A Girl Called Asha Albuquerque , a Novel

IN THE GREAT STATE OF KARKOTAKA
I fancy, oh vanity, myself to be a sort of writer. I am going to write down, rather write up my adventures or misadventures. To put it simply, I am writing the greatest tragedy, in other words, the farciest farce of the century. As a little boy I was fond of big books; I read all that I was not supposed to read. My father was an obscure poet, and an obscurer lawyer. As my father clung to truth like a leech, he never made money. The methodology of establishing truth by telling lies was anathema to him. Consequently, he succeeded in reducing himself to the most humblest and the most poorest lawyer in the town, (though quite ungrammatically). May his soul rest in peace, presuming that there is peace in that corner of the other world where he has, by now, I hope, wised up to the art of lying in peace...
Enough of my poor father. As I was saying, (in the best tradition of Indian English), I was a little boy, reading big books; Eliot, Hamlet, Joyce, Joyless, Virginia Woolf, Virgin Mary and what not. I read the Bhagavad Gita in every possible edition. It is a useful book. By quoting one or two nice shlokas (couplets) from the Gita one can justify anything: war, murder, inaction, inertia - anything. An assortment of Gitas, in every possible edition-from the pocket book to the hard-cover was the only fortune my father left behind. There were editions with or without commentaries, explications, expositions, interpretations, misinterpretations to suit every taste for sophistry. Needless to say, I spent many nights burning gallons of oil, at the end of which I was dazed, stupefied, stultified. I began to buttonhole every Tom, Dick and Harry, Bill, Joe and Mary, Ram, Rahim and Robert, expounding on the great philosophy. I could prove at any time of the day or night that though God is two, he actually is one; that many are one in reality, though through the mist of Maya, the one manifests itself as illusory and delutionary; I could leave nobody in any doubt whatsoever that I could not leave anybody in any doubt as to the supreme wisdom propounded in the Gita, though I must admit, I suspected there were some sceptics, bloody idiots, no doubt, who secretly suspected my sanity.
Let me continue with my tragedy, which is actually a farce. No sooner had I finished my High School than I joined college according to the best conventions of a lower-middle-class family with upper-middle-class pretensions and aspirations. I studied what was called literature, of course, to the great satisfaction of my beloved father, who was still breathing then. I acquired a B.A. (Bachelor Asinine) and M.A. (Master of Asses) certificates. I joined the army of the unemployed, armed with nothing but torn and tattered certificates and broken dreams. Unemployed and unemployable as I was, appearing for interviews was my main occupation and preoccupation those salad years. I remember one such interview. I answered all the questions shot at me about farcical tragedies and tragical comedies from Shakespeare to Shaw. I was indiscreet enough to hint at my knowledge of an obscure writer called Samuel Beckett of whom none in the interview committee had heard! The chairman of the committee, an old Professor of English, assured me that a few quotations from Shakespeare per lecture was the secret key to a successful career for an English lecturer. I was dismissed peremptorily from the interview and the prospect of the job when the committee found that I was “forward”. The post could be given only to a “Backward”, if nobody more backward, like an S.C., was found, I learnt. As I sat gloomily at the roadside, one of the backward candidates came to me beaming. “I did not answer a single question, and I was assured that I was selected, as there was no one more backward than me among the thousand-and-odd candidates who had turned up for this single post of a lecturer”, he declared triumphantly. Sensing my disappointment, which was remarkable in such a backward person, Mr. Backward told me the methodology of madness of appointments in the great state of Karkotaka. There was 90% reservation which covered 100% jobs, he informed me. When I expressed my shock, he told me there was hope, though only “Backwards could be appointed permanently, “Forwards could be appointed temporarily. The only snag was that a temporary lecturer could be paid only a peon’s salary!
“Why”, I made bold to ask.
“That is the government rule in Karkotaka”, he said simply.
I mumbled something about justice, law, courts and judges. My friend, Mr. Backward roared in laughter. He was in such convulsions, I was afraid he would have cardiac arrest. He soon recovered from the attack. “No judge would ever dare question reservation, because it is enshrined in the constitution, widely believed to be drafted, even materialized from thin air, solely by that great champion of social justice and himself a backward, Dr. Ambedkar”, he declared. I was dumbstruck.
So, I became a temporary lecturer-in-English on a salary of Rs.800. My attender got a salary of Rs.1, 000. But he was permanent because a Backward and knew nothing of English or literature. I worked for ten years as a permanently temporary lecturer on not even an attender’s salary. Every three months I was fired, and again hired with at least one day’s break in service. “Stop-gap” (method) was the fancy name given to it by the bureaucrats who danced to the tunes of ministers running the Government as corruptly as possible in the great state of Karkotaka. The party they belonged to was called “Congress” (D.D.), the initials standing for dogs and donkeys. Bored by masturbation or its “substitute, writing, as Harold Robbins in his wisdom called it, I set out for a walk one evening. As I was passing the public playground, I happened to hear the oratorical flourish by the Cheap Minister Huchchappa or Mangappa. He was waxing eloquent on the problem of unemployment. His voice broke when he declared how his heart bled (when he was not busy) for the plight of the unemployed educated youth of his great state of Karkotaka. He announced a dozen new schemes (in the place of old ones) to provide employment for all the youth of his great state in the next century. “As an economy measure, it is decided to pay no salary to the temporary lecturers”, he declared, amidst thunderous applause of the thousands of drunken Backwards. He was wildly cheered when he proclaimed that all the Forwards, who refused to touch the Untouchables, would be exiled!
When I was listening to all this, bewildered, perplexed, flabbergasted, a car stopped by me. Out came somebody stinking rich! Whom should I see but my old High School classmate Thimmappa whose new name was Tony. After failing a dozen times in High School, he had joined his father to assist him in his petty shop. Now he was a millionaire. He took me to his bungalow and nearly drowned me in Scotch. My taciturnity melted and I narrated to him my saga of suffering. He listened sympathetically. He told me not to worry. He immediately made a call to the Secretary, to a Minister. He then assured me that everything would be alright before I drifted into a drunken stupor.
Within a week, I received an appointment order. I was a permanent Lecturer-in-English! My friend disclosed to me later that it only cost him a few words with the Minister concerned, and a few thousand rupees, distributed according to the rank among the clerks, head clerks and officers in the Education Department of the great State of Karkotaka. He had also to produce a certificate, to the effect that I was 100 % Backward, which he did with ease by just waving a few more currency notes. Long live the State of Karkotaka!
( Extracted from A Girl Called Asha Albuquerque, a novel by Vikshiptha, published by Frog Books, Mumbai, India ( www.frogbooks.net)
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