Being a business manager was embarrassing. It meant going to see a man he knew and talking about the situation in India before springing the request for an advertisement. It wasn’t very wise either, because Ganesh didn’t want it known that he was too closely associated with The Dharma.
In the end he threw up the idea of getting advertisements. He got two or three inches from those of his clients who were shopkeepers; but he decided thereafter to print unsolicited advertisements. He thought of all the shops he knew and wrote copy for them. A difficult business, since the shops were nearly all alike and it wasn’t satisfying to keep on writing ‘Best Quality Goods at City Prices’ or ‘High-Class Commodities at Competitive Prices’. Finally he became inventive. He described superlative bargains in fictitious shops in unknown villages.
Swami was pleased. ‘A master job, sahib.’
Partap said, ‘This place you mention, Los Rosales, where it is?’
‘Keskidee Bargain Shop? Brand-new place. Open only last week.’
The boy handed in libellous reviews of the films.
‘We can’t print this, man,’ Ganesh said.
‘Is all right for you to talk. You just go around getting advertisements. Me, I had to spend six whole hours watching those two pictures.’
The reviews were rewritten.
The boy said, ‘Is your paper, pundit. If you make me lie, is on your head.’
‘How about your article on the Destitutes Fund, sahib?’
‘I have it right here. It go make Narayan a laughing-stock. And printing this report by Leela next to it, Narayan go have good hell knock out of him.’
He showed the report.
‘What is all these dots over the paper?’ the boy asked.
‘Crossing out punctuation marks.’
‘Is a nice little report, man, sahib.’ Swami’s voice was mellow.
It read:
REPORT OF MY SOCIAL WELFARE WORK
by Leela Ramsumair
1. In November last year I in my very small and humble way treated 225 destitutes by way of cash and refreshments. The expenses for this treat were met by donations willingly and cheerfully given by private individual Trinidadians.
2. In December I treated 213 poor children. Expenses were met by me and my husband, Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A., Mystic.
3. In January I was approached by Dr C. V. R. Swami, the Hindu journalist and religious organizer, with a request for immediately monetary assistance. He had been organizing a seven-day prayer-meeting, feeding on an average anything up to 200 brahmins per diem, in addition to about 325 others (Dr Swami’s figures). He had run short of food. I gave him monetary assistance. Therefore he was able, on the 7th and last day of the prayer-meeting, to feed more than 500 brahmins in addition to 344 destitutes.
4. In February I visited Sweet Pastures Estate where I was met by approximately 425 children. They were all destitute. I fed them and gave 135 of the very poorest toys.
5. In March, at my residence in Fuente Grove, I treated more than 42 children of the very poorest. I think it advisable to state that while I was able to feed them all I was able to give clothes only to 12 of the very poorest.
6. In presenting this incomplete report for the inspection of the Trinidadian public, I wish to make it publicly known that I owe very much to the very many private individual Trinida-dians who willingly and cheerfully donated money to bring comfort and solace to children of the very poorest without distinction of race, caste, colour, or creed.
The Dharma went to press.
The boy handled the layout of the paper with relish. He had a banner headline on page one and another on page three. At the top of page three he had, in twenty-four point italic:
Today the aeroplane is a common or garden sight and it is commonly believed that progress in this field has only been made in the past forty years. But diligent research is proving otherwise and in this learned dispatch Dr C. V. R. Swami shows that 2,000 years ago there was –
And in huge black letters:
FLYING IN ANCIENT INDIA
He knew all about cross-headings and used them every paragraph. He put the last paragraph of every article in italic, with the last line in black letter.
Basdeo, the printer, told Ganesh afterwards, ‘Sahib, if you ever send that boy again to have anything print, I think I go wring his neck.’
10. The Defeat of Narayan
‘IF I NEEDED any further proof of the hand of Providence in my career,’ Ganesh wrote in The Years of Guilt, ‘I had only to look at the incidents which led to the decline of Shri Narayan.’
In Trinidad it isn’t polite to look down on a man because you know he handles public funds unwisely. As soon as he is exposed the poor man becomes ridiculous enough, a subject for calypso. After The Dharma came out Narayan didn’t have a chance.
‘Now is your chance to finish him off, pundit,’ Beharry said. ‘Give him two three months to recover and — bam! — people stop laughing and begin to listen to him again.’
But no one could think of a plan.
Leela said, ‘I would do like my father and give him a good horse-whipping.’
Beharry suggested more lectures.
The boy said, ‘Kidnap the son of a bitch, pundit.’
Swami and Partap thought a lot but came up with nothing.
It was the Hindu wedding season and The Great Belcher was very busy.
Suruj Mooma was still thinking when Fate, unfortunately for Narayan, took a hand.
Two days after the publication of Volume One, Number One of The Dharma it was announced in the Trinidad Sentinel that a Hindu industrialist in India had offered thirty thousand dollars for the cultural uplift of Trinidad Hindus. The money was being kept in trust by the Trinidad Government until it could be handed over to a competent Hindu body.
Narayan promptly claimed that the Hindu Association, of which he had the honour to be President, was competent enough to handle the thirty thousand dollars.
Leela said, ‘They could handle a lot more, if you let them.’
‘Is God Self send this chance, pundit,’ Beharry urged. ‘But you have to act fast. Narayan Association having their second General Meeting in four weeks. You couldn’t do something there?’
‘I thinking about it all all the time,’ Ganesh said and for a moment Beharry recognized the old, pre-mystic Ganesh.
Four days later the San Fernando correspondent of the Sentinel reported that Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair of Fuente Grove was planning the formation of a representative assembly of Trinidad Hindus to be known as the Hindu League.
That day, in an interview, Narayan claimed that the Hindu Association was the only representative Hindu body in Trinidad. It had a fine record of social work, it was founded long before the League was even thought of, and it was clear to all right-thinking people that the League was being formed only with thirty thousand dollars in view.
Letters flew from both sides to the Sentinel.
Finally, it was announced that the Inaugural Meeting of the Hindu League was to be held at the residence of Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair in Fuente Grove. The meeting was to be private.
That Saturday afternoon about fifty men, most of them former clients, gathered in the ground floor of Ganesh’s house. There were solicitors and barristers among them, solicitor’s touts, taxidrivers, clerks and labourers. Leela, taking no chances, gave them diluted Coca-Cola in enamel cups.