The Prime Minister (standard:other, 4717 words)
Author: Rattan Mann	Added: Apr 14 2005	Views/Reads: 3702/2502	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A novel about a madman whom the children call 'the prime minister' for fun

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

" Lovers of Mankind, custodians of womankind, men of race and
superiority, we have not gathered here to fight among ourselves.  We 
have gathered here to have some fun.  Let us have it and dammed be that 
son of his mother who dare spoil it even if it is at his expense." 

Pupu stopped deliberately and melodramatically to heighten the tension
in the crowd.  He stood motionless with folded arms as he hypnotized 
the crowd with fixed eyes.  Once he had seen Hitler speaking on TV.  
Since then he knew how to mermerize the mob.  Every face was burning 
with great expectations.  But Pupu remained silent till the crowd could 
bear the silence of the fuhrer no more and began to scream for his 
words.  Then, at the right psychological moment, Pupu spoke again, as 
if he was announcing the invasion of Poland. 

" Balwinder Singh Mann, do it!" 

Every eye that was fixed on the fuhrer now turned towards Balwinder. 
Balwinder was taken aback by the sudden but expected attention he got.  
Somehow he knew it was coming but still he was utterly unprepared for 
it.  He would have preferred to die rather than receive such attention 
on such an occasion.  He knew his answer by heart.  After all, it was 
supposed to be a drama - a harmless game in which nobody really got 
hurt. 

" No, I won't do it.  Kill me but I won't do it.  I promised Kali I will
never do it again.  A promise is a promise.  And Kali would kill me if 
I broke my promise.  You know her temper. You know her temper.  When 
she is angry she becomes like the Godess Herself."  Balwinder was 
screaming against the wind. He wished he was never born. 

The next moment the agony was all over - gone with the wind he was
battling against.  Suddenly the leader of the mock firing- squad, a ten 
or twelve year old dandy in brand-new clothes, stepped forward and 
announced confidently in a clear and loud voice which everybody could 
here, 

" Let Balwinder go to hell.  I will do it.  Kali can't do a fig to me. 
I know her temper, but she doesn't know mine.  She is no Godess.  She 
is just a stupid little girl.  Who is afraid of her?" 

If I can kill a man so easily, just with a mock pistol, I can definitely
make this dying man talk without a hitch, he thought to himself as he 
moved towards the gutter where his victim was lying.  His neck was 
stiff with confidence and determination. In less than a second he had 
eclipsed Balwinder, his arch-rival, because now every eye was turned on 
him instead of on Balwinder. For the crowd Balwinder had ceased to 
exist.  And this is exactly what both Balwinder and his arch-rival 
wanted. 

When he reached the gutter, the little darling of the crowd stood
absolutely still for a long time to tease every eye that was fixed on 
him.  He had learned from Pupu what Pupu had learned from Hitler.  Then 
suddenly, without shame or warning, he tore the buttons of his 
battle-dress, and urinated on the man he himself had shot a short while 
ago with his phony gun.  The mob went wild with joy and sounds of loud 
cheers and applause could be heard miles away.  The rape of Poland was 
complete. 

" He is drinking urine again!" a unanimous chorus rang through the crowd
of urchins from the sky-scrapers and this time there were no dissident 
voices and no hands slipped into pockets to draw out blood-stained 
knives. 

Intoxicated by the frenzy of the crowd, the little fuhrer bent forward
towards the man in the gutter till he could take the stench and stink 
of the gutter no more.  Then he stopped, looked at the crowd again, 
smiled like an emperor, and began to whisper in a very gentle tone as 
if he was talking to his pet Alsatian rather than a human being. 

" Prime minister, prime minister, can you hear me?  Just now somebody
has shot you.  He has blown your heart away into a billion pieces.  You 
are dying.  Yes!  The prime minister of India is dying.  People cannot 
beleive what has happened because it all happened so suddenly.  The 
whole nation is numb with shock and deeply sunk in helpless sorrow.  
Weeping men and wailing women have surrounded you and are paying their 
last homage to you.  The state radio sees no better way to pay its last 
tribute to you than by broadcasting all your speeches once more. 

" Listen!  Now they are broadcasting the speech you gave on the eve of
the last general election - the memorable speech that suddenly turned 
the tide in your favour, and against all expectations, made you the 
prime minister of India.  It was the only speech you ever gave in 
Hindi, and therefore, the only speech that the poor, illiterate, and 
down-trodden masses of India could understand.  Yes!  The Hindi speech 
- it was this magic wand that suddenly turned you overnight from nobody 
to somebody. 

" Prime minister, prime minister, can you see or hear what is happening
now?  As usual, the electricity has gone out when it was needed the 
most.  Damn the power grid.  The radio has fallen silent.  We cannot 
hear this historic election speech anymore.  I never heard it before 
because I am too young and innocent to take interest in our rotten 
politics.  And now I can't hear it because the radio has fallen silent. 
Oh cursed politics, what should I do? 

" Prime minister, prime minister, do you hear me?  Your soul is about to
leave your body and enter the next world.  But before you turn your 
face away from our miserable world forever please do me a favour - the 
last favour - and please grant me a wish - my last wish to you.  Please 
tell me what you said in your election speech that moved the hearts and 
souls of the mute and helpless masses of India so much that they made 
you their prime minister against all odds and solemn predictions of the 
pundits.  Was it that it was the only speech you ever gave in Hindi in 
your whole life, and therefore the one and only speech of yours that 
the masses could understand? 

Speak, prime minister, speak!  Pour your heart into the budding soul of
a nation that is so deeply sunk in sorrow that it will not unfold or 
move except by your words.  Breathe a new life into the nation before 
yours is sniffed out forever so that eternity can say that you never 
died, that you still live and breathe and walk among us all." 

His body twitched, indicating that there was still some life left in
him.  His lips began to move as if he was trying to clear his throat 
before saying something.  But his first words were so mixed up with 
human excrement that nothing could be understood.  Slowly, after 
coughing a lot, his mouth became cleaner and the words more distinct 
and audible.  He started weeping as if to recollect the past hurt more 
than lying in the gutter. 

" Lovers of Mankind!" he suddenly wailed like a desperate animal caught
in a trap, and then abruptly switched to Hindi. 

The Election Speech 

Lovers of India, I have not come here today to beg for a billion
ballots.  I have come here today to tell you things that you know but 
dare not admit even in the silence of your heart.  The entire nation - 
no, a sub-continent itself - is covered by a huge cloud of mist and 
darkness.  But this cloud that hovers over us is not the awaited 
harbinger of life-breathing rain.  It is a locust-cloud, a vast 
poisonous fume of corruption, gangsterism, and lawlessness that is bent 
on devouring a whole sub-continent and reducing it to a lifeless 
desert. 

Mothers and sisters of India, I have not come here today to take away
from you your beloved sons and brothers for a ritual sacrifice on some 
distant and unknown battlefield in name of patriotism, I have come here 
today to give them a new life and hope, a new vision which blind 
patriotism can never buy. 

Lovers of a nation, hear me out for once without plugging your ears or
closing your eyes.  Lend me a few seconds from eternity that your deaf 
ears have at their disposal.  No!  Lend me a few seconds from 
somewhere, anywhere, and let your deaf ears play with the rest of 
eternity for ever.  Lend me the pupil of your eyes for a moment and for 
your own sake so that the light that shines inside me can also be 
yours. 

Lovers of light, the soul of a nation - a giant star in the firmament -
has stopped shining.  It flickers or throbs no more.  It only smoulders 
in dark anger, resentment, and pain. Lovers, rekindle it in one heroic 
effort by pooling together the tiny flames that still flicker in your 
billion individual hearts.  Lovers of light, be your own light once 
more. 

Lovers of love, take your heart and pin it to a goal.  Take your soul
and pin it to a vision.  Take your body and pin it to a hope.  But 
lovers of love, never ever again pin your love to the cross to be spat 
upon, insulted, and flayed in public. Love may be blind but it is not 
without honour or devoid of pain. 

Lovers of pain, when wolves howl, silence is broken.  When rabbits howl,
heart is broken.  When women howl, man is broken.  When canons howl, 
courage is broken.  But lovers of pain, when fools howl, let not a 
five-thousand-year old wisdom of a nation explode in painful agony and 
scatter into a billion broken pieces. 

Lovers of hope, despair not if today the chains of despair and
helplessness that bind and strangle you seem unbreakable.  One day they 
would surely snap and set you free.  That day may be far away from 
today, but it would be within reach before eternity sleeps.  That day - 
ten billion years from today - the stars would recede into oblivion.  
The sun would be a dark and frozen black-hole, shivering like a baby in 
its own coldness and hiding behind a self-imposed darkness.  The moon 
won't be there to shine anymore or bathe in reflected glory.  The 
earth, oh, our Mother Earth Herself - even She won't be around to see 
if the moon is still shining or bathing, or just gamboling idly across 
the empty heavens utterly dark and unobserved. Nor our beloved India 
left to find out where the earth has gone looking for the moon and 
dragging her back to us. Nor even us Indians to grieve that India 
Herself is no more - that even our Mother has deserted us when we 
needed her the most and left us orphans.  Then the chains of poverty 
that bind you and me and hold us prisoners would also be gone for ever, 
setting you and me free at last. 

Lovers of tears........ 

He could continue no more. 

He was weeping uncontrollably as if some black-belted karate-guru had
him pinned to the gutter and was pressing that nerve which hurt the 
most.  The gutter in which he was lying, or the stench and stink around 
him, or even the urine and shit in his mouth, was no problem.  The 
problem was the pain in the heart - no, the problem was the heart 
itself because if there was no heart there wouldn't have been pain in 
the first place. 

It looked as if innocence and virginity themselves lay raped and defiled
in the gutter. 

But he was a fighter.  He tried to rise and began all over again. 

" Lovers of Mankind, steal anything and everything from anybody and
everybody, but never steal away dreams and visions from dreamers' and 
visionaries' hearts.  The universe can't ...." 

He could not finish his speech because suddenly a girl's shriek pierced
the twilight zone and threw him out of balance. 

"Balwinder, you urine of a dog, you shit of a prostitute, you have done
it again.  You scoundrel, you dirt, you rotten plague-rat, you promised 
me you won't do it again - never. You promised me, you remember, you 
promised me." the girl was screaming as she pierced her way through the 
crowd towards the gutter. 

When she reached the gutter and saw what they had done to him she burst
into spontaneous sobs. 

"Radha chachi, Radha chachi, they have done it again!" she somehow
managed to scream through her choked throat. 

Radha heard the SOS call and knew what it meant.  She left her cooking
and instinctively reached for a pail of water and then ran bare-footed 
towards the sewage.  Tears were already welling in her eyes, and she 
too burst into sobs when she saw him rolling in the gutter, waving his 
arms wildly as if he was addressing a huge rally, and screaming and 
shouting in a frenzy as if all that lay dead and buried in his heart 
for so long had found a voice and a new life once more. 

"Lovers of democracy, democracy collapsed long ago.  Now communism has
also collapsed.  Nothing is left, absolutely nothing - except you.  
Your hour has come.  Don't betray mankind again as communism did.  
Stand up, you living-dead, and rise up to the historic task that lies 
ahead of you.  Now you are the sole masters of the universe, beyond 
communism, beyond capitalism, beyond all...." 

Radha couldn't see him making a laughing-stock of himself and everybody
else who loved him.  She felt defiled.  She threw the pail of cold 
water on his face to stop him from babling any further.  She felt so 
angry at him that she could have smashed his teeth, if she had to, to 
prevent him from making a fool of himself. 

"Why have you to do this?  Why?  Why?  He has done no harm to you.  Why
can't you leave him alone." she was screaming again and again at the 
crowd, but so great was her anger and feeling of helplessness that she 
could not look at the faceless crowd into their individual faces.  It 
would have defiled her more. 

Nobody in the crowd answered, but everybody was staring at her, as if
nobody understood what all the fuss was about. 

With great trouble, the woman and the little girl of nine together
pulled him out of the sewage, and started to clean him up. 

Nobody in the crowd of urchins from the sky-scrapers felt any remorse or
pangs of conscience as they continued to stare at the trio.  On the 
contrary, some even felt as if it were they who had been wronged.  
Others started giggling and murmuring, 

"Look boys, how they are crying like sissies over a useless nut as if
somebody has killed him.  What a fuss they are making over a madman.  
We were just having some innocent fun.  Weren't we, boys?  What can we 
do if he loves eating cow-dung and horse-dung?  Is that our fault?  If 
the whore is so interested in him, she should tie him to herself.  Then 
he won't go around making a fool of himself." 

Radha felt as if her protests and her tears had lost all dignity. They
too had been defiled.  She had been humiliated enough for the day.  So 
she did not want to humiliate herself further by answering. 

But the answer came - from a direction nobody had expected. 

Suddenly loud abuses were heard at a distance.  A single vehement voice
was challenging the whole crowd.  And it had a very strange and 
immediate effect.  Nobody looked in the direction from which the abuses 
came.  Most pretended as if they heard nothing.  And yet, strangely 
enough, the atmosphere of fun and enjoyment vanished in a second.  
Everybody began to feel uneasy, and people started to dissociate 
themselves from what was happening. Onlookers standing on the fringes 
started slipping quietly away. Nobody seemed to be interested in the 
game anymore. 

The abuses grew louder and louder as the man who uttered them drew
nearer and nearer.  He was a short but well-built and muscular man of 
dark complexion, and not very handsome to look at.  But he looked like 
a fighter-cock, and uttered abuses as if abuses had their natural abode 
on his tongue.  He was Dhunu, a pick-pocket and a pimp and the only man 
from the jhuggis whom even those high-up in the sky-scrapers feared. 
Both muscle-man Tutu and hit-man Pupu respected Dhunu, if not actually 
feared him. 

When Tutu and Pupu saw Dhunu they too cowed down because Dhunu had a
knife in his hand.  They knew that to confront Dhunu was no joke.  
Anxious to avoid turning a harmless game into a real fight and 
blood-shed, they quickly abondened the center stage, and as quickly as 
they could without looking chicken, they too melted into the crowd as 
nobodies. 

An old man stepped forward to placate Dhunu. 

"Dhunu, Lulu fell into the gutter by mistake.  It was nobody's fault. 
We all were trying to rescue him.  I swear.  If you don't beleive me, 
ask Radha." 

But Dhunu was not listening and Radha was not contradicting because she
hated blood-baths more than humiliations and defilements. 

Dhunu walked straight up to Radha and Kali, his tirade of abuses
unabated, and started helping them to clean him up and put him on his 
feet again.  Both the woman and the girl drew courage from Dhunu's 
presence, at least enough of it to stop the tears in their eyes if not 
the pain in their hearts. 

Soon he was looking clean and decent enough to be taken to his jhuggi
and put into bed.  So all four of them started moving towards the 
jhuggis and soon there was no one left in the square except Balwinder. 

Balwinder stood where he was, under the Banyan tree, his head bowed, his
feet fixed to the ground, unable to move, as if he was glued to the 
roots of the Banyan tree under which he was standing.  He had even lost 
his turban somewhere and he was talking to himself. 

"I didn't do it, Kali.  I didn't do it.  I swear in Guru Gobind's name
that I didn't do it.  I remembered my promise and I have kept it.  But 
I always become the black-sheep and the scape-goat of this community.  
Whether I do something or not, I always end up getting the blame.  But 
at least you should have known because you know me so well." 

Suddenly Balwinder began to shiver.  He felt terribly cold. Parts of his
body had turned blue, some had frozen outright. Even his brain was 
freezing slowly as he made one last effort to convince Kali and ask her 
for her help. 

"Kali, I am feeling cold, very cold.  Do something to make me warm.  I
know you are angry, but don't just stand there like a statue.  Come 
near me and make me warm as you have done so many times before." 

He stretched out his hand for hers but the girl pulled back as if it was
now her turn to take revenge on him and make him suffer in body all 
that she had suffered in the soul. 

"Kali, you look beautiful when you are angry.  But this is not the time
to be angry.  Come, forgive me, and come into my arms." Balwinder was 
trying desperately to placate her and make her let bygones be bygones. 

It couldn't be said that the girl was angry, or looked very revengeful
because her lips were quivering with helplessness and her eyes were 
full of tears.  But she would not move towards him and put his head on 
her lap or even lift her arms to hug him.  It looked as if she too was 
glued to something, though what that something was, Balwinder could not 
make out. 

And she was not a girl anymore.  The little girl of nine had grown over
the years into a beautiful woman.  But what an elusive beauty it was!  
She wouldn't let anybody touch her or even come near her - not even 
Balwinder who knew her and understood her so well.  If only Balwinder 
could tempt her to move towards him and embrace him everything would be 
all right, everything would be the same as before, as it always was.  
But somehow Balwinder had lost his magic touch.  His magic hold over 
her was gone.  Not that she didn't care about Balwinder.  She did, with 
all her heart, but in strange ways that Balwinder could not understand. 
 And she never tried to explain.  She was always there with him, 
standing in the corner with tears in her eyes, but she would not go 
near him or explain anything.  And, beg as he might, she wouldn't lift 
a finger to make him warm even when he was freezing to death. 

But she was always there - standing in the corner and looking at him
through her tears. 

"Kali, come near me and feel my cheeks.  See for yourself how cold they
are." Balwinder tried one more time before giving up.  Then he closed 
his eyes. 

At last he felt a hand touching his cheeks. 

Professor Gupta, the head of the Department of Psychological Warfare,
was patting Balwinder on his cheeks, as his colleague, 
inspector-general Kumar, head of Internal Security, stood by and 
watched silently without commenting or participating. 

"Balwinder, Balwinder, do you hear me?  To whom are you talking? Kali is
dead.  She died twenty years ago when she was only nine. Do you hear 
me, Balwinder?  Have you understood what I am saying?" the professor 
was trying to bring Balwinder back to earth again. 

"No, Kali is not dead.  She is alive.  You are lying.  The likes of Kali
never die.  She is right here with me, over there in the corner.  She 
is nodding at me.  She wants to come near me but you are not letting 
her.  She is so afraid of you.  You must have done something very bad 
to her.  What have you done to her?  What have you done to her that she 
is so afraid and sad.  She is crying.  Let her come to me.  I will wipe 
her tears.  Go away, leave us alone.  Then she would come to me. 

"Come Kali, come to me.  We are buddies, you remember? I will take away
your tears and you take away my coldness. That is what we always did - 
take away each others problems. Don't be afraid of them.  Stand by my 
side as you always have done, and I will protect you as always.  Don't 
just stand in the corner and stare at me as if you don't know me 
anymore.  It has been ages since you touched me. Speak to me, Kali.  
Tell me what is bothering you.  Tell me why you are so sad." 

Balwinder tried to lift his arm to touch her, but it fell limp on his
heart.  He had lost all strength.  And slowly he lost consciousness.  
Professor Gupta had failed to bring him back to earth. 

So professor Gupta looked at his colleague, inspector-general Kumar, and
sepoy Layak Ram looked at both of them, because none of the trio in the 
interrogation team really knew what to do next. 

After a long time the inspector-general nodded at the professor and the
professor nodded at the sepoy.  And suddenly, from a robot-like 
existence, obeying orders like a machine, or standing motionless for 
hours, sepoy Layak Ram turned into a human being who could move and 
talk and feel more freely. Instinctively, he threw his own blanket over 
Balwinder, and then fell over him to cover him with his own body so 
that Balwinder could be warm again. 

"It is all over, Balwinder, it is all over for the day.  I will see to
it that you are warm now.  I already have a fire ready for you in the 
barracks and a bottle of rum to revive your body and soul.  Soon you 
would be warm and on your feet again - become the same old rough and 
tough Jat Sikh who only gets going when the going gets tough.  It is 
all right now, Balwinder, it is all right now.  It is all over for the 
day." 

Very gently, the man was doing what the stubborn woman in the corner had
so persistent refused to do all along - rubbing Balwinder's cheeks to 
make them warm again. 

The day's interrogation was indeed over! 

End of Chapter 1 of The Prime Minister 

Full novel is published as bi-monthly serial on www.oraculartree.com
from Oct.2004 

copyright@ Rattan Mann 


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