How had nearly two hours managed to fly by? A couple of people had started toward the road by the field. There was the occasional sound of a bicycle bell. Someone was taking their water buffalo out for the day. Now the worry was that goat herders might come to this spot for the shrubs.
Anjali’s clothes were soiled with leaves and grass. Rahul’s were in the same state. They both stood up.
“It’s not a good idea for both of us to leave here at the same time. Someone will see us. I’ll leave first and go back to my room,” Rahul said.
Just then, Anjali said, “Rahul, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Last night Lacchu Guru, that goonda, he came over and was drinking with my brother and was talking about you, Kartikeya, O.P., Parvez, and Pratap, all by name. The police just let him go. Papa phoned the police superintendent from Bhopal. I have the feeling that he may have talked with VC Agnihotri and will frame all of you in some police case. Be careful!”
Rahul was dumbfounded. Lacchu Guru and his accomplices had been turned over to the police by a crowd of three hundred students in the presence of the vice-chancellor. Dinamani had positively identified Lacchu Guru as the individual who had robbed, beaten, and acted savagely toward Sapam Tomba. Had VC Agnihotri and the police just been putting on an act that night?
This was beginning to seem like something right out of some formulaic Bombay action film. So this was the reality after all? Did Bollywood commercial cinema represent the most authentic and credible expression of the reality of our day and age, where everything is considered cheap, obscene, two-bit?
The intense spray of water from the shower completely refreshed Rahul. It was as if water from a clear, cool, mountain spring were cascading over his body.
Even his body was no longer its former self. It seemed that the cool, fresh September breeze was flowing through every fiber in his being, which shuddered with rapture.
Rahul realized that for the first time in his life he’d had an experience and a happiness that he could utterly call his own. Private, personal, and secret. A kind of treasure chest, hidden from all the others, carefully kept in some secure corner of his memory. Forever.
Now the heart sings with all its thousand voices
To hear this city of cells, my body, sing!
TWENTY-FOUR
The look of the Hindi department today was utterly different. It was as if a sick, old-fashioned Brahmin, dressed in dirty rags, the kind who carries out holy rituals in Haridwar or Allahabad, had just returned from a spa, suddenly cured, now a brand-new man, after enjoying a steambath, facial, color treatment, and full cosmetic makeover. Now he’s wearing a snazzy checkered shirt: a smiling old swami.
Or it was like the rich old count from Tolstoy’s story who preens himself before departing for the grand evening fête, affixing the special spring-loaded wig to keep his drooping face lifted up, and, arriving at the party, flirts with the beautiful, wily, and available young women who burn with the lust of unbridled social ambition.
So — today the Hindi department had been decorated. Plants and flowers had been placed everywhere. In addition to the decorative plastic plants, the botany department had provided marigolds, hazaaraa, gurahal, dahlias, kaner and other seasonal, scentless Western flowers brought from their gardens and crammed together with the rest. The girls had been given the tasks of threading the flower garlands for the guests and serving them the little plates of snacks.
When Rahul arrived at the department with Shaligaram and Shailendra George, Anjali was with the other girls of the department. She was busy making garlands of white jasmine. She gave Rahul a quick look that concealed a smile.
The common room of the department had been emptied of furniture and transformed into an auditorium. Four chairs sat atop a white cloth, which had been spread over four low platforms pushed side by side. The chairs had been brought from the room of the chairman of the department, S. N. Mishra. They were big, with vinyl and foam cushions. In front of them were three tables covered by a white cloth, on top of which rested a huge bouquet of flowers. A shiny yellow silk banner hung on the wall behind displaying lovely red Devanagari lettering that read: “In Homor of Acharya Tribhuvan Narayan Mishra.” The “n” in “honor” had become an “m,” and it was shocking that no one had noticed. Rahul thought to himself that Hindi teachers can’t even proofread.
Shailendra George informed him that of the four seats, the first one was reserved for Vice-Chancellor Ashok Kumar Agnihotri, the third one was for Head of Department S. N. Mishra, the last one to the left was for Padmashree Dr. Rajendra Tiwari, and on the second from the right, in between the vice-chancellor and the head of department, would be seated the former senior professor at Banaras Hindu University, Tribhuvan Narayan Mishra. He was an eminent scholar of mannerist Hindi poetry and had compiled a volume of the so-called best verses of Bihari’s Satsai. He was a powerful strategist who maneuvered behind the scenes, influencing every countrywide university post in Hindi or editorial post in Hindi newspapers. Omnipresent member of every interview committee. Consultant to hundreds of Hindi foundations.
Department chair S. N. Mishra and Dr. Loknath Tripathi had left for the train station to receive Acharya Tribhuvan Narayan Mishra in the vice-chancellor’s black, air-conditioned Ambassador car. Following behind were some senior students and some pet pupils.
A few minutes later the Marutis, Santros, Zens, and Maitzes began pulling up in front of the department. Hindi professors, readers, and lecturers came out of the cars. The down payments for the vehicles had been made with university funds, and the cars were bought on low-interest, easy-payment loans. These instructors, who make 25,000 to 30,000 rupees per month and hardly teach three or four months per year, now drove around in automobiles. They played the stock market. Their children were abroad to settle down. They strategically took trips and constantly went on strike for increased wages and expense allowances. Regardless of their different intellectual or political slants, the instructors had one common goal — rupees and promotion. All higher thinking and all academic priorities were subsumed by this one point.
There were exceptions to this, and the faces of these creatures had taken on distinct characteristics. They were like a handful of grains that had survived, accidentally, amid a vast pile of chaff of dead ideas and ideals. They were neglected in all possible ways. Buried under that towering mountain of chaff were the leftover seeds of some vanishing academic species. Sometime in the future an archaeologist would study these fossilized grains to determine which century and which decade they dated from.
More than a dozen professors and instructors stood in the hallway, spilling out of the Hindi department, waiting for the black Ambassador to arrive. Classes had been rescheduled. The eighteen first-year MA students and the sixteen final-years all stood together. The three departmental underlings ran back and forth.
Sixteen teachers. Thirty-four students, ten of them female. And three underlings. This made a total of fifty-three human resources. Only three of the thirty-four students were non-Brahmin: Rahul, Shailendra George, and Shaligaram. Of the three underlings, one was a Yadav. Of the sixteen teachers, twelve were Brahmins, two were Baniyas, one Kayastha, and one Rajput. This was the demography of the Hindi department, the composition of its population.
Finally, at eleven thirty-two, the VC’s black Ambassador pulled up to the steps of the department. In the back seat was the chair of the department, S. N. Mishra, sitting next to Acharya Tribhuvan Narayan. In the front seat next to the driver, Guddan Dubey, was Dr. Loknath Tripathi, looking content. Guddan Dubey was VC Agnihotri’s nephew. A fake driver’s license was procured for Guddan before giving him a permanent job as driver.