Of Mangoes and Monsoons: A Novel

By Suresh Kanekar

The euphoria lasted for about half of the week, gradually giving way to increasing apprehension as the next Sunday approached. There was no flag ceremony on the second Sunday either, nor on the third, counting from the week they had sent their letters to the prison authorities. There was tremendous relief all around, and people again began to smile at Ramesh instead of giving him dirty looks.
Ramesh and his fellow campaigners thought the matter was resolved definitively in their favor, with the authorities having apparently realized that they had no right to make the prisoners stand in their residences in homage to the flag. They forgot about the issue and went on with their prison routine.
Then lightning struck, taking all of them completely unawares. Although they had continued to be slightly apprehensive on every Sunday, there was no reason for apprehension on other days. On the morning of June 10, 1957, which was a Monday, guards stormed into Rameshs hall and ordered everybody out. Ramesh was in the toilet when the guards came into the hall. He declared his presence in the toilet, and the guards summarily ordered him out of it without respite. He could not wash his hands and was the last prisoner to be taken out of any hall. As his hall was behind the front line of halls, he had no idea as to what was going on even when he reached the yard and saw all the other prisoners in Aguada standing in the yard with their backs to the sea. He was ordered to join them.
There was a brutal sergeant who used to come into their halls at night brandishing a pistol for the counting of the prisoners. He now had a submachine gun in his hands, which he cocked in an exaggerated manner and with much demonstrative clatter. With a menacing flourish of the gun, he ordered the prisoners to stand at attention.
Clueless till now, Ramesh realized what was going on only when the trumpet sounded. With misty eyes, he saw the flag being raised. He stood there like a statue, seemingly paralyzed, not believing that this was happening. Before he could gather his wits together, the flag was hoisted and the prisoners were ordered back into their quarters.
Ramesh came into his hall, crestfallen and utterly miserable. He was totally unprepared for this outcome and naturally felt responsible for the humiliation of his colleagues. Single-handedly, he had brought down on their heads the wrath of the authorities when he could easily have let sleeping dogs lie as he had been repeatedly urged to do in so many words. He could not look his comrades in the eye; there was total silence in the hall. People did not know what to say. Except for Ramrao, they were all angry with Ramesh and even more angry with the prison authorities. But the anger in general was impotent and untranslatable into action.
Not for Ramesh. He was angry, more with himself than with the authorities, for meekly subjecting himself to the humiliation. He could have shouted I protest while the flag was going up. But he had frozen and could not utter a word while the trumpet sounded. Now he had recovered his wits and had plenty of time to plan his future course of action.
Its not over yet, he said to Ramrao in the hearing of everybody in his hall. They have to take the flag down in the evening, and at that time I will not obey their order to stand for the flag.
There was consternation in the hall. Ramrao was dubious about the advisability of Rameshs proposed action, given the no-nonsense display of naked power earlier in the day, but he could clearly see that Ramesh was in no mood for arguments. The word went around that Ramesh was going to make a fight of it, and surprisingly, all the anger previously directed toward him now metamorphosed into genuine concern as to what might happen to him.
Ramesh was too agitated to eat lunch that day. He was waiting for the evening with trepidation. Manohar Amonkar smuggled a note to him i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462816057

Suresh Kanekar

Suresh Kanekar received his B.A. (Honors) in philosophy and M.A. in psychology from the University of Poona, and his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Iowa. He has taught at several Indian and American universities, and is currently a research professor of psychology at Alliant International University in San Diego, California. He has published over 115 research articles and two books in the area of his specialization, apart from some short literary contributions including poems. Of Mangoes and Monsoons is his first novel.

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Of Mangoes and Monsoons

A Novel

Suresh Kanekar

Copyright © 2009 by Suresh Kanekar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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AUTHOR NOTE

This is a novel, not history; fiction, not fact; fantasy, not reality. That said, any resemblance to real persons and actual events will most likely be uncoincidental.

1

The door clanged shut and was padlocked with a rattle of keys by the overworked guard, the metallic noises reverberating briefly within the narrow confines of the lockup room. The events of the day had moved with such speed that Ramesh felt a little dazed, and the fact that he was behind bars took a little while to sink in. He had had nightmares about being arrested and tortured by the police, but now, surprisingly, he felt more relief than fear. For one thing, he was arrested and questioned without being manhandled, and the worst seemed to be over without being so bad at all. A fertile imagination is not always a boon.

It was Wednesday, July 21, 1954. The day had started normally for the latter half of July, with heavy rains pounding the narrow roads of Mapusa, which was one of the three officially designated cities of Goa, the other two being Panaji, the capital, and Madgaum, the only one of the three with a railway station. Mapusa, actually a small town toward the north of Goa, was the smallest of the three cities. It was known for nothing more laudable than its commercial activity, and its dominating community was the Vaishyas who were, in those days, relatively innocent of academic, cultural, or scientific aspirations. Ramesh’s parents seemed ambivalent about being Hindu Vaishyas, and Ramesh himself hardly thought of really belonging to the community, either intellectually or emotionally. The Vaishyas, being shopkeepers, were generally richer than Brahmins but were looked down upon by the latter, who were the top dogs in the Hindu caste hierarchy, with more education, power, and status than the lower castes.

Although Ramesh did not often remember that he was a Vaishya, he was occasionally reminded of his relatively low-caste status by Brahmin bullies who otherwise could not outtalk him in verbal battles. He generally did not respond to the accusation of being a Vaishya because he did not know how, given the intellectual and moral caliber of his opponents. Most recently he was too provoked to let it go and told the tormentor, You are a Vaishya and I am a Brahmin. I teach while you are making money in business. His opponent was stymied for a while and then came back with, It doesn’t matter what we do. Brahmins and Vaishyas are born, and you can do nothing about it. Your BA in philosophy doesn’t make you a Brahmin. So much for logic, and Ramesh had thought he knew something about logic while his interlocutor had failed to graduate from high school. Ramesh wondered how Socrates would have handled this caste snob. Since he had had Plato’s Republic as one of his year-long courses for the BA degree, Socrates had been a prominent figure in his pantheon of heroes. He remembered how naive he was as an adolescent to believe in the beginning every word that came from Socrates in the Republic, how he was somewhat depressed when he came to realize that the Republic was full of maieutic meanderings which often spilled over the bounds of logic, how finally he got reconciled to the understanding that not everything attributed to great thinkers did have to make sense. Would Socrates condemn the Hindu caste system, given his elitist views of human society?

The caste system was a sensitive issue among Goan Hindus, and interestingly enough, it was also an issue among Goan Catholics, though in a more subterranean manner. The Catholic Church did not recognize castes, but the people did. And intercaste marriages among Catholics, whose castes were determined by the castes of their Hindu ancestors converted to Catholicism, were not very frequent, though more frequent than among Hindus. Cardinal Gracias, the archbishop of Bombay, a Goan holding the highest ecclesiastical position in the Roman Catholic Church on the Indian subcontinent, was not much honored among Goan Catholics, partly because he was not a Brahmin, which is the caste of the teacher and priest. If you are not a Brahmin, you presumably couldn’t be much of a teacher or priest. But you didn’t have to be a Vaishya to do well in business. Some cunning helped, and that was evenly distributed all around, irrespective of caste.

Ramesh had obtained his BA (honors) in philosophy from the University of Poona in 1953 at the age of nineteen and was working toward his MA in philosophy before his quest for the higher degree was suddenly interrupted by the gathering storm of the freedom movement in Goa. India achieved independence from the British rule on August 15, 1947, but there were Portuguese and French colonial pockets in India that did not become free along with the rest of the country. The French saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave India peacefully and in a civilized manner, but Dr. Antonio Salazar, the Portuguese prime minister, had other ideas. The Portuguese regime was a fascist and dictatorial regime, like Franco’s in Spain, with a democratic façade built on rigged elections, which did not fool anybody. There were no civil rights anywhere in Portugal or its colonies. Newspapers were subject to prepublication censorship, and no public meetings could be held without the permission of the authorities. Dissident political activity was severely punished by imprisonment or worse. Political opponents of the regime in Portugal itself were watched zealously by the dreaded secret police, the PIDE, short for Policia Internacional de Defesa do Estado. Mercifully, the Portuguese tolerated freedom of religion in their colonies in the twentieth century, unlike in earlier times when people were converted to Christianity by guile or force. But the Catholics were always the preferred community in the colonies, which was not very surprising given that Portugal was an unabashedly Catholic nation.

In 1953, there were newspaper accounts of an incipient satyagraha movement for the freedom of Goa. Ramesh had idolized Gandhi and Nehru from his childhood and now came a chance to do something that would make him part of that magnificent heritage. He decided to give up his MA studies for the time being and join the Goa freedom movement.

After his teachers had given up trying to dissuade him from derailing his academic career, he was able to get an introduction from Abhay Damle, a young socialist and philosophy lecturer in Fergusson College, to Peter Alvares, who was, apart from being a socialist colleague of Abhay, the president of the National Congress (Goa), the main freedom-fighting party, headquartered in Bombay. Both Abhay and Peter had been in British prisons during the Quit India movement of 1942, and Abhay was the only teacher of Ramesh who did not try to stop Ramesh from joining the Goa freedom movement. For one thing, Abhay knew he was a role model for Ramesh; for another, in spite of his young years, Ramesh could be very stubborn about his intentions once he had made up his mind. Most important, it would have looked rather silly indeed to try to persuade Ramesh to do something which he himself was not prepared to entertain during his early years, having spent six months behind bars at the tender age of seventeen.

Thus it came about that Ramesh went to Bombay, took instructions from Peter, and came down to Goa to join the organizational work that was going on. Instead of being a paid full-time party worker, he decided that he would be more effective, as well as comfortable, if he took a job in a high school and worked for the movement outside school hours, which should be plenty of time, given that teaching in a high school was not very strenuous. He joined Mapusa High School and began to teach English and history in the highest three classes. Within a week of his joining the school, he was put in charge of debating and sports on the strength of his having represented his college both in debating and table tennis. Previously no teacher had been in charge of sports or debating for the simple reason that the school had hardly any sporting or debating activities during the few years of its existence.

The new school year began in June 1954, and on July 21, Ramesh held the first school debate on the topic of the caste system: In the opinion of this house, the Hindu caste system should be abolished from human society on moral grounds. Although the medium of instruction in Mapusa High School, as in most high schools in Goa, was English, the students’ mother tongue was Konkani, which made participation in a school debate a very intimidating prospect. Nevertheless, Ramesh did manage to round up ten participants, including three girls, all of whom were fairly excited about the debate. Some teachers had their misgivings about the propriety of such a topic for a school debate; in fact, when Ramesh had suggested it in a faculty meeting, there was a raising of elderly eyebrows, led by Mr. Naik who was already miffed by Ramesh’s taking from him the teaching of English and history for the higher classes and relegating him to the lower ones. He could not do much about the teaching assignments because he did not have a degree. But he could and did oppose the debating topic on the grounds that it was not appropriate for high school students. He argued that the caste system represented the wisdom of our ancestors and was an inalienable part of the Hindu religion, an irreverent attack on which could become a first step toward the disintegration of the Hindu society. Younger teachers had supported Ramesh, and so did Principal Fatarpekar, who said it was for Ramesh to decide the appropriateness of debating topics. He added that controversial issues made the most interesting debating topics and no topic was too sacred to be subjected to a civilized discussion.

The debate took place in the largest classroom while it was raining very heavily outside. What with the noise of gusty winds and a torrential downpour, along with the occasional counterpoint of thunder and lightning, hearing was poor. But it was more than made up for by the enthusiasm of the speakers and their auditors, the latter indicating their approval or disapproval in an unmistakable manner. Most speeches were read from long sheets of paper, sometimes flutteringly held in nervous hands; and there were telltale signs of help by parents, older siblings, or even teachers in the arguments that were forwarded by the aspiring polemicists. The principal presided, controlling the festivities with his usual mild-mannered urbanity; and when the motion was put to a vote, it was carried with a vociferous endorsement which drowned the sound of the rain for a minute or two. After the banging of desks and thumping of feet subsided, Ramesh summed up the activities by giving a general evaluation of the day’s performances along with some advice as to how a debate should be conducted.

There was not much difference in age between Ramesh and the advanced students, and some of the students almost treated him as their equal, with affection overcoming their natural respect for a teacher. He had already attained some celebrity among the students because of the passion he had infused in the teaching of Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade; and he would occasionally have to listen, with considerable embarrassment, to students declaiming, Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them, cannons in front of them, cannons behind them as he walked along the corridors of the school building. Though he knew they meant well, he winced at the mangling of the poem and did not know where to look when those cannons were hurled at him from the anonymity of classroom corners.

The debate was followed by an informal get-together of teachers and debaters in the staff room, after which Ramesh left the school with his friend and colleague Hari Panandikar. Hari’s home was a little farther away from the school than Ramesh’s, and they almost invariably walked together back from school. The language of communication within the school premises, even outside of classrooms, was English by convention rather than fiat; but as soon as they left the school, most teachers and students would lapse into Konkani, with a generous sprinkling of English in the case of the former. Hari often spoke to Ramesh in Konkani at school and Ramesh would always respond in English, being a compulsive person in such matters; and it was almost with a sigh of relief that Hari would rush headlong into Konkani as soon as they stepped out of the school compound.

The rains had not let up and seemed to be determined to go on and on forever. The two friends negotiated the puddles on the road while trying their best not to get wet under their not-large-enough umbrellas.

A penny for your thoughts, said Hari, for whom companionship without conversation was practically an oxymoron.

Before Ramesh could respond, conversation became more difficult as the rain went into higher gear and started to come down in sheets. Ramesh and Hari were both pretty well bundled up, with gum boots, raincoat, and an umbrella too; but even with all the paraphernalia, it was difficult to keep dry. The downpour seemed to change directions capriciously, and maneuvering the wind-buffeted umbrellas appropriately was no easy task. They were walking on an unpaved narrow road, and the occasional car would splash them mercilessly with muddy water. They tried hard to avoid potholes full of water whose depth could not be gauged and kept a wary eye on oncoming vehicles, which fortunately were few and far between.

Do you know the origin of the phrase ‘raining cats and dogs’?

What?

Ramesh repeated his question, trying to outshout the din of wind and water.

No. Do you?

I don’t and I haven’t gotten around to finding out as yet. Someday I will, I hope. Why cats and dogs? Why not buffaloes and elephants? Doesn’t that seem a more appropriate description right now?

As they approached Ramesh’s house, they saw a police jeep parked outside it. They looked at each other but did not speak. Hari knew about Ramesh’s involvement in the freedom movement and had in fact helped him a little in his work, but he did not want to get too deeply involved and certainly did not want to go to prison. Ramesh could guess the thoughts that were racing in his friend’s mind, and so he barely pressed Hari’s shoulder to assure him that his name would not come up in the interview that he was obviously in for with the police. But Hari’s apprehension did not diminish significantly; he was almost as much worried about his friend as about himself.

Thank goodness they have brought a closed jeep, said Ramesh in a futile effort to be lighthearted. Hari smiled wanly, did not say anything, gave Ramesh a lingering handshake, and then went on his way as Ramesh opened the gate of his compound. They had never before shaken hands before parting outside Ramesh’s house.

As Ramesh entered the living room, he saw his father talking with a subinspector of police who was accompanied by a couple of policemen. What a waste of personnel, thought Ramesh. Did they seriously think I would put up a fight before being overpowered and taken in? His father walked up to him and said, Ramesh, the subinspector wants to take you to the police station for some questioning. He says he will wait till you finish your lunch.

Any idea how long I’ll be at the station, Subinspector? Ramesh asked.

I’m afraid not. They don’t tell us such things. The lieutenant wants to talk to you. It would be best for you to be prepared to spend at least a few hours at the station. One never knows. We’ll give you half an hour to have your lunch and get ready to leave with us.

Thank you, said Ramesh to the subinspector and went to his room to unburden himself of the heavy rain gear. He had hardly done so before his mother and kid sister rushed in and practically fell all over him in tears.

Now now, Mother, what’s all this about? Why the waterworks? I’m being taken merely for questioning.

That’s what they always say, don’t they? How many people have come back after the questioning?

Some have, Mother. Priyu, please don’t cry, sweetheart. I hate to see you in tears.

"Please, Bhai, please promise you won’t say anything that will keep you in jail."

Bhai was the Hindi appellation for brother, which Priyu, under the influence of Indian movies, insisted on using for Ramesh.

You know better than that, Priyu. You both know what I have been involved in. Going to jail is an essential part of our movement although it was not expected so soon as this. In case I don’t come back tonight, Mother, please send me tomorrow all the things that I’ve already packed. I’ll put in a few more things in the suitcase before I leave.

They went into the dining room where Ramesh finished his lunch in ten minutes. His father came in for a brief respite from the police and pressed Ramesh’s shoulder affectionately without saying a word. He was not given to effusive communications. He went back to the living room, and Ramesh went to his own room after finishing his lunch. He opened his bookcase and saw some displacement there.

Have they looked in here, Mother? he asked.

Yes, they have. They took two books out of your bookcase, and I think they’re already in the police jeep.

It didn’t take much time for Ramesh to figure out that the books were the Capital and The Communist Manifesto. He was a little worried about this confiscation. In Goa, the police could search and arrest without appropriate warrants. There was no redress or remedy for this situation.

Priyu, I want you to come first in your class this year too as you have always done. Do not waste your time thinking or worrying about me. I’m sure Mother can do all the necessary worrying for both of you, and then some.

Ramesh’s mother was an inveterate worrier. Nobody could surpass her in the art form of rehearsing calamities. If any of her children was only a few minutes late in returning home, she would conjure up all sorts of dire possibilities and try to nag her husband into some action—before it was too late, as she put it. Fortunately, Ramesh’s father was somewhat unflappable and would try to soothe her anxieties to the best of his abilities. Many a time, Ramesh had returned home a little later than usual to find his mother waiting outside the door of the house with a frown on her face, which dissolved into a smile as soon as she espied him. The worrying tended to reach dizzying heights if it was Priyu instead of Ramesh who was late, but fortunately that happened very rarely. Ramesh’s father himself was extremely careful about his schedule and would almost invariably return home by the promised time. Someone has to worry about your mother’s blood pressure, he would often say. That’s one of the few things she doesn’t worry about.

Seriously, Mother, please try not to worry about me in case I don’t come back tonight. I can take care of myself. Think of your favorite saying ‘What is imagined by you is not planned by your enemy.’ However, if I don’t come back, do send me my suitcase as soon as possible. Again, please do not worry about me and ruin your health.

I’ll try, Ramesh. But it is too late for me to change now. But just to make me happy, promise me you will not do or say anything foolish at the police station.

I promise, Mother, Ramesh assured her, although somewhat uncertain as to whether they would agree about what constituted foolish doings or sayings at the police station.

He was packing as he was talking, adding to the already packed stuff whatever else he thought he might need in case he was detained, which he was almost certain about though he would not say so to his mother and sister. He closed the suitcase and placed it on his bed. He then hugged his mother and Priyu, kissing the latter on the forehead, and then walked out of his room.

The half hour was up, and Ramesh was escorted toward the jeep. There was a small crowd of people at some distance, including a few of Ramesh’s students, quietly watching the proceedings. Ramesh resisted the temptation of waving his hand or even smiling at them because of the healthy respect he had for the stupidity of the Goa police who might have trouble distinguishing between students and friends on the one hand and coconspirators on the other.

Instead, before getting into the jeep, he turned and smiled at his family standing at the door. He looked calm and unflustered, but he had to admit to himself that he was frightened of what might be in store for him at the police station. Being arrested and interrogated was an inescapable part of being in the freedom movement, which had been endlessly discussed in meetings with his colleagues and thought about privately by himself. Nevertheless, he felt somewhat unprepared and vulnerable.

The rains had not let up. From time to time, the gusty wind sprinkled water on the persons inside the jeep. Ramesh sat between the two policemen on the backseat, and the subinspector sat near the driver in the front. The police station was only a short distance from Ramesh’s home, but it seemed to take forever to reach there, given the heavy downpour. Ramesh tried to think of all the possible questions he was likely to be asked and of the answers he could give them without compromising his colleagues. Some of them were already behind bars, and it was obvious that at least one of them had mentioned his name.

The jeep left the muddy road and went a little distance on a much wider paved one before halting in front of the police station. Ramesh was taken into the lieutenant’s office. The entire police force in Goa, Daman, and Diu was commanded by a captain while the regional headquarters were headed by lieutenants. Lieutenant Gomez was in charge of the northern Goa region.

Gomez asked his questions in Portuguese, and Ramesh replied in Konkani, with the subinspector serving as an interpreter and a stenographer recording the interrogation.

Your full name?

Ramesh Vaman Natekar.

Date of birth?

February 12, 1934.

Gomez looked up from the file on his desk in surprise. You’re not twenty-one yet?

No, I’m not.

You teach in Mapusa High School?

Yes.

What do you teach?

English and history.

You have a degree in English or history?

Neither.

What kind of degree do you have then?

I have a BA honors in philosophy.

Gomez leaned back in his chair and grinned. He gestured to his stenographer to stop writing. Did you say philosophy? Gomez said in English.

Yes, Ramesh responded in English, pleasantly surprised and visibly relaxed.

Gomez asked a policeman to get a chair for Ramesh. "This is off the record. I do not want a man trained in philosophy standing in front of me. By the way, what does honors mean exactly?"

Ramesh sat down gratefully. Well, the University of Poona had barely split off from the University of Bombay and our first vice-chancellor, Barrister Jaikar, was sort of experimenting with academic innovations. One of these was the introduction of an honors program in which a student specializes in a certain area like philosophy or economics and has to get a second class in order to get his degree with honors. If he doesn’t get 45 percent of the total marks, he fails. Of course, he has the option of going in for the general degree program in which the passing requirement is a third class, which starts at 30 percent.

What about first class?

First class starts at 60 percent.

What did you get?

I got a first.

Congratulations. Perhaps you might be wondering why I’m asking you all these questions which seem to have nothing to do with the reason for your being here.

Yes, I’ve been wondering. But I do not mind at all. I would rather talk about universities and philosophy than the reason for which I am here.

So would I. Gomez laughed. And we certainly can indulge ourselves briefly, especially as my staff here doesn’t have even a smattering of the English language. Anyway, the reason for my curiosity is that I was studying philosophy myself at the University of Coimbra. Unfortunately, because of family circumstances—because of my father’s early death, to be more precise—I had to leave the university and join the police academy for a career in the overseas provinces. He added wistfully, There was not much of a future for a philosophy graduate, especially a mediocre one, in Portugal.

I’m sorry you had to give up philosophy for police work.

Gomez nodded. "So am I. By the way, did you read Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy for any of your courses? That was the only book in philosophy which I read from cover to cover—in the original, mind you, not in a Portuguese translation."

I’ve read it even though it was not a text for any of our courses.

Who is your favorite western philosopher?

Spinoza, among the moderns. It’s interesting that he came of a Portuguese Jewish family.

Portugal’s loss was the Netherlands’ gain. But for the anti-Semitism in Portugal during those times, Spinoza would have been a Portuguese philosopher rather than a Dutch philosopher with Portuguese ancestry.

Ramesh hesitated a little before saying, Can I ask you a question?

Not during an official interrogation, you can’t. Gomez smiled. But during this intermission, you can ask all the questions you can think of.

How is it that you speak such fluent English? And isn’t it rather unusual for a Portuguese police officer to have read Russell in the original?

Of course, it is. I happened to spend a few years in London as a boy. My father was a colonel in the Portuguese army and was stationed in the Portuguese embassy in London as a military attaché. I went to an English school in London for four years. His fluency in English was evidently a matter of pride for Gomez. Any other questions?

Ramesh shook his head, and there were moments of embarrassing silence.

Well, I’m afraid I have to go back to my official duties, however unpleasant they are as compared to philosophy. With a sigh, he gestured to the stenographer to get going again and began speaking in Portuguese. Taking his cue, Ramesh began to respond in Konkani, thus keeping the interpreter busy.

On June 14, did you get some posters from Tony D’Souza?

Ramesh hesitated. Gomez said, There’s no point in saying you didn’t. We know that you did, and denying it wouldn’t help you much. Tony D’Souza is absconding, but we have in custody some people who can testify about your involvement, especially the manager of the Times of India office where you got the posters from Tony.

Tony D’Souza was the general secretary of the National Congress (Goa). On June 14, Tony had given some posters to Ramesh to be stuck around in Mapusa on the eve of June 18, which was the anniversary of the beginning of the civil rights movement in Goa in 1946 under the Indian socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia.

They have not caught Tony, thought Ramesh. Probably he is safe outside of Goa.

Yes, I did get some posters from Tony on June 14.

What did you do with them?

I stuck them up in several places on the night of June 17.

Could you please tell us exactly where you stuck them up?

Ramesh described the spots where he had stuck up the posters, which proclaimed that Goa was part of India, each one ending up in the slogan Jai Hind (Victory to India) in very bold letters.

Who helped you in sticking up these posters?

Nobody. There were only six posters and I didn’t need any help. Ramesh spoke as casually as he could, trying hard to hide the little trepidation he felt while looking Gomez in the eye, knowing as he did that he was lying. He was confident that the police could not know that Hari had helped in sticking up the posters. Nobody knew this except the two of them, and he was not going to give his friend away for anything in the world. That was the understanding with which Hari had helped him.

Without Hari’s help, Ramesh would have had serious problems with his clandestine assignment. Hari would stand guard at a strategic place while Ramesh did the dirty work of attaching the posters with glue to walls or doors. When they had finished with the last poster, affixed to the door of the best tailoring shop in town, and were walking away from it, they saw a police jeep slowly approaching them.

Hari made as if he was going to bolt into a side lane. But Ramesh whispered, Don’t run, Hari. Keep walking toward the jeep. I’ll do the talking.

Ramesh talked about table tennis in an overly animated voice, with Hari chiming in from time to time, as the jeep passed them by to move toward the spot where the last poster was stuck. As soon as they came to a curve in the road and thus were completely out of sight, they ran to a side lane and zigzagged speedily away from the dangerous area.

After they felt safe enough, they laughed, panting, and Ramesh said, Hari, neither of us is cut out for such skulduggery. Pretending to have been playing table tennis when table tennis was the last thing on our minds!

After regaining his breath, Hari said, And I have not played table tennis even once in my entire life.

I know. I’m sorry. That was the first thing that came to my mind, probably because we were not very far from Mohan Borkar’s house. They have a table you know, and I’ve often played there. But you kept up your end of the conversation quite well even though you don’t know much about table tennis.

Desperation is the mother of imagination. I was frightened out of my wits and had trouble restraining myself from kneeling in front of the jeep and making a clean breast of the whole thing.

They laughed away their tension and walked back toward their homes.

Gomez looked at Ramesh quizzically for a few moments. He seemed to have opened his mouth and then thought better of it. After studying the papers in front of him for a while, he asked, What is precisely your role in your organization?

I am one of the workers in the organization, and it is my job to recruit people to join the freedom movement.

What kind of movement? Does your movement involve attacks on police stations and the blowing up of buses and ferryboats?

No, it doesn’t. Our movement consists mainly of peaceful demonstrations against the Portuguese regime.

What did you ask your recruits to do?

I asked them to be prepared to participate in peaceful marches as and when they were required to do so. Our movement is a Gandhian satyagraha movement, and I was trying to recruit potential satyagrahis.

"Could you explain those terms—satyagraha and satyagrahis?"

"Satyagraha literally means ‘insistence on truth,’ but its broad meaning includes all sorts of opposition to untruth, injustice, and oppression of one human being by another. There is also the implication that the resistance to untruth is to be nonviolent, but that is not part of its literal meaning. Gandhi, as you know, was an apostle of nonviolence; and the satyagraha movement is a Gandhian movement of nonviolent resistance to injustice, which in his case meant primarily the British rule in India, though his activities were not limited to that fight alone. A satyagrahi is a person who practices or offers satyagraha, which practically and at its simplest could mean a demonstration against the injustice of a foreign rule."

What is the name of your organization?

National Congress, Goa.

Are you aware that most of your working committee is behind bars as of now?

Yes, I am.

How many persons were you able to recruit for your movement?

Right now I cannot really say that I have been able to recruit anyone at all. I’ve talked to some people and none of them have made a firm commitment toward participation in the movement. Not yet at least. Our recruiting campaign is still in the preliminary stage.

Gomez looked into his file and asked, Do you know Vasant Parrikar?

Yes.

Have you talked to him about the movement?

Yes.

What did he say?

He said he would think about it. He was not prepared to make any commitment—just like the other people that I’ve talked to. Ramesh felt uncomfortably that Gomez knew he was lying. Parrikar was a veteran of the 1946 civil rights movement, had then been in prison for a few months, and now was quite enthusiastic about plunging in again.

Gomez examined some more papers in his file and then closed it.

You have not come of age legally. Do you think you’re old enough to know what you’re doing? Do you know the difference between right and wrong, between justice and injustice, with all due respect to your degree in philosophy?

I’m sure I know the difference, and my degree in philosophy is irrelevant to this understanding.

Why do you think Goa should leave the Portuguese Republic and join the Indian one?

To put it very simply, Goans are Indians from a number of perspectives, such as culture, ethnicity, religion, and language.

Goans have been Portuguese for more than four hundred years.

That’s not true. Through military conquest, Goa has been the colony of Portugal for more than four hundred years, which is not the same thing as saying that Goans have been Portuguese for that long a time. We have not had any choice in the matter.

Are you sure that most Goans would opt to be part of India if they were given the freedom to choose?

Yes, I’m sure. If I had not been sure, I would not have joined this movement.

If you were convinced that Goans did not want to free themselves from the Portuguese motherland, would you still continue in the so-called freedom movement?

No, I wouldn’t. Unfortunately there’s no way to find this out without a truly democratic referendum, which incidentally goes totally against the grain of your political system.

I’ve to take into consideration the fact that you’re a minor from the legal point of view. In fact, I could let you go if you promise to abstain yourself from any further activities against the government.

Ramesh was surprised by this offer. Nevertheless he didn’t need much time to make up his mind.

I am firmly committed to this movement. I do not think that I can ever promise to abstain from it, whatever the consequences.

Ramesh was surprised by his own words. They seemed to have tumbled out of his mouth of their own volition. He certainly had never before thought of making such a statement to the police. He smiled inwardly, finding himself even more committed than he thought he had been before being hauled to the police station, which was a bit surprising, especially given the feverish foreboding of gloom that he seemed to have been harboring on his way to the police station. Now he felt exhilarated, as if high on a drug, and couldn’t help wondering if idealism could be somewhat like adrenaline in its effects on behavior. The entire police interview was way beyond what he had expected, very benign and friendly, and he was not so stupid as to think that this was a typical police interrogation. How many police officers in the Goan administration had some philosophy in their background? What was the probability of Ramesh’s running into this one single officer who seemed to be in love with philosophy and was not very convincing in his efforts to keep Ramesh loyal to the Portuguese regime? Here was a police officer who was either an idealist or a philosopher manqué. In either case, it should be hell for him to be a police officer in a fascist regime.

Are you a communist?

No, I am not. I’m a strong believer in democratic government.

How do you explain the Marxist literature that was found in your house?

Those books were available for very low prices, and I have an interest in political philosophy for which they are obviously relevant.

Are you religious—a practicing Hindu?

I’m not quite sure yet. I need some more time to think about my position on that issue, though I seem to have been moving toward atheism in the last year or so. For the Portuguese regime, atheism and communism were all but synonymous, but probably not for Gomez who was likely to know the difference better than most other Portuguese police officers, thought Ramesh.

Please wait outside for a while, Gomez told Ramesh. We need some time to decide the disposal of your case.

Ramesh was escorted out of Gomez’s office and led to a bench on which he settled down under the watchful eye of a policeman. He wondered if he would have been allowed to bring a book with him; anyway, his mind was too agitated to concentrate on any reading material including even the no-strain-on-the-brain potboilers that he sometimes guiltily read to get some relief from intellectual misadventures.

The interrogation had not at all gone the way Ramesh had time and again rehearsed it. It was obvious that Gomez had used kid gloves for the questioning and had not tried very hard to find out the names of people that Ramesh had tried to recruit for the satyagraha movement. Ramesh knew that a number of his colleagues in the movement were already arrested and so the police probably had more information than they needed to have. Nevertheless, Gomez did seem to soft-pedal Ramesh’s involvement and to overemphasize the fact that he was not yet legally an adult. He was now probably talking on the phone to his superiors in Panaji about his case, perhaps even pleading for his release with a stern warning. But Ramesh’s statement of intentions made his release unlikely, notwithstanding Gomez’s efforts in his behalf.

Ramesh was worried about his mother’s worrying about him. He wondered if his mother, apart from worrying about what would happen to him, would also worry about his worrying about her worrying about him. This could escalate into an infinite regress, Ramesh mused and tried to speculate as to what Bertrand Russell would make of it. He thought of Russell’s paradox about a class of classes which are not members of themselves, which gives rise to the mind-boggling implication that if a class is not a member of itself, it is a member of itself, and if it is a member of itself, it is not a member of itself. Gottlob Frege was devastated when Russell brought to his attention this logical impasse which undermined Frege’s philosophical analysis of arithmetic.

Why had he thought of Russell’s paradox? His worrying and his mother’s worrying had no logical connection with Russell’s paradox. My mind is wandering, he thought. Can a person become senile without reaching his legal maturity? From juvenility straight to senility would be an interesting transition, without the clutter of middle age.

He suddenly realized why he had thought of Russell’s paradox. He was in love with Asha, who was like his mother as far as worrying was concerned. He had spent some time explaining Russell’s paradox to her, and it was not easy. She had trouble grasping the convoluted argument, and it was with considerable effort that Ramesh had finally brought her to a passable understanding of the situation.

He had tried hard to forget Asha and found it impossible to do so. Thoughts about her would creep up on him at the least expected times, sometimes in a most indirect manner. He seemed to be thinking about her even when ostensibly he was thinking about something else because the something else was in some way connected with her. He would smell roses when there were no roses around, and the smell was that of roses in Asha’s garden. She was one year behind him in the philosophy honors program although four years older than him. He had fallen deeply in love with her, and she had gone and got herself engaged to marry someone else.

He was sitting on a bench outside Gomez’s office facing the inside courtyard of the low-lying one-storied building of the police station. He received from time to time a little spraying from the heavy downpour in the open courtyard. It was late afternoon, and a pall of gloom seemed to hover over the surroundings. The sun had taken a leave of absence and was not likely to report for duty till the next morning, if then. The rains in Goa were tumultuous, but without them Goa might not have had the lush greenery in its jungles and on its mountains that was so characteristic of the terrain and also, of course, the magnificent streams and waterways emptying into the Arabian Sea.

How long before I get into the sea, Ramesh wistfully asked himself. He was passionately fond of being in a river or sea, and it looked like he had to settle for memories of such plungings at least for a while. No swimming pools in prison, he thought. For that matter, he had never seen a swimming pool anywhere in Goa. In a sense, Goa was a vast prison and prisons couldn’t be expected to have swimming pools, could they?

He tried to pull himself together and to make some sense of what was happening to him. In a paradoxical manner, he thought he was about to lose control over his life and also to gain more control over it than before. Control is a state of mind, he told himself, and doesn’t depend on your external situation. Right now he couldn’t go where he wanted to and couldn’t do what he wanted to, but then he was in that situation because he chose to be in it. Nobody had pushed him into it, and it seemed that he could get out of it if he chose to do that too. He merely had to promise that he would stay away from any insurgent activities, and he would be out of there without much ado. That was control, wasn’t it? Not much good would it do to him though, given the kind of person he was. How meaningful was the concept of control then? And this brought him to his favorite philosophical issue—the problem of free will.

He had not been entirely truthful during the interrogation. The cost of not lying was too high, and he was not prepared to sacrifice others for his personal integrity. He felt very unhappy about the lying. It was demeaning and diminishing. It took some shine off the nobility of the nationalism he was so proud of, and it was very difficult to maintain a self-righteous stance with the knowledge that one had not been totally candid regarding one’s activities. He had read the autobiographical memoirs of Gandhi and Nehru, and they apparently had never faced the kind of situation he had found himself in. Was it the situation that made him do something that went against his grain? Would Gandhi and Nehru do the same if they had been in the same situation? But we create our own situations, and Gandhi and Nehru would not have found themselves in Ramesh’s situation. He just didn’t have the strength of character to remain truthful irrespective of the situational constraints. And freedom of will be damned, he thought, a little disgusted with himself. He claimed to be a part of a Gandhian movement, a movement based on insistence on truth, and he was found wanting when he was tested. He felt soiled and did not know how to undo the damage he had done to his self-esteem without creating a different kind of damage.

His reverie was cut short by the approach of the subinspector. Mr. Natekar, he said, I have been ordered to take you to Panaji for further investigation.

Ramesh left the Mapusa police station along with his escort without getting an opportunity to say good-bye to Gomez to whom he felt grateful for his gracious handling of the interrogation. As he walked to the jeep, he saw on the other side of the road the principal of the English high school he had attended, but the latter studiously looked straight ahead of him. I might be losing friends and acquaintances, Ramesh thought, because of my "criminal" behavior. He could always count on his parents and sister and a few pals like Hari. He wondered if Hari would remain his friend if he gave his name to the police. He didn’t want to find out.

They rode south in the jeep for six miles to reach Betim on the northern bank of the river Mandavi, which had Panaji on its southern bank. At Betim, the jeep had to be loaded onto the ferryboat along with other vehicles. This was a complicated procedure as each vehicle—the boat could carry four at the most—had to ride into the boat over two separate planks positioned skillfully to match the width of the vehicle. This took a long time, and there were many people around staring at the jeep, their curiosity sometimes getting the better of their apprehension. He saw a few faces that he recognized, but kept his eyes away from them to save them potential embarrassment. People were not particularly eager to proclaim their friendship, even acquaintance, with troublemakers like Ramesh. He could understand that and wouldn’t blame them for their timidity.

The crossing of the river took about ten minutes. The traffic across the river was very heavy as usual, the Mandavi being the most frequented waterway of Goa. It was a magnificent river, and the crossing between Betim and Panaji took place only a short distance from the mouth of the river. The ride from the Panaji bank of the Mandavi to the police headquarters took only five minutes after the jeep managed to disentangle itself from the ferryboat.

2

Ramesh was seven when his family moved from Panaji to Mapusa. His mother was excited about the move because she was a native of Mapusa and had many friends and relatives there. His father was not thrilled about leaving Panaji for Mapusa, but nevertheless was happy because he was going there on promotion as the postmaster of the city, which was quite an honor given his lowly past as a postal clerk whose education had not gone beyond the Portuguese primary school. He was not an officer yet but expected to make the grade within a few years. A postmaster in a small city like Mapusa had a lot of prestige and clout. The most important of the postmaster’s privileges, as far as Ramesh was concerned, was free admission to the movies.

Ramesh did not remember much of his life in Panaji, which was the capital city of the Portuguese province of Goa, Daman, and Diu, very picturesquely situated on the southern bank of the Mandavi with a beautiful beach in Miramar at the mouth of the river. It was a sleepy town, contrary to what one might expect of a provincial capital, and it seemed to retire to bed around the hour of seven in the evening. Not only would administrative offices be long closed by that time, but most of the commercial activity also died down soon after sunset. Stores generally opened late in the morning and closed early in the evening with a long break for a siesta during the early afternoon. The midday meal was the main meal for Goans, and the heavy portions of rice flavored by fish curry induced drowsiness in most well-fed adults.

There were very few automobiles in Panaji. When people had to travel some distance within the town, they took one-horse victorias. For long-distance traveling, there were camions, which were low-roofed buses requiring passengers to enter or exit humbly, with bodies bent almost at a right angle.

The Natekars lived in a two-storied house with four other families, including the owners of the house, in the part of Panaji known as Fontainhas. The rooms rented by any particular family were not necessarily contiguous, and there were halls and hallways that were common to all residents, who moved into and out of one another’s residences without much formality. The house was not wired for electricity; people used kerosene lamps with occasional candles. The city had electric streetlamps which were turned off on moonlit nights. There was no indoor plumbing, most people urinating and defecating out in the open. A few houses, Ramesh’s not being one of them, had indoor facilities wherein either pigs would eat up the excrement or it would be carted away by bhangis who were the most untouchable of the untouchables in the Hindu caste system.

There was neither drainage nor running water anywhere in Goa. People took water from wells. Sometimes, especially during the rains, men jumped and swam in the wells, most of the swimming being vertical, given the spatial constraints. The women boiled their water a little more than usual after such escapades, trying not to think about what the swimmers might have been doing while in the water. Given the lack of drainage, mosquitoes thrived and so did malaria, along with mercifully fewer cases of filariasis.

Hindus went to Marathi primary schools, Muslims to Urdu ones, and Catholics either to Portuguese or English ones, all except the Portuguese being private schools. Primary instruction in Portuguese was free and compulsory. Apart from Portuguese primary schools, the government ran a full-fledged lyceum in Panaji, which was a higher secondary school imparting a general, broad, and basic training to students who later could go into various branches of specialization. The government also ran a medical school and a primary teachers’ training school. There was no law school, lawyers being trained by apprenticeship and having to pass a state exam to be licensed for legal practice. Ambitious students of Portuguese law went to Portugal for university training for the positions of public prosecutor and judge to be occupied in that order.

For all disciplines, the Indian universities offered a much more economical alternative. Many students after their preliminary instruction in Marathi, Portuguese, or Urdu schools went on to English schools to finish their high school education, after which they could go to an Indian college outside Goa. All who aspired to higher education outside of the Portuguese educational system had to complete three years of primary instruction in Portuguese. Fortunately, they did not have to go to Portuguese primary schools to meet this requirement because the private schools did make arrangements to provide their students the required training and certification, although in a somewhat perfunctory manner, alongside their normal schoolwork. The more affluent Goans in the first half of the century looked up to Portugal for their educational aspirations, a few went to England, and almost nobody to America.

Ramesh enrolled in a Marathi primary school at the age of five. Most children began primary school at six, but there were no hard and fast rules regarding age for enrollment. Ramesh pleaded with his parents to get him into school, and his parents were impressed by his thirst for learning which they thought was the driving force behind his pleading. In fact, he felt lonely during school hours because most children in his building were at school and he missed them, especially Shobha who was the only child in the Palekar family. Shobha took a lot of interest in Ramesh and fiercely protected him from the bullying and cheating practiced by some children during communal games. She was a tomboy and could give as much as take when it came to fisticuffs. Most boys were scared of her and also grudgingly admired her. With her expert pirouetting and athletic footwork, she had become the unrivalled hopscotch champion of the neighborhood. And she was no slouch at jump rope either. Although only three years older than Ramesh, she seemed much older because of her sturdy build and imposing height. She was big for her age, and her round eyes matched her general size, her dark brown complexion, and the thick black braids of hair that were long enough to reach her knees.

Shobha was not the only reason that made Ramesh want to go to school at an early age. His mother was an excellent raconteur and regaled him with wonderful stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Ramesh could never get tired of listening to the spine-tingling exploits of Rama,