The friendship has soured already. This evening I went out with Shiv and Prakash to Rani Vilas, the lakeside restaurant where we had celebrated Prakash’s birthday. I recounted my meeting with Vishal (leaving out the emotional undercurrent) and Shiv scolded me for mixing with such idiots. Prakash, on the other hand, told me very seriously that “This Vishal is the most intelligent fellow I’ve ever met. If you make friends with him you will forget us, but be careful, he might...” he said something in Hindi that I didn’t understand.
“What does that mean?”
He looked mischievously at me. “It means ‘to befool’!”
“Arre, yaar,” said Shiv warmly, “these are very superfictious people!” He spitted out the malapropism as he might an unripe fruit. I quickly steered the conversation to a topic guaranteed to defuse the tension: the controversy over Shilpa Shetty. She is a Bollywood heroine who joined Celebrity Big Brother and has been, so we are led to believe, subjected to racist remarks. England, by all accounts, is gripped by the situation, especially in light of the ongoing immigration debate, and the fact that the person most strongly implicated in the accusations of racism is none other than Jade Goody. She is a halfwit who was on standard Big Brother several years ago (apparently sufficient grounds for her to qualify as a celebrity this time round) and is supposed to have thought that Cambridge was part of London [19]. India has responded with collective indignation. Shiv’s parents are now saying that they think England is “less” than America, which sounds characteristically Shaivite in its logic, and even Prakash thinks this reflects very poorly on the British opinion of Indians, although they both agreed when I pointed out that even if Jade Goody can be viewed as representing her country (and I would dispute this strongly on the grounds that Big Brother is Reality TV, not an international competition) this does not necessarily mean she is a reflection of it. This brought us on to racism, Islamophobia, and so the evening wore on.
We later drove round to the other side of Fateh Sagar on their motorbikes and had coffee on the usual wall. I spotted Vishal and his friend Dharmendra, and joined Prakash in calling them over, ignoring Shiv’s protestations. After some small talk we moved onto heavier topics - globalisation, farmers’ suicides, British immigration policy and, on a brief diversion into the physical sciences, the Big Bang.
Slowly we slipped into yesterday’s routine, and Prakash, Shiv and Dharmendra became more and more peripheral as Vishal and I focused intensely on each other. But what had been magical yesterday night became irritating and humiliating this evening. The scales fell from my eyes to reveal Vishal in a new (and perhaps equally inaccurate) light - arrogant, insecure and a manipulative conversationalist. He would defend his position adamantly and, while listening to my views, impose his own on me before veering off course with a bewildering change of subject.
“Do you think the British colonisation of India was a good thing?”
“Gosh,” I said, “That’s such a complicated question, it’s impossible to answer in a sentence! I don’t think one country can ever be justified in conquering another – necessarily – but on the other hand…”
“You’re so moderate, why can’t you commit to having an opinion? You’re just giving a political answer.”
Political, it seems, is his label for anything that can't be boiled down to a yes or a no.
“No, this is my opinion – that the question is really complicated. I mean think of all the things that the British gave India, like the railways, judicial system…”
“Yes or no! Are you afraid of your own ideas? Was British rule a force for good?”
“There isn’t a yes or no answer!”
“Oh, you’re just political… How could it have been a good thing for our country? What is your opinion on trade liberalisation?”
The discussion ended unsatisfactorily and Prakash and I left rather abruptly. On the way back to Vikas Samiti, Prakash, maybe sensing I needed a confidence boost, turned round and told me “Shiv is right, actually. That man is an idiot! I’ve lost my respect for him.”
“Me too!” I said. I didn’t tell him from what height Vishal had sunk.
Footnotes
[19] Since this was written, of course, Jade hit the headlines for much sadder reasons - her death from cervical cancer in 2009.
Next Post - Sunday 21st January 2007: Udaipur (will be posted Saturday 21st January 2012)
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