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Sharif Garmon
In these exclusive extracts from The Insider (Viking, pages 767, Rs 695) P. V. Narasimha Rao poignantly captures the joy and pain of growing up, the intrigues of electioneering, the failure of the Kamaraj Plan and political skulduggery in the portals of power. The first of a two-volume fictionalized version of the tumultuous events that shaped the destiny of our country since Independence, Rao's book has the insight that only a protagonist can give while at the same time deftly maintaining the aloofness of a disinterested observer. Blending the craft of an historian and the writing skills of a novelist, Rao has produced a valuable book.
Anand is born to a magical land
They named him Anand, on the 11th day after his birth, according to custom.
Soon after he was born, the first thing he became aware of was an object whose soft tip was thrust into his mouth whenever he cried. He began sucking his mother's breast right away as if he had learnt that skill while still in the womb. As the days passed, he began to respond to his environment. He learnt to recognise his mother's voice, he liked the touch of her soft lips on his cheek. All this was very agreeable. But when others crowded around him - with their prickly stubbled chins and bad breath - he protested, his loud wails drowning out the sounds of their endearments.
Little sharp teeth emerged from his gums when he was a few months old. The first use he made of the teeth was to bite his mother's breast hard whenever he was being fed. Mother cried out in pain and he would burst into laughter. Biting was fun; then it became a habit. Something needed to be done - and was done. One day, the breast tasted terribly bitter in his mouth.He pulled his mouth away, tried in vain to spit the bitterness out and screamed at the top of his voice. Now, it was Mother's turn to laugh. Some women from the neighbourhood, who happened to be present, also giggled at his discomfiture. They had all used the same recipe to wean their children from the breast. The recipe was simple. Apply a paste of Neem leaves around the nipples and the baby wouldn't look at the breast ever again.
He enjoyed the massage and the hot bath Mother gave him every morning. She would sit on the floor, fold her sari up to the thighs and stretch her bare legs out in front of her. She would place him across her thighs, now on his face, now on his back and rub sesamum oil all over his body; she would also put a few drops in his ears, eyes, a bit in the nostrils. She would then bathe him in water that was heated just right. He would feel like a rubber doll in her hands, while blood raced through his supple body. He liked all this, but loathed the oil when it entered his eyes and gave him a burning sensation. Then all hell would break loose. He would howl and kick Mother's belly and breasts viciously.
After the bath, Mother would put him into his cradle and expose him briefly to fragrant sambrani smoke. Amazingly, he would slide into an untroubled sleep at once.
But sometimes when he was in deep sleep, his face would inexplicably screw up, as if he was in great misery; on other occasions, his countenance would light up with joy. What he was experiencing in his subconscious state, as most babies do, was a connection with the deepest mysteries of human existence, racing back through time and space. For all anyone knew, his grieving could have been for the misery of mankind - past, present and future. He may have been witnessing in his mind's eye the horrors of war, the atom bomb, the blood of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, felled by assassins, mingling with the dust of Bharat.
Again, when he was beaming and gurgling contentedly in his sleep, perhaps he dreamt that he was the greatest individual in the universe. Or perhaps he imagined himself consorting with legendary beauties like Sachi Devi, Indra's consort and the most beautiful woman in Indian mythology. Whatever caused his dreams, it worried Mother. Greatly agitated, she called in a bhoot vaid, an exorcist, to rid her infant son of whatever demons were troubling him. The dreams disappeared as naturally as they came, but the bhoot vaid got both cash and credit in the process.
About the same time, Mother began to feed him soft-cooked cereal, adding a little salt. First he looked at it with disdain and spat it out; but hunger prevailed. The food began to taste tolerable, then good. He cried for more, but Mother wouldn't oblige. She increased his intake gradually, so he wouldn't get indigestion.
In time, to his family's delight, he began to toddle. Nothing in the house stayed any longer where it belonged. The right shoe remained at the front door while the left travelled all the way to the other end of the house and into the backyard. Sometimes things disappeared altogether mysteriously. The mystery kept thickening until one day someone chanced to see a brass utensil fly like a missile into the well outside the house. Divers were commissioned to scour the bottom of the well and a variety of things were retrieved.
At this time he encountered the most traumatic experience of his early childhood - the fortnightly dose of castor oil administered to him. Castor oil was a must for children. Mother insisted on it, as her mother had - for generations. The village vaid had a long lecture, complete with Sanskrit shlokas, in praise of castor oil and its efficacy where children were concerned. It was an unimpeachable principle of Ayurveda, he asserted, that the stomach was the repository of all potential ailments. Keep the bowels clean and live a hundred years, was his dictum. And always begin with babies, he would enjoin, rearranging his oiled clothes that smelled of medicines.
Anand couldn't tell time or count the passage of days, but with some kind of animal instinct, he knew the exact day when the castor oil was due. All in the family would brace themselves for that major operation. He would try to give them the slip and a search would start - under the beds, in the closet, behind the bushes in the backyard ... He would discover new spots each time. On one desperate occasion, he shut himself up in a big wooden box. He would have suffocated to death, had the bustling and ubiquitous ayah not rescued him just in time.
They would eventually find the little fellow - after searching for an hour or so. When they converged on him, he would still make a last-ditch attempt to escape. When he discovered that his efforts to elude his tormentors were futile, he would kick, bite, howl, spit, struggle, grapple, wail, grit his teeth, keep his mouth tightly shut ... Eventually, he would be overpowered and his stubborn mouth would be opened with a spoon.
He knew he could neither bite it nor spit it out. With his hands and feet securely held, the hated castor oil would slip into his gullet smoothly. He knew he could do nothing to stop it. However, adequate recompense would come instantly when Mother pushed a pinch of sugar into his mouth. He would swallow it, with the philosophical resignation of one who takes the good along with the not-so-good.
As the weeks rolled by, the noises he made were slowly moulded into intelligible words. He didn't know what they meant, indeed he had no idea why anything should mean anything, or what was meant by meaning. Soon he came to relate the sounds he uttered to individuals. "Amma" was Mother, and no other. And he too came to respond to a given combination of sounds - called a name, as he learned later. His name. His own. His alone. He came to pronounce it bit by bit, error by error. Ana... Anad... And finally, Anand. Thus labelled, he stood out distinct from the rest of humanity.
Aruna seeks a party ticket
The word ticket is common to every language in India. But there are tickets and tickets. And those actively involved in the political process interpret a ticket as permission to contest an election as candidate of a given political party. The candidate, if elected, sits in the Legislative Assembly, or any other body for which he contests, as the representative of that party ... In the months preceding the second general election, Anand witnessed the "ticket fever" - some ingenious word-coiner called it "ticketaria".
A radical change had taken place in the party set-up in the state, with several leaders who had been in the forefront during the first general election having been either sidelined or cast into oblivion. Given the lack of an entrenched and experienced leadership in the state, the selection of suitable candidates for the party had become a free-for-all, with personal connection assuming greater importance than merit. It became important to know the right people and get into their good books, if success was to be achieved. And "who knows whom" came to assume a special connotation for women applicants - particularly those who were young, good looking and keen on the ticket.
All of which Aruna happened to be. Although she was plain and rather dark, she had a captivating presence. She had very good reasons to enter politics, but Anand learnt of these much later. When she first decided to seek an Assembly ticket, Aruna had found herself whirled into the "who knows whom" cycle, much to her shock. A member of the selection committee was very keen to "know" her. Finding himself rebuffed, he was determined to see that she was denied the ticket.
Any other woman under the circumstances would perhaps have returned to her kitchen or, alternatively, met the leader's demand. Not Aruna. She decided on a third course of action. It was thus that she walked into Anand's drawing room one morning.
She introduced herself tersely; she was from a family of freedom fighters, her husband worked for the government, and she herself had a graduate degree in social work. She had been an activist for civil rights while in college and was deeply interested in spiritual matters. She now wanted to enter politics because of her interest in public service. She was an applicant for the party ticket to contest for the Legislative Assembly. Would Anand help her secure the ticket, please?
Anand was a bit surprised at her tone, very correct, very direct, very persuasive. He had been looking intently at her while she spoke and thought her dark complexion set off her features admirably. When she had entered the room, dressed in a pale pink sari, he had taken her for a young college teacher or maybe the wife of a well-to-do businessman. The idea that she might want to enter politics had not occurred to him.