The TRAVEL WRITER WHO NEVER TRAVELED
Every morning,
I walk up Parsee Gulli to collect my newspaper. There's this man sitting on
a folding metal chair sipping chai. He seems to spend his time either reading
or writing in a thick notebook. He obviously sleeps on the pavement. But he
doesn't look your average pavement dweller.
Middle-aged, thick wavy grey hair, moustache. Western-style dress - trousers
- shirt - socks - shoes. Born and raised here in Mumbai.
“How did you end up here in Parsee Gully? Where were you before?”
“Before, I was in Bombay only.”
In the very middle-class suburb of Worli, just two miles from here.
“So what happened? Yes, there was some dispute between myself and my
sister.”
A quarrel over who should inherit their late father's apartment. The matter's
now in the Courts.
The sister kicked Madanlal, wife and children out. In fact, she becaqme violent,
so they left voluntarily. Madanlal sent wife and daughters back to her parents
in Delhi, while he stayed behind to fight.
“So you've been forced to come and live here on the pavement?”
“Yes, I'm alone staying here.”
The family had a factory making industrial pumps. But they' got screwed over
a patent - or a contract - and that went bust. Then there was a travel agency
for Indians going to the Gulf. But some Arabs swindled them. So that's also
gone bust.
“So now you're sleeping on the pavement here, in the corner of Parsee
Gulli?”
“Yes, certainly..”
“And that's your nephew who repairs the motorbikes?”
Madanlal shares this patch of exclusive pavement with Chandabehn and Haridas,
and with Ravi - hair, hands and undershirt happily grinning with engine grease.
“Whole day he's working. Whole day he's working very, hard-working boy.
Now he's going to marry. We are finding suitable girl for him. It's like that.”
Ravi looks up, smiles at the thought, then goes back to major reconstructive
surgery on the torso - of a motorbike.
“What do you do all day?”
“See, in this morning they are providing me with tea and everything,
and then I'm moving from here.”
He spends most of the day in a garden reading books.
Every morning I see you writing busily. What is it that you're writing?
MA: See. my hobby is that. You may call it my hobby. I have made it now habit.
..
Madanlal pulls a thick exercise book from his cloth shoulder bag. His Hobby,
is to learn everything there is to know about the United States. Facts and
figures pour out in a torrent. I'm swept away in his enthusiasm. Madanlal
himself almost drowns in the eagerness to share this treasure chest of knowledge.
One phrase - Universal Society -comes up every ten seconds. That's about all
I can make out. I ask to see the paper for myself.
“Here, you will find something which I've written about..the United
States of America, and everything.”
I begin reading out aloud: “To whomsoever it may concern - America invites
you! ...now this is information you've put together about America for who?
For yourself? Or for other people?”
“No, really speaking it's for general public. Not I'm authorized for
that.”
Madanlal's style is eclectic at best. Clichés are borrowed and lifted
from everywhere - and everything - From Dale Carnegie to ads cut out from
the pages of Time Magazine, or Life. All glued side by side like some anonymous
ransom note. It’s a Travel Guide: - how to get on in this new Universal
Society called America, where a New Sort of Man is being formed.
I read on with growing amazement.
“He becomes an American by being received in the broad loop of the great
Alma Mater. Here all individuals of all nations have melted into a new race
of men.’It's essentially an update of the popular Immigrant's Guidebooks
pedaled round Europe by the Railroad companies a hundred and fifty years ago.
But this one's on five badly typed foolscap pages.
“So who do you give this to?”
My immediate thought are the long lines every morning outside the US Consulate,
just two hundred yards away. That's where I'd hawk my Immigrant's Guide.
But not Madan Lal. The idea never seems to have crossed his mind. He says
he's writing it for a travel agency run by a friend. And he's not being paid.
He's doing it for love, love of learning. And that's not the only oddity.
“Have you actually been to America?”
“No, I've not been.”
“So, you're a Travel Writer who never travels!”
“No, I haven't traveled. I have traveled India only, not foreign. Abroad
I've not traveled, please!
If ever a man deserved to be given a visa to come and see the great US of
A, it's surely Madanlal. But he's never even thought of going down to the
Consulate. He's never even told them what he's writing. But he does have a
library card for the US Information Centre. And once a week he goes down there,
takes out a handful of books, and goes up to the Hanging Gardens on Malabar
Hill -to devour them.
And then, when night falls, he walks back down to Parsee Gulli, where Chandabehn
feeds him. He reads some more, finally spreads his blanket and goes to sleep
under the street-lamp. Head full of his favorite subjects: Economics, Geography
and Philosophy.
“You've gone up in the world, and you've come down in the world, haven't
you?”
“Yes, Yes!
“Do you think you'll go up again?”
“I have to try my level best. This much I can (do).
I have to leave to buy some vegetables. I ask Madanlal if he'd like some back
copies of The Economist to read. He takes everything I have - like a starving
man at a buffet.
When I return at 10.30 that night, a couple of young girls are washing cooking
thalis under the street lamp. And flirting like crazy with a young man. While
Madanlal sits on his chair, reading out aloud comparative figures for Chinese
and US steel production, from the pages of The Economist to a very bemused
audience of three - Chandabehn, Haridas and Ravi. I wish them good night and
quietly return home.
Next day, after lunch, I walk up to the Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill to
see Madanlal.
“So this is where you spend your afternoons?”
We're sitting on the edge of a cliff looking out over Marine Drive and Back
Bay, one of the most beautiful views anywhere in the world. This is Madanlal's
office, And it costs him absolutely nothing - From Sunrise to Sundown. He
shares it with the toddlers of the rich and famous, with their Ayahs or nannies,
with a small army of Malis or gardeners, and with all those who simply love
to walk in these Hanging Gardens. Or to give them their formal name - the
Kamala Nehru Park.
Madanlal's chair is a stone bench set into a little hill, surrounded by ferns
and flowers.
Here, he tries to spend all his waking daylight hours
“reading and some tea, two things. If I get I can sit whole day.”
“You've got some pretty nice places to do your reading!”
“Yes, so I find myself very suitable here. No means, any disturbance,
nothing.”
He pulls a typewritten file from his bag.
“What's that?”
“This is regarding case only, about this land.”
“This is the thing with your sister?"
“No.”
This is something else entirely. About a piece of property that Madanlal has
title to. But can't take possession of.
“What on earth is all this about? Holy deities of Lakshmi- the plot
thickens!”
“Here, you will find letter.”
Someone claims to have uncovered a statue of Lord Shiva on Madanlal’s
family property. Now what follows next is unfortunately all-too-common. A
religious trust, doubtless fronting for some property developer, claims title
to the land in the name of the God.
“It is having a statue of Lord Shiva. No?!”So it is belonging
to Lord Shiva. We are but his servants. We must look after the statue for
him!
Madanlal has the Court's judgement in his favor. What he doesn't have is the
hard cash to enforce it.
“OK. So you've won the case.”
“Yes, certainly!”
“But you can't execute it!”
“No, I can't execute. You're absolutely right.” I shift the conversation
to something that’s been bothering me.
“How many people know what's happened to you in the last year? That
you live now in Parsee Gulli?”
“Except my family members nobody knows where I am what I am doing. ..all
my brothers they are well-to-do, everybody is well-to-do. But I never approach.”
“What about your wife? She knows where you are?”
This is too near the bone, ...and the truth...
“So she has left me.. Now she has gone to Delhi to her parents.”
Sudden silence. How does one follow on to that? Still, I try. “Your
children know where you are? Your daughters?”
“They are in Delhi only.”
“They know that you are living on the street, or not?”
“No, they have no idea that Where is Father?”
The funny thing is things suddenly took a turn for the better Almost as soon
as Madanlal had finally made his confession. Within a month he'd moved off
the pavement.
Taken in by old Mr Swar, who ran another one-man American fan club from his
room near Grant Road..
Then Madanlal branched out on his own, shamelessly exploiting his connection
with me. One day, I received his new business card from New Delhi, listing
offices in London and New York. On closer inspection, both had the same phone
number And the same street address - Mine!
I lost sight of him for a year. Then he suddenly appeared on the doorstep
one day, fat and prosperous, A glamorous woman, covered in heavy gold jewelry,
on his arm. He claimed this was the Wicked Sister - Asha - who'd started the
whole chain of events by throwing him out his father's house less than two
years earlier.
Unfortunately I wasn't in. And my wife didn't immediately recognize him. But
she was flattered he called her Bhabiji!
Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episdoes 33 - 35
Main
Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3
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