Hey, look, there’s Gandhi!
A staff fashioned from seasoned bamboo in his hand, he gazed vacantly at the road in front of him, in the direction of the thickly grown line of krishnachura trees, and the people crowded all around, threw money at him, at his standing image, they threw clinking, easy money. The same shaven head (did Gandhiji have a shaven head – oh, I don’t know), draped in a thin, sheet-like something, the dhoti he wore not quite touching his knees. Only if you looked carefully could you discern that his staff was not so well seasoned, and had not been pared, while Gandhi’s staff had been of seasoned bamboo, finely- pared and polished with oil. Cut-Ball did not hold such a finely-pared bamboo in his hand.
Who’s this Cut-Ball? People have forgotten his real name. The people in Karnataka’s Shimoga district know him as Drama Cut-Ball. When he was about forty or forty-two, while he’d been bathing in the river to the recitation of the Lord’s name, a crocodile had chomped on his testicles. Of course, it couldn’t bite away everything. He managed to recover quite a bit from its jaws. Half, or even more, was left intact. Thereafter, Cut-Ball became his name. As he was active in drama performances, the name soon became Drama Cut-Ball. Of course, before this incident, he’d already had two sons. Otherwise, the lineage would have been a goner.
As he grew older, Cut-Ball searched for some other means of livelihood. He even sold lottery tickets for a while. Exactly two months ago, he went to pray at an important local temple. It was the custom for devotees to shave their heads before praying at this temple. Cut-Ball shaved his head and went to pray, and when he was returning home after doing so, something funny happened. He was walking along with an un-pared bamboo staff in his hand. He’d retrieved it from a heap of garbage at the temple. Seeing him, the poor urchin children playing in the streets exclaimed, “Hey, Gandhi Maharaja’s coming this way,” and set off a howl, created a stir, and their parents too, hearing the shouts, streamed out from their houses and stared with amazement and disbelief at Gandhi. Perhaps some among them had actually seen Gandhiji. But their sight had lost its sharpness, they could not distinguish between true and false any more, and in particular, they had not noticed the un-pared bamboo staff. Or even if they had, they had not attached any significance to the detail.
Returning home, pondering over how he would feed himself, the incident provided a hint to Drama Cut-Ball regarding a possible source of income. Why, in this country, one could surely make a living playing Gandhi! His head was already shaven, and to make the likeness perfect he decided to get himself a pair of round, nickel-frame spectacles. Keeping a picture of Gandhi in front of him, he dressed in a knee-length dhoti, worn in the exact same way, adroitly wrapping one end of the dhoti around himself. It was exactly like the real Gandhi. But he did not relinquish the knotted bamboo staff. Let that be, after all it was this un-pared bamboo that proved to be providential for me. He went to the main road and stood in a Gandhi pose for about an hour. There was the clinking of coins flung by passers-by. Quick money, grey coins. Drama Cut-Ball paid inward homage to the father of the nation, to the determiner of the destiny of India. He thought to himself, Bapuji don’t blame me. I’m Cut-Ball, who has to make himself up like you in order to be able to eat. But I am me, and you are you. I can never become you. Don’t want that either. That would be a great sin. Not for a moment do I want to be like you, discarding this un-pared bamboo and taking up a fine staff.
After this, Cut-Ball went ahead towards an even more difficult sadhana. He wanted to stand for hours on end, one foot forward, in arrested walking motion, imitating the father of the nation. For a few days at a stretch, if required. Let there be thousands of spectators crowding around him. Let them behold that in affecting a good likeness of Gandhiji, not a muscle of his body twitched, his chest was no longer rising and falling to his breath, he stood like a replica of Gandhi, cast in stone, before the people of free India – most of whom had never laid eyes on Gandhi – or even if they had, they had forgotten to distinguish between true and false. Someone actually said: Here’s Gandhi No. 2. Your make-up is great, brother!
Recently, he stood as Gandhi for seventy-two hours at a stretch, perfect make- up, perfect attire
– he stood at a crossroads.
Where one’s eyes go.
Beneath his feet, there was green grass.
A hint of the red of crushed brick in the gaps.
Just this one sight, at the crossroads.
When he was like that, standing absolutely still for long stretches of time, little boys and girls came and pinched him on his stomach and ran away. Some threw pebbles at him from afar. He stood between two red lines of trees, and a skinny slum girl came up to him, holding a mug of milk which she’d brought after milking her goat. There was still white foam frothed out of the milk, and she said, “Take it, drink it, it’s not bad, it’s pure, good milk.” But Cut-Ball’s concentration was not broken by this. Describing the incident, he said: “Actually, they want to see if I’m really the genuine Gandhi or not. I have to pass these examinations. I don’t mind that.” Hearing that I was a journalist from Calcutta, from Jyoti Basu’s land, who had come to interview him, he paid more attention to me. After talking about this and that, he said: “Two unemployed sons, the younger one’s eleven, he works as a tea-shop boy, even at this age he’s started smoking bidis. The wife’s not in good health. I’ve heard one can find a job if one goes to Calcutta. Is it possible to get some kind of job, brother? Shall I send my elder son there?” Telling me about his various joys and sorrows, he was on the verge of tears. His sadness was that he had not been able to get himself a pocket-watch like that of the father of the nation. “I can barely survive with what I earn. Haven’t been able to get a pocket-watch yet. Can’t be a full-fledged Gandhi without a pocket-watch, can I...?”
I asked him, “You’re earning money by making yourself up like the father of the nation. Isn’t that unethical?”
Cut-Ball became agitated. Knocking the un-pared bamboo staff on the ground, he exclaimed, “I... only me... am I alone... you... all of you...”
Let me take this opportunity to say something about myself. I returned to Calcutta the very next day after the interview. I used to teach earlier, but for the last few years I’ve been a film journalist. Art films are my favourite. Even if people view the term “intellectual” as a form of disparagement, I’ve personally felt elevated to be so labelled. I’ve put on a sad-sad face but felt quite pleased inwardly. Recently, I wrote a wonderful article about the wedding of Sarah and Andrew in England, which was a great hit... The sex life of the future princess... Who hadn’t the girl slept with... Accompanied by some hot pictures... I haven’t seen the article yet. Of course, some friends have complained that this article borders on pornography. But I’ve explained to them that I’m a gentleman, I uphold a wholesome culture, I only bring facts to light, and in gentlemen’s parlance. I’ve portrayed the sex life of the elite of the contemporary world, and that can never be compared with pornography. Pornography contains perversion, and the language is extremely obscene. Pornography cannot be written in decent language and it cannot ever be published in the largest selling weekly of the Bengali language, after all they too have a notion of taste. I’ve demonstrated that I can be no less proficient in popular writing, that if I wanted I could have become at least another Ganguly. An intellectual journal is bringing out a special issue shortly on Eisenstein. They’ve asked me to contribute an article. I’m thinking of beginning the article like this: “Just as one cannot conceive of the existence of Battleship Potemkin without the Bolshevik revolution...” I praise myself inwardly. That opening is fantastic, at once both left-wing and intellectual. But the rest can be written later, with more thought. Today I must write a rousing article about Cut-Ball, and it should be written in simple language, from an objective point of view. There can’t be any communist sloganeering in it, the owner of the paper doesn’t like that, besides, as the article is for ordinary, half-educated people, it’s safest to write it in simple language, with a tone of objectivity. Oh, the sound of money dropping! Cling-clang! Easy money. Grey coins. The name Cut-Ball’s really fantastic! The subject has to be explained simply... a man in free India who makes a living by playing Gandhi... adopting the name Cut-Ball... oh, it’ll sell like hot cakes!
[1986]
[This piece excerpted from the collection Wild Animals Prohibited, forthcoming from HarperCollins India. The translator gratefully acknowledges the Sangam House Writers’ Residency for enabling this translation.]
Subimal Misra is a Bengali writer and lives in Kolkata. A retired teacher, he taught for many years in a school near Sonagachi, Kolkata’s infamous red-light district. He has written exclusively for little magazines since 1967. Departing from conventional narrative form, as a self-professed disciple of filmmakers Sergei Eisenstein and Jean-Luc Godard, Misra sought to introduce film language into Bengali literature. His stories and novels are often referred to as ‘anti-stories’ and ‘anti-novels’. He is known to write ‘with venom instead of ink’, for his scathing social critique and the ‘planned violence’ on the reader. Misra is considered the only anti-establishment writer in Bengali literature, and the father of the experimental novel in Bengali. About thirty volumes of his stories, novels and essays have been published.