The Gandhian Adventures of Raj & Iqbal: A Novel (7 page)

And so, I said, are you not increasing chances for revolution here as well?

Iqbal nodded again.

Now with Iqbal’s support, I gained confidence in my logic. So, I said, would our rulers also not start to launch border nonsense to create distractions for the angry people who have no onions? Would our rulers also not be afraid of revolution?

Netaji laughed. No, he said, we have a democracy in India. Here when there is revolution, some politicians temporarily give up their jobs to their cousins and in-laws, and then when the onion problem is solved, they simply regain their jobs.

It is a good system, I said.

Iqbal shook his head and looked at the tiles.

Then Netaji became serious. But, he said, you are little bit correct in your earlier point. Nowadays, the politicians are finding that after giving up their jobs to cousins and in-laws, there is no guarantee that they will regain their jobs. And so they are more concerned with onion problem than previously.

Okay, I said, so now you will be changing your onion supply plan?

No, you silly bugger, said Netaji, I do not care about the family matters of the stupid politicians.

But to return to an even earlier point, said Iqbal, if the Indian politicians are worrying about onion problem and revolution, then would they not create border trouble to distract the Indians?

Netaji laughed. No, he said, the Indian politicians simply create internal trouble to distract the people.

Like what? I said.

Like riots, floods, earthquakes, temple destruction, mosque burning, and other such normal day-to-day things, said Netaji.

Now again Iqbal and I were stunned.

But, I said, is that not worse for Indians than border trouble?

Yes, said Iqbal, should you not then redirect your onions to local people so that such terrible domestic problems can be reduced?

Netaji sighed and shook his head.

What is the problem? I asked.

See, said Netaji, although you will soon understand that my tactics provide the maximum possible benefit to India’s overall situation, the problems you speak of are domestic issues, and I am a foreign-relations specialist, so these are not my problems to deal with directly.

Now I was hundred percent sure we were dealing with a madman. Or perhaps even a politician himself, which could be even more dangerous. I looked at Iqbal, and I could tell by his stillness that he agreed with me. We somehow had to stop this madman, or at least get ourselves out of there.

O
f course, when you are in the darkness of a madman’s hole in a previously-unknown courtyard in the city of your birth, then sometimes it is not so easy to get out, or even to talk about getting out. You see, for some reason Iqbal was not paying as much attention to me, and I worried that our wavelengths were little bit off at that point, the result being that I was unable to communicate my determination to get away from the madman. At least I could not communicate it through nonverbal and nonphysical means.

So first I selected a physical means of communication. With my foot, I poked Iqbal’s foot. But this did not work. He simply moved his foot to the side and kept on staring at Netaji. So then I tried a verbal means of communicating my apprehension.

Since Netaji was highly trained in diplomacy, I had to be diplomatic, so I could not simply say: Come Iqbal, let us flee from this dark hole of the madman who thinks he is Netaji.

Instead, I made sounds that I hoped would be understood by Iqbal and not Netaji. The sounds themselves are indescribable, and even if they were describable, it would not do to describe them. Suffice it to say that I started off with the softest and least offensive sounds, and progressively progressed to the loudest and most disgusting sounds.

Perhaps you have eaten too many onion bhajias, said Netaji with a diplomatic smile.

Iqbal stared at me as if to say the same thing but with the addition of shut up at the end. I was quite embarrassed, and when I looked up to see Bhatkoo peeking at me through the door-shaped opening in the wall, I became angry like how when you are embarrassed and someone laughs at you and you immediately become angry. But luckily the anger was of the clarifying kind, and I immediately thought of a solution to being expelled from this dark hole of the madmen and the hydroponics.

I would insult the plants once more. No doubt then Iqbal and I would be thrown from the place with a high degree of immediacy and prejudice. Although I thought the idea of plants that care about what we have to say was quite silly, I knew that sometimes you have to pursue silly ideas when dealing with madmen.

Of course, there were no plants in the brightly lit sitting room where we were sitting, so I stood up from my seat and asked for a toilet.

You will have to go to the toilet, said Netaji, because the toilet cannot be brought to you.

Yes yes of course, I said while ignoring Iqbal’s look of embarrassment. It did not matter what my brother in life thought of me at this point. When I succeeded in getting us ejected and expunged from this place, he would understand and we would be like brothers once again.

So Bhatkoo entered, and with the dirty smirk of a servant of a powerful madman, he led me out of the sitting room.

Clearing space for the Bombay-duck? said Bhatkoo with a smirk.

Bombay-duck? I said in panic.

Yes, said Bhatkoo, the Netaji has ordered some to be prepared for your friend and you. Double-fried with extra-double salt.

Now I was worried. I knew that Iqbal was a small eater even at the biggest of occasions, but when it came to Bombay-duck, there was no equal on the western coasts of India. Part of this I think came from the fact that Iqbal’s wife did all the cooking in the house, and although she is a sweet thing and is very nice to Iqbal, she refuses to cook Bombay-duck on account of the smell. And so, when you are denied something at home on a regular basis, then when you are offered that thing outside on an irregular basis, you tend to overdo it. And this was the case with Iqbal and the Bombay-duck.

I thought some more on the topic as I expunged myself in the toilet. At first my confidence and resolve wavered, but soon it passed and I felt light and refreshed and ready to insult those bloody plants. Sometimes a man must upset his brother in order to save the man who is blinded by the spicy charms of the slender and salty Bombay-duck. In this case my brother was also the man blinded by said spicy charms, and so I stepped out into the hydroponic garden and looked around for a suitable candidate to abuse.

Close to me there were some tomato hydroponics. Now I remembered that after speaking with the pao-bhaji-walla I had decided that tomatoes were less perfect and hence less desirable than onions, and so I thought this was a sign for me to abuse these tomato plants. Of course, personally I love the tomato, but I could not imagine that this sweet red bulbous plant would lose much sleep over my abuse. After all, if the plant was smart enough to understand that I am abusing it, then it should be wise enough to note that I am under the pressure of being in the dark bulbous hole of a madman, and I am only trying to save myself and my brother in life.

So I confidently and lightly stepped forward and stood next to the red sweet tomato and took a deep breath, looking around to make sure that Bhatkoo and a few other attendants were close enough to hear my abuses.

You stupid red bulbous blob of redness, I said.

I waited for a reaction from either the plant or the attendants, but neither party seemed to notice. So I stepped closer and spoke louder.

Ay, you bloody tomato with your funny face and ugly smell, I said.

Now Bhatkoo looked over at me with suspicion, but still he did not approach. Instead, he gestured to some other attendants, three of whom came to Bhatkoo to see what he was gesturing about. Now I had an audience, and so I pulled out the big ones.

Perhaps if you were an onion you would get more respect, I said to the innocent-looking tomato, but you are just a silly tomato and deserving of not even a private room with lock-and-key.

At this point I swore the tomato fruits moved a little bit. At first I thought it was the wind, but we were in a dark hole with no fans and so no wind. Obviously it was my imagination. Or perhaps I was weak and fragile and hallucinating due to not having eaten lunch yet. After all, since morning I had only consumed toast, jam, butter, tea, milk, sugar, pao-bhaji, and onion bhajias. That is not enough to sustain a man in such times of national, international, and personal crisis. Then suddenly I got the sweet charming smell of Bombay-duck frying to perfection in spices and salt and sunflower oil. Even though I am not a big fan of Bombay-duck, in times of emergency, one must make do with what is served.

But then I gathered myself once again and re-firmed my resolve. I told myself I would not fall victim to the charms of the slender Bombay-duck. I am a Gandhian, and the Gandhian must hold firm to his vows when times are tough. After all, did Bapuji not refuse milk even when he was near death due to dehydration and dysentery? Did the great Mahatma not refute temptation even when being washed by the women who served him?

I thought of my wife and then immediately thought of food and my resolve wavered yet again and my legs trembled and I almost reached out for one of the succulent sweet-sweet tomatoes that beckoned to me like bulbous balls of temptation and sweetness.

You dirty thing, I screamed at the tomato, how dare you look at me that way. I am a married man, you know.

Now Bhatkoo and the attendants had moved closer to me, and this gave me some confidence and a boost of energy needed to push my self-sacrificing act to completion. So I pushed on.

Your redness is offensive and disgusting, I said with disdain, and your bulbousness is dirty and corrosive to the soul.

I paused and looked over at Bhatkoo and the others. And only at this point did I notice that they were neither angry nor upset but instead were amused at my attempts at abuse. This made me angrier, and I started to yell at the tomato plants and spoke great obscenities in many different Indian languages. The obscenities I cannot repeat here, partly because they would not be understood in the translation, and if they were understood, this account would immediately be classified as pornographic material and seized by the government and burned with great immediacy and precision.

So suffice it to say that the obscenities I hurled were of graphic and terrible nature, and the volume and intensity at which I hurled them were of admirable depth. But still neither Bhatkoo nor the attendants, all of whom had no doubt heard my abusive advances, made any move to have me thrown out of the deep dark place of the madman and his soil-less plant life.

And so I decided I would launch a physical assault on the tomato.

A
s I prepared myself to attack the innocent sweet tomato, I wondered if perhaps I was committing a transgression towards the Gandhian principle of nonviolence. After all, a tomato is a form of life, is it not? And even though the idea that it can hear abusive language is laughable (as I have proven through my merciless abuses that registered no effect), a physical assault is abuse of a different class and nature. I tried to think back over Gandhiji’s autobiography to see if he had allowed for violence under some exceptional situations, but my memory is not so good, and if there was such a passage in his book, I could not recall it.

But that is just as well, because my hesitation at that point was enough to obtain some success towards the ultimate goal of expungement and ejection of me and my brother in life.

As I stood there in my attack-stance, thinking about the life story of Gandhiji, one of the sweet innocent tomatoes began to gently sway. Presently, to my shock and awe, the tomato detached itself from its green moist dirt-less vine. I worried that perhaps the tomato will come after me, but of course it is a small fruit with no legs and so it just fell down straight into the glass container with a gentle sound not unlike that of a soft round object falling on hard flat glass.

I was frozen, unsure if my abuses had caused this detachment. I carefully looked over at the attendants, but miraculously they seemed to have lost interest in my interactions with the tomato hydroponic, and in fact Bhatkoo was not even standing there anymore. And so I found myself alone with my felled victim, the innocent tomato, the red bulb of sweetness that did not deserve my abuses but received them nonetheless. I had committed an act of violence, and though the act itself had been successful, my ultimate goal had been left unfulfilled. What a terrible position for a Gandhian to be in, and I felt appropriately terrible. I stepped up to the fallen ball of redness and reached out to caress its fallen form, but a loud voice stopped me and I remained there frozen, arm outstretched, my crime apparent for all to see and laugh at.

Bombay-ducks are here, shouted Bhatkoo from across the hydroponic garden.

I swallowed hard. Could it be that no one had witnessed my hate-crime? Could it be that all of it was a hallucination due to lack of food and excessive lightness in the stomach and therefore head? Better not to take any chances, I thought, and so I pocketed the tomato and hurried to the door-shaped opening where the slender Bombay-duck sang her song of victory.

After sitting down in the sitting area, I stayed quiet and did not speak even when spoken to. Iqbal was looking at me in a way I had not seen him look before, and Netaji was looking at Iqbal in a way that I could not interpret. Finally Netaji turned to me and smiled.

You may keep that tomato, he said.

I was speechless, and quickly checked my pocket to see if the tomato was visible. It was not. I looked up and my eyes locked with the dark dancing eyes of Bhatkoo, the madman’s servant. His eyes told me he had observed all and reported all, and my respect for this Bhatkoo increased from the previous level of low to the current level of medium. Crafty bugger, this Bhatkoo. And observant as well.

Now Netaji turned back to Iqbal. And your onions will be packaged and brought out to you shortly, he said.

Thank you, said Iqbal.

I stared at Iqbal in wonder and delight. Onions. This meant that Iqbal’s onion problem had been solved. Our pursuit had reached the end, and although the truth was still not so clear to me, the fact that our initial problem had been solved meant that the truth had been pursued to some degree of success. Perhaps later reflection would reveal the truth in its simplest and most beautiful form, but for now we could celebrate our successful completion of the first serious Gandhian pursuit launched by myself and Iqbal, my Gandhian brother in life.

At this point Netaji rose up and stepped away from the seating area to speak with Bhatkoo, and I took advantage of this moment of semi-privacy to congratulate my brother on solving his onion problem.

So now we can go, I said to him with relief.

No, he said quietly.

Ah okay, I replied, you want to eat the Bombay-duck first.

Yes, he said quietly.

No problem, I said, even I will eat the slender charming Duck with you in celebration.

Iqbal simply nodded.

And then we can go, I said to him with relief and some relish as the smell of spicy fried fish invaded my senses.

No, said Iqbal.

Means what, I said.

Means now we are part of this group, said Iqbal, and so this is our place now.

Means what, I said.

Means we are new recruits to Netaji’s Hydroponic Foreign Policy Institute, he said, and this means we have duties to perform before our activation is complete and we are allowed outside this building and courtyard on our own.

Means what, I said again. But now my tone had changed from relief and confusion to panic and convolution.

Means we cannot go home until some tasks are performed to Netaji’s satisfaction, said Iqbal.

What bloody tasks, I asked. I knew there could be no satisfying a madman, and so I wondered if I would ever see my wife again.

Mind your language please, said Netaji. He had returned behind my back, and now he stood in front of my front.

Sorry, I said, but Iqbal was just updating me on this unacceptable situation of not being allowed to leave this place.

Yes, said Netaji, you are both new recruits, and there has to be some breaking-in period before you can be trusted with the secrets that have been revealed to you.

What secrets, I shouted. You have not even told us how to avoid worry like you promised.

True, said Netaji with a smile and a laugh.

So tell us, I shouted again.

Sorry, said Netaji, the promise of the secret of worry-avoidance is just a recruiting tactic to bring in the people who are gullible and simple but yet idealistic enough to believe that a world without worry is possible or even desirable.

So you lied to us, I said in Gandhian fury.

Netaji shrugged his shoulders. I told you two truths and one lie, he said, and so I am majority truthful, and what more can you ask of a foreign policy expert?

This seemed logical enough and so I calmed down and Netaji continued.

No, he said, the real secret is this place and these people.

What people, I shouted.

Myself, said Netaji.

I stared at the madman and then at Iqbal, who was simply looking at his onions and rubbing them like rubbing them would free us from this predicament.

See, said Netaji, it would not do for people to find out that I am still alive and well.

Why not? I said. Will people not be overjoyed? Will they not celebrate your life and bring you to the forefront of India’s foreign policy once more?

Netaji smiled. My bulbous friend, he said, I am already at the forefront of India’s foreign policy. And soon the both of you will be there with me as well.

You are a madman, I said, and we are leaving this dark hole of yours.

I stood up and looked at Iqbal for support. But my brother in life did not meet my eye, and he simply clutched his packet of onions and stared into the distance as if there was something of interest far away. There was not, and this meant that Iqbal was avoiding looking at me. I was alone once more, with nothing but my one tomato to stand with me. So I pulled out the tomato and held it up for all to see.

I will squash this, I said to Netaji.

Netaji smiled. Now who is the madman, he said.

You are the madman, I said, and I will squash this tomato and all the other hydroponics will know that you will not defend them when they are in danger of being squashed.

You do not know very much about these plants, said Netaji with a smile.

I know enough, I said.

No, said Netaji, because then you would know that the survival of the tomato species depends on stupid animals like you taking the red sweet fruit of the plant and squashing it and spreading its seeds. The threat of squashing it is not a threat at all, and in fact the tomato plants and all other hydroponics will marvel at my ability to get stupid animals like you to spread their seeds.

Now I felt like a silly bugger again. I had abused the tomato fruit, not the mother plant. The tomato fruit must have been fine with the abuses because an animal that abuses the fruit is perhaps more likely to squash the fruit and hence spread the seeds. This must be why Bhatkoo and the attendants made no move to stop my abuses. My spirit shattered, my resolve reduced, my determination destroyed, I dropped the triumphant tomato and sat down and filled up my plate with seven or eight Bombay-ducks.