Free The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai

convention hall in a fluster with no time to comb her hair, and rushed straight to the bookstall. Her eyesight blurred for an instant as it alighted on the book but that may have been because it was somewhat obscured by other titles in bigger letters, on brighter, glossier and, she thought, rather vulgar covers. After taking in this slight, Prema reached out surreptitiously and quickly reordered the books so that Suvarna Devi's lay on top, others beneath, then moved on: the conference was due to be inaugurated by the Minister of Education, and all were requested to be in their seats before he entered with his entourage.
    The loudspeaker whined excruciatingly. Then sputtered, then brayed. Harassed men ran around trying to fix it, alternately shouting 'Stop, stop' and 'OK, go'. The minister slumped into his chair, looking disgusted. The 'honoured guests' who occupied the front rows sat very stiff and upright, waiting for things to be fixed and proceedings to start. Prema found herself embarrassed that things were not going more smoothly but of course this was how all such affairs began, and probably in the regions from which the writers came things were no different.
    Eventually the minister made his speech. He read it slowly—as if he did not think the honoured guests, representing so many different languages, could possibly follow, or perhaps he just was and always had been a slow reader (the speech was, after all, written for him by someone else). Then a younger man, perhaps a junior minister, spoke, very rapidly so as to get the greatest number of words into the allotted time—which still seemed to most of the audience far too long. Everyone had come not to hear the bureaucrats but the authors after all, and most of them had travelled a great distance to come to the capital, bringing papers to read which they had written themselves. They were staying at various government hostels scattered about the city and had come together for the first time with much to say for themselves and to each other.
    Prema, seated further back, stared at the backs of their heads, wondering which one belonged to Suvarna Devi, her protégée, as she thought of her fondly, protectively. But there were quite a few women among the delegates, none of whom Prema knew by sight. She had to wait till the official speeches were over, the minister escorted out into the foyer, to prowl among the delegates and try to guess who was hers—
her
trophy.
    She had never seen a photograph of Suvarna Devi, had been told she was reclusive, that she rarely left her home town and environs, and that was all. So Prema searched the outer edges of the crowd which was made up of the more social and animated delegates of whom there were many. In fact, the roar of voices was rising rapidly into the great pink sandstone cupola above them till it was interrupted by an announcement: the conference would now continue.
    If anyone was interested in the spectrum of languages in India, this was certainly the place to be—the place, the day and the time. One after the other the delegates stepped up to the podium to be met by the applause of their particular, and separate, readers, editors and publishers. Bengalis in the audience applauded the Bengali author, Gujaratis the Gujarati, Punjabis the Punjabi and so on. To begin with, the simultaneous translators tried valiantly to keep up with the babel, then faltered, then fell aside.
    Providentially a lunch break was announced, when everyone could assemble in the foyer once again, to lift the lids off great serving dishes of stainless steel and dip into bubbling and aromatic concoctions, then go on to little glass dishes of syrupy sweets.
    It was very late in the long day when finally Suvarna Devi's name was announced as the next speaker. By then many delegates had visibly succumbed to the soporific effects of the large meal and the warm afternoon.
    Suvarna Devi too seemed tired by the proceedings that had gone before.