: Assorted relatives were brushing their teeth, washing,
dressing up; inside, the ladies were adorning themselves and through the curtains we caught stray
glimpses of splendour. Of course we had to have tea; our overnight bags were labelled to be put on
the bus (I still have the label attached to my bag, which I discovered that night had DUMBISAN
carefully and painstakingly inscribed on it by one of Kishans more literate henchmen).
The three of us travelled in state, with the bridegroom, his suit on a hanger and the obligatory little
boy (Kishans sisters son) who figures in the baraat, in a white Maruti van. We left before the bus
didthe indefatigable Kishan was organizing as we drove offand stopped at a small Bajrangbali
temple on the outskirts of M____ for good luck. As we were coming out to get into the van I was
stung on the ear by one of a small, angry swarm of bees. Dr Kishore promptly pulled out the sting, and
procured Cetzin at the next chemists; but my ear swelled up all the same. Later, in Patna, the small
boy with uslets call him Rakeshpointed out to everyone how funny Uncles ear looked, which I
thought very mean of a brat whod spent practically the whole journey in my lap so as not to rumple
Gopals white churidar-kurta.
We stopped at some kind of motel on the way, naturally, for refreshments, the bus catching up with
us. Then on to Patna, the sun fiercer (though it was November) and my ear itchier. Before the Punpun
bridge there is the dargah of a Muslim saint, and here Gopal deftly flung some coins into the space
enclosed by the railings. Not for the first time I wondered at how impartially ordinary people in the
North use both Hindu and Muslim shrines.
We reached Patna well before eleven, and drove to a dharamshala somewhere in the City (the City
is old, squalid and commercial Patna). It was a newish building, with a lot of fake marble tiles, and
very light and airy; the men went to their floor and the ladies to theirs. Tea of course; after a while an
enormous and excellent Marwari lunch with six varieties of everything, and we all staggered to our
rooms and crashed.
The baraat was to set out shortly after dark, so by four in the afternoon things were beginning to
hum. I wanted a bath, and got my things together. First I went to the toilet and it was filthy; so I filled a
bucket with water and sluiced it down, up and all around. Some of my fellow baraatis watched with
amusement. Arre, why do you do that? asked one, a tough dark guy who was obviously the dada
among Kishans mates and regarded me as an effete outsider. The others called him Guru. The
sweeper will do it, he said. Yes, day after tomorrow, I answered. Having a shower was also
fraught with difficulties: First, there was no shower and second, there was nowhere to hang my
clothes. But as an old campaigner I managed all right.
When I got back to the room I found Gopal looking rather heavy-eyed after his sleep (and also no
doubt due to the thought of the coming night). I advised him to have a bath, and he almost acceded, but
the others were set against it: You have to sit on the horse for three hours, youll catch cold, and he
agreed to just wash his face and behind the ears. I was a bit shocked. Imagine getting married without
being bathed.
The room was full of men stripped down to vest and underpants, displaying various degrees of
hirsuteness. No one else, I think, except Ranjit, bothered to bathe. A shout now went up for maxim.
Maxim kiske paas hai bhai? Arre maxim mere ko do. Tere baad mujhko dena. I was wondering
what this maxim was, was it a private word for a whisky bottle? Yeh kaunsa maxim hai? I asked
Ranjit, but he was clueless as myself. Kishan sidled in in his usual secret service manner, bearing, he
said, two more bottles of maxim. I got closer to the action and discovered what all the fuss was
about. It was Lakm Maximum Moisturiser, pale pink goo in plastic bottles, which everyone liberally
smeared on face, neck and hands. It took the place of bath, talc and after-shave. Some even put it in
their hair. Two or three were painting Gopal with it. What an ad, I thought, why are those fools at
Lever spending lakhs shooting Lisa Ray in soft focus through rose-coloured filters when their biggest
markets here, in rooms in Bihar dharamshalas full of hairy half-naked baraatis whore afraid of cold
water? Hum Maximum mangta hai!what a line. Its copyright: If anyone at Levers wants it, they
can get to me c/o Penguin Books.
A little while (and more tea) later we found ourselves in another room with a full-length mirror,
where the leading baraatis were struggling with their collars and ties. Guru was apparently the only
chap there who could get the knot right, and he was knotting the ties one by one around his neck,
loosening them and passing them back to the tie-ee. I was in a kurta and waistcoat; after so many
years in the north I still dont see any point in dressing in suit and shoes to sit cross-legged before a
sacred fire.
Kishan, again with the Mata Hari air, came in carrying a crate of beer and whisky, upon which
inroads were rapidly made. Guru, seeing the way I tossed off my drink, revised his estimation of me
upwards (or at least sideways), and we had a couple more but secretivelyKishans father was
against drinking. But that is a standard baraat story, its only in slurpy family films like Hum Aapke
Hain Kaun that the baraatis dont get shown pushing their glasses under the sofa.
We trooped out and assembled outside the dharamshala finally, the white mare was brought and
Gopal mounted it with Rakesh (cutely dressedugh!) before him; the band began to whoop and the
baraat set out. I was walking by Gopal, doing the duties of a responsible baraatiadjusting his
stirrup, smoothing out his trousers, and so on. It was worth it to observe the regal air with which the
groom is supposed to receive such attentions (as his due) faithfully maintained by Gopal. After a
while it began to pall, and under the influence of my potations no doubt I went to the head of the
baraat and fulfilled my responsibilities there too, with a particularly suggestive twisty kind of step Id
perfected in Bombay but hadnt needed to use in seven or eight years. When I was through Guru came
up to me, also flushed and sweating, and shook hands. Thanks, yaar, that was a boss dance. After
that I was one of the guys.
The baraat took two full hours to reach the girls house, a distance I afterwards discovered could
be covered in fifteen minutes; the band took advantage of every crossroads, and there were a couple
of roads we must have gone up and later gone down again. It was on this journey that I witnessed the
memorable spectacle of a patrician lashing a plebeian with a horsewhip (see I was kicking
someone).
We got there at lastI was really pooped, for apart from the walk and the constant attentions to
Gopals trousers Id danced a couple more times, and I was out of practice. The house was an old
two-storeyed building, with a short drive, and absolutely packed with people. We made our way
upstairs, beheld Gopal and his bride-to-be seated in state (see I will be dead by forty), ate a little
and then Ranjit and I looked at each other and agreed to head back to the dharamshala.
We found a game of jua in progress, Guru and his cronies intent on the cards. Ive never been a
betting man but joined in and was soon cleaned out. I went at it like poker, bluffing even when I had
nothing, but was soon disabused of my notion that Flash is anything like. The other players were a
littlenot muchdistressed at my recklessness, and even let me win a hand, at which I protested. I
lost what was in my walletonly 300 bucks or soand, refusing a loan, watched for a while. Ranjit
played safely but cannily and won something. Then I went back to our room, where Dr Kishore was
already asleep along with the sober members of the party, and crashed. It was 3 a.m. but I was up at
5; we had to get back to M____ as early as we could, and I woke Dr Kishore and Ranjit.
Gopal and his bride came by before we left to touch our feet and ask our blessings. Kishan said the
marriage party would be returning later in the day but we made our way to the station, bought tickets
on an express (the doctor and Ranjit paying; I had only a few ones and twos on me) and were in the
Hospital campus by early afternoon.
*
It is unfortunate that to have a good opinion of Bihar you have to have lived there.
Laloo puts it to the touch
He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all.
James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
For the first time I was travelling to Patna by air. The Bangalore flight had landed late at PalamI
had literally run from Arrivals to Departures, for the final call had already soundedand if a buxom
booking supervisor behind the Indian Airlines counter had not assured me that she would switch my
suitcase on to the Patna flight, I would have missed it. Not only did she give me a confident promise,
she kept it; ten days later, on my return, I was glad to find her on duty and to be able to thank her.
On board, the attitude of the airhostesses to the passengers was enlightening. Like waiters and
shopkeepers, airline stewardesses have an uncanny eye for a customers status. On blue-ribbon flights
like Bombay-Delhi and Bangalore-Bombay the stewardesses are (mostly) sweetness and light; on the
Patna flight they are brusque and schoolmistressish. More than one passenger had his feet up on the
seat, and more than one, without the stewardesss eye on him, would have lighted a bidi.
To the left for a large part of the flight stretched the Himalayas, glorious in the afternoon sun. I had
been away from Bihar less than six weeks and already I missed it, especially the honesty, the often
brutal frankness. The district of Kerala we had landed in, wed already found, is the kind of place
where the natives wear ingratiating smiles on their faces and speak honeyed words while lifting your
wallet.
Patna airport is a small shed-like structure, and I was soon out of there and on my way to the
government-run hotel for tourists, where Id been booked in by the veteran journalist whod agreed to
take me under his wing. My room was large but bare and with the general appearance of some
fulminating dry-rot behind the plaster and the woodwork. As it turned out, I didnt spend much time
there.
*
Patna in February 1998 was steeped in apathy. The hirelings of the various political bosses did their
part, and there were the formulaic rallies and tamasha, but there wasnt much enthusiasm. Usually the
mood in any city before election time can be gauged from the auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers: They
form a powerful guild and have something at stake, like revising fares upward. In Patna the rickshaw
pullers didnt give a damn. Some told me, Who wants to vote? Why should we take the trouble?
Nobody wanted an election again so soon after the last. Voter turnout was five to ten per cent less
than in 96. And the results in Bihar depended almost entirely on a pro- or anti-Laloo wave.
Patna and the district towns were teeming with spies and agents of misinformation, and Id have
been suffering from a lot of delusions had it not been for the veteran journalist I was accompanying.
Lets call him The Journalist: He was an old-timer with over fifty years experience, mostly in Bihar,
and with all the journalistic virtues and skills we only talk about now. He could smell a story and
write it and back it with evidence if required; and there would be no apologies from the editor the
next day, either.
We drove to Madhepura next morning with another journalist, an agency man we referred to as
Garu. Dressed in dark suit and dark red tie, anxious to file copy every evening, he neither drank nor
smoked and was obviously out of place, or else we were. In the front seat of the hired Ambassador
were a couple of The Journalists Patna sources, one a distinguished elderly Panditji in kurta and
dhoti.
The first part of the journey was familiar territory to me; we bypassed M____ and drove on up the
highway to Begusarai, where we stopped to interview the local Hindi agency stringer whose wife
was principal of the local college. There was no sign of her, but we sat in her office, the stringer in
the principals chair, and flunkeys brought tea and snakes and hung upon his every word. In Bihar a
woman might officially occupy the more powerful position, but her husband will run her officelook
at Rabri Devi.
The Journalist and Garu took notes as the stringer expounded the political realities in the district.
To a features writer, they didnt mean much. The caste break-up was extremely important, I realized;
the stringer could quote off-hand what percentage of Bhumihars, Rajputs, Kurmis and backwards
existed in each of the neighbouring constituencies, and all these statistics were taken down verbatim.
I was more interested in his report on Sonia Gandhis rally in nearby Lakhisarai. More than a lakh
of people, he claimed, attended, and were very enthusiastic in their response. Later, in the car, The
Journalist said caustically, One lakh people can get together in Lakhisarai only if the Ganga dries up.
Where is there such a big maidan? I realized this was true; I should have thought of it myself. Keul
and Lakhisarai are twin towns not far from M____, separated by the Ganga. They are not even towns,
just villages which are self-important because they are on the main railway line. Again my fatal
tendency to take people at their own estimation; which is why I guess Im only a features hack and not
an investigative reporter.
After Begusarai we left the highway and went north-eastward. The roads were reasonable by Bihar
standards, which means pretty damned awful; the countryside was pleasant and green most of the way,
but there were no signs of development anywhere. It was much as it must have been two hundred or
two thousand years ago except for the vehicles and the power lines (serving God knows what use as
almost without exception villages in such far-flung areas are without electricity). As in so much of
Bihareven UP is richer in comparisonyou feel like a foreign tourist, tempted to take pictures of
pretty poverty and fling coins to the village urchins. I had to study an English poem in the tenth
standard, contrasting railway travel in Britain and India; two lines which always made me grind my
teeth were:
. . . And little brown-skinned boys and girls
Who wonder at the moving train.
Travelling by car to Madhepura was the first Indian experience that made me think there could be
any truth in that description even today.
After a while it grew too dark to see the potholes, and our average speed fell drastically. We
juddered and swayed across what were no doubt state highways, took all the right turnings though the
driver was a Patna-dweller named Aziz, and got into Madhepura around eight, after a journey of
eleven hours. Its a small towna very small town, not even a district headquarters, not fifty
kilometres from the Nepal border and only one district removed from West Bengal. Theres one main
street with a couple of hotels, a college or two and a government dak bungalow or guest house (what
used to be called a Circuit House) a little out of town; the usual small shops on the main street, none
of them selling anything which would excite a visitor from Patna.
We found our hotel quite easily, and The Journalist and I shared one room which was quite clean,
even the toilet. After some refreshment we sallied forth to seek what we should find.
As The Journalist and Garu sought more vital facts, I wondered at how the streets of Madhepura
blazed with light. A citizen in a tea-shop grinned and told me, Its never like this. We hardly ever
have power. Lekin Laloo khade rahe hain na? (But Laloos standing, isnt he?) Laloos newly
acquired election symbol was the laltein (kerosene lantern), which was more appropriate to his
constituency. I remembered a play Id seen in Delhi many years ago, called Blindman di Laltein. . .
Madhepura has nothing to recommend it; its a remote and unimportant outpost not only of India but
even in terms of Bihar. Why should Laloo Prasad abandon his political base among the Yadavs of the
heartland and travel here to contest a Lok Sabha seat?
The answer, as it so often is in Bihar, was mardangi. Laloo Prasad had been deposed as president
of the Janata Dal because of the charges of corruption against him, and his place had been taken by
Sharad Yadav; so Laloo felt slighted and was out to avenge the insult.
As Bihar politicians go there is probably not much difference between the two Yadavs. But Sharad
Yadav has a clean image conspicuously lacking in Laloos case; even in late 1999, when he became
Union Minister for Civil Aviation (traditionally a plum post for junkets abroad) he delegated all
foreign trips to his Minister of State so as not to jeopardize his record of not once having travelled
abroad by air in twenty-five years of politics. But he also noticeably lacks Laloo Prasads charisma
and gift for public relations; when, soon after he had become Civil Aviation Minister, an eight-year-
old girl was trapped in an escalator at the New Delhi airport and killed, Sharad Yadav as soon as he
reached the spot offered five lakh rupees as compensation to her family. Laloo would never have
done that (at least not in his palmy days; now he is sore beset)he would have shed tears.
Laloo Prasad was an outsider in Madhepura. The Yadavs of the Ganga plain are poor and
backward, but the Yadavs of Madhepura are another matter altogether; landed and feudal, they often
take the role which the Bhumihars play in central Bihar. But then Sharad Yadav was an outsider too;
his roots are in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, not in Bihar at all.
Bravado has marked many of Laloos actions in his over thirty-year political career, which began
when he was General Secretary of the Patna University Students Union. In the landmark 77 elections,
JP picked him for the Chapra seat in western Bihar, near his origins in Gopalganj. He could easily
have contested again from there. But if the bravado which mardangi compels is his forte, it is also his
foible.
Laloo Prasad has never been afraid to put it to the touch. His career evokes the same sort of uneasy
wonder which is evoked by the chap in the circus who puts his head into the lions mouth. The
difference is that the freak with the lion is only endangering his own prospects, not those of a hundred
million others as well.
*
The morning after our arrival in Madhepura Sharad Yadav was due to address putative constituents in
town and then adjourn to the government guest house to meet more important people, representatives
of the press among them. I gave the rally a miss but went along to the guest house. The lawns were
crowded, there was security everywhere (not all of it official) and Sharadji was late. I left my
fellow tradesmen in there and adjourned for a cigarette. Though only February it was already hot.
A couple of jeans-clad youths sat astride a motorbike nearby, and we fell into conversation. My
ordinary working garb of white kurta and jeans and dark glasses on a chain around my neck (which
Id adopted before Laloo Prasad became a media icon, though it provoked a number of unnecessary
comments on my return South from Bihar) advertised that I was an outsider and probably a presswala.
The youth at the handlebars of the bike approached me as such.
I gathered that he was, in order of importance, son of a local politico, president of the students
union of the local college, and fervently anti-Laloo. This was not surprising; several inhabitants of
Madhepura had conveyed similar sentiments, but less openly. There was something, however,
curiously shifty-eyed about this students boss which I thought The Journalist would be better
equipped to discover the meaning of, and I invited my new friend to our hotel after we had taken
leave of Sharadji.
Sharadji had arrived, and through corridors and even doorways packed with people we were led
into his presence. Several aides sat close by with their eyes and ears open; media can soon become
a dirty word in electoral politics. The Journalist and Garu asked stock questions about prospects and
policies, and Sharadji delivered stock platitudes. I wasnt much interested but very alert. Of course
Id interviewed big shots before, but never a Lok Sabha candidate in a contest which made headlines
every day.
What I wanted to find out was Sharad Yadavs opinion of Laloo Prasad, his former mentor. But he
was evasive and shifty, not answering a direct questionwhy burn bridges you may very well need
again?and I lost any sense of occasion Id had.
On our way back I told The Journalist about the students boss whod no doubt be at the hotel by
now. One of the things I admired about my mentor was his instant interest in a story, in getting to the
bottom of things, after fifty years of the same kind of stuff. The Journalist was attentive and
flatteringly interested. When we got to our room I left him to interview the student and stood myself
against the wall.
It was an object lesson in reportorial or even police interviewing. With a few deft questions The
Journalist discovered the students antecedents, dissected them and asked why he was against Laloo
when he should have been for him. The student was palpably nervous. I offered him a drink to steady
his nerves (it was twelve noon). He declined, but I poured him a drink all the sameknowing how
IMFL is drunk in India, it was a tumblerful of neat whisky. He reached for it and gulped it down. By
now The Journalist was declaring loudly and scornfully, Yeh to spy hai, yeh to informer hai.
Turning to me he said indignantly, Arre, this man is a paid agent for Laloo, he is just creating
misinformation. With another glass of whisky in him the student sat happily nodding his head.
I left Madhepura perplexed by the subtleties of electoral politics in Bihar.
*
The Journalist and I broke our journey back to stop off at his brother-in-laws house north of the
Gangawed not taken the highway past M____ this timewhile Garu hurried back to Patna to file
his interview with Sharad Yadav. Agencies will take any copy they getthe important thing is that the
story should be filed on time, not that it should be newsworthy. And the amount of agency news our
leading newspapers take . . . but well go into all that, or anyway I will, in the next chapter.
The old house was occupied by The Journalists widowed sister and her sons. The sister was the
local MLA, having inherited the Assembly seat from her husband; she was affable but did not talk
much politics. The sons were hospitable as everyone is in Bihar; they left us alone in a room to talk.
Next morning we caught a bus for Patna.
Road traffic to Patna from north of the Ganga has to cross an interminably long bridge. But this was
the day before the elections, and all vehicles were halted at the northern end. There was nothing we
could do about it. There werent even buses waiting at the southern end as would have been the case
in any city with normal entrepreneurial instincts.
As Ive said, it was quite hot; and we had to walk two kilometres across the bridge. I was really
worried for my friend, who was elderly and overweight and distressed by the exercise. And even at
the southern end, we would be twelve kilometres from Patna, with no buses there. There was a police
chowki halfway along the bridge but the cops were uninterested. The disclosure of our journalistic
status did not move them in the least. They were stationed there to keep traffic out, not to help the
public, leave alone presswalas.
Once we were across I went down the embankment into the suburban slums and managed to find a
cycle-rickshaw puller who was willing to drag us to town. His fee was exorbitant by Patna standards
but laughable in any other statefifty bucks. Sweating prodigiously, we settled ourselves in the seat,
which canted to the left at a steep angle, so my friend took the right side. And thus we sat for two
hours while the scrawny bit of humanity before us grunted and pushed and cursed us home. If you
want to be really depressed try a two-hour ride in a Patna cycle-rickshaw. We talked for a while but
the heat and strain were too intense and we just wanted to be inside The Journalists house and
outside a bottle of beer.
In Patna I found out why there had been no buses at the southern end of the Hajipur bridge. They
had been impounded for election duty. Gandhi Maidan on 16
February was half-filled with rows and rows of lorries and buses. There must have been a
thousand of them.
This impounding is of course a means of extortion; but as a lorry owner cannot get a receipt for a
bribe, he may have to pay it several times over in different parts of Bihar, and its cheaper to allow
his vehicle to be seized. Owners of private vehicles are not let off either. Those with influence secure
a permit of exemption. Those who cannot are quite likely to have their cars taken awaysometimes
by the police, when they are not seized but requisitioned for election dutyand put to uses often
unofficial. The exemption comes with money and connections, not necessary work. Even ambulances
run by non-government agencies are liable to seizure. The Sisters of Charity, who on principle refuse
to pay bribes, at their Provincial House in Patna secreted their brand-new Mahindra Commander in a
garage for two weeks. At M____ the Sisters could count on local influence, but they made no trips
outside the area.
Influence too is an ephemeral thing, not there when you seek to grasp it. I was told at a Delhi
cocktail party in February 98 that just two weeks earlier Laloo Prasads family doctor had had his
car seized by goondas whom he recognized as his most favoured clients hirelings. Confident that
justice would be done, he went to 1 Anne Marg and poured out his troubles to Laloo. Achha, achha,
Laloo is reported to have said, sab kuchh theek karva doonga (Ill set everything right). He called
for the goondas named and asked them if they had seized the car. They said yes, grinning all the while.
Very well, said Laloo turning to the doctor. You give them five lakhs and take back your car. The
goondas roared. With the grave yawning before him the doctor abandoned his practice and fled Patna.
Im not entirely sure if this story is apocryphal, for by some strange fortuity a spice-trader in the small
Kerala town we had moved to turned out to be the doctors brother-in-law, and many months later he
told us the same tale when he learned we had just come from Bihar. The doctor had settled in
Bangalore, he said.
Naturally, there are few engined vehicles on Patnas streets at election time; travelling in a
rickshaw is almost a pleasure because the streets are uncrowded and smoke-free.
In other respects, too, Patna is different from comparable Indian cities when its denizens are given
the opportunity to exercise their franchise. For one thing, its the only city or town Ive ever been in
where the liquor shops are open on election day. Laloo Prasads formula to keep the citizens happy is
not originalgive them panem et circensesand has probably been used to good effect by his
predecessors on the gaddi. When I left Bihar the price of a 750 ml bottle of standard IMFLnone of
your fancy dimpled bottles and aristocratic vintageswas Rs 125. In Delhi, Bombay and the South it
varied from one and a half times to twice as much. Reductions in excise taxes do affect the states
revenue; however, there are compensations in public enthusiasm and the relative ease with which
violence can be provoked. Bread is expensive in comparison, but theres always sattu, and the
circuses come without charge.
(About violencetheres always violence in Patna and all over Bihar at election time, but I never
saw any of it. I mentioned in the last chapter, when writing about my experiences on Bihar trains, that
the gods who look after fools, madmen and drunkards had kept me safe; naturally I had no printed
guarantee from them but I trusted to my luck and was all right. There were times when I took a
rickshaw from The Journalists house back to my hotelsome five or six kilometresaround
midnight, and I felt a good deal safer than I did a week later on Rafi Marg in the heart of New Delhi.
There even at eight in the evening I was constantly turning back to see if anyone was behind me, some
horned and hoofed fiend or, more to the point, some dope fiend with a knife.)
Speaking for myself, finding the liquor shops open when we returned from Madhepura was no great
hardship; but my civic sense rebelled. It was no hardship to The Journalist either. That afternoon
when wed got over our rickshaw ride he told me, Arre Vijay, Im sick of that Bagpiper youve been
buying, its faaltu stuff. Go out and get some Smirnoff. It cost only Rs 300 around the corner. Id not
tried the Indian make before, and it went down like water, which was what The Journalist pretended
it was when his wife came upstairs to ask why we hadnt yet had lunch. She looked to me for
confirmation, and I had to say, Kya main kahoonga hi Bhai sahib jhooth bol rahe hain? (Would I
ever say that hes telling a lie?) She went away satisfied. She was a simple lady who could not
suspect evil in others.
But The Journalists progeny were more worldly-wise. Two of them, a son and a daughter, called
up to ask me what the hell I was doing luring their father to drink and destruction. Youre a reporter,
why dont you go out and report? snarled the daughter. I replied with some heat that it was unjust to
accuse me of corrupting a man who was not only old enough to be, but whom I esteemed as my father.
But The Journalist was still filing his copy daily; after a couple of days both son and daughter called
up to apologize for their rudeness and everything blew over.
(Reading this draft, Kaverys just told me that she called The Journalist from Delhiwhere she
was going to concerts and plays while I was working my fingers to the bone in Biharand gave him
an earful for not stopping me. He has old-world manners and wouldnt dream of contradicting a lady,
so he apologized to her and didnt even tell me about her call. He is a gentleman . . . of course I
bawled Kavery out for bawling someone else out when she should have bawled me out.)
Looking back, I suppose it was rather unthinking of me to get The Journalist into such a scene of
steady drinking as he hadnt experienced for twenty years. He was hypertensive, too. But I never
lured him, I was just doing what came naturally; and he was so young at heart that I was soon after
reaching Patna calling him by his first name and telling him dirty stories, while he told me dirty
stories about JP and P.V. Narasimha Rao and others, which cannot be printed here . . . He taught me
more about the political-journalistic game than I ever again intend to use, and I guess I brought some
ten days relief into his life.
*
In Madhepura the once-full moon of Laloo Prasads destiny had appeared to be on the wane. In my
first report to Madras Id written:
As it appears, the and [-Laloo] factor is likely to be stressed. Votes are only to be counted in a couple of days, but it is not
premature to assert that the Rashtriya Janata Dal will not win more than a dozen seats, and Laloos own face may well be
muddied in Madhepurawhere not only was a bogus candidate set up, but rigging was resorted to on no small scale to ensure
Laloos victory.
It turned out, of course, that the assertion was prematureit was eighteen months too early. It was
not until results of elections to the Thirteenth Lok Sabha were declared in September 1999 that Laloo
had his face muddied in Madhepura and his RJD was reduced to single-digit presence. But as a
matter of historical recordand because it contains observations which are still validI reproduce
my second despatch to The Hindu, which appeared on 15 March 1998, two weeks after the first.
Perhaps the what in the headline should be replaced by who:
BIHAR VOTED, BUT WHAT COUNTED?

It is mildly amusing, and very instructive, to see intellectuals and news analysts who have violently attacked Laloo Prasad Yadav
for two years suddenly hailing him as a hero of secularism because he restricted the BJP-Samata alliance to 29 seats out of 53 in
Bihar (a repoll will be held in Patna on March 10).
The truth is that for all his talk about secular forces uniting against the communal danger, Laloos real target was the Janata Dal,
which he perceived as having betrayed him on two countsfirst, the CBIs assiduous pursuit of a conviction in the fodder scam
(though that was more U.N. Biswass doing than the Union Governments), and second, Sharad Yadavs supplanting him as JD
President (though that had more to do with Sharads vaulting ambition).
This was why Laloo went all the way to Madhepura to take on Sharad Yadav. This correspondent was probably foolish to say he
would lose, though I did temper my claim with a stipulation of fair play. A margin of 50,000 votes is not large in the Ganga plain.
Yet Laloo Prasad is still the most powerful man in Bihar, and controls the state machinery in the person of his wife. When he
throws his whole power behind a candidate, there is little to prevent the latters election, unless his opponent is a heavyweight.
This is what happened with the five Kesri chamchas who made it to the Lok Sabha, and all of whom are on good terms with
Laloo. But given the voters mood, not even Laloo could ensure the elimination of both the JD and the BJP. His talk of secular
forces combining ended with a destruction of all possible rival claimants to the leadership of such forces, which is not quite the
same thing. The United Front of course helped Laloo materially by failing to live up to its name, perhaps more so in Bihar (and
Uttar Pradesh) than anywhere else.
The fact is that the BJP-Samata total went up from 24 in 1996 to 29 this year (to my satisfaction as a forecaster and sorrow on
certain other counts). Laloo has stemmed the tide in the same way that the Finance Ministrys hired economists announce smugly,
The rate of increase of inflation has declined.
With 17 MPs, as yet uncommitted, Laloo Prasad may have substantial clout in the Twelfth Lok Sabha, but with unusual restraint
he is playing his cards close to his chest. He has practically ruled out any support to a BJP-led government, but Laloo is a
politician for whom nothing is impossible . . . and if he does throw his weight behind the secular forces, he will exact as his price
nothing less than a Cabinet seat. Laloo Prasad Yadav as Union Home Minister: the mind boggles . . . U.N. Biswas will be
condemned to death, and the Grand Trunk Road will be thrown open to bullocks riding scooters from Patiala to Patna . . . But if
Mulayam Singh Yadav did it, so can Laloo Prasad.
For Laloo Prasad Yadav succeeded, in these elections, in something which is accounted very important on his home turf: He
maintained his mardangi (manhood, honour) [forgive this repetition]. Sharad Yadav was beaten and made to look like a weakling,
and the JD was wiped out in Bihar (with the sole exception of Ram Vilas Paswan, who can be defeated in Hajipur only by an act
of God, like a major railway accident). That probably means more to Laloo than combating communal forces.
The Samatas emergence as a party in its own right is interesting, but in the long run will be recorded as just another instance of
George Femandess attempts at meaningful politics translating themselves into attempts at survival. Nitish Kumar, though, is
someone to watch out for.
Another point news analysts sometimes miss is that, in Bihar, the BJPs watchword of stability counts for more than its opponents
branding of it as communal. Communal divisions are not a major problem in most of Bihar. (Bhagalpur is of course one glaring
exception.) This may be because Muslims in the state are, by and large, poor and landless, and so are the large numbers of (Dalit)
Christians; it may also be that in the drastically altered political agenda in Bihar which dates from the Laloo Prasad revolution in
1990, the minorities have had to be treated well by all parties.
It is caste-consciousness, and the consequent factionalization of communities, which is Bihars bane. That, and how skilfully the
politicians used it, were what determined the outcome of elections this year in practically every constituency in the state. (The
media have much to answer for in the matter . . .) On the whole, the BJP-Samatas calculations succeeded, primarily because the
secular forces were fighting each other.
It is difficult now to say if Laloo would have won in 98 without unofficial tactics. Rigging and its
associated phantoms are so prevalent in the Ganga plain that only someone deep in the heart of a
campaign can make an accurate estimate of the just or what-would-have-been-just margin. And since
Laloo was still in power, though not so firmly, in 99, Sharad Yadavs moderate winning margin of
about 30,000 must have meant something much more substantial. Sharad Yadav ended up looking a
fool as usual; he had gone on a fast unto death to reinforce his demand for a repoll, and when it turned
out hed won he had almost as much egg on his face as when he had lost the previous year.
Its worth detailing some of the illegal tactics used to ensure victory. When I referred to them as
phantoms in the preceding paragraph it was with reason; India Today carried this brief from Sanjay
Kumar Jha on 30 August last year:
BOGUS BOXES, FRAUD FRANCHISE

District Election Officers (DEOs) from seven of Bihars constituencies have confirmed discovering bogus ballot boxes among
those used in the previous election [1996]. Siwan (510) and Samastipur (440) accounted for most. Twenty boxes found in Siwan
are in the eye of the storm. D.C. Yadav (JD) who lost the Saharsa seat to A.L. Yadav (RJD) in 1998 says some of these boxes
were used to help Laloo Yadav defeat Sharad Yadav in neighbouring Madhepura. Parts of Madhepura [constituency] come within
the Saharsa DEOs purview. Laloo had claimed djinns in ballot boxes helped him win.
When I came back South at the end of February 98 and read in the papers that allegations of booth-
capturing had been levelled against the CPI (M)-led Left Front in Kerala and the DMK in Tamil Nadu
I laughed. The manipulation of elections, and election returns, is practised in Bihar on a scale
unknown in the South. It is not necessarily more scientific; what is staggering about it is precisely its
overtness.
Three months before the 98 elections I wrote in The Hindu that I had heard stories of rigging so
horrific that I would not dare to put them in print even if Id had a hundred witnesses to back me up.
But the elections desensitized me; in March I could write in the same columns, with a light heart:
But in the last three months, so much circumstantial abuse of politicians and their methods has found its way into print that I
cannot help concluding
politicians do not read newspapers, or

politicians have become so thick-skinned and cynical that nothing in the media touches
them, or
there are subversions of democracy in practice which are so much more horrifying that
politicians do not mind the stories which are instanced, or
all of the above.
Now Im pretty sure its all of the above.

Some of the stories I heard were rather funny. This one is from the 96 elections. A district in
central Bihar happened to have an honest District Magistrate (a rarity in those parts). On polling day
a rumour reached him that such-and-such a polling station had been captured; that genuine voters were
being turned away while the polling official sat inside with a couple of cronies and a couple of extra
rubber stamps they had manufactured, stuffing the ballot boxes as fast as they could. The DM got into
his white Ambassador (with the red light on top) and was driven thither. At the door to the polling
station the CRPF constable on duty refused to let him enter. Main DM hoon, the DM said
indignantly. To phir ID card dikhao, said the CRPF man.
Now District Magistrates belong to that class of infallibles who do not carry, or need to carry,
proofs of their identity upon their person. But there was no help for it. The honest DM went back to
his office in his white Ambassador, and when he returned with his ID card the polling official had
gone home with a cramp in his elbow but otherwise happy and all the voting was done.
I heard an even more fantastic story about 98: that a convoy of vehicles laden with ballot boxes
heading for the counting station was cunningly diverted and another convoy took its place, the ballots
it bore being strictly ersatz . . . I didnt know it was possible to counterfeit ballot boxes, and neither (I
hope) do most of us; but the India Today story shows its possible. And done.
But 98 was not a very gripping election. Even the violence was at a low level, and fewer lives
were lost in six weeks of campaigning and one week with elections at either end than died on a brutal
night early the previous December at Lakshmanpur Bathe in Jehanabad district.
There was one gruesome murder in 96. Devendranath Dubey, Samajwadi Party MLA and
candidate for the Motihari Lok Sabha seat in East Champaran (one of Bihars most backward and
violent districts; NGO workers there refer to the two Champarans as East and West Apaharan, or
abduction) was ambushed and killed on 24 February, along with five supporters who were
travelling with him.
I was in Delhi then, and had to rely on the papers; only The Statesman had a detailed account,
credited to eyewitnesses, though God knows who they were and why they were there. According to
them, Dubeys car was overtaken on a lonely road and stopped by a few vans from which
disembarked thirty-five or forty men in police and military uniforms, all armed with Kalashnikovs.
More than 200 rounds were fired, and Dubeys body was lacerated (what a word to use!) beyond
recognition.
The obvious culprit was RJD MLA and then State Energy Minister (earlier Minister for Science
and Technology, which might explain the sophistication of the operation) Braj Bihari Prasad, who had
been at outs with Dubey for a long time and whose wife Rama Devi was the RJD candidate in
Motihari. All that was straightforward enough, but the whole business was on a scale staggering even
for Bihar. And I was also surprised that Dubey had been foolhardy enough to travel with so little
protection.
Braj Bihari resigned from the state cabinet, but it didnt save him. About a year later he was shot
dead in his own house; the TV networks, starved for gore, went to town with footage of the puddles of
blood in the courtyard and the tearful family. Rama Devi (who had won the election) wept and tore
her hair in the Lok Sabha and Laloo Prasad made an impassioned speech there denouncing his
political rivals who had stained their hands for ever with innocent blood.
No one else is going to shed too many tears for these two murdered goons, or even for Rama Devi.
Braj Bihari had a number of criminal cases against him, and Dubey was actually a proclaimed
absconder, a Member of the Legislative Assembly wanted by the courts and the police while he was
campaigning in full public view. But all too often it is the innocents who get killed.
*
(Note: The next six paragraphs were written before the Assembly elections of February 2000, and I
leave them untouched; what follows offers after-the-event wisdom.)
As I am writing this there comes a news bulletin saying Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has
announced projects worth Rs 26,000 crore for Bihar. He has already stuffed the Union Council of
Ministers with Biharis in preparation for the Assembly elections. This is typical of the Centres
attitude to Bihar; feed them glory and rob them of their riches. Tragic, because those in New Delhi are
the only people who can do something about Bihar.
The BJP Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and Laloos most consistent critic, Sushil
Kumar Modi, ought by rights to become Chief Minister if the unwieldy BJP-Samata-Janata Dal
(United) alliance wins; but hes a long-term player and appears to have indicated that he will step
aside for Yashwant Sinha or Ram Vilas Paswan or Sharad Yadav or whoever else the Centre wants.
Modi is an interesting character. He was secretary of the Patna University Students Union when
Laloo was its president, and knows his enemy well. He speaks sense most of the time but you have to
read the newspapers in Bihar to figure that out: Hes hardly ever mentioned in the national media.
But will Laloo Prasad be so easy to displace? Temporarily, perhaps; he is out of the Lok Sabha
(thanks to his unbelievable foolhardiness in going back to Madhepura, loving not power less but
honour more) and; since this government has a good chance of completing its five years, has no
recourse but to the local stage. With the charges of corruption pending against him, and unfriendly
governments in both New Delhi and Patna, he will find it difficult. Rabri Devi might go back to the
kitchen, but her husband has only one place to go back to, and that is jail. But this is not the moment,
or the place, to write his epitaph. He will be around for a long time.
I write this well before the Assembly elections, and Ive no idea if the publishing schedule will let
me get a few words in about them. No matter. The last Lok Sabha elections threw up a strange bunch
of political jobbers uneasily sharing one bed. The Assembly elections are certain to do the same,
whoever wins.
What can be safely said is that we can be sure the people will lose. And the elections will be
violent, very violent. That is Laloo Prasads unforgivable crime, that each time he embarks on one of
his wild political adventures he puts not only his own fate to the touch but all Bihar to the torch as
well.
*
I wish Id taken bets on Laloo being returned to power after the Assembly elections. My instincts told
me Laloo might not win, but he wouldnt be beaten; however, I was too much in awe of the
newsmagazines and their high-powered analysts and opinion polls. Stupid of me. After so many years
in the racket I should have known better: No 50,000-rupee-a-month deputy editor sitting on his
backside in New Delhi and flying down to Patna for a two-day visit (when he stays at the Maurya and
talks to all the wrong people, politicians and lobbyists and editors) is likely to know better than I do
what is and is not possible in Bihar.
I was wrong about the violence, thankfully. But when I wrote the preceding passage I had no
foreknowledge that the elections would be held in three phases, nor that there would be such a
massive paramilitary presence.
The events leading up to Rabri Devis installation as Chief Minister for the third time are too fresh
in our minds to need recapitulation, or analysis: The TV channels and the newsmagazines have
already done all that. It was no victory for secularism, as some claim. The election agenda as it has
been through three elections since the announcement of the 1998 Lok Sabha polls was purely Laloos
performance and integrity, not the BJPs Hindutva connections. Nitish Kumar had a point when he
said Laloo had lost the referendum. Communal harmony is not a big issue in Bihar.
Nitish Kumar, as I wrote to my paper two years ago, is someone to watch out for, but I cannot help
feeling his future lies at the Centre. No one is going to be able to dominate Bihar politics as long as
Laloo is around in his present incarnation, a blend of ruthless political brilliance and genuine
socialism, the former overshadowing the latter as he fights for survival. He did not win the mandate,
but hes simply too good at manipulation. Handling Sonia Gandhi and the rest must have been childs
play to him.
Sushil Kumar Modi . . . Id like to see him as Chief Minister, hes the one guy there who might
restore sanity to the state; but will he be given an opportunity even by his own party? There are too
many has-beens who are bigger than him in Delhis strabismal eye: Ram Vilas Paswan will never
lose an election but his power base is too narrow and the BJP will strain at swallowing a Dalit as
Chief Minister; Yashwant Sinha and Sharad Yadav have no popular base at all.
A point of interest to me in the reports of the election results and the subsequent skulduggery was
the prominence enjoyed by Suraj Bhan Singh, who standing as an NDA-supported Independent
defeated Dilip Singh of the RJD in my native constituency. (With all that coverage the identity of
M____ is blown, but what the hell; its also known to quiz freaks who James Bonds chief, M,
really was.)
Suraj Bhan was one of the two gang leaders in our timeSanjay Singh being the otherand hes
come to Kaverys OPD attended by his bodyguards to be treated for a knee problem resulting from an
old gunshot wound. He led the criminal element which supported Nitish Kumar, and every journal had
a picture of him and his cohorts at the swearing-in. News to us, Suraj Bhan was reported to be the
biggest underworld don in the UP-Bihar belt and king of M____. I wonder whats happened to Sanjay
Singh. Suraj Bhan has also expressed his intention of making M____ a crime-free area. I laughed
when I read that, but hes about the only person who can do it.
*
It feels funny-peculiar to be sitting in this hill haven on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border some 2,000 km
from the action as I write about it. Its like Ive retired and am writing my memoirs.
Ill probably go back to Bihar some years from now and write about it, but never again as a native.
And Im sure my reportage will be tinged more with sorrow than with nostalgia: Because Laloo
Prasad Yadav is going to be around for a good long time to come.
Killing the divine king
What is the answer? . . . [Silence] . . . In that case, what is the question?

Gertrude Steins last words
In Bihar, our only window to the outside world was the Patna edition of The Times of India. Id
rejected The Hindustan Times on principle, since I dont go along with those in Delhi who subscribe
to it for its weight and therefore value to kabadiwalas; we didnt have a TV, also on principle. We
had a radio, of course, but we only used it for listening to news bulletins, old film songs and cricket
commentaries. We got Sportstar and Frontline (again, on principle) whenever possible, i.e.
whenever they arrived from Patna. Our news boy was a slight young chap who sang old Hindi film
songs on his rounds in a very pleasant tenor. It was nice listening to him at seven in the morning and
knowing the paper was about to be tucked in behind the bolt on the front door.
I have several times previously made animadversions to the Patna edition of The Times of India. I
must say that though I have an animus against the TOI as a whole, the Patna edition had its own
problems . . . A few years ago the TOI Sunday Review passed a policy decision not to review any
book which had been published in India, and what do we book reviewers do? Ive also been turned
down twice when I asked for a job, long years ago, once at The Independent and once at The
Economic Times, both times by Management when the editors (Anil Dharkar and T.N. Ninan
respectively) were willing to tolerate me. I state these facts so you know where I stand. And each
passing year so much more of the papers editorial content becomes slush . . . With the TOI around,
we dont need Rupert Murdoch.
The Patna TOI was then edited by a gentleman named Uttam Sengupta whom I know nothing about
except that he had been shot at by a person or persons unknown in 1997, and two bullets had lodged
themselves in the back of his Fiat. Perhaps that incident had affected his skills; no, thats mean. He
was probably a competent editor, but the paper he edited was unabashedly given over to producing
revenue rather than readability. At any rate, the Patna TOI was the most consistently uproarious
newspaper Ive ever read.
Typographical errors are common enough in any newspaper, and theyre getting more frequent even
in journals which set high standards for themselves, as I know to my dismay and discontent. But
where do you see typos in the lead headline on the front page? Answer: In the Patna TOI. Stories on
the front page were repeated inside, identical except as to format; stories which appeared one day
frequently had a reincarnation the next; and most criminal of all, the comic strips were abandoned to
sub-editorial anarchy. They were often jumbled so that they ran chronologically backward; and on
one bright occasion, the same strip of Garfield ran for six consecutive days. Ive often laughed at
Garfield, but for different reasons; and Ive never before had reason to curse it either.
The Bihar newspapers . . . I sometimes got to see the Hindustan Times and Hindi papers like
Jansatta and Navbharat Times (which is, or used to be I havent read it for some yearsthe most
consistently good northern newspaper). The Bihar newspapers mostly featured Bihar news, and if I
hadnt read them I wouldnt be writing this book. It is from reading them that I made up my mind
about state BJP chief Sushil Modi, and about various other persona and phenomena. Once Dainik
Hindustan featured the gang warfare in M____, with a photograph of criminals appropriately masked
and weaponed standing before a wall.
Perhaps it was a Good Thing we didnt have TV or access to the web, and we still dont. I could
make up my own mind about what was happening around me, which is a luxury denied journalists and
media consumers, which means practically everyone in these troubled times when above all they need
to use their own judgement.
*
Writing this book has been relatively easy, for it has no plot and the characters came ready to use. If
its taken me two years thats only because writing is terribly hard work for menot the actual
writing, but the sitting down to it. Theres lots I havent expatiated on, or even mentioned: Christmas
in the Hospital; the politics of multinational agencies; the affection Biharis have for their children;
how I bought a tola of weed a chillums throw from the thana in M____ for forty bucks; how Kavery
after one of our evening walks almost stepped on a ten-foot long, chocolate-brown snake on the
doorstep of the doctors quarters and ran back screaming into my arms; my meeting with Mohammed
Kuddoos, who had organized N.T. Rama Raos seminal rath yatras and been borrowed by Laloo
Prasad for his election campaigns, and bore the title of Rath-in-Charge, and who told me things I
cant write about though none disparaging Laloo . . .
But writing the book, Ive been wondering why I am doing it, and who I am to do it. What is my
angle? Bihar is being exploited in every possible way, not least by the media, and am I not, too,
cashing in? If Bihar has a bad image, is that not the fault of the image-makers and image-breakers, and
am I not one of them?
Laloo Prasad says Bihar has had a bad press: Presswalon ne badnaam kiya hai. That is not
entirely the presswalas fault. You cant expect them to pass up a massacre or a juicy bit like a state
cabinet minister telling a delegation of intellectuals that corruption should be tolerated until it passes
the sixty per cent mark. Has Laloo given the media anything good to report in the last ten years? There
are no development stories because there has been no development, and Laloo himself has put that
issue, in vivid journalistic parlance, on the backburner. In campaigning for the Assembly elections,
Laloo made no promises about development. The plank he strutted on was the much more emotive
one of empowerment. Development was left to relatively straightforward politicians like Nitish
Kumar.
Laloo Prasad is more directly at fault as well. His most relentless enemy after Sushil Modi, the
Central Bureau of Investigation, has discovered that at least eight senior Bihar journalists are on
Laloos payroll. (This is off the record; I heard it from someone in Patna who ought to know, and
mentioned it in an article in The Hindu two years ago. Its not the kind of item youd find in the news
columns, because presswalas like members of any other guild protect their own.) On the payroll
could mean anything from accepting a complimentary house or plot in a government-sanctioned and
paid-for housing colony, to actually getting a bagful of cash.
And politicians manipulate the media as they manipulate everything else. There are relatively few
journals left with ideologies or principles, having which means they can be manipulated only through
their ignorance. In the last chapter I described our meeting with a college politico in Madhepura who
pretended to be anti-Laloo and wanted to talk to us presswalas. Why, if not to create doubt and get
information? There are far subtler ways of doing it, and Laloo Prasad is a pastmaster at all of them;
indeed, he probably invented some of the subtlest.
Its cheaper to buy endorsement than to do something positive that will win objective endorsement;
its cheaper to pay for development stories than do anything about development. (Though thats a bit
too much, even for Laloo; even a reporter deep in his pocket would hesitate to file positive stories on
development in Bihar. He can, however, be persuaded not to file too many negative stories about lack
of development.)
Ideology can corrupt too. Way back in Arun Shouries palmy days at The Indian Express, when he
was laying into Rajiv Gandhi, who was the PM at that time, I did a feature article on the freedom of
the press for a Delhi magazine, and my first stop was naturally the Express. A very articulate and
intelligent journalist there, who went on to make a name for herself on TV, told me off the record,
What freedom of the press? Its freedom of Arun Shourie. Were not supposed to write anything
positive about development.
If more newspaper readers were aware that this kind of fraud is practised on them it would be a
Good Thing. The International Press Institute Report two years ago carried a survey of newspaper
readers in cities such as Rome, Buenos Aires and Bangkok, who all expressed a healthy disbelief in
the validity of press coverage, or suspicion of the motives behind it. Id like to see a similar survey of
Indian readers; but I fear even the educated and urbanizedor is it particularly the educated and
urbanized, who are rather less in touch with the facts which form the staple of press reportagehave
little knowledge of the workings of the media. When Kaverys last novel was published many people
we know took it for granted that shed written the reviews herself, in journals as diverse as Outlook,
Business Standard and The Pioneer. This was a case of attributing subjectivity to objective reports;
but far more often what is read in the papers or heard on TV is taken as gospel.
This is dangerous. It was dangerous enough when journalists were ill-paid and could afford to be
honest; its deadly perilous now because too many people with wealth and therefore power have only
the media as a pipeline to knowledge. Ten years ago when I was in Bombay a paragraph in the
business journals saying the right things about a scrip or a product was worth one lakh; with the so-
called stock markets so-called boom its ten or twenty times that now. Idealistic features writers who
in 89 sat up nights working on one phrase or one stanza were three years later fighting to get on to the
business magazines and speaking with a light in their eyes of Harshad Mehta.
*
I dont distrust my own motives in this regard. But I am a practitioner of a trade, and I distrust the
motives of the tradewhich is a sorry predicament to find oneself in. As a features writer I could
pretty much stay out of all the sordidness, in fact I didnt even have to hear anything about it if I didnt
want to. But when I began to write features articles about Bihar I had willy-nilly to touch on political
aspects, and when I was foolish enough to ask to be sent back to Bihar for the 98 elections there was
no way I could close my eyes and ears to what was going on in the media.
What I found particularly outrageous was the way caste is written about. Our Founding Fathers
enshrined caste in the Constitution with the noblest motivesin fact, enshrined is the wrong word
because it implies permanence, and reservations were to go as soon as both sides of the casteist
equation had been balanced. But that didnt happen; we have all accepted with Indian stoicism and as
a fact of life the ingenious knavishness with which our politicians have been playing ducks and drakes
with our goodwill on the issue, and with their own heritage, ever since.
It seems the Mandal Commissions report did more than split our society right down the middle; it
permitted a situation where explicitly casteist formulations were the most accurate portrayals of our
society, or at least the easiest to do. Before 1990 they generally evoked some opposition, and they
were ventured upon in print only in extreme need. Now you even find them in the headlines, and in the
tabulations of pre- and post-election surveys by reputed agencies, and there is talk of introducing
them into the decennial census.
Do we need it?
*
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Mencken
What is the function of journalism in India? In a so-called Free Society with a liberalized economy
the style is to tell the truth and damn the consequences. But that is the ideal. Even in the USAor
especially in the USAit doesnt work, because newspaper owners belong to a very exclusive club
of rich and powerful people, and they wouldnt want to harm each others interests.
Besides, globalization is the primrose path to monopoly, and the spate of media mergers in recent
years points to a time in the foreseeable future when all the worlds media will be owned or
controlled by half a dozen individuals or corporate entities, just as the worlds wealth already is.
Even the uninformed would agree this is not a good idea.
Its already happened in Australia (a good test case, given its small population and high degree of
affluence) and you dont need much research to discover the crimes and cover-ups that the political-
media baron nexus has produced thereover East Timor and nuclear testing, for instance. Not much
truth gets told about the rich and powerful, and the consequence of an electoral turnaround in a rich
and powerful country is almost always the coming to office of a new set of people backed by the
same old money and power.
In an economy like ours, feeling its way as helplessly as a mole in the sunlight of American
attention and the Information Technology boom (ha ha) everyones wanting to be telling the truth and
damning the consequences. A harsh new style of media comment has evolved, exemplified by Tavleen
Singh and Swapan Dasgupta in India Today. The news analysts are all Objective about the economy
and the consequences of Clintons visit; the gatherers of news are all Objective about casteist forces
and the polarization of the polity. Everyone in Bihar is voting according to their caste, but the
reporters and psephologists arentoh dear me, no.
I have never been a believer in objective reporting, probably because I discovered the New
Journalism when I was just getting started in this racket. There is always going to be a veil of the
reporters personal opinion, however thin, between the event and the reader. Unless you are reporting
on the Mayor cutting the ribbon at the dog show, or on the consecration of a new idol at the citys
oldest temple . . . And you can scratch those two examples as well: The stringer sent to the dog show
may have had her mother die of rabies, and the cub sent to the temple with instructions to bring back
prasad for the chief reporter may happen to be an agnostic.
Accepting our subjectivity, then, are we members of the Indian press expected to function with the
assumption that we have a social purposethat we should bear caste in mind only as the members of
the Constituent Assembly did, with the intention of extirpating it? The phrase social purpose, while
high-sounding, is also rather plastic, and can be twisted to meet anyones requirements; but on the
whole I think we must be aware of the peculiar contradictions within our society, of its unique checks
and balancesor imbalances; we must be aware of the great difference the tone of our reporting can
make to our fellow citizens, to our fellow human beings; and being aware of all this we must so
function that that awareness is seen to have mattered.
If this is not important to us, we might as well go into advertising.
*
What is the reality of electoral politics in most of India? Caste. Therefore, say the realists, the reality
of electoral reporting must also be caste. Before elections, the chances of candidates in practically
every constituency are discussed in these terms:
Rampur has 40 per cent Thakurs and 30 per cent Backwards, while Krishnapur has only 25 per cent Thakurs, 10 per cent
Kayasths and 35 per cent Muslims, the rest being Backwards; therefore Brijranjan Prasad wants to switch to the Krishnapur
ticket unless Syed Nijamuddin throws his hat in the ring which would divide the Muslim vote and so Brijranjan would be better
advised to stick to Rampur where the presence of Aravind Sahay need not be taken seriously; if not . . .
On the campaign trail the first question visiting journalists ask in a constituency they are new to is
about the caste break-up. And they are invariably accommodated by some informed native: the local
news agency stringer, the local college lecturer, the panchayat boss. These people have the facts at
their Fingertips, because they are usually involved in local politics. (They also have an excellent
opportunity of falsifying the facts, as the Begusarai stringer did to us in 98.) Two paragraphs of this
stuff pads out the days copy nicely, and it is also, regrettably, instant wisdom; because what
eventually transpires in the election more often than not takes shape against this background.
Perhaps its worse in the North; but it isnt very good in the South either. In southern Karnataka
every report will state exactly what percentage of the population is Vokkaliga and what Lingayat.
Even in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where caste did not matter for many years but for different reasons, it
is beginning to be mentioned. The Thevar-Dalit divide is assuming ugly proportions in Tamil Nadu,
and has already thrown up three or four small parties which have begun to matter locallyalways a
bad sign; in Kerala ideology is increasingly taking second place to religion and caste.
From highest to lowestno, that is wrong; we are a republic. From first to ordinary citizen, we are
beginning again to be defined by an archaic and degenerate social structure based on nothing more
than the circumstances of ones birth. When K.R. Narayanan was proposed as candidate for President
in 1997, surely few public figures could have been found more worthy of the office. Yet practically
every news medium found it necessary to stress his origins, and show how wise a political move his
candidature was. (Postscript: This was written long before Narayanans visit to France in April
2000.)
Before 1990, there were certain journalistic fig leaves in common use which we younger reporters
used to laugh at. Members of a certain community was one; it was abundantly clear from the context
which community was in question. Now that Im ten years older and have lived in Bihar I see the
importance of fig leaves. Here is an extract from a report on the capsizing of two boats on the river
Koel in Bihar, which appeared in the Patna edition of The Times of India on 19 August 1997:
The tragedy also saw a Muslim passenger, Haider Ali, rescuing Hindu passengers. The DC, M.W.A. Anjum, has assured him a
suitable reward. The Barwadih police officer-in-charge assured Ali a new set of clothes.
Would a Hindu or Sikh who had done as much been as suitably rewarded? What would a
Christian have got? And suppose Haider Ali had rescued Muslim passengers? Are we going to have
reservations, according to caste and creed, in the Republic Day Bravery Awards and in the armed
forces?
It looks like we are. Here is another newspaper report, from the UNI, dateline New Delhi, filed on
26 January this year:
Mr K. Vadivel Raj has been conferred the 1999 Kabir Puraskar, for rescuing 11 persons of another community during caste
violence in September 1998 at Mattupatti village in Tamil Nadu.
The Kabir Puraskar is a national award instituted by the Government in April 1990, for recognising acts of physical and moral
courage displayed by a member of one caste, community or ethnic group in saving the life and property of a member of another
caste.
The award is given annually in the gradesgrade-I, and grade-III [sic: presumably II] carrying a cash amount of Rs 1,00,000 and
Rs 50,000 respectively.
Mr Vadivel Raj will be awarded Rs 1 lakh.
So his was grade-I courage. Indeed. Now we know. And its an easy way to pick up money, for
these awards are bound to proliferate; just step around next new moon night to the nearest colony
inhabited by people belonging to another caste, community or ethnic group and indulge your taste for
arson: then rescue a few people and get yourself recommended by the local superintendent of police.
Where will it end? Is every possible division that can be made along these lines to become fact?
It needs a mathematician to handle this. Chaos theory . . . Mandelbrot sets . . . fractals . . . Even
chaos has a symmetry to it; the deeper you go, the smaller your scale, much the same identity exists.
So the division doesnt have to end until neighbour is estranged from neighbour and husband from
wife. Why stop there? Until atom is estranged from atom, which is what the course of events set in
train by Pokhran-II may very well lead to.
*
See, I too have transgressed. This book is full of identifications according to caste: Yadav, Bhumihar,
Musahar, Paswan, Kurmi, Dom, Brahmin, Rajput, Lala, Kayasth; and it has enough about Catholic,
Protestant, Muslim and Hindu sinners in it as well. I have not been consistent; the effect I have
attained is not in tune with my philosophy. Thats another of the things about the book thats made me
unhappy. I will not plead reality as an excuse. The disease is one we all, not only journalists, suffer
from, and I confess I have no clue as to a remedy. Wiser and more experienced heads must be brought
to bear on it. Perhaps the Press Council will find a cure, but in todays atmosphere I doubt it. There
are so many kinds of corruption that none of us can pretend to be untainted. The American journalist
Hunter Thompson was being only half-ironical when he wrote thirty years ago, I never knew a
reporter who could even say the word corrupt without pissing in his pants from pure guilt.
The first thing Im unhappy about is of course the chapter entitled O ladies who have seen the
light, and Ive said so in that chapter. Though no longer an Establishment secularist, I loathe the
revivalist forces (of whatever hue) that have brought us to where we stand in 2000. The pace of
fragmentation of our society has been stepped up in the last decade by several factors, and the Mandal
Report is only one of them. Politically, socially, culturally we are being divided and misruled.
So writing as I have about the Sisters of Charity in M____, though it is accurate as far as my
knowledge and perceptions go, has also made me doubt myself. There is enough gratuitous anti-
Christian shit hitting the fan without my taking a hammer to the flush tank. My point is that the hardline
anti-fundamentalist stand of the secular Establishment is used by the Church for its own purposes; and
the secularists will not acknowledge it.
Ill probably lose a few friends with this passage, but what the hell . . . The secularists are just as
fascist as the fundamentalists in their anti-Hindutva approach. They want to deny them the right to be
heard.
When democracy granted democratic methods to us in times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a democratic system.
However, we National Socialists never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that
we used the democratic methods only in order to gain power and that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our
adversaries without any consideration the means which were granted to us in times of our opposition.
Joseph Goebbels
Almost five years ago I was doing a story, quite in tune with the philosophy of the paper I worked
for, on the Sangh Parivars attitude to culture. Through a friend who is very much a member of the
secular Establishment, I had obtained an interview with a liberal historian who gave me a lot of
background; and that evening while speaking to my friend over the telephone I casually mentioned that
next day I was to interview the chief of the Hindu Munnani, an organization somewhat to the right of
Bal Thackeray.
What! he screamed at me, Youre going to meet that ____Rama Gopalan? Why should you give
him space? and so on until I had to hang up on him. His indignation was great and sincere, and so
was his bewilderment that I, writing for a paper whose platform is secularism, should want to feature
in it a confessed revivalist.
My friend is a journalist himself; and this is another reason why Im afraid for the profession. If we
secularists are going to adopt the methods of the fundamentalists to oppose themeven to the point of
denying them free speechwhat distinguishes us from them? Can one who says the ends justify the
means be a Gandhian? Or, as Thyagaraja sang in Rama niyada, does assuming female attire enable a
man to know what it is to be a woman?
The secularists are borrowing a hardline stance that was borrowed by the revivalists from the
regimented practices of European fascism. I have heard people say, to support their argument that
Deepa Mehta should not shoot a film that shows Hindu practices in a bad light, Would Muslims
allow her to make a film like that about Muslim widows? But shouldnt Hindus evolve their own
methods of toleranceor intolerance, instead of aping militant Islam? Why should we?
This is a strange and schizophrenic age, when liberals can be rightly accused of fascism. Another
friend of mine, an extreme free-thinker, happened to be staying with us when one morning I
breakfasted on sausages and bacon, which Im partial to and occasionally indulge in. He began to jeer
at me: How can you eat that muck, you dont even know where the pigs been and what its eaten. He
breakfasts, lunches and dines exclusively off sprouts, dal, wheatgerm, fresh vegetables and water; but
I dont jeer at his diet. I respect him for being able to stick to that stuff and even like it, so why
shouldnt he tolerate me?
Where is the spirit of play, the leela that once characterized us, or which at least we once affected?
*
What has all this got to do with Bihar? Secularism is not much of a watchword there: Laloo Prasad
reserves it for out-of-state use, to win over other parties opposed to the BJP and Establishment
secularists in the media. And he has a very high success rate with it; it is practically his last resort
and at the same time his first line of offence.
Im amazed at the ease with which Laloo wins over secularists. I have no doubt that Nitish Kumar
starting with a clean slateor Sushil Kumar Modi, who has been in the thick of Bihar politics for
twenty-five years without blotting his escutcheon, would not only bring development to the state but
prove vastly more efficient administrators than Laloo. (One reason the state has gone to rot under
Laloo is that he prefers home-grown promotees from the Bihar Administrative Service to young IAS
officers for posts in the districts; they are easier to sway and closer to retirement.)
From what Ive seen of Bihar, the problem there is not communalism but caste. Then how can
intellectuals pass over Laloo Prasads dismal record as an administrator, his governance of a state
almost exclusively by either using or disregarding the use of violent means, and a political career
which in the last ten years consists solely of an unmatched brilliance in playing off caste factors, and
hail him as the bulwark of secular and liberal ideas solely because he has time and again prevented
the BJP and its allies from sweeping Bihar? If Laloo is a liberal I am Chandragupta Maurya.
*
The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Brokeand Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).
Hilaire Belloc, On a Great Election
This mornings news told me that Rabri Devi and Laloo Prasad have both surrendered before the CBI
Special Judge in the assets-disproportionate-to-income case, and Laloo has been packed off, not for
the first time, to Beur Jail; that the NDA leaders have begun a dharna to press for Rabris resignation;
and that twelve villagers have burned to deathhow or why they dont knowin West Champaran
district. Only the third item is unimportant.
Events are coming so thick and fast in Bihar that its tough letting go of this book, and Penguin may
have to send someone to drag it out of my clutches . . . No, the hell with it. Ive been lugging it around
for two years now, and Ive had fun with it, and its time to turn to more inspiring things. I long ago
gave up believing that statesmen, world or national leaders, glow in the dark; and nothing will
persuade me that any new entranthowever immaculateinto the Chief Ministers Office in Patna
(or for that matter the Prime Ministers Office in South Block) will cause lilies to sprout from the
carpet beneath his, or her, or its tread, as the Asoka tree is said to flower at the touch of a virgins
foot.
Even Misa being made Chief Minister tomorrow, as Sushil Modi predicted, will only wring a tired
smile from me. I may also take an axe to the radio.
No one who wants to be President of the United States should be allowed to, said someone; I
suspect it was Hunter Thompson again, but it could equally well have been Thomas Jefferson or
Adlai Stevenson.
But Kavery, no assiduous student of political affairs, has a better idea. Recently reading The
Golden Bough, she was much taken by the ancient practice of the killing of the divine king. In many
parts of the world it was followed down to virtually modern times: Until late in the seventeenth
century (Frazer writes) the Zamorin of Calicut, having reigned twelve years, cut his throat on a public
scaffold. (In later years contenders to the throne had to run the gauntlet of his army to kill him.) In
Sumatra the period varied according to the wishes of the citizens. So it was among the old Slavs; and
whoever killed the king succeeded to throne and wives and power. The pre-Christian Swedish kings
were killed after eight or nine years on the throne; the ancient Greek kings may have had their reigns
limited to eight years. Among the Ijebu tribe of the Yoruba race in Nigeria, until the British seized the
land, the period was three years; in ancient Babylon the ritual of dying appears to have been annual.
So too in Hawaii. And Frazer mentions a tribe in ancient Congo where the rule obtains that the chief
who assumes the cap of sovereignty is always killed on the night after his coronation.
(Frazers uniquely original contribution to the study of comparative mythologies, though it has in
many respects been found unsound by later scholars, quotes too many different authorities, in this
context, to be wholly inaccurate.)
I have no doubt the custom is connected to the ancient practice of sacrificing a slave, or an infant,
or the most beautiful maiden, or the kings son, annually before the sowing or in some cases before
the harvest, so that it might be plentiful. This practice was followed all over the ancient world, even
in the isolated South American empires; and vestiges of the accompanying rituals can still be seen in
many lands. (The ancient Canaanites and their descendants the Carthaginians employed crucifixion as
the mode of sacrifice, and it was widespread in so-called pagan Europe. There are many traces of
pagan rites in ancient Christianity too, and certainly there is a connection between Jesuss claim to
kingship and his mode of death, as Robert Graves has shown . . . but lets not get into that.)
Youve long since got the point, of course. The king, or his surrogate, died for the good of the
people, usually to ensure against famine but also that one good custom may not corrupt the world.
Let our politicians, who simper that they are only working for the peoples good, also do the same.
Let Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers, at the very leastperhaps cabinet ministers as well; I
havent worked it out fullyget a term of, say, six years, and then depart acclaimed by all. Spouse
and children will have to share the same fate, naturally; its so much easier to die for ones family
than for ones country.
The Americans limit their Presidents, and in some states their governors, to eight years in office;
but thats a lame compromise. Clinton at fifty-four can still do a lot of harm and not only to
impressionable young women. Besides, in eight years a Prime Minister can amass enough money to
make him look forward to retirement.
In this year of a constitutional review, this suggestion is worth considering. It will ensure that no
one who is not willing to die for the Indian people will stand for high office.
*
The St. Petersburg Paradox: In any game of equal chances, a lucky rich man will always beat a lucky poor man.
Jakob Bernoulli
Laloo Prasad Yadav, and all the other politicians, have been found guilty by public opinion . . .
Maybe a referendum should establish a politicians guilt; it would avoid the long-drawn-out and
invariably delayed judicial process; besides, in this age when psephologists are supposed to be
performing statistical wonders, devising a representational sample should be easy, instead of a state-
or nationwide poll . . . My, the ideas are really flowing today; it must be because that glare from the
monitors screen is the light at the end of the tunnel.
But is anyone at all innocent in Bihar? Mention that you are a Bihari or living there at any gathering
in Bombay or Delhi or Madras and you have to start fielding pitying, even condescending glances.
Usually it raises a laugh, if not at your expense then at Bihars.
This is why so many people who are from Bihar hesitate to admit it in the wrong circles, which are
the right circles if you know what I mean. A few months ago in Munnar I met a fashionable
photographer who gave the impression he was from Delhi. Its all one to me; I was asking him about
mutual acquaintances, photographers I havent met in ten years. With a laugh, die journalist he was
travelling with revealed that he was actually from Begusarai. I was excited: I saw it as a bond, and
began to talk about M____, which is less than an hour away. But he wasnt interested. Later, when I
told him I was working on this book, he raised his eyebrows and asked contemptuously, Will it sell
even five copies? His scorn was directed not at my writing skills, of which hed seen no samples,
but at the subject.
In the eyes of this set, and of an appreciable fraction of the Indian population, all Biharis are guilty
of complicity in whatever Bihar is guilty of: guilty of being exploited by politicians and business
interests; guilty of people not being allowed education or any chance to acquire material wealth if
they are from the wrong caste; guilty of being liable to sudden and savage murder; guilty of being
swayed by demagogues because there are no real leaders in any intellectual or professional sense,
only the politicians.
But were all guilty of all of that. Were all responsible for Bihar. Yet I say it not in shame but in
hope and with a sense of belonging, not expecting the plaudits Kennedy got either: Aakhir main bhi
Bihari hoon. Hum sab Bihari hain. And if that h in Bihari gets carelessly typeset as m then
dammit Im not going to change it in the proofs. Stet, which to proofreaders and compositors means
much the same as Amen.
*
Bihar has cast its spell on me, I know. It draws me back, not necessarily to write about it, even though
there were things about our one and a half years there which have left scars that will last twenty. In
Kerala if I heard a firecracker go off in the night Ive started from sleep and looked across at Kavery,
for an instant wondering if shed be called to surgery. I will be wary when I see a stranger on a train
lift his shirt to scratch his belly, for in Bihar the choice place for concealment of a pistol is in the
waistband.
There are positive results too: I will think twice before I let anyone pick a fight with me, and I
shall be twice as sceptical of politicians and their words. I have seen one Bihar MLA up close, and it
was a gross sight. There was enough material to furnish two MLAs, and the face was seamed and
lined with corruption. But he was, just then, my representative in the Assembly; and I felt like Dorian
Grey.
According to Eliot, Webster saw the skull beneath the skin. He would have found it easy to do in
Bihar, for the MLA was an exception. Bihars skull is very like the skin; for after all it is the fleshless
face of deprivation and lack of privilege which is the face of Bihar: leather drawn tight over the
cheekbones, staring eyes and a sheen to the skin that has nothing to do with eating well. The skull is
the skin, the face is the skull. Skin is merely an excuse for being a voter, a flimsy barrier between life
and death.
In the democracy we have designed for ourselves, political will is necessary to win battles against
ignorance and tyranny. There is only so much that schools and NGOs can achieve. Bihar is in a
condition which can be set right only from above. Given a leader and a will it can be Indias
showpiece in ten years.
Bihar as I have been portraying it since 1997, in conversation, in newspaper articles and in this
book, is not an ideal place to live in, especially for one gently bred in the South. But Bihar is not only
as I have described it: Or rather, as I have described it, it is a state of mind as well as of being. It lies
all about us wherever we are. We create it, foster it, carry it about with us; and when, treated harshly
by this creature we fashioned to betray, we condemn it, we have only ourselves to blame. Bihar
justifies the attitude you carry to it: Bihar is in the eye of the beholder.
Authors Note
THIS BOOK IS AN account of the sixteen months I lived in Bihar from September 1996 to January
1998, and of what I witnessed when I went back to report on the elections in February. It is not
regular newspaper journalism because I did not go there at first as a journalist. My wife Kavery is a
surgeon who prefers to practise in rural India; so when having grown sick of Madras where, she said,
There are fifty doctors who can do the same thing, she pined for the villages again, I resigned my
job on a newspaper and we fled north.
Kavery had had an offer from some nuns she knew, who ran a hospital in a small town on the
Gangas bank some 100 km east of Patna. I will not distinguish the town beyond calling it M____; nor
will I specify the Order the nuns belong to, though anyone so desiring can easily discover both.
No one in M____, I confidently assert, will read this book; except perhaps some of the Sisters,
who will do so for the wrong reasons. If I cloak certain identities, however speciously, it is not out of
a wish to avoid retribution. But knowledge must be earned, and it is none of my business to impart it.
A cousin who read a draft of the first chapter said it lacks insights. Its not my business to provide
insights either. As a journalist I am out of place among people who quote statistics and interview
politicians. I am an essayist and a literary journalist, and facts are not so important to me as attitudes,
opinions and impressions. Also, I never was and never will be other than an outsider in Bihar. I might
have picked up a fact here or an interview there, but I do not delight in them as I do in the apt
quotation.
This book is impressionistic journalism, but not impressionist in the same sense as the school of art
whose aim was to paint the momentary or transitory appearance of things, and especially the effects
of light and atmosphere, rather than form or structure. On the contrary, I seek to portray form and
structure by means of impressions, and will back my impressions against any six journalists facts. A
fact which has crept into this book while my back was turned may occasionally be wrong; an
impression I have laboured to understand and detail and ft into its place, never.
Let the reader beware.
Epilogue
So there we were once again on Platform 1 of the railway station in M____, with suitcases and bags
and shapeless bundles. We were not wholly downcast because once again we thought we were going
to where we could make a difference; and we carried away fond memories. But we had hoped to stay
five years at least . . .
We had decided to leave the Hospital mainly because the doctors, i.e. the medical experts, were
not allowed a say in determining medical policy even within the existing framework of
administration, which needed an overhaul anyway. Our warnings that a forty-year-old tradition could
not survive if it remained static were ignored. We had enough ego not to want to stay where we were
not allowed to make a difference . . . This is not important, for I have stayed away from matters
medical throughout this book, and I wont go into details. I put it down simply that no one should think
we were running away from the grimness of life in Bihar, or running away at all.
The Sisters were disappointed at Kaverys leaving, but so were we. The nurses were sorrowful.
Our neighbour Dr Kishore tried to play both ends against the middle. Dr Arvind was openly indignant
that Kavery could be let go of. Kishan was accepting; he was planning to leave himself and wanted us
to send word of southern opportunities. He came every day with loads of what he called cartoons.
This puzzled us at first; but cartoons were what all the locals called the cardboard boxes which had
become so much a part of our lives: We had moved thrice in the last three years and were to do so
twice more in the next eighteen months. Indeed so confident was I of my prowess at packing that I did
not start sorting our books until five days before loading time. William Williamson, the Tamil X-ray
technician from Jamshedpur, and Akhilesh helped with tying up the filled cartoons, but I let no one
come between me and the books.
A southbound lorry was spoken for from Begusarai; when it arrived on the Campus the day before
our departure it turned out to be manned by Tamils. A huge smile appeared on the drivers face when I
came out of the doctors quarters and gave him directions in Tamil on how to get his tail within the
gate. There was a smile inside me too, for I missed the South. I missed it a lot but would never for
that reason have left Bihar. Mardangi.
There were farewell parties and gifts. The Hospital administration held a function on the day of
loading, so Kavery had to go alone while I toiled in filthy T-shirt and shorts, pouring sweat on that
overcast January day, dismantling a home and leaving it a flat. The Sisters were generous as ever
with their gifts: They gave us a complete set of bed linen. Ten days earlier, at Christmasthough they
had known we were leavingthey had sent us a well-filled Christmas hamper and a melamine dinner
set just as they had a year earlier.
The bachelors upstairs had given us a dinner the previous night. In Akhileshs room, perhaps fifteen
feet square, six of us crowded behind a table and sampled pulao, meat, dal, veg and kheer each
separate dish of which had been cooked by Ranjit over a hotplate that evening. I think I felt, at leaving
those bright young men, as Kavery did at leaving the nurses.
The nurses loaded us with gifts. There was a gift from all of themagain a set of bed linenbut so
many of them came singly with individual gifts. A hot-case, a table-stand for pickles, a sari . . . one
girl gave us a magnificent bedcover with gold embroidery on dark green. Were still to feel ourselves
worthy of it. Kavery had half a mind to return it, for it must have cost hundreds and these girls were
just about to go out into the world; but that would never have done.
Our saddest and loneliest parting was from Pushpa, whod worked in our house, but I cannot write
of that here.
The last evening, the doctors gave us a dinner in Dr Kishores flat. There was a man with a video
camera and the usual sidekick with the flash, so the occasion lost some of its pain for us. We played
antakshari as was usual at all such gatherings (I dont know how Ive missed mentioning that so far),
the men in chairs along one side of the room and the ladies on the other, until dinner was ready. At the
end the two of us had to stand behind a table and get photographed and make a speechI said
something stupid in Hindi, I was worn out from the days loadingand Kishore made one and was
photographed handing Kavery our farewell gift. It was all very ministerial if you know what I mean.
But the gift, when unwrapped, turned out to be a dozen cassettes of ghazals and semi-classical songs
and Best Of, so it more than made up for the video camera.
Early next morning I went to call a rickshaw. That is the scene Ive described in the Prologue. But
we werent going to the station yet, we were bound for Kishans house. His mother was as
domineering as usual but sad, Kishan cheerful. The Bahu, Gopals bride, came out with pallu over
her head and chattered away to Kavery like a child. She touched our feet, we blessed her, dirgha
sumangali bhava. I touched the feet of Kishans parents. They gave us a silver bowl mounted in a red
box. Kishan said wed meet at the station, and we went out and found another rickshaw to take us
back to the Hospital.
*
I brought nothing with me into the world, and I go out carrying the fruits of my sins.
Aurangzeb
We had disembarked sixteen months earlier on a deserted railway platform at four in the morning to
be greeted by a lone security. We were leaving from a platform crowded with our friends in
M____. I remembered Aurangzebs words and thought how appropriately inapt they were; or how
their aptness is to be measured only by each humans doings.
Almost everyone we knew was there: Sister Supriya, now happily having completed her term as
administrator and leaving soon for a retreat in Allahabad; her erstwhile deputy and successor,
Cassandra; Rose, Amelia, Beena, almost all the Sisters we had known well in the Hospital and
convent. I had nothing at all against them then, only sorrow at parting.
Akhilesh was there, and Ranjit, and William; all the doctors; Kishan and Bipan. But the nurses
were missing, except for a couple who were going home to Kerala. One of them later told us on the
train that all the girls had wanted to come but their request had been turned down, and rightly, on
grounds of hazard; the station is two kilometres from the campus. A Malayali gentleman on the train,
who worked in Barauni, also told me that the administration had been answering well-wishers like
him who asked why Kavery was leaving, Her husband needs a job. That reawakened all my animus
against the Sisters, or at least those who ran the Hospital. Bloody hell, Id left a good job so Kavery
could come and work in their godforsaken Hospital.
The train was due to leave Patna at two in the afternoon and arrive at M____ about four; four went
by, and five and six, and it didnt come. The station masters office returned the identical answer each
time the question was asked: The train was stuck halfway to M____ because the Deputy General
Managers train, which was before it, had had its cables cut. We pressed our friends to leave but they
refused. It was freezing cold: Akhilesh said the daytime high in Patna had been 5C.
At last the train was announced. It was past eight. Kishan organized the luggage. There were
embraces all round. All the Sisters hugged Kavery, and Imy animus was yet to be reawakened
hugged those I knew well, including Supriya (Kishans eyes danced at the sight) and planted the
obligatory air kisses. We got on, Kishan hustled us and our belongings through to our berths as hed so
often done before. Then, his eyes still dancing, he embraced me. See you in the South, I told him.
The train picked up speed. I leaned out as far as I could and kept waving. Two of Kaverys
particular friends among the Sisters, one almost sixty years old, ran behind the train waving their
handkerchiefs, ran on almost until the sloping end of the platform, stopping just when I was reaching
for the chain.
At last they were out of sight. We settled back drearily and got out our dinners: sandwiches from
the Hospital kitchen and spicy Marwari food from Kishans mother, enough of each for a week.
Two days later we reached our destination in Idukki district of Kerala. But thats another story.
Afterword to the new edition
I HAVE YET TO write that book about Kerala, though Ive signed a contract for it. My brief was to
write a book like the Bihar book. That is impossible. I have never lived in Kerala for sixteen
months at a stretch as I did in Bihar, for one thing. For another, the media stereotypes of Kerala and
Bihar are poles apart. I should be battling different enemies. I couldnt write a book about Kerala
like the Bihar book no matter how hard I tried.
Yet its a safe bet that any Kerala book I could produce now would be a lot more like the Bihar
book than any I might have written ten years ago. In 2006, on one of those five-year swings which are
inevitable in Kerala politics, the Left Front returned to power in the state. I personally believe the
Left parties have done much more than the Congress in Kerala and West Bengal. (Land redistribution
alone would put them well on the credit side of the ledger.) Yet the Communists wasted most of one
year on in-fighting and cheap populist politics like the Coca-Cola ban.
Good governance is now missed almost as much in Kerala as it is in Bihar. The focus of
successive governments, in a decade in which cash flows from the Gulf have dwindled, has been on
promoting Gods Own Country. This campaign has succeeded so well that it is impossible for a
native to get good service in a hotel, or an affordable Ayurvedic massage, during the tourist season.
Suicides and divorces have multiplied. Kerala leads the list of deaths nationwide caused by dengue
fever. Sex scandals and ice cream parloursand politicianshave become synonymous. The chief
Malayali festival, Onam, has become a consumerist jamboree. Malayalam cinema is for the first time
in many years less exciting than Bombays products. And labour remains intractable as ever.
You can see I dont set much store by the My country right or wrong line of argument. And Im
always surprised to find any intelligent person who does.
On 18 December 2005 the Times of India carried an essay on media stereotypes of Bihar (I Say
Bihar, You Say Corrupt, page 15 of the Bangalore edition) by one Gyan Prakash, who is a historian
at Princeton University and grew up in Patna. He attacks outsiders who write about BiharShiva
Naipaul, William Dalrymple and Vijay Nambisanon principle, it would appear. His
animadversions on Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder are either mischievous or uninformed. He has
not read the book, it seems to me; and I should have written a strong rejoinder to the TOI had I not
been assured by a senior employee of that paper that there was no way it would be published.
I have said some nasty things about the TOI in this book and in various other fora, and I guess Ive
been asking for something nasty in return. But Prakashs essay begs the question. It assumes that no
outsider can write anything good about Bihar.
As I have said throughout this book, Kavery and I had a good time in M____. We had planned to
stay five years, and the main reason we left after sixteen months was the recalcitrance of the nuns. An
e-mail acquaintance of ours who also works in villages and has had bad experiences with Christian
missions has been photocopying the chapter O ladies who have seen the light and posting it to
everyone he knows. This is bad for sales, and worse for my reputation. I appear to be a Christian-
basher. The truth is that we found good and bad among the institutions run by the Church, as with
everything in Bihar; and we have no cause for complaint until we root out everything bad in
ourselves.
Gyan Prakash should think again before spouting the brand of arrant nonsense he does:
. . .He paints Bihar in the dark hues of anarchy, violence, corruption and stagnation. The Biharis not only seem cheerfully unaware
of their existence in this purgatory but also appear wholly responsible for it. . . The old colonial myth of the lazy native is pressed
into service, while the reality of the toiling landless labourers and the urban poor is set aside.
Now these are not only lies, but a historians lies, which are damned lies. Why does Gyan Prakash
forget to mention that every time I heard the words Biharis need to be kicked, they were uttered by a
Bihari?
He describes a scene where an elderly and ungentlemanly local bigwig fails to rise from his, chair to greet the journalists wife;
instead, he simply says pranaam. Or, rather, parnaam, Nambisan immediately adds, explaining that Biharis always
mispronounce the word this way.
Ungentlemanly and mispronounce are Prakashs own glosses; I used neither word. Indeed, Bhim
Singh was a local bigwig awe-inspiring in his gentlemanliness, and I do not think I have failed to
convey that impression. I only reported the scene as I saw it. Indian men commonly walk in front of
their wives, and they do not hold the door for them. Expecting anything else is like the Readers
Digest survey picking Mumbai as the least well-mannered city in the world. Prakash has a most
massive chip on his shoulder, it seems. Let an outsider but say anything about Bihar and he is up in
arms, with his foot in his mouth.
As an outsider, I know I have explained my position. If Bihari-ness is as Prakash has defined it
(anarchy, violence and the rest of it), I have stated unambiguously towards the end of this book,
Aakhir main bhi Bihari hoon. Hum sab Bihari hainwhich means, But then I too am a Bihari. We
are all Biharis. If the disease is as Prakash defines it, it is consuming the nation.
And Gyan Prakash is safe in Princeton. Im the one who is still living in Bihar.
Acknowledgements
This book had its genesis in six essays on Bihar which were published in The Hindu Sunday
Magazine between June 1997 and March 1998. I am grateful to N. Ravi, Editor and Nirmala
Lakshman, Joint Editor, The Hindu for permission to use or adapt those essays, and another which
appeared in December 1998; also for encouragement and support in excess of my deserts.
I thank Granta Magazine and The Times of India, Patna for permission to reproduce published
material.
I am deeply grateful to the old Patna hand I have referred to as the Journalist; also to Ravi Singh for
ruining my sleep two nights running.
My thanks to David, first for asking the question: Why dont you write a book about Bihar? the
obvious answer to which then eluded me; and second and never last, for friendship and belief.
Kavery knows why and how much I need or need not thank her, but this book would not have been
thought of if she hadnt taken a job in Bihar, so she shares the blame.
Finally I want to thank myself, for only I know how distasteful I find working.
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It is as much a labour of love and reverence as is the non-conformity

May we never have yet another forgotten genius!

Vijay Nambisan | Photo Credit: Madhu Kapparath

His caring is in his poems often smeared with schoolboy humour

I hear youre translating bhakti poetry? I asked.

Who are you translating?

The caring was in the poems.

I would like my poem to be

In the lean wind, to look up at the clouds

I am pouring my sorrow into a little cup,

Just to drown the gods in a libation, nothing more.

Someone can reach out and casually drink me up.

(After six drinks)

"Vijay's reply was great," said Kavery.

"What did he say?"

"Poetry doesn't need you."

"Why is it called First Infinities?" asked Nair.

Novelist Janice Pariat is the author of Seahorse

Nambisan, who passed away recently, channeledwith

Vijay Nambisan. Credit: Paperwall

the death of Vijay Nambisan

As Nambisan explained in his foreword to that book, First Infinities

According to Thayil, Nambisan had already more or less completed a

All the world, it seems, knows I like to drink;

How few know how well I like to be sober.

As for the writing itself, its

came to meet in person. Nevertheless, this apprenticeship in language,

Star requires of star

Nothing but being. In some world to come

Each house shall be only the threshold of the next.

The second Im thinking of is Dvija, the longest and most powerful,

The idea of conditional knowledge here is important. It brings a faith to

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Riding the horse of life to death: Vijay Nambisan (1963-2017)

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Crisp in the winters morning,

Softly all through the night,

What is this without warning,

Falling and white?

I have never seen snow

But I can imagine it quite

Not how it tastes, but I know

It falls and is white.

One morning Ill open the door

To bring in the mornings milk,

And all around therell be snow

Fallen and still.

How Ill roll in the stuff!

How Ill tumble and spin!

Until the neighbours cry, Enough!

And send me back in.

C P Surendran is a poet, novelist, and journalist.

Six poems by Indias most reclusive English poet

Chandigarh Literature Festival

Crisp in the winters morning,

I have never seen snow

But I can imagine it quite