A fortnight later she brought a parcel wrapped in red cotton spattered with sandalwood paste and handed it over to Ganesh with appropriate ceremony. When Ganesh untied the parcel he saw books of many sizes and many types. All were in manuscript, some in Sanskrit, some in Hindi; some were of paper, some of palm strips. The palm strips bound together looked like folded fans.
Ganesh warned Leela off. ‘Don’t touch these books, girl, or I don’t know what going to happen to you.’
Leela understood and opened her eyes wide.
And at about the same time Ganesh discovered the Hollywood Hindus. The Hollywood Hindus are Hindus who live in or near Hollywood. They are holy, cultivated men who issue frequent bulletins about the state of their soul, the complexities and variations of which are endless and always worth description.
Ganesh was a little annoyed. ‘You think I could do this sort of thing in Trinidad and get away with it?’ he asked Beharry.
‘I suppose, if you really know, you only jealous them.’
‘Man, I could write a book like that every day if I put my mind to it.’
‘Ganesh, you is a big man now. The time come when you must forget other people and think about yourself.’
So he tried to forget the Hollywood Hindus and set about ‘preparing himself ‘, as he said. The process, it soon became clear, was going to take time.
Leela began to complain again. ‘Man, nobody seeing you go think that it have a war going on and that everywhere people making money. The Americans come to Trinidad now, and they giving away work, with all sort of big pay.’
‘Don’t approve of war,’ Ganesh said.
It was during this period of preparation that my mother took me to see Ganesh. I never knew how she got to know about him; but my mother was a sociable woman and I believe that she must have met The Great Belcher at some wedding or funeral. And, as I said at the beginning, if I had been more acute I would have paid more attention to the Hindi phrases Ganesh muttered over me while he thumped my foot about.
Thinking now about that visit I made to Ganesh as a boy, I am struck only by my egotism. It never crossed my mind then that the people I saw casually all around me had their own very important lives; that, for instance, I was as unimportant to Ganesh as he was amusing — and puzzling — to me. Yet when Ganesh published his autobiography, The Years of Guilt, I read it half hoping to find some reference to myself. Of course, there was none.
Ganesh devotes quite a third of The Years of Guilt to the comparatively short period of his preparation, and it is perhaps the most rewarding thing in the book. The anonymous critic of Letras (Nicaragua) wrote: ‘The section contains little of what is popularly conceived of as autobiography. What we get instead is a sort of spiritual thriller, handled with a technique which would not have disgraced the creator of Sherlock Holmes. All the facts are stated, the most important spiritual clues are widely and obviously laid, but the reader keeps guessing the outcome till the last revelation when it is clear that the outcome could only have been what it in fact was.’
Ganesh was undoubtedly inspired by the Hollywood Hindus but what he says owes nothing to them. It was quite a new thing when Ganesh said it, but the path that he followed has been trodden so often since that it has become a rut; and there is little point in going over it here.
Presently The Great Belcher came again. She appeared to have recovered from the defection of King George and she told Ganesh almost as soon as she saw him, ‘I want to talk to you in private now, to see how well you study your uncle books.’
After the examination she said she was satisfied. ‘It just have one thing you must remember all the time. Is something your uncle use to say. If you want to cure people, you must believe them, and they must know that you believe them. But first, people must get to know about you.’
‘Loudspeaker van in San Fernando and Princes Town?’ Ganesh suggested.
‘Nah, they might mistake it for the Borough Council elections. Why you don’t get some leaflets print and get Bissoon to give them out for you? He have a lot of experience and he wouldn’t go giving them away to any-and everybody.’
Leela said, ‘I wouldn’t let Bissoon touch a thing in this house. The man is a blight.’
‘Is strange,’ Ganesh said. ‘Last time he was a sign. Today he is a blight. Don’t worry with Leela. I go get Basdeo to print some leaflets and Bissoon to give them away.’
Basdeo was a little plumper when Ganesh went to see him about the folders — that was how, on Beharry’s advice, he had begun to call the leaflets — and the first thing he said to Ganesh was, ‘You still want me to keep the type for your first book?’
Ganesh didn’t reply.
‘You does give me a strange feeling,’ Basdeo said, scratching his neck below the collar. ‘Something tell me not to break up the type and I keeping it. Yes, you does give me a strange feeling.’
Still Ganesh didn’t speak, and Basdeo became gayer. ‘I have some news. You know so much wedding invitation I keep on printing and nobody at all invite me to a wedding. And, mark you, I does beat a damn good drum. So I think I would invite myself to a wedding. So I get married.’
Ganesh congratulated him and then coldly outlined his request for an illustrated folder — the illustration was his photograph — and when Basdeo read the copy, which was all about Ganesh’s spiritual qualifications, he shook his head and said, ‘Tell me, man, but tell me, how people does get so crazy in a small small place like Trinidad?’
And after all this, Bissoon refused to handle the folders, and made a long speech about it.
‘Can’t handle that sort of printed matter. I is a seller, not a give-awayer. Look, I go tell you. I start as a little boy in this business, giving away theatre handbills. Then I move up to San Fernando, selling kyalendars. Is not that I have anything against you or your wife. But is my reputation I got to be careful about. In the book business you got to be careful about your reputation.’
Leela was more displeased than Ganesh. ‘You see what I say? The man blight. Giving we all that amount of big talk. Is the trouble with Indians in Trinidad. They does get conceited too quickly, you hear.’
The Great Belcher looked on the bright side. ‘Bissoon ain’t what he used to be. He losing his hand, ever since his wife run away. She run away with Jhagru, the Siparia barber, some five six months, I think. And Jhagru is a married man, with six children! Bissoon shoot off a lot of big talk then about killing Jhagru, but he ain’t do nothing. He just start drinking. Too besides, Ganesh, you is a modern educated man and I think you should do things in a modern way. Put a advertisement in the papers, man.’
‘Coupon to full up?’ Ganesh asked.
‘If you want, but you must put a picture of yourself. Same picture you put in your book.’
‘Is just like I say in the beginning,’ Leela said. ‘Advertisement in the papers is the best thing. You wouldn’t waste any of the folders if you do that.’
Beharry and Ganesh worked on the copy and they produced that challenging advertisement which was to be so famous later on: WHO IS THIS GANESH? The ‘this’ was Beharry’s idea.
There was one other thing. Ganesh was not happy to be called simply a pundit. He felt he was more than that and he felt that he was entitled to a weightier word. So, remembering the Hollywood Hindus, he nailed a signboard on the mango tree: GANESH, Mystic.
‘Is nice,’ Beharry said, looking at it closely and nibbling, while he rubbed his belly under his vest. ‘Is very nice, but you think people go believe you is a mystic?’