The Mammaries Of The Welfare State Part 5

Tetracycline is difficult to come by in Madna as well. Overnight, its dealers and retailers have made it as rare a commodity as statesmanship and probity in public life. To distract himself from it, the Collector of Madna, Shri Agastya Sen, usually flits to any one of his several other insurmountable problems. They come in all sizes. Wishing to write a letter to his friend, Daya, in Navi Chipra, for instance, he asks Chidambaram, his Reader, 'Can I get some decent writing paper? Something I wouldnt be ashamed of?

A late morning in winter beyond the enormous vaulted rooms of the office. From the stone corridor outside, from amongst the pigeons and the water coolers, drift in the rustle and shuffle, the occasional cough, of a hundred pet.i.tioners waiting to gnaw the Collectors ears with their diverse tales of tortuous, enervating injustice at the hands of a dozen different departments. The man-size windows are open and welcome in a variety of smells and the warm soporific air. They havent had any electricity since the morning. Through the window on his right, Shri Sen can see, a hundred metres away, the compound wall of the Collectorate coming up. The premises had never had one and thus, every day for over a century, had welcomed, kept open house for, the cattle of the district. Generations of cows, bulls, calves, oxen and goats had come to love the gra.s.s and the off-white paper, the serenity and openness of the Collectorate compound. Pushing for the wall had been one of his predecessors first acts on taking over the post some thirteen months ago. The wall was now two feet high, not likely to rise any further in that financial year and effective against everything but the urchins and the goats. The puzzled, disoriented cattle now wandered up and down Junction Road and into Aflatoon Maidan, holding up traffic and disturbing courting couples. The view from the window was silent and sunny, in spirit like a graveyard in an Ingmar Bergman film.

Shri Sen leans forward to note the comparison somewhere on his enormous desk for use in his letter to Daya. Meanwhile, a child, with his half-pants down to his knees, crosses his field of vision, hopping from spot to spot to look for paper to wipe his a.r.s.e with. Madna faces an acute and chronic water shortage. The subject has been noted in Shri Sens To Do list in his very first week in office.

The Collectorship of Madna is the seventh post that he has held in eight years. He is quite philosophic about the law that governs the transfer of civil servants; he sees it as a sort of corollary to the law of karma, namely, that the whole of life pa.s.ses through innumerable and fundamentally mystifying changes, and these changes are sought to be determined by our conduct, our deeds (otherwise, we would quite simply lose our marbles); only thus can we even pretend to satisfactorily explain the mystery of suffering, which is a subject that has troubled thoughtful souls all over the world since time immemorial. It is also a hypothesis that justifies the manifest social inequalities of the Hindu community.

His To Do list is actually an enormous black diary full of cross-references and coded marginal scribbles. The cattle, for example, havent been struck off yet; theyve instead been relocated from April (that deals with problems pending within the Collectorate) to the September-to-December section (that is reserved for the police). The black diary is not the official diary of the Welfare State for that year. It was one of several gifted to Shri Sen in an eventful first week by various local businessmen, builders and industrialists. He chose it chiefly for its generosity of size and layout.

In the official diary of that year, he intends to maintain his dhobi account at home, which clothes sent, how many lost, how many torn, burnt, how much due, how much to deduct. The official diary was meant to have white pages and a chocolate-ish cover, but it looks more or less uniformly grey. It is carried about by the losers. Three million-plus copies are brought out every year by the Commissioner of Printing, Paper and Stationery for the Welfare State at a printing cost of a hundred rupees per copy. He employs three hundred thousand people and amongst other activities, supplies all the Departments of the State with, amongst other things, files, file covers, file boards, file boxes, notepads, envelopes and paper of dizzying sizes, sealing wax, pins, clips, tags, blotting paper and bottles of red, blue, green, black and blue-black ink. However, he cannot produce paper white and thick enough for Shri Sen when the latter wants to write to someone outside the Welfare State.

A pause in the day, in the never ending lurch from telephone call to unwelcome visitor to personal work to meeting to review to site inspection to social function to public puja to official inauguration to ghastly crisis to office files to telephone call. Just then, a goat looks in enquiringly at the window. It is a frequent visitor; it pops in sometimes to chew up some paper and c.r.a.p between the almirahs. 'f.u.c.k off, you, orders the Collector. It does. This is power.

Every now and then in his career, once a week on the average, Shri Sen regrets his decision to join the topmost Civil Service of the country. On the other days, when he reflects, life outside the government appears tense-making, obsequious and fake. In contrast, within the Welfare State, he feels that he has at last begun to trip without acid-with his feet six inches above the ground, yet with an ear to it, walking tall, on a permanent high. There have been moments in the last eight years when hes caught himself thinking that he could quite easily have worked in the Welfare State for free. Of course, given his salary, he is doing almost just that.

Chidambaram sidles in at that point. Generally speaking, the more he sidles, the less welcome the news. 'Sir, milk- white paper not readily available in Stock, sir. I have sent the boy to Gaindamulls Stationery Mart on Junction Road, sir, to purchase . . . and there was a telephone call from the Circuit House, sir. Shri Bhootnath Gaitonde has left and is on his way here to meet you.

All of a sudden, Shri Sen feels an urge to smoke a cigarette. He hasnt smoked even one in four years, but the desire still a.s.sails him every now and then. He manfully resists, remembering that he has the Welfare State to thank for helping him to kick the habit. For smoking and spitting paan all over the place have been banned by law in all the offices of the government. It is a regulation that Shri Sen has enforced with considerable enthusiasm and vigour, commanding the police to arrest and hara.s.s, in their own inimitable way, all offenders. The Welfare State has certainly helped the fascist in him to bloom.

As for dope, though governance couldnt wean him off it, it did manage to influence his mode of its intake. A Collector couldnt very well be seen rolling and puffing away at a joint, so he began to brew cannabis in his morning pot of tea and stuff pellets of hashish into his post-lunch paans. Paans were eminently Establishment-why, the Chief Revenue Divisional Commissioner had more than ten a day. He had a plastic wastebasket beneath his desk into which he periodically spat paan gob and residual cud (this disgusting habit was not an offence; if you kept your red paan spittle to yourself and your wastebasket, you were law-abiding).

Those in the know will corroborate that dope that enters ones bloodstream through ones stomach hits later, hits harder and stays longer than that through the lungs. Thus, in the course of his day, when Shri Sen wasnt on a permanent high, it could be presumed that hed wandered further up-as it were, onto Cloud Nine. Moreover, during the past eight years, hed discovered that cannabis and hashish, steadily imbibed, helped marvellously to lessen the pain and discomfort of his senselessly strenuous swimming and jogging sessions. Dope, he was convinced, was the antidote to much of the suffering of the civil servant. Thus, in his black diary, in the February section that was devoted to Possible Ideas for Essays and Articles on the Welfare State, hed noted: Cannabis and Piles: Didnt de Quincey and Sherlock Holmes have haemorrhoids? Please find out. Also, it is extraordinary how many civil servants have piles. In my eight years, I myselfve met Kulmohan Singh, Killer Venkita, Shengupto, Singhvi and Tutreja. The Fellowship of the Rose. Surely sitting around on files cant be the cause. But how fascinating if theres a link.

One of the challenges of his job that hed particularly liked was acquiring dope simply and inconspicuously. The best dope in town was of course with the police, kilos and kilos of it seized in routine raids and swoops. The Superintendent of Police of Madna, Shri Pannalal Makkad, wise and wicked, had already sent the Collector a consignment of the best.

Though Shri Makkad, socially and culturally, came from a different planet, Agastyaji the Collector Saab got on well with him and considered him a friend. They had socialized twice in the first ten days-booze, reminiscences and a terribly late dinner. Shri Makkads recollections of thirty-five years spent in the service of the Police State were what enthralled Agastya. For, as he joked all the time to whoever was listening, for the life of him, in his eight years of service, he hadnt been able to distinguish between the Police State and the Welfare State. There wasnt any difference between the two, was there?

The Welfare State, for example, was totally committed to Protecting The Planet, but who actually profited the most out of illegal tree felling and the criminal timber trade? The police, of course. The Welfare State had outlawed beggary, but just before the visit of Gorbachev or Nelson Mandela, when it actually wanted to keep the beggars out of sight, who did it turn to to round them up, stuff them into trucks and ferry them a hundred kilometres out of the city? The police, of course. 'We can never Eradicate Poverty, Shri Makkad used to intone over his fourth whisky, 'but we can eradicate the poor. All we need is intelligent legislation. When the intelligent legislation of the Welfare State backfired horribly, as when, on the basis of the recommendations of the Kansal Commission, it ratified the reservation of an awesome seventy- three per cent of all its jobs for different categories of Backward, Depressed, Repressed and Suppressed Cla.s.ses and Castes, and thus triggered off nationwide riots that left officially eighty-four dead and unofficially 342, whom did it, the Welfare State, blubberingly beseech to stop the carnage? Its police force, of course, which later, frenziedly searching for a scapegoat, it blamed for provoking the riots in the first place. Agastya respected the police because it was everywhere and always there to create the s.h.i.t, wallow in it, to take it. When his monthly Small Savings target, for instance, fell short by a few lakhs, he wouldnt bother to summon his slothful a.s.sistant Directors of Small Savings to exhort them all afternoon to move their b.u.t.ts. No. Instead, hed phone Makkad and ask him to send around his most persuasive Station House Officer to the more prominent traders and businessmen of Madna with an earnest appeal to partic.i.p.ate in the States laudable schemes. Again, when he wanted a train ticket in a couple of hours, or when he found that the garbage dump at the junction of the main road and his lane had mounted high enough for Moses, hed turn-not to the Railways or the Munic.i.p.ality-but to the constables who hung around the gates of his house.

Madna is probably Makkads last appointment before he retires. Hed been posted as Police Superintendent in that district once before. He is a widower. Rumour has it that he burnt his wife some twenty years ago in a fit of rage because she used to criticize his drinking. All of Madna can attest to his ill-temper.

During his first stint as Police Superintendent, at the Hemvati Aflatoon Welfare State Home for the Visually Disadvantaged, an infuriated attendant, with a hot ladle, had gouged out the right eye of a blind girl, just because at breakfast she had asked for a second helping of gruel. The incident, naturally, had stunned Madna and the entire region. Questions had been vociferously asked in the Legislative a.s.sembly. The tabloids of the town, led by the yellowest of the lot, the Dainik, had plastered the face of the victim on their front pages and run interviews with the unrepentant attendant for days on end. Several protest marches and processions had been organized and the redoubtable Shri Bhootnath Gaitonde himself, on the morning of the District Planning and Development Council meeting, had led seventy blind students of the Home and about a hundred of their supporters in a dramatic silent march to the Council Hall. The-men of vision, shall we say? including Shri Gaitonde-had all worn dark gla.s.ses to-presumably-symbolically and visually underscore their support of the purpose of the march. The men of vision had thought the dark gla.s.ses a brilliant idea, but the Superintendent of Police hadnt. Makkad had been so incensed by what he considered tasteless and gimmicky exhibitionism that hed verbally commanded the constables on duty at the Council Hall to swagger out and cosh the non-blind protesters about a bit. Unfortunately, the police coshed more than a bit and did not discriminate amongst the dark gla.s.ses.

Sixteen grievously injured and seventy-one with b.u.mps on the head. Shri Gaitonde was rendered speechless with ecstasy at this heaven-sent opportunity to plague the Welfare State. And plague it he did, with elan and gusto, exploiting the mishap at every turn till the next elections, when he formed the New Vision Party and won the Madna seat of the Legislative a.s.sembly. Of course, a high-level enquiry was ordered into the incident and the State appointed the then Managing Director of the State Industrial Development Corporation, Bhupen Raghupati, to conduct it. The Superintendent of Police, deposing before the Enquiry Officer, was aghast at the insinuation of the Inspector on duty at the Council Hall that he, the Superintendent, had ordered the lathi charge against the procession. When he learnt of the Superintendents stupefaction, the Inspector, who knew what was what, in turn retracted his statement, instead owned up himself to having ordered the a.s.sault and on the advice of his well-wishers, pleaded temporary insanity on the morning of the march because of sunstroke and exhaustion. The Civil Surgeon of Madna, a pleasant sluggard called Alagh, certified that during the enquiry proceedings itself, the Inspector had suffered a relapse of the same whatever-it-had-been-thatd driven-him-round-the-bend and needed to be hospitalized immediately. After fifteen months of cogitation, the Enquiry Officer concluded that since the Inspector had acted when not in complete control of himself, he needed first to be issued a stern warning against such lapses of reason in the future and second, to be posted to a less strenuous job where he could be observed for a few months. Only thereafter could the extent of his guilt be accurately ascertained. In his recommendations, the Enquiry Officer himself suggested a transfer to either the Police Wives Welfare Board or The Police Sports Stadiums Authority.

In the February section of his diary, Shri Sen recorded this characteristic activity of the Welfare State as worthy of further scrutiny under the t.i.tle Withering the Buck: In his address to the nation on Independence Day next year, the Prime Minister would do well to exhort his countrymen to take to rugby. Perhaps one of the reasons that we pa.s.s so well is that there are so many of us around for the relay-and each time the buck pa.s.ses, its funny how it becomes vague, loses focus and direction, how its pa.s.sing never ends-it just gets tired and disintegrates, withers, like a cripple paralysed on the gra.s.s verge of some monstrous highway, slowly crumbling into dust. A golden rule: When youre with your boss, always, always make sure that your subordinate is with you-someone to whom you can pa.s.s on the spot. In an emergency, even the driverll do. If youre so inclined, you can even turn around and wave to the buck as it recedes, withers and disintegrates.

'Chidambaram, phone the SPs office and tell them that Gaitonde is on his way . . . Do we have decent envelopes? . . . Probably not . . . Did you ask the boy to buy some envelopes as well? . . . Chidambaram bows his head in shame. His bald dome gleams with the sweat of contrition. ' . . . Never mind . . . Have our daftaris started remaking envelopes in their spare time? . . . Im sure not, despite my recent circular . . . unofficially inform all our peons and daftaris-how many do we have? . . . forty-seven? . . . that if I dont see fifty remade envelopes from each one of them by the end of this week, Ill stop their pay. This is power.

A sort of razors-edge sanity as well. Agastya has always been a voracious reader of trash. Thus, hes taken to-and devoured-with enthusiasm the literature of the Welfare State-handbooks, manuals, statutes, reports, returns, gazettes, minutes, memorandums, doc.u.ments, correspondence, affidavits, acts, and regulations; periodically, he distils what he reads into circulars for the edification of his office. He has sedulously maintained that though ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power, and the servants of the Welfare State need to know well the facets of their master.

His favourite bedtime reading is the Revised Manual of Office Procedure. It has often kept him up till the wee hours, marvelling at his master; its been one of the richest sources for his exhortations to his subordinates.

To help you to use your time more efficiently in office and to ensure that you are economical in the use of the stationery and property of the Welfare State, your kind attention is drawn once more to Rule 17c (iv) of Section 28 of Chapter III. I quote ad verbatim from the Revised Manual. Please note that the Manual was last revised not in the last century, but in 1981.

'i) Those note sheets that are blank on one side, do not contain confidential matter and have been retrieved from old files that have otherwise been marked for destruction should be used in new files for notes.

'ii) Envelopes with communications inside them that are received from other offices should be carefully slit open (and not carelessly torn apart) and preserved. After a sufficient number has acc.u.mulated, they should be handed over to the peons and daftaries so that they can remake envelopes in their spare time. The correct procedure for remaking envelopes is to unstick the gummed portions, turn the envelopes inside out and regum the ends neatly. Pasting slips of paper on used envelopes is not the correct method of making them fit for use again. The last procedure, observed too often in our offices, smacks of laziness and lack of discipline. Also, its end product reflects rather badly on the financial resources of the Welfare State.

'iii) All communications that have to be sent to the same address on the same day should, as far as possible, be collected together and sent in a single envelope or in the smallest number of envelopes that will with ease contain them all.

As Collector and District Magistrate of, and the princ.i.p.al representative of the Welfare State in, Madna, I feel that it is one of my pivotal functions to encourage my colleagues and staff to continually reflect on the nature of their duties and responsibilities, and thereafter to suggest ways and means of improving our present system, for which-I am sure that my colleagues will agree-there exists ample scope. There is always room for improvement-even when one doesnt want it.

Though the circular was Agastyas, its inspiration could just as well have been Prime Minister Bhuvan Aflatoon or his Think Tank. They did that sort of thing all the time, though of course on a far grander scale. It was part of the magic of the new PM, of a government that was going places while breezing forward into the new millennium. In February of that year, for example, Agastya himself had attended a District Collectors Conference summoned by Bhuvan himself, no less, at the Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon TFIN (The Future Is Now) Complex in the capital.

The Conference had been a pleasantly chaotic affair, with two hundred-odd cutthroat-keen delegates from all over the country, all spectacles and statistics, in an atmosphere of quiet turmoil, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with Black Guard Commandoes glaring menacingly at everyone else while b.u.mping into one another, the sort of place to which one could ferry an old, insane or troublesome parent when one wanted to lose him forever.

The conference had puzzled everybody-quite naturally, since it had been dreamed up by the Prime Ministers New Men as the best way of Getting to Know the Cutting Edge of Administration. The several rungs between the Prime Minister and the District Collectors-the Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers, Secretaries to the Centre, Chief Secretaries, Additional Secretaries, Princ.i.p.al Secretaries, Joint Secretaries, Commissioners, Directors, Deputy Secretaries, Joint Commissioners and Additional Directors-in all, about sixty thousand servants of the state-had felt left out, hurt, relieved and happy. The agenda had been freewheeling, that is, had followed whatever had brushed the tabula rasa of Bhuvan Aflatoons mind. He himself had looked rather cute-fresh and starched in his white khadi churidaar-kurta set, his pink jowls and helipad nose glistening with the complacence born out of believing completely his white khadi-clad sycophant- advisors. 'Ever since I took over this hot seat, hed minced into the microphone with a beguiling simper, 'Ive wanted to have a brainstorming session with you all, the scalpels-indeed, the scissors, knives, and pincers-and the hands, arms and legs, to boot-of my government . . . Talk to me, tell me all, hed declared in his otherwise-beautifully-phrased inaugural address, whats it really like out there.

The sixty thousand who hadnt been invited to the conference had been surprised that the Prime Minister was so foolish as to spend an entire day lending an ear to the hot air emanating from two hundred junior civil servants. True, all that blah did pull Bhuvan down a bit; he left at five looking more grey than pink.

Since, a year and a half later, Agastya proposed marriage for the first time to Daya in the main auditorium of the Gaj.a.pati Aflatoon TFIN Complex, it will not be amiss to devote a couple of lines to it at this stage.

It is an impressive, ten-storey structure. The original building took eight years to construct and cost the earth. Over the years, to keep up with the times and the state of the art, it has-at impressive expense-been periodically renovated. It is the happening place of the Welfare State. It has a series of convention halls, the largest of which can seat two thousand, facilities for simultaneous translation into five international and fourteen national languages, central air- conditioning that works right through the most parlous summers, an enormous five-star cafeteria the weekly menu of which diplomatically does justice to the different regional cuisines of the country, an advanced closed-circuit television system, terrifically modern computer and communication gadgetry and-not the least-an unusually eco-friendly, open car-parking area, with bougainvillea, neem, gulmohar, jacaranda and unnoticed wild Congress gra.s.s separating the berths of tarmac.

Dominating the vast central lobby of TFIN Complex stands a not-bad-looking, two-storey-high, abstract sculpture in red sandstone that-obviously-is not meant to look like anything specific on earth, but sometimes resembles three mammoth, irregularly-concentric ovals, and at other times a huge stone female breast with an alarmingly large, inverted nipple ringed by a mysterious, presumably decorative, ovoid quoit of a lighter shade. The sculptor was the late Balwant Chhabra, dear friend of Pashupati Aflatoon. He took six years to create his gift to the Complex, christened it Om, was apoplectic when the press criticized it, married-almost in revenge-an ageing French yoga student and dope addict, and flew off with her to the west coast of France to shiver in the winds, complain of the cold and the food and feel sorry for himself before dying of a heart attack-of a broken heart, lamented his country after hed gone.

Om is the primal sound of the universe, hed explained to a mystified Pashupati Aflatoon, the-then Education and Heritage Minister, at the chaotic unveiling of the sculpture. Om is the Beginning of Communication, of Connection and therefore of Existence, because it is the seminal Chord, the first vibration that shatters the vacuum. If The Future Is Now, then were in tune with time and-here in this foyer of a Modern Temple of Discourse, Debate and Dialogue, how better to express the harmony of our intentions with the Beginning, the Now and the To Come, than by the concrete depiction of the Fundamental Sound?

'Bravo-yes, I now see what you mean, Pashupati Aflatoon had p.r.o.nounced with calm conviction, 'I think you should write it all down-exactly as you said-and give it to the Deputy Secretary, and well put it up on a black marble plaque right next to this thing. Very good. Thank you, Balli.

'Paycho, an aghast Balwant Chhabra is reported to have muttered in response. The entire event has been described in fair detail in the racy-but generally unreliable-memoirs of Balwants half-mad half-sister, who was present at the unveiling because she never left his side, not even-it is said-at night. The work is in Punjabi-Hindustani. After Balwant took flight with his French dope addict, she plagued him with faxes and letters to move his a.r.s.e to get European publishing houses to translate and publish the opus.

It is likely, however, that on that occasion, the sculptor did react to the Ministers suggestion with a Paycho because it was his primal sound-was-is-indeed, the fundamental expression of a whole culture, that of the north country. The actual Hindustani word of course is Bahenchod, that is, Sister-f.u.c.ker, but time, usage and a sluggish tongue have weathered the three syllables down to two and of them, honed the first and abbreviated and softened the second. More fragmented than Om, less solemn, more nasal, whining, less sure, less complete, nearer to the heart, more physical, Paycho more correctly expresses the Zeitgeist, the state of the times. In her memoirs, therefore, Balwants half-sister continually alludes to his sculpture at the TFIN Complex as Paychom.

Of course, in her defence, it should be clarified here that the word doesnt simply mean Sister-f.u.c.ker anymore. The most respectable Punjabi and Hindustani speakers use it in everyday discourse as an exclamation, a succinct comment, en pa.s.sant, on the human condition. 'This morning, Paycho, it was raining Paycho, so hard Paycho, that I decided Paycho not to bathe. Paycho the dog refused to Paycho go out Paycho for his morning potty Paycho and he did it Paycho on my wifes Paycho office shoes.

'Paycho! Free shoe polish! Paycho rush for a Paycho patent!

The above conversation takes place in Punjabi-Hindustani, in the dark, in the corridors of frequent powerlessness of Aflatoon Bhavan. The venue is typical, Punjabi Hindustani being the unofficial official language of the Welfare State. Available statistics indicate that seventy-eight per cent of the officers and staff of the national government speak it or have officially stated either Punjabi or Hindi to be his or her mother tongue. Further, ninety-six per cent prefer to curse and exclaim in it. Therefore, since the servants of the Welfare State generally are literate, middlish-cla.s.s and respectable, Paycho becomes the most-often heard exclamation in Aflatoon Bhavan, a proposition easily proved by a stroll down its corridors, by candle-light, amongst the monkeys, inhaling the aromas of urine and tea. Balwants half-sisters rechristening of his sculpture was thus, in more than one sense, inspired.

Pashupati Aflatoon did put up a black marble plaque beside Paychom. Engraved on it were a Deputy Secretarys version of the sculptors explanation of the significance of his creation given to the Minister on the occasion of its unveiling. On the understandable artistic grounds that his work needed no written exegesis, Balwant Chhabra refused to have anything more to do with the plaque, the Complex or the Ministry. Hence, at the Deputy Secretarys suggestion that it would reinforce his cultural credentials, Pashupati Aflatoon agreed to have his own name engraved under the interpretation.

On the afternoon of the last day of the Getting-to-Know-the- Cutting-Edge-of-Administration conference, the father of all fires broke out in-and engulfed almost half of-TFIN Complex. Though the Enquiry Commission that was subsequently set up could not tell, after six months, precisely how and when the fire started, it was universally felt that the stars had been propitious in that it-the fire-had, as it were, warmed up, and got cracking, only well after office hours; thus, no lives had been lost, just some property worth a handful of crores. The engineers of the Public Works Department, in antic.i.p.ation of the repair work to be distributed, were wined and dined for weeks on end by the contractors on the Approved Emergency Shortlist. Some of the engineers were even congratulated on their good fortune, as at the birth of a son.

A short-circuit in the wiring, guessed an onlooker. An electric heater left carelessly on long after the chapatis for lunchd been warmed up, opined another. Sabotage, there are wheels within wheels, a.s.serted a third, sagely. 'My G.o.d, can we do nothing right? fumed Prime Minister Bhuvan Aflatoon, shocked, angry and depressed, 'has some a.s.s thought of a second venue for tomorrow or do I have to think of everything?

The happening slated for the following day was particularly dear to the PM because it was entirely his baby, conceived exclusively by him, without any inspiration or input from any member of the Coterie. 'Look, the New Industries Policy and peaceful nuclear bombs in mid-ocean and Revised Strategies for Increased Milk Production are all right-but what about the People? Thats whom I want to meet. Theyve voted for me and they wave and smile and look so warm and welcoming despite the awful lives they lead. About five hundred million of them are illiterate, isnt that right? Well-how many of them have never seen a colour TV or a washing machine? Have never used a telephone? Leave alone understood the concept of a laptop? Do we have the figures? . . . I want to be in touch with them all the time, not once in five years, just to seduce them with my smile for their vote, from some open-air jeep, surrounded by AK-47s. I want them to see TFIN Complex-for which well have to think up a new name, at once, something Sanskritic and full of cultural resonance-you know, the latest in science merely carries on our rich, continuous cultural traditions, that science is in our rivers, our blood and our festivals-that kind of jazz. TFIN is a totally unacceptable acronym. It conjures up a tower of dented aluminium boxes-dal at the bottom, topped by, in order, greasy bhindi, raw onions, green chillies and cold, fat, spongelike parathas squeezed like the G.o.dforsaken into a train compartment en route to Auschwitz . . . He waited, pleased, for the New Men-all his old school chums who had sucked up to him even then-to stop chuckling. ' . . . Could we get some modern Sanskrit whizkid cracking on the new name? . . . But the People. I want to set up an exchange programme for them. They should all be brought here in trucks or something. They should see, understand, feel the new world in their own backyard-TFIN Complex, the National Information Coordination Plan, the Age of Science Pavilion, the Central Computer Inst.i.tute, the s.p.a.ce Research Organization-I want those five hundred million illiterates to experience the wonders of technology and all that in their own country, behind which stand their own countrymen . . . and then, and then-well reverse the movement. All these Steel Frame fellows, for example, who focus all their energies on w.a.n.gling for themselves junkets in the fleshpots of the world-let them all instead go and spend a week in one of our typical villages. Let them c.r.a.p in the fields with stray dogs sniffing at their b.u.ms-and bathe at the well with some buffalo, dream of electricity and a radio, irrigation for their dining-table plots of land and cows as dowry for their sons. Let them get their heads blown off in some ancient, unending, mystifying, caste war-off-the-record, of course . . . What do you fellows think of the idea?

The Old Chums had been enthusiastic. They loved spending the money of the Welfare State, issuing instructions, supervising the scurrying around of a city of officials, and holding leisurely brainstorming sessions to which they wore hand-woven, off-white kurtas and batik saris and at which they, to soothe their sensitive throats, sipped tepid boiled water in which floated a piece or two of lemon. After a couple of these sessions, a week later, Rajani Suroor returned to Bhuvan Aflatoon with the details of the OYE-OYE Happening.

Each of the five hundred-plus districts of the country would identify four sane, adult citizens-at least two of whom had to be women-who had never visited the capital city, had never ridden in a car and-mindful of the Prime Ministers befuddled outpouring-had never used a telephone or seen or touched a washing machine. The regional governments would ferry all the citizens selected to the capital where, for four days, they-the chosen-would experience some of the wonders of the modern world. The New Men adored this, this senseless mobilization of an enormous number of humans and a vast amount of resources and energy simply to satisfy the whim of the powerful. It was like being in the court of an emperor in the golden age. On all the evenings, Vyatha, Rajani Suroors theatre group, would interface with the chosen to explore, through the medium of popular street entertaimnent-enacted by the communal fireside, as it were, with the more extrovert amongst the visitors in the key roles-their world, minds, their reactions to the whole trip, ideas on caste, gender equality, modernization, politics, the country. At the end of their sojourn, the chosen, as a climax, would meet, dine-and freely exchange views and ideas-with the Prime Minister. The entire programme could be officially called-if the PM permitted, of course-The Open Your Eyes, Open Your Eyes Happening. To which select representatives of the Steel Frame would certainly be invited.

The PM was ecstatic. He too like his coterie loved the ease with which the seed of an idea blossomed into a flower that could be touched and seen. When it grew unexpectedly into a monstrous weed, one needed solid chaps around one whod continue to convincingly describe it, for example, as a stunningly beautiful, a perfect, orchid. One needed that sort of encouragement all the time, to get on with Progress, the happenings. He remembered perfectly that when his grand- uncle Trimurti Aflatoon had been Prime Minister and they had fought their fourth border war with their dear neighbours, they had celebrated their victory in a befitting manner, with holidays, awards, promotions, triumphal processions, glorious war memorials and an att.i.tude of warm munificence towards the fresh demands of the armed forces, ignoring-naturally-at the same time, all the reports that described with some fervour how the unmentionables across the border too were celebrating their victory in similar style. This was the Information Age, dammit; one would drown if one didnt select what one wanted to hear-and one had to arrange for the right voices-it wasnt as straightforward as having a quick shower, you know-to pick and choose amongst those media barons and lords of industry with their salivating slippery tongues and tails that wagged like a battery-operated toys.

'Rajani, Bhuvan Aflatoon purred with affection, 'you might well be a visionary but for me, you also need to be a micro-level planner. Open your eyes yourself! Those wretched regional governments where we arent in power would never pay for this show. Hunt around for some funds without dragging me into it. And where will those two thousand countrymen of ours stay? A camp somewhere, sanitation, transport, food and all that-alongside your campfires, of course. See if you can link it up with the Centenary.

Off-White Paper.

Dr Srinivas Chakki didnt in the least like the ward of the Madna Civil hospital in a bed of which he lay. Mouldy walls, cobwebs, window panes opaque, with grime, a dirt-encrusted floor, bedpans strewn all anyhow like a childs playthings, the electricity supply as wayward as a politicians ethics. His bed had no linen. Its mattress was stained and stank; its cotton had been dementedly gouged out in parts. His side-table was rusted and somehow furry with some kind of fungus.

The bed on his left was occupied by a young woman with tears in her eyes and dressing and plaster all over the right side of her face. She was a new neighbour in that he couldnt recall seeing her when hed last been awake, though he couldnt remember either how long ago that had been. He was mentally awake enough to wonder why a victim of accidental or intentional violence had been dumped beside him.

'Arent we in the Infectious Diseases Ward of this hospital? demanded he of the hall. No one responded, perhaps because no one heard him save the woman in the next bed and she could make nothing out of his slurred mumble. Hazily, he puzzled over where Miss Shruti and Miss Snigdha could be. Perhaps the awesomely humid heat of the ward bad metamorphosed them into a couple of the pigeons roosting on the dingy ventilators high up near the ceiling.

The forceful stink of the room-disinfectant, medicines, urine, rotting matter-reminded him that he wanted to p.i.s.s but he didnt have the guts to confront the visualized filth of the toilet. Its yellow door, four beds down and opposite Dr Chakki, lay permanently ajar, perhaps because n.o.body wished to touch it. With reason, since in the few minutes that he spent gazing at it, three p.i.s.sers shuffled up to-and not daring to cross its threshold, relieved themselves against-it.

The nurse on duty, whose duty it was to stride manfully through the ward and out the door that led to the canteen, doughtily ignoring the groans, whines and other types of summons from different beds, appeared at that point in his field of vision. She moved like a willowy dragon.

'Bedsheets, Sister Joseph! bayed Dr Chakki valiantly, 'and a bedpan! he added to her back. His vexation at her disregarding him suddenly spurred him into sitting up in bed. She had stopped to note something down on the chart at the foot of the second last bed from the door. 'Not having had, in my twenty years of public service, he declared to her, but in a voice that didnt carry beyond his uncomprehending neighbour, 'the pleasure of being a guest of the Welfare State in any of its jails or asylums, I cannot comment on the cleanliness and hygienic conditions of those inst.i.tutions-but my G.o.d, why dont we combine them with our State hospitals? How could anyone tell the difference? He watched Sister Joseph disappear through the door and then turned to his female neighbour, whod been observing him for the past few minutes with dryer eyes, 'Faecal matter, mouldy bandages, c.o.c.kroaches, enormous spiders and rats. Rats at every step. Scurrying up your leg! Heavens-down which drain does the crores of rupees allocated to Public Health every year go? Does anybody here know what it takes to keep a hospital toilet clean? He surveyed the ward. 'Some detergent. Some disinfectant. Water, a broom, a sweeper. How many sweepers does this hospital have? Seventeen. And what is its Maintenance budget for the year? Eleven lakh rupees. I am determined that the light of reason should pierce at least one skull in this place. Exhausted, he flopped back onto his pillow and dropped off almost immediately.

He surfaced about an hour later to find Sister Joseph and the doctor on duty standing beside his bed, solemnly scanning his case history. 'h.e.l.lo, Doctor Blue and Sister Moon, I presume.

The doctor was bald and fleshy, with a stoop. Clearly a no-nonsense person, he, without glancing at his patient, shushed him-or tried to-with a commanding wave of his hand.

'Im so glad that youve showed up because we in the ward had begun to think that wed all been abandoned, like sinking ships.

Without saying a word, the doctor thrust a hand out at Sister Joseph, who demurely slipped into it, from a sheaf that she carried, an X-ray, which he then examined with eagle eye.

'The patient is suffering from an advanced stage of pneumonic plague, he announced.

'Thank you, but I ought to point out that that X-ray in your hand is that of a female. Im a doctor myself, an entomologist. I can tell a womans X-ray from a mans. You need to return to medical college, Eagle-eye. To himself, Dr Chakki added, 'Time to go.

Half an hour later, fatigued but free, he was in his own clothes and at the Qayamat Road gate of Aflatoon Maidan, mildly bewildered by the exertion of walking and the three- in-one hunger strike in progress before him.

Exiting from the hospital had not been easy. Two cops at Reception had barred his way and without saying anything, had simply looked as sceptical as boulders. Hed explained in English that he wasnt at all a plague case trying to cut loose but a patient of murine typhus which, as they no doubt knew, was not even remotely as lethal even though it exhibited similar symptoms. When their faces hadnt changed, hed shown them a relevant newspaper clipping that hed extracted from the clutter in his shirt pocket. The balder one had expressionlessly scanned it upside down while he, weak with excitement, had continued to gabble, 'Who indeed knows whats going on in the Welfare State? The news item in your hand is from the December 4 edition of The State Express.

And Now Murine Typhus Dr Sitaram Dhanuka, a killi University academic who had predicted the outbreak of plague in a research paper published last January, now questions his own forecast. In a letter to this newspaper, he writes: I note with serious concern the reports published in several newspapers that the hospitals and clinics of Madna and its environs, because of lack of trained medical staff and facilities and because of overcrowding, have released and continue to release into open society all those patients who test negative for the plague. I am amazed that the National Inst.i.tute of Communicable Diseases (from which august political inst.i.tution I resigned in protest in 1979) and hospitals all over the country need to be reminded of the existence of murine typhus, a flea-borne disease akin to the plague, with much the same symptoms and transmission route. It could even be argued-though Im not for the moment doing so-that what Madna is battling at the moment is not the plague, but murine typhus.

The following symptoms are common to both diseases-high body temperature (102 to 105 degrees F), severe headache, a chill, body pain, a rash. I suspect that those patients at Madna who exhibited the above symptoms but still tested negative for the plague might well be afflicted with murine typhus, which is an airborne, rickettsial disease spread through the fleas of rats, dogs and cats. Its mortality rate is five per cent. I would strongly recommend to the hospitals of Madna that all suspected plague patients be tested for murine typhus as well. Otherwise, I fear that what we might have on our hands is not one epidemic, but two.

Or even three. I read with bitter amus.e.m.e.nt on November 11 the news item on Housing Problem of your paper that the National Inst.i.tute of Communicable Diseases still refuses to recognize the existence in this country of a comparatively new, drug-resistant, potentially fatal strain of malaria, the perils of which I had spelt out in my paper on the subject as far back as 1978. Twelve cases and two deaths have been reported in the last three months from Sripura, s.h.a.galand and Ra.s.sam. How many deaths will jolt the Welfare State out of its slumber? Yours, etc.

The bald policeman had expressionlessly handed the clipping back to Dr Chakki and then with a wriggle of his eyebrows and a motion of his head indicated that he should retreat down the corridor from which he had slithered out.

'Of course, conceded Dr Chakki graciously, 'but shouldnt you instead be more worried about the real threats? and he pointed with his chin to the squad of Madna youth at the gates of the hospital. It had been a neck-and-neck decision, what to distract the guardians with-the gang at the entrance or any one of the other cl.u.s.ters in the compound, one munching peanuts and playing cards, a second enclosing a hoa.r.s.e-voiced seller of aphrodisiacs, a third bickering with a different set of policemen.

Sedately, theyd strolled across to the gates. The youngsters, more well-meaning than wise, formed one of the many bands that scoured the choked drains and mountainous garbage dumps of their town for rats, which they trapped, stunned, performed-being a devout people-a little puja around, anointed with kerosene and ghee, set fire to and watched burn. In fact, one teenager-long-haired, large-eyed-did hold by the tail-at arms length, it is true, and quakingly-a monstrous rat, grey-brown, furry, fat, about whose snout he clumsily waved a lit incense stick. A comrade waited beside him, bottle of kerosene in hand. Beneath the hubbub of the street could be heard from the group the hum of some religious chant.

'Heroic, observed Dr Chakki, 'but one must add that while burning a knocked-out rat might possibly be a karmic experience, the zeal, the war fever of these juveniles might actually be helping the plague-or the murine typhus, as the case may be-to spread since the vector fleas are far more likely to flee from the corpse of a burning rat than the snug fur of a living one.

He could have burst a firecracker in the constables ears and still not distracted them from the rite. He waited till the kerosene and a spoonful of ghee had been sprinkled on the comatose rat, a lit match touched to its snout and the burning body flung down on the ground; hed slid away to the enthralling squeals of the dying rodent and deftly sat down on the rear carrier of a pa.s.sing, torpidly-moving bicycle. When the cyclist had turned around enquiringly, hed pleaded in his pathetic Hindi, 'Just till the end of the road, sir. My heads spinning like a top.

It did, just a bit, outside the Qayamat Road gate of Aflatoon Maidan, so Dr Chakki subsided onto the pavement and briefly shut his eyes. 'Hunger and thirst, sir, declared he to himself, 'are to be fought with firefighting measures on a war footing. So he determinedly entered the park and crossed over to the three-in-one hunger strike.

It was being enacted on a makeshift stage about three feet high, appropriately elevating the protesters a couple of steps closer to immortality. The awning had been fashioned with gaily-coloured bedsheets; beneath it, the organizers had arranged for mattresses, white sheets and some white bolsters, a couple of standing electric fans, some garlanded photographs of Gandhi, Ambedkar, a fistful of Aflatoons and a smiling, full-length one of the princ.i.p.al striker.

He is obese, twenty-six years old, unemployed, unemployable, with curly hair, melting eyes and a broom of a moustache. In the photograph, he is in a tight black shirt, tight white pants, white leather shoes and a white tie. On stage, he is in off-white kurta pyjama, supine against some pillows. Incense smoke wafts around him to underscore that the G.o.ds are with him in his struggle. A public-address system in the corner plays non-stop doleful shehnai music (switching to vigorous Punjabi rap only when he is propped up so that he can sip water).

Facing the stage are a couple of red rexine sofas for V?IP visitors. They are crawling with children, so Dr Chakki steps right up to the platform, leans on it and informs the prostrate protester, 'I know you. Youre A.C. Raichur. Weve met before in Aflatoon Bhavan. You performed there.

Indeed they have and he has.

Raichur had wanted to walk-to proceed on foot, to quote his application-all over the country for six years to spread the message of national integration and had believed that the Welfare State should sponsor him. The Department of Sports had opined that their Rules of Business didnt cover a six-year-long walk and that national integration was definitely more a Culture subject, may therefore kindly see please. The Joint Secretary of the Department of Culture was miffed at the very idea that a freeloader as unarty as A.C. Raichur could be palmed off on to him and sternly noted in the file: We may please regret. The applicant doesnt at all fulfil the criteria of our Programme Number 6493 for the Promotion and Diffusion of Demotic and Indigenous Drama and Other Such Forms of Self- Expression. We may, if approved, forward to Home Affairs. National Integration, though they might not know, is their concern. Eight months after his first application, an unctuous Raichur met and oiled the feet and calves of the MP-and by then, Deputy Information Minister-from Madna, Bhanwar Virbhim, for a good two hours, after which he implored him for justice from his government. Bhanwar requested his HUBRIS counterpart to sponsor Raichurs n.o.ble cause out of the Cabinet Ministers Discretionary Fund. After two months of frenetic paperwork, the Department granted him enough money to walk for four and a half days.

He was rather upset-but he didnt refuse the money. When he, wearing his black-and-white outfit, went to collect the cheque, he learnt that-well, even the Welfare State wasnt that soft a touch. He would have to spend the money first out of his own pocket and submit all kinds of doc.u.ments as proof. If they satisfied the State, it would reimburse him. This was not strictly true. When hed return to Aflatoon Bhavan with all his faked proofs of expenditure, the clerks of the Welfare State wouldnt give him his cheque right away, oh no. Instead, to quote from the February section of Shri Agastya Sens diary, 'theyd inform him of the next pa.s.sage of the labyrinth. Knowledge withheld is power. The clerks of the Welfare State wouldnt like to part with even an atom of information, either to the public or their superiors. When pressed, cornered, they will cede, piecemeal, incomplete info, bit by bit. If a procedure has seven stages and nine annexures, they will reveal this knowledge in a minimum of sixteen separate encounters, which will be routinely interspersed with occasions when they wont be available or will tell you nothing, or instead will hint at bribes.

Raichurs outraged friends in the Dainik had suggested a hunger strike.

Galvanized, he sat up abruptly, his lips curled like a predators. 'Dr Chakki, here! What a pleasure! Here, have a Coca Cola and some laddus! He beckoned to one of the children on the sofas, who skipped off to the tables alongside the stage on which had been ranged baskets and baskets of food-parathas, alu chaat, idli vada, dal fry in bowls of banana leaves, samosas, condensed-milk burfis, podanpolis, omelettes. Raichur had objected to his sympathizers snacking while they were with him but had failed to dissuade them. They in turn had pointed out that the effect of a hunger strike would be far more sublime if enacted in the midst of Temptation. Ever mindful of advertis.e.m.e.nts for himself, he had decreed that the food was to be offered as well to any pa.s.ser-by who stayed long enough and looked sufficiently impressed by the spectacle, and to the policemen on duty, of whom there were quite a few; the district administration-being a second target of the hunger strike for its arrest of Makhmal Bagai for having fired a gun in the presence of the Collector, no less, and for its refusal to release him on bail-had clearly felt that it should look as though it took Raichurs open disapproval of its firmness seriously.

'Two Coca Colas, please, without ice, and without a gla.s.s. I mean, I will drink straight from the bottle.

'Not for me, though, pointed out Raichur, 'Im on- and he gestured to the numerous banners in white, blue and red above his head and amongst the trees of the park, bright and pretty like the dreams of children, screaming injustice-but happily-against the Welfare State in general and its local representatives and the Kansal Commission in particular.

'Yes, very good, this three-in-one effort. An economy drive, in other words. Will you smoke? Will your principles allow you to? With an effort, Dr Chakki hoisted himself onto the stage and sat down beside Raichur. He found his cigarettes, lit up and began to feel dizzy again. 'Im interested in politics and governance. I study the subject. As a long- term beneficiary of the Welfare State, youd be a suitable person to pose some of my questions to. Why, for example, do we continue to vote back to power such worthless specimens? . . . and while on the topic, I should add that Im contemplating a white paper on the magic of the Aflatoons.

In response, Raichur turned to the doctor and yawned like a beast, slowly, throwing his head back and arching his back, generously allowing him to view his molars and tonsils. When hed finished, he blinked a couple of times and said, 'Im always ready to be interviewed. Please feel free to ask me whatever you want to know about me.

'Whatever happened to your Walk for National Integration?

For one thing, it had become a run. Rather than a long-term beneficiary of the Welfare State, it would be more accurate to call Raichur a long-term aspirant to the dugs of. When one had meant to walk for six years for a cause but had been constrained by lack of funds to four and a half days, it seemed more apt, to hasten the diffusion of the message, to run. His Nationwide Trot for Peace and Understanding had been flagged off from Madna by Bhanwar Virbhim himself. Unfortunately, three kilometres out, hed been attacked by a mad dog and had had to be hospitalized; in his bed, hed frothed at the mouth out of fear and had kept repeating that the dog had been very old, foolish, wilful, unpredictable and bad-tempered-a canine King Lear, in short.

Ironic, because far away in Aflatoon Bhavan, Under Secretary Shri Ghosh Dastidar, who had handled Raichurs Run, had in fact recommended that he be given more funds than hed asked for on the grounds of the extra nutritional requirement. It has been conclusively proved, argued Shri Dastidar, that the fitness level of one of our average national athletes equals that of the average, middle-aged, depressed, divorced, Scandinavian housewife, so what then of one of our average, out- of-shape citizens? It would be catastrophic to have him start his Run and, as it were, die on the hands of the government.

Gradually, Raichur became a regular visitor at Aflatoon Bhavan. After he recovered from the dog bite, the Ministers office procured for him yet one more berth. They packed him off to some northern town to lead a public relay hunger strike against the recommendations of the Kansal Commission. On the second day, some pa.s.sing terrorists shot at them, killing all the others and wounding him. Sitting ducks, one pro-Kansal newspaper called them. As for Raichur: neer-say- die-even-when-wounded, truly, because he came back-and with a new application.

Which is when Dr Chakki and some of his colleagues first heard him perform. Hed then wanted to make noises for a living, and a grant from Aflatoon Bhavan to start him off. He was simply terrific in his white shoes, white pants, black shirt and white tie. 'Ill begin with a sixties James Bond trailer, and he curled his lip. He would have liked to grin from ear to ear but his cheeks-dark brown footb.a.l.l.s of frozen b.u.t.ter-prevented his mouth from stretching. Then his lips were sealed, and he began his impersonation. His cheeks ballooned even more, his eyes bulged, his nostrils seemed to blow scorching gas into his broom of a moustache. Above his tight black collar, his Adams Apple bobbed up and down amongst all those chins like a ping pong ball trapped in a beaker of boiling water. His audience shut its eyes and was transported to a movie hall somewhere in 1967 . . . first the Theme Tune from James Bond for ten-to-fifteen seconds, then a riot of gun shots, followed by a deep, wry, very British voice speaking BBC-gibberish, of course, but it sounded like 'Care for a cup of tea? Shaken, not stirred? . . . after which, a couple of atom bombs went off, and next a woman purred for ten seconds, a profoundly satisfying but well-mannered o.r.g.a.s.m. Her soft groans ended with a couple of gasps that sounded like 'Oh James . . . James Bond . . . and were suddenly overwhelmed by the most frightening sounds of a car chase. The roar of engines, tyres squealing, brakes screeching, sirens wailing, the blare of angry, scared car horns, the occasional rat-a-tat of gunfire, women screaming in the background . . . the whole climaxed in a ten-second, end-of-the-world explosion, succeeded by a moment or two of startling silence, and finally, just before a short reprise of the Theme Tune, in a deadpan, underplayed but effectively dramatic, stereophonic tone of voice, a few more stray sounds of gibberish-BBC: 'Silencers on Your p.u.s.s.y, 'Bad s.e.x with a Beretta-a combination of the two, obviously the t.i.tle of the imagined thriller. An outstanding performance indeed.

Raichur also had an interesting variation on the Bond. A takeoff on a Hollywood movie, though it is not at all certain that he himself considered them takeoffs. For him, they werent funny, they were the real thing. The Hollywood one had the same sound effects and an excellent American tw.a.n.g. Its refrain, sometimes in a scream of rising panic and on occasions in a quiet and decisive drawl, sounded like: 'Lets get the h.e.l.loutta here! . . . He was building up an interesting repertoire, including the denouement of a Hindi film-the villain guffawing while he suspends the bleeding, blind mother of the hero over a vat of boiling oil-coconut or mustard, depending on the location-and a tour de force, the sounds of a group of protesters on a relay hunger strike against the Kansal Commission being gunned down by pa.s.sing terrorists.

Shri Dastidar had tried to fit Raichur into Preservation of Vanishing Cultures, but savvy that he was, he knew that there was more money in Promotion of Indigenous Drama. More than one sage in Aflatoon Bhavan has predicted a rich haul and a fruitful future for him in the Department.

'We havent seen you in the corridors of Aflatoon Bhavan for quite a while, commented Dr Chakki after he had drained his second bottle of Coca Cola and had burped satisfactorily.

'Ive been too busy here, Raichur gestured once more-'answering the call of the nation- at the pleasant chaos around him, 'but,-rea.s.suringly-'I will come.

'Good. Thank you. I must now make a move. Where in Madna do you think I could rest in peace for a couple of days? Where the crackpots from the hospital wont be able to find and hara.s.s me?

'You come to my place. Its just five minutes from here. No no absolutely no problem no question of nothing doing. My wife and my family love my friends. Just five minutes from the Mall Road gate of Aflatoon Maidan. I always pop off in my vehicle for a quick snack with my kids. You come and stay and interview me all night no problem.

Raichurs vehicle turned out to be a three-wheeler, a black and yellow commercial auto-rickshaw decorated with tinsel, streamers, coloured plumes, spangles and pompoms. Beneath the hole of its rear window had been tastefully painted what may well have been its owners guiding principle: I Will Never Say Die If You Forget Me Not. Its driver was male, small, dark, unsmiling and eight-armed. While Dr Chakki examined his unusual waistcoat, Raichur elaborated, 'My wife made it. It was her idea, during the Puja season last year, to have our auto driven around by Mother Durga-with more arms than usual, of course-more dramatic. We charge a little extra for the privilege. Dambha-the driver here-loves it. It was so successful that we decided to have him-her-him as her-around all year.