Brief encounters: Getting to know the rich and powerful

‘As a journo from the typewriting age you must have known some wacko moments, hanh?’ My daughter’s casual remark revived a slew of memories –  odd, freaky, even ludicrous.

Back then I was an insignificant culture correspondent in a truculently political publication. I still don’t know why my editor decided to send me to the SAARC summit in Sri Lanka. ‘We’ll get the real stuff from Reuters, but try anyway,’ he advised.  

Day One passes in a sweat of recording interminable speeches, and cultivating the inscrutable look of the asli news hawk. Day Two sees me sailing down the staircase of the swanky hotel hosting journalists along with ministers, Prime Ministers and other holy ghosts. A voice accosts me in Bengali, then in English. 

‘You! Yes, you! Girl on the stairs! Come here!’ It belongs to a politician, then well known, now renowned. ‘You are not Bengali? Journalist? You speak English? Very good. See, I have to go on this special trip to Kandy with other ministers. But right now I have a very important meeting here in Colombo. Can’t drop out of trip last minute, no? Someone must represent India.  You are wearing a nice saree! You go!’

My protests fall on deaf ears. The lady assures me that I will miss nothing, the official summit notes will be waiting for me when I return. Her satellite propels me into the waiting van.  Recognising ministers in front rows, I sink into a back seat (presumably reserved for lesser mortals) next to a smiling ‘secretaryish’ young man. He describes his beautiful Himalayan country and its struggles, until we reach Kandy’s Dalada Maligawa, the temple of Buddha’s Sacred Tooth. We learn that the relic was smuggled into Sri Lanka for safekeeping. And that is how the tooth of a man who gave up the world turned into a symbol of temporal and materialist authority vested in kings!

Lunch follows at the governor’s mansion, another relic of more recent colonial suzerainty. From columns and curtains to Chippendale chairs and Wedgwood tableware, everything proclaims a past of political occupation and cultural domination. After this the well fed guests are lukewarm about exploring the Royal Botanical Gardens, nurturing 4,000 species of trees and plants. However, my neighbour from the van is game enough to join me in a search for the Cannon Ball Tree, reportedly planted by King George V. No sign of the tree but we get lost in the Orchid Gardens. A worried official finally locates us and guides us back to the van, finding solace in blaming me for the mishap, ‘You shouldn’t have allowed the minister to stray so far.’ I apologise for causing a possible international crisis.

My next unco adventure was launched at an uneventful setting: a Chennai wedding where I run into family friend Ramesh, who, like all scions of Tambram clans, lives across the Atlantic. Hearing of my impending first visit to New York, he asks me what I most want to see in his city.Lickety-split I answer, ‘Isaac Asimov!’ and sigh over the ‘unfulfillable’ wish. Ramesh sighs right back - but with relief:  ‘I thought you wanted to see Cats’! Impossible to get tickets. But Asimov? Sure!’

And sure enough, as soon as I reach the Big Apple, a stranger telephones to say that he would be delighted to meet a reader from India. That very evening a dapper man with bushy sideburns, a speckled blue gem (lapis?) gleaming at his throat, a ready laugh itching to crease lean cheeks, overwhelms me with cafe latte and autographed books. I pinch myself. Is the genius who invented the three laws of robotics, created an intergalactic Foundation empire, coined words like ‘spome’ and ‘psychohistory’, admiring my saree? Yes indeed. You see, Ramesh worked for Doubleday, Asimov’s publisher.

My last story begins with a freakish misfortune. Adina Darian – head of our Fipresci Jury of critics (UK, US, Germany, Romania, India) at the London International Film Festival – slips on a squashed peach in Charing Cross. The hospitalised scribe can neither announce the winner, nor read the citation at the prize-giving ceremony.  Other jury members insist that that I do the job because, ‘If you make the announcement in a saree, everyone will know Fipresci is an international organisation.’ So there I stand backstage at the star-studded gala, shivering and sneezing as the glitterati sweep past in gusts of perfume. 

I hear a soothing whisper, ‘Don’t worry. Just take a deep breath before you start speaking. You’ll be brilliant.’ I look up to see his encouraging smile before Kevin Spacey strides onto the stage to make his speech. An actor now accused of sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour. But no stranger to those little spontaneous, random acts of intuitive kindness and humane empathy –  for others with troubled minds.  

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician & journalist. Views are personal.