The History Wars by Stuart Blackburn

Author:Stuart Blackburn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Self-Publishing Partnership

CHAPTER 18

All the endeavour of the day seemed to have disappeared, slinking away like a beast in the night. The desperation of dreams, the fleeting ripples of success, the endless cycle of hope and frustration, all of it had receded, leaving no mark on the smooth surface of the city at night. Behind the glass of a gliding taxi, Ravi saw only streaky light from shop fronts and traffic. He drifted away, too, though he knew that the human tide would rush back in the morning and sweep him along with it.

He was struggling to organise his thoughts. In less than a week, he’d failed in Ayodhya, had an essay published, lost his job, received a threatening phone call, welcomed his uncle into Peggy’s hotel room and been invited to appear on television. And he was still worried about the plan to take the seals to Dikshitar. He considered abandoning the whole thing, telling the driver to turn around and return to Defence Colony. He would get a regular job on a newspaper and convince Peggy to give up the seals.

Blinking in the bright lights of the television studio, he touched his tie and adjusted his belt. By the time he had taken his seat on the tiny stage, his leg pumping up and down with excitement. The live audience in the studio was small, but the producers anticipated record-breaking viewing figures throughout the country. The brigadier, Peggy and Mrs Ketkar would be watching on a television in a neighbour’s flat in Defence Colony. Mr M could eat his heart out.

Sharmila Dutta, the presenter, was keen to make a good impression on her boss. ‘Tonight’s topic for debate,’ she began her introduction, ‘is the politics of the past. And the question we will discuss is, who controls our history? Is it professors or politicians? Or, heaven forbid, the media?’ Here she gave a strangled laugh. ‘And as always, we have a diverse panel, with wide-ranging views, articulate, informed…’

Ravi looked at the other panellists seated around the table. He hadn’t expected Srinivasan but realised he was an obvious invitee based on his unmasking of Hill’s fake copperplate. There was also a silver-haired Muslim lawyer, a chubby BJP politician and a Tamil writer with a closely cropped beard.

Ms Dutta explained the ground rules. Each panellist had exactly three minutes to make an opening statement, during which time the others would please remain silent. Following these initial remarks, she would ask questions and moderate the discussion. ‘We welcome strong, healthy debate,’ she said. ‘Please do not hold back.’

The politician spoke first. Rattling on for ten minutes, he was frequently interrupted by the lawyer, who demanded answers about the mosque at Ayodhya, and soon everyone was trading insults and accusations. Ravi claimed that history had become a war whose story, as always, would be written by the victor. When the lawyer pointed out that the losers wrote the story in Vietnam, Srinivasan shouted ‘our glorious past is revealed in the Vedas,’ which prompted the Tamil writer to cry ‘your past is not my past.

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