Free The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

by the Waziris. At least there he knew when to duck.
    ‘Well, then don’t,’ Sir Richard advised him firmly. ‘There’s nothing as irritating when I’m trying to think as hearing you go on about nothing. Sit down, will you, and pour yourself a stiff drink.’ He gestured at a trolley laden with bottles and siphons which now stood permanently on the verandah.
    Heaslop sat gingerly on a lumpily cushioned cane-chair and busied himself with a bottle. Sir Richard continued to pace, his white sideburns, in need of a trim, quivering with the strength of his emotion. ‘This man has publicly confronted, indeed humiliated, the Raj. Which means for all practical purposes the King-Emperor. Whom I represent. Which means he has humiliated
me.’
    ‘Er . . . I wouldn’t take it so personally, sir,’ Heaslop began.
    ‘Shut up, Heaslop, will you, there’s a good fellow,’ came the reply from the Resident, whose round red cheeks gave him the appearance of a superannuated cherub, albeit one whose wings have been trod upon by a careless Jehovah. ‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.’
    The equerry subsided into a sulky silence.
    ‘He has humiliated me,’ his superior went on. ‘And he has made matters worse by drawing attention to his former position here, which means I shall be unwelcome in every planters’ club from here to Bettiah.’ He glowered pinkly at the enormity of the privation. ‘Never in the entire history of my family in India has such a thing happened to any of us. Not even to my brother David, who spends his time drawing pictures of animals.’
    He stopped in front of the young man, who was drinking deeply from a tall glass. ‘I must do something about this rabble-rouser,’ he muttered. ‘Presuming to usurp the legitimate functions of the district administration! Standing half- naked before a representative of His Majesty and inviting him, daring him, to pronounce sentence on his open defiance of the law! Serving on so-called “inquiry committees” and depriving honest planters of their livelihood! There has to be an end to this nonsense.’
    Heaslop opened his mouth in habitual response, then thought better of it.
    ‘Things are bad enough already,’ Sir Richard went on. ‘We have native lawyers declaiming against our rule in every legislative forum, even when they have been nominated to their seats for the most part as presumed Empire loyalists. We have had a nasty little boycott of British goods, with fine Lancashire cotton being thrown on to bonfires. We have even had bombs being flung by that Bengali terrorist, Aurobindo, and his ilk. But all these were, in the end, limited actions of limited impact. Ganga Datta shows every sign of being different.’
    ‘In what way, sir?’ Despite himself, Heaslop was intrigued.
    ‘The man challenges the very rules of the game,’ the Resident barked. ‘Paradoxically, by using them for his own purposes. He knows the law well, and invites, even seeks, its sanction by deliberately - deliberately, mind you — violating it in the name of a higher truth. Twaddle, of course. But dangerous twaddle, Heaslop. He appeals to ordinary people in a way the chaps in the pin-stripe suits in the Viceroy’s Council simply can’t. In Motihari they flocked to him, irrespective of caste or religion. Untouchables, Muslims, Banias all rubbing shoulders in his campaign, Heaslop! And he stands before them in his bed-sheet, revelling in their adulation.’
    Heaslop remained studiously mute. ‘You know what the fellow dared to say when the President of the Planters’ Club commented on the inappropriateness of his attire?’ Sir Richard rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a newspaper clipping. ‘”Mine is a dress,’” he quoted in mounting indignation, ‘”which is best suited to the Indian climate and which, for its simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the face of the earth. Above all, it meets hygienic requirements far better than European attire.