On a Clear Day, You Can See India by C Balagopal

Author:C Balagopal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MEMOIRS
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Magisterial Enquiry

For the tenth time, I flipped through the pages of the voluminous file, trying in vain to find the references cited in the note file. Prominent flags decked the otherwise drab, dog-eared bunch of sheets, but other than slightly improving the appearance of the file, they did nothing by way of helping to navigate through the dense argument marshalled in favour of the proposal. With a sigh, I went back to the beginning, hoping to find some clues to the mystery there.

Bal Bahadur – the handsome young Nepali who had one day appeared at my door uninvited and unannounced, and who had developed into a manservant of exceptional quality – stuck his head between the curtains of the door leading to the veranda and announced that four people were waiting to see me. Puzzled because I was not expecting visitors, I put aside the file, secretly happy at any excuse to do so, and went out. I found four swarthy strapping young men standing in the kerchiefsized patch of grass, their close-cropped hair betraying their military connections. This was getting more curious, I thought as I went to the edge of the little veranda and stood looking at them. Despite the extra foot I gained by standing on the veranda, the men almost came up to my eye level as they straightened and smartly stood to attention, in the manner of soldiers out of uniform while acknowledging a senior.

‘What can I do for you?’ I enquired politely. They hesitated, looked at each other, and finally, with the urging of the others, one among them spoke.

‘We are with the CRPF and are posted here at Imphal. We are from Kerala and wanted to meet you as we learnt you are from Kerala too.’ This was said with a smile, which felt familiar, especially since it was accompanied by a particular Malayalam phrase. Not only was it the first time I had come across soldiers trying to fraternize on the basis of linguistic affinity, it was also unusual for them to visit an IAS officer’s house to make their acquaintance. Although not suspicious by nature, I became alert and waited for them to speak, responding with just a half smile to the opening words of the one who had spoken. I tried to suppress what appeared to me to be a snobbish response to an apparently harmless attempt by some Malayali chaps very far from home to meet and chat up one of their own kind, but I was still somehow getting increasingly annoyed at their presumptuousness.

‘We don’t get to meet many Malayalis here, sir, and we thought it will be nice to meet you. We stay in this part of town, over there, past the DIG, Border Security Force (BSF) office,’ one of them said. I did not respond to this and waited for them to go on, and realized that it was making them more nervous. My clean-shaven face, and absence of the usual pronounced Malayalam-accented English had already confused them, and they must have started to think there had been a mistake.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.