FAMOUS NAMESAKE - TO LIVE FOR EVER

TO LIVE FOR EVER

In this situation, it was a matter of politeness to ask what god the headman worshipped, and he said, between hiccups, 'the Divine Earthworm, creator of the world...' 'There's no sickness here,' he told Ranjan. 'The white people who come here offer us medicines, but we don't take them. We listen to the Earthworm's advice in these matters. Some of us expect to live for ever.'

(From NORMAN LEWIS: "THE WORLD, THE WORLD", Picador/Jonathan Cape, London.)

**Some of us expect to live for ever!!**

Kishalay Sinha [G]

FAMOUS NAMESAKE

When in London I liked to stay with the Corvajas. It was to this address that I arranged for the proofs of Within the Labyrinth to be sent so that I could correct them before leaving.

The proofs however failed to arrive, so I rang up the publisher and was told that by mistake they had been sent to 4 Gordon Square. This was about a hundred yards away so I walked across to collect them, only to discover that a second Norman Lewis lived at this address, and that he, too, was a Cape author who had recently completed a hugely successful updated version of Roget's Thesaurus. Unfortunately, I was told, the second N.L. had left the country only two days before, and was presumed to have taken my proofs with him. Three days later I stepped down from the Air France plane at Beirut, where Oliver awaited me. 'We're having a little party for you at the embassy,' he said, and minutes later I suffered a surprise from which I have never wholly recovered, for the first introduction was to the man with whom I shared names, who had also stopped off at Beirut on his way to some Eastern destination. It was a circumstance that further encouraged Oliver's fascination with the paranormal, and inspired him to begin a work to be entitled The Mechanisms of Coincidence, although the book was never finished.

(From NORMAN LEWIS: "THE WORLD, THE WORLD", Picador/Jonathan Cape, London.)

SMART BOOK REVIEWER

Mimi's father was a writer too. There was a genuine odour of tragedy about this man. His last book came out some two months after I met Mimi. I got hold of a copy, read it and was appalled. The style was lumbering and leaden, the anecdotes as flat as unleavened bread. I could not understand why a British publisher had chosen to bring it out. There was something wrong somewhere.

The book created a problem. I had promised Mimi to review it in a weekly magazine in which I had begun to write. Yet I could not genuinely utter a single word of praise for a work which in my opinion should never have smelt the printer's ink. I knew too that it was important to Mimi; she was hoping that it would revive the family fortunes, pull Papa out of his well of depression and self-pity. What do you do in a situation like that? Refuse to review the book? Or tell lies? Or worse still, say nothing at all, padding your comments with homilies and 'on-the-one-hand, on-the-other' phrases of puerile banality?

I began my review by saying that it was a readable book, if you were interested in the subject-matter, that is. The author had a lust for travel; the book was an attempt to record the sinuous track along which that lust had had to be guided. I qualified every single statement I made, neutralizing each phrase that might sound even vaguely complimentary with a thrust at the author's 'inability to capture mood, report dialogue which sounded authentic', etc.

The Friday on which the issue came out, I was nervous and taut. I did not want to lose Mimi and I knew that her father had a lot of influence over her. All morning I roamed around in the Statesman office, tense and touchy. In the afternoon Mimi was on the phone. She had just spoken to Papa; would I care to come over for dinner at their house that evening?

'Er ... er ... what does he think of the review?'

'Daddy said that you write very well and that it was a thoughtful analysis of the book. He is very pleased.'

From that day on, I have never doubted my capacity to deceive, to say one thing and mean another. Words can wear many masks - you can always keep a straight face and come out with the most outrageous things - if you know how to use them. Dinner that night established me firmly with Mimi.

(From Sasthi Brata, "CONFESSIONS OF AN INDIAN WOMAN", Penguin Books, Rs. 375.)

Kishalay Sinha [G]

PUTTING LISTENERS TO SLEEP

For a moment, they stood regarding each other with blazing eyes. Then, Modi thrust his hand forward. One by one the greatest political warriors of India joined their hands to the pile, until only Kejriwal was left.

'Sab mile huey hai ji,' he muttered and added his hand to the heap.

And then, boisterous whoops, catcalls and chants of 'Bharat mata ki jai' rent the room and reverberated in the air over and over again for several minutes.

When the room finally calmed down, Amit Shah suddenly froze.

'Wait,' he said, 'there's still one problem.'

'What's that?' asked Swamy.

'If we cannot put even a scratch on the alien commander, how will we get him to sleep? We cannot use tranquilizers. We cannot use chemicals. We cannot conk him on his head. Hell, the aliens don't even sleep! How are we going to get him to dream?'

Swamy and Modi exchanged a knowing smile.

The next day, at the break of dawn, a diminutive old man in a faded blue turban slowly and stiffly made his way towards the thick door of the sprawling 7, RCR bungalow allotted to the democratically elected prime minister of India, which was now occupied by the alien leader who had supplanted him.

As Modi and the others watched from beyond the fence of the compound, another guard accosted the turbaned man just outside the door. The elderly man made no sudden movements. From their vantage point, they saw him slowly rotate towards the guard and look up at him. Seconds later, the soldier went down like a sack of potatoes and remained still.

'Damn,' whispered Shah in evident awe.

The turbaned man rigidly swivelled back towards the door and rang the bell.

It was the alien commander himself who answered the door, wearing a T-shirt that said 'I am PM, bitch'.

'Yes?'

Dr Manmohan Singh stared back at [alien commander] Qaal-za with unblinking eyes.

The alien commander frowned. Then his eyes widened as he spotted the inert forms of his guards behind Dr Singh.

'What the ...' he sputtered, stumbling backwards.

Dr Singh stepped in and launched into his thousandth speech on the state of the Indian economy.

'The Indian economy has grown at an average of 8 per cent per annum over the last decade. Recently, our growth rate declined to 5 per cent because of recession in the global economy. The rupee has depreciated sharply as well, partly because of the prospect of the Federal Reserve tapering its policy of quantitative easing that has led to the reversal of capital flows, causing general weakness in emerging market currencies. However, the fundamentals of the Indian economy continue to remain strong. I see growth bottoming out in the near future ...'

In the span of a minute, the alien commander's face played host to a dramatic medley of emotions... as wave upon wave of robotically delivered, mind-numbing economic jargon inundated his senses, his eyes began to glaze over and his mind began to lose its grip on reality.

'... Our medium-term objective is to reduce the current account deficit. Our short-term objective is to finance the current account deficit in an orderly fashion. We will make every effort to maintain a macro economic framework friendly to foreign capital inflows to enable orderly financing of the current account deficit. Reforms are the need of the hour ...'

The weight of mountains was on the alien commander's eyelids. He swayed unsteadily as lights began to go off one by one in his mind. A small part of his consciousness was still fighting to stay awake.

'... There are many reforms that require political consensus. But if we all work hard we can attain 8 per cent growth ...'

The alien commander crashed to the ground like a bag of bones.

(From Karthik Laxman, "UNREAL ALIENS", PENGUIN BOOKS, Rs. 199.)