The poison of a snake, the skin of a man:
This is L.N. Agarwal!
Ghar ko loot kar kha gaya maaclass="underline"
Home Minister Agarwal!
He robbed our Home, and devoured our substance:
Home Minister Agarwal!
This might have been a reference to his ‘cold steel’ order, under which overzealous policemen had confiscated not merely axes and spears but even household knives, or it might have referred to the fact that L.N. Agarwal, being a member of the Hindu shopkeeping community, was the most important collector of funds for the Congress Party of Purva Pradesh. His origins were also referred to slightingly in the following slogan:
L.N. Agarwal, wapas jao,
Baniye ki dukaan chalao!
L.N. Agarwal, go back,
Go and run your bania’s shop!
The walls, however, might have echoed the uproarious laughter that greeted this final couplet at the expense of the laughers themselves. For it was taking place in a shop, and Maan, being a khatri, was no stranger to trade.
In sharp contrast to L.N. Agarwal, Mahesh Kapoor, though a Hindu, was well known for his tolerance towards other religions — his wife would have said that the only religion he was intolerant towards was his own — and was liked and respected among knowledgeable Muslims. This was why, for example, when Maan and Rasheed first met, Rasheed had been well disposed towards him. He now said to Maan:
‘If it were not for people like Nehru at the national level, or your father at the state level, the situation of the Muslims would be even worse than it is.’
Maan, who was not feeling particularly well disposed towards his father, shrugged.
Rasheed wondered why Maan was being so inexpressive. Perhaps, he thought, it was the way he had put it. He had used the words ‘the situation of the Muslims’ rather than ‘our situation’ not because he did not feel a part of his community, but because he examined even an issue as close to his heart as this through almost academically balanced categories. It was his constant habit to try to make objective sense of the world, but of late — especially since his rooftop discussion with his father — he felt more and more disgusted by it. He had hated his own deception — or perhaps prevarication — with the patwari, but knew that he had had no alternative. Had the patwari believed that Rasheed’s family was not behind him, nothing would have protected Kachheru’s right to his land.
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Netaji, sitting up and speaking in as leader-like a voice as his nickname required. ‘We must get ourselves together. We have to work together for the good of things. We must get things off their feet. And if the old leaders are discredited, it requires young men — young men like — like we have all around us — who know how to get things done, of course. Doers, not impractical dreamers. Those who know the people, the top people of every subdivision. Now everyone respects my father, he may have known the people who mattered in his day, I don’t deny that. But his day is, everyone will agree, now almost over. It is not enough to—’
But what it was not enough to do went unheard. The loudspeaker cart advertising Ease-for-the-Soul Hair Oil, which had been quiescent for a few minutes, now suddenly blared out its ear-splitting melodies from directly outside the shop. The din was so deafening — far worse than it had been in its earlier location — that they had to clap their hands to their ears. Poor Netaji went almost green and clutched his head in agony, and they all poured into the street to suppress the nuisance. But just at that moment Netaji noticed in the crowd a tall figure with an unfamiliar, rather weak-chinned young face under a pith helmet. The SDO from Rudhia — for Netaji with his unerring antennae knew instantly who this must be — looked disdainfully towards the source of the sound before being guided swiftly away by two policemen through the crowd and towards the railway station.
As the three heads (one turban on each side of the sola topi) bobbed through the crowd and disappeared, Netaji clutched at his moustache in panic at losing his quarry. ‘To the station, to the station!’ he screamed, forgetting his headache, and with such desperate urgency that even the loudspeaker could not stifle his cry. ‘The train, the train, you will all miss your train. Grab your bags and run! Hurry! Hurry!’
All this was said with such conviction that no one questioned Netaji’s authority or information. Pushing their way through the crowd, sweating and yelling, cursing and being cursed by turns, the convoy arrived at Salimpur Station in ten minutes. There they found that the train was not due for another hour.
The Bear turned with some annoyance towards Netaji. ‘Why did you rush us like that?’ he asked.
Netaji had been looking up and down the platform anxiously. Now suddenly his face broke into a smile.
The Bear frowned. Cocking his head gently to one side he looked at Netaji and said:
‘Well, why?’
‘What? What did you say?’ asked Netaji. He had just noticed the sola topi at the far end of the platform, near the stationmaster’s office.
But the Bear, annoyed, and annoyed that he was annoyed, had turned away.
Netaji, his lust for a new contact aroused, now collared Maan and virtually frog-marched him towards the other end of the platform. Maan was so astonished that he didn’t even protest.
With unembarrassed aplomb Netaji went straight up to the young SDO and said:
‘SDO Sahib, I am so pleased to meet you. And so honoured. I say this from the bottom of my heart.’
The weak-chinned face under the sola topi looked at him in displeased puzzlement.
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ The SDO’s Hindi, though tolerable, had a Bengali intonation.
Netaji continued: ‘But, SDO Sahib, how can you say that? The question is how I can be of service to you. You are our guest in Salimpur tehsil. I am the son of a zamindar of Debaria village. My name is Tahir Ahmed Khan. The name is known here: Tahir Ahmed Khan. I am a youth organizer for the Congress Party.’
‘Good. Glad to meet you,’ said the SDO in a voice that was utterly unglad.
Netaji’s heart did not sink at this lack of enthusiasm. He now produced his trump card.
‘And this is my good friend, Maan Kapoor,’ he said with a flourish, nudging Maan forward. Maan looked rather sullen.
‘Good,’ said the SDO, as unenthusiastically as before. Then a slow frown crossed his face and he said, ‘I think I have met you somewhere before.’
‘Oh, but this is the son of Mahesh Kapoor, our Revenue Minister!’ said Netaji with aggressive obsequiousness.
The SDO looked surprised. Then he frowned again in concentration. ‘Ah yes! We met very briefly, I believe, at your father’s place about a year ago,’ he said in a fairly amiable voice, speaking now in English and, as a result, unintentionally cutting Netaji out of the conversation. ‘You have a place near Rudhia too, don’t you? Near the town, that is.’
‘Yes, my father has a farm there. In fact, coming to think of it, I should be visiting it one of these days,’ said Maan, suddenly remembering his father’s instructions.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked the SDO.
‘Oh, nothing much, just visiting a friend,’ said Maan. Then, after a pause, he added: ‘A friend who is standing at the other end of the platform.’
The SDO smiled weakly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m off to Rudhia later today, and if you want to go to your father’s farm and don’t mind a very bumpy ride in my jeep, you’re most welcome to come with me. I have to do a bit of wolf-hunting myself: an activity, I should add, for which I am utterly untrained and unfit. But because I’m the SDO I have to be seen to be handling the menace myself.’
Maan’s eyes lit up. ‘Wolf-hunting?’ he said. ‘Do you really mean that?’