The Mystic Masseur (23 page)

Swami was pleased. ‘A master job, sahib.’

Partap said, ‘This place you mention, Los Rosales, where it is?’

‘Keskidee Bargain Shop? Brand-new place. Open only last week.’

The boy handed in libellous reviews of the films.

‘We can’t print this, man,’ Ganesh said.

‘Is all right for you to talk. You just go around getting advertisements. Me, I had to spend six whole hours watching those two pictures.’

The reviews were rewritten.

The boy said, ‘Is your paper, pundit. If you make me lie, is on your head.’

‘How about your article on the Destitutes Fund, sahib?’

‘I have it right here. It go make Narayan a laughing-stock. And printing this report by Leela next to it, Narayan go have good hell knock out of him.’

He showed the report.

‘What is all these dots over the paper?’ the boy asked.

‘Crossing out punctuation marks.’

‘Is a nice little report, man, sahib.’ Swami’s voice was mellow.

It read:

R
EPORT
OF
MY
S
OCIAL
W
ELFARE
W
ORK
by Leela Ramsumair

1. In November last year I in my very small and humble way treated 225 destitutes by way of cash and refreshments. The expenses for this treat were met by donations willingly and cheerfully given by private individual Trinidadians.

2. In December I treated 213 poor children. Expenses were met by me and my husband, Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A., Mystic.

3. In January I was approached by Dr C. V. R. Swami, the Hindu journalist and religious organizer, with a request for immediately monetary assistance. He had been organizing a seven-day prayer-meeting, feeding on an average anything up to 200 brahmins per diem, in addition to about 325 others (Dr Swami’s figures). He had run short of food. I gave him monetary assistance. Therefore he was able, on the 7th and last day of the prayer-meeting, to feed more than 500 brahmins in addition to 344 destitutes.

4. In February I visited Sweet Pastures Estate where I was met by approximately 425 children. They were all destitute. I fed them and gave 135 of the very poorest toys.

5. In March, at my residence in Fuente Grove, I treated more than 42 children of the very poorest. I think it advisable to state that while I was able to feed them all I was able to give clothes only to 12 of the very poorest.

6. In presenting this incomplete report for the inspection of the Trinidadian public, I wish to make it publicly known that I owe very much to the very many private individual Trinida-dians who willingly and cheerfully donated money to bring comfort and solace to children of the very poorest without distinction of race, caste, colour, or creed.

The
Dharma
went to press.

The boy handled the layout of the paper with relish. He had a banner headline on page one and another on page three. At the top of page three he had, in twenty-four point italic:

Today the aeroplane is a common or garden sight and it is commonly believed that progress in this field has only been made in the past forty years. But diligent research is proving otherwise and in this learned dispatch Dr C. V. R. Swami shows that 2,000 years ago there was –

And in huge black letters:

FLYING
IN
ANCIENT
INDIA

He knew all about cross-headings and used them every paragraph. He put the last paragraph of every article in italic, with the last line in black letter.

Basdeo, the printer, told Ganesh afterwards, ‘Sahib, if you ever send that boy again to have anything print, I think I go wring his neck.’

10. The Defeat of Narayan

‘I
F I NEEDED
any further proof of the hand of Providence in my career,’ Ganesh wrote in
The Years of Guilt,
‘I had only to look at the incidents which led to the decline of Shri Narayan.’

In Trinidad it isn’t polite to look down on a man because you know he handles public funds unwisely. As soon as he is exposed the poor man becomes ridiculous enough, a subject for calypso. After
The Dharma
came out Narayan didn’t have a chance.

‘Now is your chance to finish him off, pundit,’ Beharry said. ‘Give him two three months to recover and – bam! – people stop laughing and begin to listen to him again.’

But no one could think of a plan.

Leela said, ‘I would do like my father and give him a good horse-whipping.’

Beharry suggested more lectures.

The boy said, ‘Kidnap the son of a bitch, pundit.’

Swami and Partap thought a lot but came up with nothing.

It was the Hindu wedding season and The Great Belcher was very busy.

Suruj Mooma was still thinking when Fate, unfortunately for Narayan, took a hand.

Two days after the publication of Volume One, Number One of
The Dharma
it was announced in the
Trinidad Sentinel
that a Hindu industrialist in India had offered thirty thousand dollars for the cultural uplift of Trinidad Hindus. The money was being kept in trust by the Trinidad Government until it could be handed over to a competent Hindu body.

Narayan promptly claimed that the Hindu Association, of which he had the honour to be President, was competent enough to handle the thirty thousand dollars.

Leela said, ‘They could handle a lot more, if you let them.’

‘Is God Self send this chance, pundit,’ Beharry urged. ‘But you have to act fast. Narayan Association having their second General Meeting in four weeks. You couldn’t do something there?’

‘I thinking about it all all the time,’ Ganesh said and for a moment Beharry recognized the old, pre-mystic Ganesh.

Four days later the San Fernando correspondent of the
Sentinel
reported that Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair of Fuente Grove was planning the formation of a representative assembly of Trinidad Hindus to be known as the Hindu League.

That day, in an interview, Narayan claimed that the Hindu Association was the only representative Hindu body in Trinidad. It had a fine record of social work, it was founded long before the League was even thought of, and it was clear to all right-thinking people that the League was being formed only with thirty thousand dollars in view.

Letters flew from both sides to the
Sentinel
.

Finally, it was announced that the Inaugural Meeting of the Hindu League was to be held at the residence of Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair in Fuente Grove. The meeting was to be private.

That Saturday afternoon about fifty men, most of them former clients, gathered in the ground floor of Ganesh’s house. There were solicitors and barristers among them, solicitor’s touts, taxidrivers, clerks and labourers. Leela, taking no chances, gave them diluted Coca-Cola in enamel cups.

Ganesh sat on orange cushions on a low platform below a carving of Hanuman, the monkey god. He recited a long Hindi prayer, then used a mango-leaf to sprinkle water from a brass jar over the meeting.

Partap, sitting cross-legged on a
charpoy
next to the boy, said in Hindi, ‘Ganges water.’

The boy said, ‘Go to France!’

Ganesh made them all swear a terrible oath of secrecy.

Then he stood up and tossed his green scarf over his shoulder. ‘What I want to say today is very simple. We want to use the money given us well, and at the same time we want to stop Narayan making more trouble. He says he is competent to handle the money. We know that.’

There was laughter. Ganesh took a sip of Coca-Cola from a prutty prutty glass. ‘To get the money, we mustn’t only remove Narayan, we must form one united Hindu body.’

There were cries of approval.

‘The Hindu Association isn’t a very large body. There are more of us here than in the Hindu Association. The Association wants to get new members and I have called you here today to beg you to form your own branches of the Hindu Association.’

Murmurings.

The boy said, ‘But I thought we was going to form the Hindu
League
today.’

Ganesh raised his hand. ‘I am doing this only for the sake of Hindu unity in Trinidad.’

Some people cried in Hindi, ‘Long live Ganesh!’

‘But what about the League?’ the boy said.

‘We are not going to form the League. In less than three weeks the Hindu Association is going to hold its second General Meeting. Many officers will be elected and I hope to see all of you among them.’

The meeting clapped.

Swami stood up with difficulty. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sir, may I ask how you is going to see that happen?’

The meeting clapped again and Swami sat down.

‘This is the problem: how can we win the elections at the General Meeting of the Association? The solution: by having more delegates than anybody else. How do we get delegates? By forming more branches. I expect the fifty of you here to form fifty branches. Every branch will send three delegates to the Meeting.’

Swami rose again. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sir, may I ask how you is going to give each and every one of we here three delegates, sahib?’

‘It have – there are hundreds of people who are willing to do me a favour.’

The boy got up amid applause for Swami and Ganesh. ‘All right, it sound all right. But what make you feel that Narayan not going to do the same thing as we?’

Murmurs of, ‘The boy little but he smart, man,’ and, ‘Who son he is?’

Swami got up almost as soon as he had sat down. There was more applause for him. He smiled, fingered the letter in his shirt pocket, and held up his hand for the ovation to cease. ‘Mr President Ganesh, sahib, with your permission, sahib, I is going to answer the boy question. After all, he is my own nephew, my own sister son.’

Thunderous applause. Cries of, ‘Shh! Shh! Let we hear what the man saying, man.’

‘It seem to me, Mr President Ganesh, that the boy question sort of answer itself, sahib. First, who go take Narayan serious now? Who go listen to him? Mr President Ganesh, I is the editorin-chief of
The Dharma
. That paper make Narayan a laughing-stock. Second point, sahib. Narayan ain’t have the brains to do anything like this.’

Laughter.

Swami held up his hand again. ‘Third and last point, sahib. The element of surprise. That is the element that go beat Narayan.’

Shouts of, ‘Long live Swami! Long live Swami’s nephew!’

Partap asked, ‘What about transport, pundit? I was thinking. I could get some vans from Parcel Post –’

‘I have five taxis,’ Ganesh said. ‘And I have many taxi-drivers who are friends.’

The taxi-drivers in the gathering laughed.

Ganesh made the closing speech. ‘Remember, is only Narayan we fighting. Remember, is Hindu unity we fighting for.’ And before the gathering broke up he rallied them with a cry, ‘Don’t forget you have a paper behind you!’

The next day, Sunday, the
Sentinel
reported the formation of the Hindu League. According to the President, Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair, the League already had twenty branches.

On Tuesday – the
Sentinel
isn’t published on Monday – Narayan said that the Hindu Association had thirty branches. On Wednesday the League said it had doubled its membership and had forty branches. On Thursday the Association had doubled
its
membership and had sixty. The League was silent on Friday. On Saturday the Association claimed eighty branches. Nobody said anything on Sunday.

On Tuesday Narayan stated at a press conference that the Hindu Association was clearly the competent Hindu body and was going to press for the grant of thirty thousand dollars immediately after the election of officers at its second General Meeting that Sunday.

The Hindu Association was to meet in Carapichaima at the hall of a Friendly Society, a large Mission-school-type building with pillars ten feet high and a pyramidal roof of galvanized iron. Concrete upstairs, downstairs lattice-work around the pillars. A large black and silver sign-board eloquent about the Society’s benefits, including ‘free burial of members’.

The second General Meeting of the Hindu Association was to begin at one in the afternoon but when Ganesh and his supporters arrived in taxis at about half-past one all they saw were three men dressed in white, among them a tall Negro with a long beard who looked holy.

Ganesh had warned that blows might pass and as soon as the taxi came to Carapichaima, Swami, armed with a stout
poui
stick, sat on the edge of his seat and began shouting, ‘Where Narayan? Narayan, where you is? I want to meet you today!’

Now he calmed down.

Ganesh’s men quickly overran the place. Partap, showing an initiative that surprised Ganesh, went with the advance party.

‘Narayan ain’t here,’ the boy said with relief.

Swami beat his stick on the dusty ground. ‘Is a trick, sahib. And
today
was the day I did want to meet Narayan.’

Then Partap came back with the news that the delegates of the Hindu Association were eating in a room upstairs.

Ganesh, with Swami, Partap, and the boy, walked across the dirt-and-asphalt yard to the wooden steps at the side of the building.

The boy said, ‘All you better protect me good, you hear. If I get beat up here today it go have hell to pay.’

Half-way up the steps Swami shouted, ‘Narayan!’

He was on the top landing, an old man, very small, very thin, in a soiled and clumsy white-drill suit. His face was screwed up into an expression of great pain. He looked dyspeptic. He turned away and went to lean on the half-wall of the top verandah, staring intently at the mango trees and small wooden houses across the road.

Ganesh and his men walked noisily up the steps, the boy making more noise than any.

Swami said, ‘Take my
poui
and hit him on he bald head while he looking over, sahib. Is the chance of a life-time.’