The Great Indian Novel (61 page)

The Kaurava Party representative and the Opposition’s aged envoy looked uncomfortably at each other. It was Krishna himself who broke the silence.

‘In deference to your seniority, VVji, I must invite you to choose first,’ he said. ‘For the Opposition.’

I responded without hesitation. ‘I choose you,’ I said.

And so it was that both Duryodhani and Yudhishtir thought they had done the better out of the division, as the Kaurava Party workers remained true to their allegiances while Krishna went on to animate the Opposition’s national campaign. With his pearly white teeth shining between violet lips and his deep eyes smiling beatifically at the electorate, Krishna brought to the loudspeaker-led hurly-burly of the contest the spirit of an older India, an India where the lilt of the flute called the milkmaids to the river to wash away their innocence before the laughter of their Lord.

Krishna’s most difficult task undoubtedly came when Arjun, on the verge of filing his nomination papers for the Opposition, was assailed afresh by the doubts that had bedevilled his years in journalism. ‘Is it right - should I fight - or if I just write, won’t I cast more light?’ was the nature of his misgivings. ‘If you don’t fight now,’ his brother-in-law told him bluntly, ‘you won’t have anything to write about afterwards.’

I heard something of their exchange when they stopped for a reflective cup of tea at the Ashoka Hotel and failed to notice me at the next table. Ashoka, the great conqueror-turned-pacifist of the third century BC, is the one figure of our history who has most inspired independent India’s schizoid governmental ethos. His tolerance and humanitarianism, his devotion to peace and justice, infuse our declarations of policy; his military might, his imposition of a Pax Indica on his neighbours, inform our practice. Our national spokesmen inherited his missionary belief that what was good for India was good for the world, and in choosing a national symbol our government preferred his powerful trinity of lions to the spinning-wheel advocated by Gangaji. Typically, though, the only institution to which they saw fit to give his name was a five-star hotel. And appropriately enough, it was here that the dialogue took place that was to change Arjun’s life for good, if not for better.

Let us follow it, Ganapathi, in the form that seems most apt for these near- celestial sonnets of sophistry and sense. It is time for one last lapse from prose in this memoir; should we, too, not genuflect at the golden gate of contemporary taste, and pay iambic tribute to the tetrameter?

Arjun saw fathers, uncles, cousins
Teachers, preachers, grandsons, friends
Arrayed before him in several dozens
Convinced their means justified their ends.
Pity filled him. He spoke with sadness:
‘Krishna, this is simply madness.
All these foes are our own kinsmen;
Who will wash away their sins, then?
My will fails me. My throat is parched.
I think of it, and feel a shiver.
I’ve always been for life – a liver.
Though I was ready; my bow was arched,
My mind’s in a tumult. I can’t continue.
My resolve trembles in every sinew.

‘I can’t attack them for doing their duty.
Duryodhani is Dhritarashtra’s daughter.
She may not be a thing of beauty
But she’s P M, she’s earned her hauteur.
I admit her rule was not always just –
She betrayed some of us, abused our trust –
But still she is our nation’s Leader:
India’s masses have shown they need her.
If we attack and destroy our queen,
Breaking the traditions of our ancient line,
Won’t it seem acceptable, even fine
To be disloyal to the next one seen?
And then has not the Mahaguru taught us
To hold our peace like the petals of a lotus?’

Krishna took a deep long breath.
‘Why falter now, when we are ready?
Why grieve before a single death?
Why tremble when your grip is steady?
The wise grieve not for the living or dead.
Our selves are more than hands or head.
You, and I, have always been;
Our souls, our spirits, were ever keen;
And we shall never cease to be.
For one soul passes into another.
Death is only rebirth’s brother.
Don’t think too much of what you see.
Transcend; and realize this is meant:
What’s on this earth is transient.

‘Great heat, bitter cold, pleasure and pain,
Victory, defeat; indulgence or fasting;
All come and go like a burst of rain.
None is permanent, none is lasting.
That which is not, shall never please;
That which is, shall never cease.
The Spirit which moves both you and me
Is immortal; it will always be.
The Spirit exists, it does not destroy.
Nor, indeed’, is it ever destroyed.
It was not born, nor made like a toy;
It does not feel, it is never annoyed;
Unborn, enduring, omnipresent,
Only the Spirit is permanent.

‘But the Unchanging Spirit ne’ertheless does change.
Like a cloud that travels amidst great storms,
It spans an enormous physical range,
Altering, discarding its bodies and forms.
The Spirit appears and disappears.
It comes, it goes, it reappears.
The persons and causes it does infuse
(And the Spirit is all-pervasive, diffuse)
Rise and fall, glow and fade, live and die.
But the Spirit goes on, immutably.
Its nature must be treated suitably.
Respect it, Arjun; there’s no cause to cry.
You need not fear knocking your kin to earth:
For birth follows death as death follows birth.

‘In other words, Arjun, don’t waver.
It’s unworthy to neglect your duty.
Duryodhani is the country’s enslaver:
She’s no village belle or city cutie.
You must take a grip on yourself,
Not flap like a maid on the shelf.
Arise, stand, fight like a man;
The police have lifted the ban
On opposing Duryodhani’s government.
So what if you help bring it down?
It’s not the only show in town,
While the Soul of India is permanent.
Others will come and take its place
And they too will soon fall from grace.

‘Of course there will be many fumbles:
Some will run, some will fall, some fail
But that’s the way, lad, the
laddoo
crumbles.
You don’t have to shudder and wail.
Moral doubts are often an excuse
For those who wish to refuse
To join the fight or the fray;
But I’m telling you, today
You can’t let us down, Arjun.
Victory and defeat don’t matter.
Non-involvement’s just idle chatter.
We need action, and we need it soon.
(Just as a pilot can fly any airbus,
So scripture can be quoted for any purpose.)

‘Put aside gospel, banish all doubts.
Our philosophy holds no attraction
For those who don’t heed the shouts
Of their friends who call them to Action.
Accept good and evil alike;
Acknowledge the real need to strike;
Give up all attachment,
Flow like rain through a catchment
And join the election campaign.
It’s a question of your self-respect.
And Draupadi’s, which you’re sworn to protect:
So don’t let your scruples cause pain.
Think of this as working for peace.
Do right, and your torment will cease.

‘So Arjun, abandon all hesitation.
This is not a cause you can shirk.
You can do just two things for the nation:
Meditate, or take up good work.
In our classics, it is clearly inscribed:
“Arjun, do the duty prescribed.”
Dutiful action, without care of reward
Is the first step you can take toward
Eternal bliss; for what you do
Others will imitate; and thus uplift
Your cause, yourself, and your great gift
For initiating Action in others too.
Look at me; there’s nothing I need to attain,
Yet I act, and inspire this election campaign.

‘It is better to do your own duty, Arjun,
Than another’s. But do it without desire.
The course of Right Action confers a great boon;
But as a womb wraps a babe, as smoke shrouds fire,
The universe is enveloped in sick desire
And the unselfish do-gooder’s often a liar.
To surrender all claim to the result of your deeds
Is the greatness of one who transcends his own needs,
And that’s what we need in a man of right action.
Someone to act in true selflessness,
And restore order to our national mess.
A disinterested sage rising above faction.
Who’ll work, sacrifice, revitalize the nation.
The reward of his action? True realization.

‘No misgivings need beset such an actor
Who acts for the Spirit, not for personal gain;
Who untouched by attachment, or any other factor
Acts for the nation in this election campaign.
He will no more be tainted by the sin of the Daughter
Than the fresh water-lotus is wetted by water.
As for whether Priya is adored by the masses,
Don’t worry – too often, the masses are asses.
He who acts for the Spirit must aim much higher,
Knowing his action will purify the soul;
Content that salvation will come from his role,
As the act of flying fulfils the flyer.
It is not right in this to shirk obligation.
To avoid action through pity is wrong renunciation.

‘So Arjun, stop doubting; rise and serve India.
Serve me, the embodiment of the Spirit of the nation.
I am the hills and the mountains, Himalaya – Vindhya;
I am the worship, the sacrifice, the ritual oblation;
I am the priest, the
sloka
, the rhythmic chant:
The do and the don’t, the can and the can’t.
I am the ghee poured into the fire, I am indeed the fire;
I am the act of pouring, I am the sacred pyre.
I am the beginning and the end,
The aimer and the goal;
The origin, the part, the whole,
The bender and the bend.
I am lover, husband, father, son, Being and Not-Being;
1 am nation, country, mother, eye, Seeing and All-Seeing

‘Serve me, Arjun, like the warriors of yore.
If you can treat both triumph and disaster
As impostors (but someone’s said this before)
You will have acted like a true master.’
Arjun turned, and his eyes were bright:
His jaw was firm, for he’d seen the light.
‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘Thanks, dear Krishna!
For playing vicar to my weak parishioner.
I was silly to be so irresolute.
Instead of thinking of the Spirit
And acting without heed to merit,
I’d wept and whined like a broken flute.
That’s all over now! I’m ready to act –
Let’s get the Opposition into an electoral pact!’

They did; as in Hastinapur before the Siege, the various Opposition factions got together in a People’s Front. They were joined soon enough by the rats (and the Rams) deserting Priya Duryodhani’s sinking ship, as well as by those of her erstwhile supporters, like Ashwathaman, whom she had mistreated and jailed during the Siege. The electoral battle raged intensely. Even I rose from my bed to deliver speeches in the hoarse voice of wisdom that age and late passion had given me.

Everyone took sides: there were few abstainers. Only the bureaucracy hesitated. This was, of course, in the fitness of things. Bureaucracy is, Ganapathi, simultaneously the most crippling of Indian diseases and the highest of Indian art-forms. No other country has elevated to such a pinnacle of refinement the quintuplication of procedures and the slow unfolding of delays. It is almost a philosophical statement about Indian society: everything has its place and takes its time, and must go through the ritual process of passing through a number of hands, each of which has an allotted function to perform in the endless chain. Every official act in our country has five more stages to it than anywhere else and takes five times more people to fulfil; but in the process it keeps five more sets of the potentially unemployed off the streets. The bureaucratic ethos dictated our administrators’ roles in the campaign as well. They stayed in their offices and waited for the outcome.

Nakul and Sahadev, like their peers, took no part in the political conflict. Both had been requested by Krishna, for reasons very similar to the Mahaguru’s in respect of Vidur all those years ago, to remain in their functions, but unlike Vidur our bureaucratic twins had not leapt to submit their resignations. Nakul, if truth be told, was still far from certain his resignation was warranted; he was cynical, or sophisticated, enough to think things could be worse. Sahadev’s honest rejection of the government’s domestic policies fell afoul of his diffidence. (Our diplomatic corps, Ganapathi, is full of sincere people who feel they are so out of touch with the masses they can only speak for them abroad.) Both agreed, therefore, with alacrity to stay cool in their jobs as the electoral flames blazed and crackled around them.