The man with jodhpurs said, ‘But they got to pay we, man.’
The meal was torture to Ganesh. He felt alien and uncomfortable. He grew sulkier and sulkier and refused all the courses. He felt as if he were a boy again, going to the Queen’s Royal College for the first time.
He was in a temper when he returned late that night to Fuente Grove. ‘Just wanted to make a fool of me,’ he muttered, ‘fool of me.’
‘Leela!’ he shouted. ‘Come, girl, and give me something to eat.’
She came out, smiling sardonically. ‘But, man, I thought you was dining with the Governor.’
‘Don’t make joke, girl. Done dine. Want to eat now. Going to show them,’ he mumbled, as his fingers ploughed through the rice and dal and curry, ‘going to show them.’
12. M.L.C. to M.B.E
SOON GANESH decided to move to Port of Spain. He found it fatiguing to travel nearly every day between Port of Spain and Fuente Grove. The Government paid expenses that made it worth while but he knew that even if he lived in Port of Spain he could still claim travelling expenses, like the other country members.
Swami and the boy came to say good-bye. Ganesh had grown to like the boy: he saw so much of himself in him.
‘But don’t worry, sahib,’ Swami said. ‘The Hindu Association fixing up a little something for him. A little cultural scholarship to travel about, learning.’
Beharry, Suruj Mooma, and their second son Dipraj helped with the packing. Later, Ramlogan and The Great Belcher came.
Suruj Mooma and Leela embraced and cried; and Leela gave Suruj Mooma the ferns from the top verandah.
‘I go always always keep them, my dear.’
The Great Belcher said, ‘The two of you girls behaving as though somebody getting married.’
Beharry put his hand under his vest and nibbled. ‘Is go Ganesh have to go. He do his duty here and God call him somewhere else.’
‘I wish the whole thing did never happen,’ Ganesh said with sudden bitterness. ‘I wish I did never become a mystic!’
Beharry put his hand on Ganesh’s shoulder. ‘Is only talk you talking, Ganesh. Is hard, I know, to leave a place after eleven years, but look at Fuente Grove now. New road. My new shop. Stand-pipe. We getting electricity next year. All through you.’
They took bags and cases into the yard.
Ganesh went to the mango tree. ‘Is something we did forget.’ He wrenched out the GANESH, Mystic sign.
‘Don’t throw it away,’ Beharry said. ‘We go keep it in the shop.’
Ganesh and Leela got into the taxi.
Ramlogan said. ‘I always did say, sahib, you was the radical in the family.’
‘Ah, Leela, my dear, look after yourself,’ Suruj Mooma sobbed. ‘You looking so tired.’
The taxi started and the waving began.
The Great Belcher belched.
‘Dipraj, carry this signboard home and come back and help your mother with the ferns.’
Leela waved and looked back. The verandah was naked; the doors and windows open; on the balustrade the two stone elephants stared in opposite directions.
It would be hard to say just when Ganesh stopped being a mystic. Even before he moved to Port of Spain he had become more and more absorbed in politics. He still dispelled one or two spirits; but he had already given up his practice when he sold the house in Fuente Grove to a jeweller from Bombay and bought a new one in the fashionable Port of Spain district of St Clair. By that time he had stopped wearing dhoti and turban altogether.
Leela didn’t take to Port of Spain. She travelled about a good deal with The Great Belcher. She visited Soomintra often and regularly went to Ramlogan’s.
But Ganesh found that for an M.L.C. Port of Spain was a pleasant place. He got used to it and even liked it. There were two good libraries, and so many bookshops! He dropped Indology, religion, and psychology and bought large books on political theory. He had long discussions with Indarsingh.
At first Indarsingh was bitter. ‘Funny people in Trinidad, old boy. No respect for ideas, only personalities.’
But he softened as time went on and he and Ganesh worked on a new political theory.
‘Came to me in a flash, old boy. Reading Louis Fischer’s book about Gandhi. Socialinduism. Socialism-cum-Hinduism. Hot stuff, old boy. Outlines settled. Details demn tricky, though.’
So far the autobiography, and the private man.
But by this time Ganesh was a public figure of great importance. He was always in the papers. His speeeches inside and outside the Legislative Council were reported in detail; he was constantly photographed leading delegations of aggrieved taxi-drivers or scavengers or fish-vendors to the Red House; and he was always ready with a press conference or a letter to the editor. Everything he did or said was News.
He was a terror in the Legislative Council.
It was he who introduced the walk-out to Trinidad and made it popular as a method of protest. The walk-out was no sudden inspiration. It had crude beginnings. At first he simply lay flat on his back on the Council table and refused to move. Policemen had to lift him up. Acts like this caught the public imagination and in no time at all Ganesh became popular throughout the South Caribbean. His photograph appeared constantly in the newspapers. Then he discovered the walk-out. In the beginning he just walked out; later, he walked out and gave interviews to reporters on the steps of the Red House; finally, he walked out, gave interviews, and addressed the crowd of beggars and idlers from the bandstand in Woodford Square. Often the Governor passed a weary hand over his forehead and said, ‘Mr Ramsumair, what have we done to offend you this time? Please don’t stage another walk-out.’ And the invariable concomitant of a headline announcing the passing of a bill was GANESH STAGES A WALK-OUT. Later this was shortened and a typical newspaper headline was:
LAND RESETTLEMENT BILL PASSED
Ganesh Walks Out
They made a calypso about him which was the second road-march at the Carnival in 1947:
There is a gentleman of the opposition
Suffering a sort of legislative constipation.
Everybody moving — bills for so,
But with this gentleman nothing can go.
The reference to Profitable Evacuation was clear. But even before the calypso, Ganesh had begun to find his mystic career an embarrassment. Certain paragraphs of What God Told Me had often been read out in the Council Chamber; and in November 1946, just four months after he had published it, he suppressed The Years of Guilt, as well as his other books, and wound up Ganesh Publishing Company Limited.
There was no doubt that at this time Ganesh was the most popular man in Trinidad. He never went to a cocktail party at Government House. He never went to dinner there. He was always ready to present a petition to the Governor. He exposed scandal after scandal. And he was always ready to do a favour for any member of the public, rich or poor. For such favours his fees were never high. He always said, ‘You must give only what you can afford.’ People like Primrose and the Christian had high fixed rates, went to every cocktail party at Government House, and wore dinner-jackets. You couldn’t say that either of them really represented his constituency. The Christian, as a matter of fact, now owned most of his; and Primrose became so wealthy he had to be knighted.