“I still say forget the seminar. It’s beyond us,” he said, peering through his thick spectacles. “Get out of it right now. It will look a bit awkward, but that doesn’t matter. We can put up with it. Let’s face it. We aren’t in a position to organise an entire seminar.”
This irritated me.
“You just sit at home and mope. We have never backed out of anything. Now we’ve accepted the challenge, we’ll meet it. However we may have to, we will meet it.”
At this he shook his head and said in the tone of a Shia Muslim grieving the martyrdom of Imam Husain, “There are just five weeks to go, and you don’t have a broken cowrie shell in your pocket. Without money, there is absolutely no way you can hold it.”
At once I replied, “We’ll sit on a durrie in a park. We’ll put up the artists in a dharmashala. We don’t need anything ostentatious.”
He smiled a smile mixed with acid. “By all means hold the seminar on a durrie, but won’t you provide a sound system? For a three-hour meeting the loudspeaker man will take two hundred rupees. Won’t you announce your seminar in the press? You talk about reaching out to everyone. Won’t you print any invitations? Won’t you invite any well-known servants of the arts? And if they ask you for the taxi fare, will you just ask them to excuse you? What world are you living in? If you’re holding a seminar, won’t you feed the participants even once? Won’t you offer them tea or a glass of water?”
I had just opened my mouth to answer when he launched his most devastating weapon. “And the foreign guests you’ve gone and invited, what will you do with them? Will you force them to stay in dharmashalas? Will you drag all our names in the mud?”
My companion with the thick glasses always speaks harsh truths, but my attitude is different. Ever since the seminar was first mooted, I’d felt the thrill of my old enthusiasm rekindling for those days when we’d founded an artists’ organisation and my colleagues and I used to roam the city the whole night sticking up posters. After many years that same feeling was stirring again.
“Yes, I will make them stay in dharmashalas!” I replied excitedly. “Let them see that we don’t have money. And what meaning does putting them up in the best hotels have anyway? We are appealing for mass contact, and you don’t get mass contact in hotels.”
My companions at the meeting started whispering to one another. I sensed that I had gone too far.
“If not in dharmashalas, they can stay with us in our homes.”
The immediate response of my friend with the spectacles was, “And you’ll take them to the seminar on foot. Or by cycle ricksha w. One guest will be staying in Jama Masjid, another in Model Town, another in Okhla. At least talk sense, yaar. Enthusiasm is a fine thing, but in this day and age it is not enough to organise a seminar. For that you need money and people who will work for you.”
My temperature soared.
“If you have the fire of enthusiasm in you, you have everything. What are you talking about? With fire in their hearts people scale the peaks of the Himalayas, and this is only a little seminar. Inspired by this fire, people swing from the gallows. ”
At this, some of those present began to giggle. “Someone explain to him, yaar, he’s going off his head,” he said and sat down.
I should have realised then that we didn’t have the means to take one step forward. Nowadays everything’s gone to the dogs. Where you used to pay one rupee, you now pay ten. But ever since we’d conceived of the seminar, the good old days had whirled before my eyes. Then we used to organise things in a state of virtual intoxication. If we needed money, we would just take a collection from the audience. Somehow or other we would cover our costs. So many occasions came to mind when we laid out the durries ourselves and rolled them up. I spent many nights sleeping at the venues themselves.
We were always singing. We didn’t have any money then either. So how did we organise seminars and conventions?
When I began to cite examples from a golden past, he lost his temper.
“Don’t boast about old times! I know how you worked. Disorganised, disordered. You accused anyone who worked methodically of being bureaucratic. Social service to you meant having an ill-fitting cap, loose pajamas, two days’ stubble on your face, never being at home, telling your family you’d be back in an hour and coming back in the middle of the night, having no regular meals, or changes of clothes, debating incessantly. Such people weren’t just ‘servants of society’ in your book, they were ‘images of renunciation’. Running from pillar to post, lacking in sense, unreliable. This is the reason that you’ve lost your composure today.”
I opened my mouth to speak again, but he pointed his finger at me and asked, “How long have you been preparing for this seminar?”
“Why are you asking me? You know as well as I do.” “How many people came to our first meeting?” His finger was pointing like a pistol. But receiving no reply, he himself said, “Sixteen members came to the first meeting. Then we had outlined the programme and divided the work, and this great thespian,” here his finger advanced towards me, “kept on singing the old songs of his theatre group. But then how many people turned up for the second meeting? Only seven. And today how many have come? Only four. Someone’s ill, someone has visitors, someone had to go to Chandigarh. Is this correct or not?”
“Go on, say what you have to say.” I was sorely vexed, but all his facts and figures were accurate.
“At the first meeting we decided to publish a commemorative volume. How many advertisements for it have we got? One of you promised to bring in five, another promised seven. So far we have a total of two and a half, and those are from relatives. And there are just five weeks to the seminar. Now you tell me, what do you have to say? Some of you feel embarrassed asking for ads; others say we shouldn’t approach big businesses.”
Then he warned us. “There is still time to get out of this. Send messages to the guests that for some reasons the seminar has had to be postponed, and we will be in touch with them later.”
All my colleagues were silenced. He was, after all, right. “You don’t want government funding—why should you? We should use our own resources—but where are they?”
It slipped out of my mouth again. “That’s why I say we should use a durrie in a park….”
He snapped, “Learn to talk sense. Yaar, your hair is turning white with age.”
The discussion continued for a long time. In the end it was decided that we would wait and see for another two weeks, and in this time work ourselves to the bone to raise money. We would g o to industrialists, traders, public institutions to find someone somewhere who would rescue our sinking boat from midstream. We would knock on the door of every wealthy connection we had.
Accordingly, our chosen companions took up th eir shoulder bags and went forth.
But again and again we faced disappointment. I met one man who at one time used to sing with me in the same music group. Now he had trucks. He met me cordially, remembered t he old days with great nostalgia, but when it came to making a contribution, he took out a ten-rupee note and offered it to me.
I met another gentleman who was an even older acquaintance. He had also become a wealthy entrepreneur. The moment he saw me he began to offer advice. “Are you still carrying on with that? Don’t take me wrong, but organising seminars is like living on immoral earnings.”
We plodded on from one house and one office to another. We knocked on the door of another old companion. He was the same one who used to paste posters on walls with me. He too had become a prosperous figure. As well as making money he also dabbled in politics. Firstly he gave us some very useful suggestions.
“Why don’t you hold the seminar in a university auditorium. Induct a university office-bearer into your committee, and your work will be done for free.”
But when we spoke of a donation, he just laughed and said intimately, “Ask me to make a speech, be chairperson. If you need to meet a Minister, then I’m your man.”
Then he counselled, “Even if you take fifty or a hundred rupees from me, what use will it be?”
We departed silently and with long faces.
As we left the building, my friend with the thick spectacles said in the middle of the street, “Get out of this bother of a seminar now. Even if a few people do give money, what difference will it make? We have been wandering around for a whole week, and till now all we’ve collected is three hundred rupees. There is still time, postpone it. Afterwards we’ll organise a seminar with proper consideration and planning.”
The times really had changed, and I could not grasp the situation. I was trapped. All my enthusiasm was turning into worry and trepidation. There were just a few of us working on this project. We were all approaching old age, and now we were hurling abuse at one another.
It was the next day that I met him.
It was a Saturday in winter. There was mist in the air, rather like the fog that was clouding my brain and making the surrounding reality mysterious. I was standing outside my house, my bag over my shoulder, unable to decide in which direction to head, when his car passed in front of me. I didn’t pay attention. I just retreated a little to keep out of its way. But the car slowed down. Someone in it had recognised me, because a short distance ahead the car stopped, and a tall man in a suit and smart shoes climbed out and walked towards me.
By now I had fallen into the habit of asking anyone I recognised for advertisements. I would discuss my seminar with them and talk about the role of the arts in the rebirth of the nation, rather like a quack doctor stands on the edge of the street and reels off the benefits of his medicines. They also have bags slung over their shoulders.
It was my old classmate Sethi who had climbed out of the car. We hadn’t met each other for years. As soon as I recognised him a voice called out within me—ask him, ask him, ask him for ads. If he doesn’t give an ad, he’ll give money—he can’t refuse.
We embraced. He examined my greying hair, and I his. Our glance fell on each other’s broken and half-broken teeth, and then we inquired about each other’s health and well-being and families.
I was about to mention advertisements when he said, “You’re looking a bit down, what’s the matter? Have you taken a beating at home or in the street?”
In reply, I laughed weakly. Then he looked me up and down and said, “You take some sort of interest in the arts field, don’t you? From time to time I read your name. What do you do? Do you paint? Write? Dance? Nowadays even circus clowns call themselves artists.”
Then he smiled, that big-hearted smile that made my eyes travel of their own accord to his tie and the handkerchief peeping from his suit pocket and land on his shining personality.
Then I mentioned the seminar and also said that I was on my way to look for ads.
“I understand perfectly. You must have already been to scores of people, but you didn’t come to me.”
It struck me that this man already knew a lot about my enthusiasms.
I spoke at length of my worries. He was standing on the lofty peak of patronage, looking down, smiling, listening.
“I am in advertising myself,” he said. Then he took hold of my arm and led me towards the car. “Come, get in.”
I liked his familiarity. Anyone who could treat you so much as his own would surely give an ad or two.
As we drove he said, “How much have you collected already?”
“A few ads, a few donations.”
“Ads are not money. Ads are a mere assurance of giving money. Don’t you even know that? How many will you be able to pull in if you go around like this?”
Then he continued in a patronising tone, “It’s right that people like you should get treated as you do.”
When the car stopped it was in front of an office building.
“Come up to my office.”
“Will you give me an ad?”
“I will, and I’ll take ads from you as well.”
What an office! All oak and cedar. The walls were covered with gleaming teak panelling, the desks shone. Everything sparkled. My eyes were dazzled.
He offered me coffee and the best cigarettes. Then when I again mentioned advertisements, he pushed a button on his desk and the next moment a rather flabby, dark-complexioned individual appeared .
“Get this man’s work done, bhai. Whatever he says, do it. He’s an old friend of mine. Take care of him.”
I felt a great relief. Well here at least was one ad, I told myself as I followed the man out of Sethi’s office.
This flabby, dark-complexioned man proved very useful. He sat down at a small desk in the next room and, putting his ample hands on the desktop and smiling at me just as mysteriously as his boss, he said, “Tell me, what is your command?”
He opened his desk drawer and took out a thick blue sheet of paper and put it before him.
“Please go ahead.”
I failed to understand what he was doing. Still I explained about the seminar. It was a two-day event, some foreign guests would attend. There would be an exchange of ideas, a poetry reading, a cultural programme, an art exhibition …. He listened attentively. I imagined that he too must have had an interest in literature and the arts.
“It will be done,” he said.
I was taken aback. What would be done? I looked at him.
“We’ll do it,” he said again.
“I don’t understand you.”
“Now that you’ve come to us, you can consider your work done.”
I had thought that the blue paper he’d taken from the drawer was something to do with the advertisement that Sethi was going to give me. But I saw that he began to note down some things on it.
Despite his bulk, he turned out to be a brisk worker. He kept reorganising the things on his desk. Sometimes he would pick up a pencil and put it in the pen stand, or move paper from one place to another, or clasp his plump, dark fingers together, put them on the desk and fire questions at me. Years of training had made him as efficient as a machine.
“How many days will the seminar last?”
“Two. But we want one day to take our guests sightseeing.”
He took a sharpened pencil from the pen stand and entered something on the blue sheet of paper.
“How many people will come from abroad?”
“Four or five scholars.”
“Four or five?”
“Take it as five.”
Again he asked for clarification, “Four or five?”
“Ah…er…five.”
“Where do you want to hold the seminar?”
“We have spoken to someone about a hall, but we haven’t been able to raise the advance booking fee yet.”
“I will find one. How many sessions will there be?” “Two each day. In the evening a tea party and a cultural programme.”
“Those to be invited. Will you provide the list or…. We already have many lists prepared, including Delhi-based artists and writers. If you want to give any particular names, then do.”
What did he mean? Was he going to organise the whole seminar? I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. But I still couldn’t comprehend the situation.
“Will there be one chairperson or a group?”
Again I was taken aback. I couldn’t reply to that question before he said, “What will be the topics for the exchange of ideas?”
I gave a few details, at which he said, “I have some ready-made write-ups on these subjects. If you like, we can use them.”
Then after filling up another section of the form he lifted his eyes.
“What do you want in the cultural programme—Bharatnatyam? Odissi? Sham-e-Ghazal? Rajasthani folk songs? Folk dances?”
I was stunned.
“Will you arrange that too?”
“It’s Sethiji’s orders,” he smiled. Then taking up the pencil he said, “How will the seminar lean?”
“What do you mean?”
“Left wing? Semi-left wing? Liberal? Right wing? I have data ready for all of these.”
Then he turned to me and said politely, “You are the organiser, aren’t you? Will you prepare your own speech, or will we have to put it together?”
I was dumbfounded. Seeing my embarrassment, he assured me, “It’s necessary for me to enter everything. If you get everything clear once, then there’s no confusion later.” Then, putting the point of his pencil upon the next item on the form, he asked, “And resolutions. There will be some resolutions, won’t there? About language…secularism…multinational companies—no, no, that’s for economists’ meetings—unity of the nation…the Punjab situation ....” He shook his head. “But these are subjects for other meetings. You are holding a seminar of artists and men of literature.”
Then he stretched down and took a dark-grey card from his drawer. “Beyond free verse? New standards in criticism? The short story of today? The dearth of good Hindi dramas—the problem and its solution? The question of Hindi and Urdu? Should Urdu be the second official language of UP?”
He looked at me again and said, “What did you say, how many sessions?”
“Four.”
“Then we will keep three topics,” he decided himself and ticked the card.
Gradually, instead of consulting me, he began to guide me, make suggestions himself and enter them on the card.
“There will be heated discussion at the seminar but…tension, fisticuffs, verbal abuse, rioting, breaking of heads…which do you prefer?”
“What?”
“It’s my duty to ask in advance,” he replied, immediately entering something on the card.
“What have you put?”
“I’ve just put “tension”. If there’s not at least that, the seminar would be a washout. Beyond that, whatever you say.”
That flabby, dark-faced man had entered everything. How many bouquets, what kind of badges, folders, list of events, changes in topics, support, opposition, tea, coffee, cultural programme…
Just then Sethi opened the door of his cabin and walked in. “Everything done?” he asked, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets.
“Yaar, what is all this? Is your office really going to organise my seminar?”
“What else are we here for?”
“But listen, how much will all this cost? We have only…” I said hesitantly. The conversation had come to the same point: money.
“You don’t have any money to give. You’ve only got two and a half ads.” Then turning to the flabby man he said, “Have you made the budget?”
“Yes!” he replied, and he was holding out the paper to Sethi when Sethi said, “Put it in the special category.”
I persisted, and Sethi put a hand on my shoulder. “Give me a chance to be of service. Your organisation is well known, and you and your colleagues are well known. It is not a small matter of pride for us to arrange your seminar. This is, after all, everyday work for us. Come with me, will you have a cold drink or tea?”
And he took me back to his office. My head was spinning, but at the same time it was feeling very much lighter. That man seemed to me a magician, who simply by the touch of his wand on my shoulders had lifted my burden and thrown it aside.
“Now tell me, what do I have to do?”
“Go home and sleep. Your seminar is easily fixed.” For a moment he again seemed a stranger. What was his connection with art and literature? And then , these days who is anyone’s friend? Will anyone do anything for anyone if there’s nothing in it for them?
“Tell me, what will you get from all this?”
“First, you get something, I keep getting things all the time,” he replied at once.
I left. My feet were not on the ground. I ran to my companions who were still looking for ads and donations, their bags over their shoulders. I told them the entire story.
They raised many questions. Their spirits were dampened by uncertainty and anxiety. The one with the thick spectacles went as far as to say, “You’ve sold out.”
They continued to shower me with sharp remarks, but I felt that we had passed through a time of trial. We would see what came next.
The date of the seminar approached. A week before the seminar was due, details of it appeared in the newspapers. Three days later an article about the scope of the seminar and subjects under discussion was published. A full seven days before the seminar we had received the invitations, well printed on good quality card. With them we had received a printed programme, well set out. Once or twice I phoned Sethi’s office. Each time the flabby man picked up the receiver. “It’s Sethi Sahib’s orders. Don’t worry about a thing.”
Two days before the seminar a statement of mine together with my photograph was carried in the papers. In it were discussed the topics for consideration and the foreign participants. There were also details of the main speakers. The day before an outline of the programme was also published.
Our minds were truly at rest. We sat in cafés sipping tea. Otherwise at this point we would have been beating our heads, visiting intellectuals in their homes to insist they take part, debating with them, running around making dozens of preparations. Now there was no question of arriving on the day of the seminar and finding that no arrangements were in place. Now we would arrive in style half an hour before the start.
The morning of the seminar I went to inspect the hall. Sethi’s employees were putting up the decorations. There were floral archways, festoons of flowers and green leaves and bouquets. Some people were hanging long banners on the walls. The whole hall was full of banners. Not only the hall, but the corridors and the courtyard outside as well. There were scores of them, and there was a huge pile on the floor still to be hung.
On each banner was an instructive message. On one was written in large blue letters, “Artists and the Masses Are One Flesh and Blood”. And beneath in red letters was written, “Take Martand Chyavanprash Tonic”.
On another was inscribed, “Artists Are the Torchbearers of Society” and beneath, “Tower Bulbs Give Twice the Light”. On another, “Consumer Culture Is Choking Art”, beneath which was “The Cure for All Throat Problems—Drink Mehtaji’s Joshina”.
In a similar vein another banner read, “Make the People’s Dreams a Reality”, and below “Eat Kamdhenu Digestive Powder”,“Secularism, Democracy, Socialism”— “Courtesy International Enterprises”, “Long Live the Struggling Masses”—“Find happiness—Insure Your Life with General Insurance”.
I was flabbergasted. A couple of my companions dropped into chairs, their heads in their hands.
“What is this, yaar? What sort of seminar is this going to be?” asked my thick-spectacled colleague. All I could say in reply was, “We were after ads too. My friend succeeded in getting them.” But inside myself I was extremely agitated. At this moment the flabby m an came in with two of his managers.
“What have you done?” I asked.
He looked astonished at my remark. “What’s wrong, sahib? I was most careful about the messages chosen to be written.”
“But, yaar, what about all this soap and joshina and Kamdhenu?”
He replied patiently, “The readers’ eye will first be drawn to the message; the ad they may read, they may not.”
Then he smiled and opening the palms of both plump hands, he remarked, “You’ve had your say. But these are the messages you want to get across at your seminar, aren’t they?”
Then Sethi arrived, his hands thrust into his pockets as ever. He was reassured by the sight of the decorations and the scores of message banners. Slapping me on the back he said, “You see? I did your work before you could snap your fingers.”
Then he whispered, “Before I took on your work, I’d already received three orders, all for cultural functions. In fact I was going to thank you.”
We returned. We had no alternative. The whole way we remained silent. We were all deliberating whether this was right or not.
Whatever had happened, had happened. But what happened next was unprecedented.
The seminar was due to start at five in the evening. But by a twist of fate at exactly three o’clock, just two hours before, clouds gathered. It had been overcast since the morning, but by half past three the clouds had become threatening. They were those thick black clouds that have to rain. It was, in any case, a winter evening when it begins to get dark at five. Just one and a half hours before the seminar began, the heavens opened and poured down torrents.
My heart fell. Now nothing could be done. Everything would be upset, I was agitated, I couldn’t think of what to do. I was comforted only by the thought that it wasn’t my hard work that was being ruined; it was the hard work of Sethi’s office that was being inundated. But still, it was our seminar.
I set out from my home as the clock struck four. Whatever happened, I should get to the hall. This too was my foolishness because later I found out that Sethi had sent a car to fetch me. But going on foot and by three-wheeler, I, somehow, managed to arrive outside the venue. By now it was already past five. My other companions also arrived, some before, some after me.
Rainwater was flowing through the streets as I paid the scooterwallah outside the hall. It was raining so hard it was becoming impossible even to cross the road. But as I approached I heard the sound of applause. What was this? Had people managed to get to the seminar in this weather?
I entered the hall through a side door. I was dazzled. The stage was bathed in light while the rest of the hall was in darkness. On the stage were the foreign guests, garlanded with marigolds, and at the lectern stood Sethi, and he was introducing the foreign guests to the audience. One after the other, young women in beautiful saris, were placing garlands of flowers around their necks. The hall was jam-packed, and towards the rear of the stage stood the flabby man.
I stood near the door in darkness. I ran my eyes over the people in the hall. Only two or three faces in the front row seemed familiar. They were the people who never miss a seminar come typhoon or dust storm. The people at the back were in darkness, and it was difficult to make them out. Then I remembered that as I was coming to the hall I had seen four large buses parked on the side of the road. Had Sethi arranged the audience as well?
After the introductions, the lighting immediately changed, and beams of coloured light fell at angles across the stage, and in between them a group of young men and women entered. The young men were in yellow kurtas and red caps while the girls were in red-bordered white saris.
The youth group sang a song worthy of great maestros, dripping with patriotism. It had revolution, a tinge of sentiment, a call to awake and arise, and at the climax, when the young men and women clenched their fists and stretched up their arms, as if taking a revolutionary vow, in place of the multicoloured beams, streams of red light criss-crossed each other on to the stage.
After introducing the guests, Sethi peered into the hall. I realised he was looking for me. My clothes were drenched, but still, knowing that at this point it was essential for me to go on stag e, I was on the point of going forward when Sethi began to read from a speech in his hand. This was a welcome address. In fact I was meant to read the welcome address, but my own speech had been reduced to papier mâché in my pocket.
His speech received a good response. At exactly the right moments applause resounded through the hall. I was amazed. Why didn’t such a discerning audience come to our seminars? I listened to Sethi, my head to one side. Then my eyes fell on the flabby man. He had moved from backstage and was standing by the wings in one corner. He was holding a copy of the speech in his right hand, and his left was slightly raised. According to what was written in the speech, at intervals he raised his left hand a touch higher, at which the hall resounded with applause.
One or two of the foreign guests recognised me and began to wave to me in greeting from the stage. Their faces brimmed over with satisfaction. It seemed they were very impressed by their hospitable welcome.
At the conclusion of the speech, the lights went up in the hall. A ten-minute interval was announced.
When the lights went up the people seated in the packed hall began to feel self-conscious. Some felt that their work was over and were about to get up, but, when a man from Sethi’s office gestured to them to sit down, they lit bidis. The photographers and journalists at the front began to flock around the foreign visitors. There was a festive atmosphere, and from backstage came the sound of Hindi film songs. I also moved forward to mingle with my guests.
Story selected by Mini Krishnan.
