‘Cinema,’ the boy said, behind Time.
‘What you mean?’ Swami asked eagerly.
‘Film reviews,’ Ganesh said.
Partap said, ‘Film reviews is a first-class idea.’
Swami was enthusiastic. ‘And on that selfsame page, advertisements for films. From the Indian companies. One review for one advertisement.’
Ganesh slapped the table. ‘That self.’
The boy was humming.
The three men sipped Coca-Cola with abandon. Swami laughed and chuckled till his chair creaked.
The boy said coldly, ‘Page three.’
‘Two more columns of advertisement there,’ Ganesh said briskly.
‘And a nice big advertisement on the whole of page four,’ Swami added.
‘True enough,’ Ganesh said, ‘but why for you jumping ahead so?’
Partap said, ‘Only two more columns to full up.’
‘Yes,’ Swami said sadly, ‘two more.’
The boy walked to the table and said, ‘Feecher.’
They looked at him inquiringly.
‘Feecher article.’
‘The paper finish!’ Swami cried.
Partap said, ‘Who go write the feecher?’
Ganesh said, ‘People know my style. Is something for you people to write. Just gimme page one.’
‘Serious, religious feecher on page three,’ the boy said, ‘to make up for page one which, if I ain’t getting deaf, going to be a page of attack, attack.’
Swami said, ‘I outa practice. In the old days, man, I coulda turn out a feecher in half a hour.’
Partap said hesitantly, ‘A bright little thing about Parcel Post?’
The boy said, ‘Serious and religious feecher.’ To Swami he said, ‘But what about that one you show me the other day?’
‘Which one?’ Swami asked casually.
‘The flying one.’
‘Oh. That little thing. The boy talking, sahib, about a few words I scribble off the other day.’
Partap said, ‘I remember the one. The New Statesman send it back. Was nice, though. It prove, pundit, that in ancient India they did know all about aeroplanes.’
Ganesh said, ‘Hmmh.’ Then, ‘All right, we go put it in.’
Swami said, ‘I go have to polish it up a little bit.’
Partap said, ‘Well, I glad that settle.’
The boy said, ‘All you forgetting one thing. The name.’
The men became thoughtful once more.
Swami tinkled the ice in his glass. ‘I better say it right away, sahib. I is like that, sahib. No beating about the bush. If you can’t get a good name, blame me. I use up everything when I was a proper editor. Mirror, Herald, Sentinel, Tribune, Mail. Everything, man. Use them up, Hindu this and Hindu that.’
Ganesh said, ‘Something simple.’
Partap toyed with his glass and mumbled, ‘Something really simple.’ And before he had time to take it back Partap had said, ‘The Hindu?’
‘Damn fool!’ Swami shouted. ‘How you forgetting that that is the name of Narayan paper? Is so stupid you does get working in the Post Office?’
The chair scraped loudly on the floor and Leela rushed out in a panic. She saw Partap standing, pale and trembling, with a glass in his hand.
‘Say that again,’ Partap cried. ‘Say that again and see if I don’t break this glass on your head. Who does work in the Post Office? You could ever see a man like me licking stamps? You, a damn tout, running around licking — but I ain’t going to dirty my mouth talking to you here today.’
Ganesh had put his arm around Partap’s shoulders while Leela swiftly retrieved the glass from his hand and cleared the table of the other glasses.
Swami said, ‘I was only making joke, man. Who could look at you and say that you working in the Post Office? I could just look at you and see that you is a Parcel Post man. Parcel Post print all over you, man. Not so, boy?’
The boy said, ‘He look to me like a Parcel Post man.’
Ganesh said, ‘You see, they all say you does look like a Parcel Post man. Come on, sit down and behave like one. Sit down and take it easy and have some Coca-Cola. Eh, eh, where the glasses gone?’
Leela stamped her foot. ‘I are not going to give any of these illiterate people any Coca-Cola in my prutty prutty glasses.’
Swami said, ‘We sorry, maharajin.’
But she was out of the room.
Partap, sitting down, said, ‘I sorry, mistakes are reliable. I did just forget the name of Narayan paper for the moment, that is all.’
‘What about The Sanatanist?’ Swami asked.
The boy said, ‘No.’
Ganesh looked at the boy. ‘No?’
‘Is a easy name to twist around,’ the boy said. ‘It easy to make The Sanatanist The Satanist. And too besides, my father ain’t a Sanatanist. We is Aryans.’
So the men thought again.
Swami asked the boy, ‘You think anything yet?’
‘What you think I is? A professional thinker?’
Partap said, ‘Don’t behave so. If you think anything, don’t keep it secret.’
Ganesh said, ‘We is big men. Let we forget the boy.’
The boy said, ‘All right, stop worrying. I go ease you up. The name you looking for is The Dharma, the faith.’
Ganesh blocked out the name at the top of the front page.
The boy said, ‘It surprise me that big big men sitting down drinking Coca-Cola and talking about their experience ain’t bother to worry about the advertisements.’
Partap, still excited, grew garrulous. ‘I was talking to the Head of Parcel Post only last week and he tell me that in America and England — he was there on leave before the war — they does have big big men sitting down all day just writing off advertisements.’
Swami said, ‘I ain’t have the contacts I use to have for getting advertisements.’
Ganesh asked the boy, ‘Think we need them?’
Swami said, ‘Why for you asking the boy? If you ask me my advice, I go tell you flat that unless a paper have advertisements it does look like nothing and it go make people think nobody does read the paper.’
Partap said, ‘If you ain’t having advertisements, it mean having more columns to full up. Two and two is four, and four columns on the back page make eight columns, and one on the front —’
Ganesh said, ‘We having advertisements; and I know one man bound to want to advertise. Beharry. Beharry’s Emporium. Front Page.’
‘Who else you know?’ the boy asked.
Partap furrowed his brow. ‘The best thing would be to appoint a business manager.’
Swami smiled at Partap. ‘Very nice idea. And I think the best man for business manager is Ganesh Pundit.’
The vote was unanimous.
The boy nudged Swami and Swami said, ‘And I think we have to appoint a sub-editor. The best man for that job is this boy here.’
That was agreed. It was further agreed that, on the first page of The Dharma, Swami should appear as Editor-in-Chief, and Partap as Editor.
There were times during the next two or three weeks when Ganesh regretted his plunge into journalism. The film companies were rude. They said they had enough advertisements as it was and they doubted whether any reviews in The Dharma, however favourable, would stabilize the film industry in India. That was Ganesh’s contention. ‘The Indian film industry,’ he said, ‘isn’t as healthy as it looks. Let the effects of the war wear off and — bam! — things are going to get bad.’ The executives advised him to stick to religion and leave the film industry alone. ‘All right,’ Ganesh threatened. ‘No reviews for you. Not a single little word. The Dharma will ignore the very existence of the Indian cinema. Not a single word.’ Quick thinking had, however, shown the two culture columns on page two as a blank and he had relented. ‘I am sorry I lost my temper,’ he wrote. ‘Your treatment of me shall not influence my treatment of you.’ Still the film companies refused to issue free tickets to The Dharma and Ganesh had to pay for the boy to go and see the two films for review.