China.
No. But it could be, Udayan said.
Now if they happened to pass the Tolly Club together on their way to or from the tram depot, Udayan called it an affront. People still filled slums all over the city, children were born and raised on the streets. Why were a hundred acres walled off for the enjoyment of a few?
Subhash remembered the imported trees, the jackals, the bird cries. The golf balls heavy in their pockets, the undulating green of the course. He remembered Udayan going over the wall first, challenging him to follow. Crouching on the ground the last evening they were there, trying to shield him.
But Udayan said that golf was the pastime of the comprador bourgeoisie. He said the Tolly Club was proof that India was still a semicolonial country, behaving as if the British had never left.
He pointed out that Che, who had worked as a caddy on a golf course in Argentina, had come to the same conclusion. That after the Cuban revolution, getting rid of the golf courses was one of the first things Castro had done.
5.
By early 1968, in the face of increasing opposition, the United Front government collapsed, and West Bengal was placed under Presidentâs Rule.
The education system was also in crisis. It was an outdated pedagogy, at odds with Indiaâs reality. It taught the young to ignore the needs of common people. This was the message radical students started to spread.
Echoing Paris, echoing Berkeley, exams were boycotted throughout Calcutta, diplomas torn up. Students called out during convocation addresses, disrupting the speakers. They said campus administrations were corrupt. They barricaded vice-chancellors in their offices, refusing them food and water until their demands were met.
In spite of the unrest, encouraged by professors, both brothers began postgraduate studies, Udayan at Calcutta University, Subhash continuing on at Jadavpur. They were expected to fulfill their potential, to support their parents one day.
Udayanâs schedule turned more erratic. One night when he did not return for dinner, their mother kept it waiting in the corner of the kitchen, under a plate. When she asked, in the morning, why he hadnât eaten what sheâd set aside, he told her heâd eaten at the home of a friend.
When he was gone, there was no talk during mealtimes of how the Naxalbari movement was spreading to other parts of West Bengal, also to some other parts of India. No discussion about the guerillas active in Bihar, in Andhra Pradesh. Subhash gathered that Udayan turned to others now, with whom he could talk freely about these things.
Without Udayan they ate in silence, without strife, as their father preferred. Though Subhash missed his brotherâs company, at times it came as a relief to sit down at the study table by himself.
When Udayan was at home, odd hours, he turned on the shortwave. Dissatisfied by official reports, he found secret broadcasts from stations in Darjeeling, in Shiliguri. He listened to broadcasts from Radio Peking. Once, just as the sun was rising, he succeeded in transporting Maoâs distorted voice, interrupted by bursts of static, addressing the people of China, to Tollygunge.
Because Udayan invited him, because he was curious, Subhash went with him one evening to a meeting, in a neighborhood in North Calcutta. The small smoky room was filled mostly with students. There was a portrait of Lenin, wrapped in plastic, hanging on a mint-green plaster wall. But the mood in the room was anti-Moscow, pro-Peking.
Subhash had pictured a raucous debate. But the meeting was orderly, run like a study session. A wispy-haired medical student named Sinha assumed the role of professor. The others were taking notes. One by one they were called upon to prove their familiarity with events in Chinese history, tenets of Mao.
They distributed the latest copies of Deshabrati and Liberation. There was an update on the insurgency at Srikakulam. One hundred villages across two
No. But it could be, Udayan said.
Now if they happened to pass the Tolly Club together on their way to or from the tram depot, Udayan called it an affront. People still filled slums all over the city, children were born and raised on the streets. Why were a hundred acres walled off for the enjoyment of a few?
Subhash remembered the imported trees, the jackals, the bird cries. The golf balls heavy in their pockets, the undulating green of the course. He remembered Udayan going over the wall first, challenging him to follow. Crouching on the ground the last evening they were there, trying to shield him.
But Udayan said that golf was the pastime of the comprador bourgeoisie. He said the Tolly Club was proof that India was still a semicolonial country, behaving as if the British had never left.
He pointed out that Che, who had worked as a caddy on a golf course in Argentina, had come to the same conclusion. That after the Cuban revolution, getting rid of the golf courses was one of the first things Castro had done.
5.
By early 1968, in the face of increasing opposition, the United Front government collapsed, and West Bengal was placed under Presidentâs Rule.
The education system was also in crisis. It was an outdated pedagogy, at odds with Indiaâs reality. It taught the young to ignore the needs of common people. This was the message radical students started to spread.
Echoing Paris, echoing Berkeley, exams were boycotted throughout Calcutta, diplomas torn up. Students called out during convocation addresses, disrupting the speakers. They said campus administrations were corrupt. They barricaded vice-chancellors in their offices, refusing them food and water until their demands were met.
In spite of the unrest, encouraged by professors, both brothers began postgraduate studies, Udayan at Calcutta University, Subhash continuing on at Jadavpur. They were expected to fulfill their potential, to support their parents one day.
Udayanâs schedule turned more erratic. One night when he did not return for dinner, their mother kept it waiting in the corner of the kitchen, under a plate. When she asked, in the morning, why he hadnât eaten what sheâd set aside, he told her heâd eaten at the home of a friend.
When he was gone, there was no talk during mealtimes of how the Naxalbari movement was spreading to other parts of West Bengal, also to some other parts of India. No discussion about the guerillas active in Bihar, in Andhra Pradesh. Subhash gathered that Udayan turned to others now, with whom he could talk freely about these things.
Without Udayan they ate in silence, without strife, as their father preferred. Though Subhash missed his brotherâs company, at times it came as a relief to sit down at the study table by himself.
When Udayan was at home, odd hours, he turned on the shortwave. Dissatisfied by official reports, he found secret broadcasts from stations in Darjeeling, in Shiliguri. He listened to broadcasts from Radio Peking. Once, just as the sun was rising, he succeeded in transporting Maoâs distorted voice, interrupted by bursts of static, addressing the people of China, to Tollygunge.
Because Udayan invited him, because he was curious, Subhash went with him one evening to a meeting, in a neighborhood in North Calcutta. The small smoky room was filled mostly with students. There was a portrait of Lenin, wrapped in plastic, hanging on a mint-green plaster wall. But the mood in the room was anti-Moscow, pro-Peking.
Subhash had pictured a raucous debate. But the meeting was orderly, run like a study session. A wispy-haired medical student named Sinha assumed the role of professor. The others were taking notes. One by one they were called upon to prove their familiarity with events in Chinese history, tenets of Mao.
They distributed the latest copies of Deshabrati and Liberation. There was an update on the insurgency at Srikakulam. One hundred villages across two
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