The Lowland Read Online Free PDF Page B

hundred mountainous miles, falling under Marxist sway.
    Peasant rebels were creating strongholds where no policeman dared enter. Landowners were fleeing. There were reports of families burned to death in their sleep, their heads displayed on stakes. Vengeful slogans painted in blood.
    Sinha spoke quietly. Sitting at a table, ruminating, his fingers clasped.
    A year has passed since Naxalbari, and the CPI(M) continues to betray us. They have disgraced the red banner. They have flaunted the good name of Marx.
    The CPI(M), the policies of the Soviet Union, the reactionary government of India, all amount to the same thing. They are lackeys of the United States. These are the four mountains we must seek to overthrow.
    The objective of the CPI(M) is maintaining power. But our objective is the formation of a just society. The creation of a new party is essential. If history is to take a step forward, the parlor game of parliamentary politics must end.
    The room was silent. Subhash saw Udayan hanging on Sinha’s words. Riveted, just as he used to look listening to a football match on the radio.
    Though Subhash was also present, though he sat beside Udayan, he felt invisible. He wasn’t convinced that an imported ideology could solve India’s problems. Though a spark had been lit a year ago, he didn’t think a revolution would necessarily follow.
    He wondered if it was a lack of courage, or of imagination, that prevented him from believing in it. If the deficits he’d always been conscious of were what prevented him from sharing his brother’s political faith.
    He remembered the silly signals he and Udayan used to send to one another, pressing the buzzer, making each other laugh. He didn’t know how to respond to the message Sinha was transmitting, which Udayan so readily received.
    Below their bed, pushed back against the wall, Subhash noticed a can of red paint and a brush that had not been there before. Beneath their mattress, he found a folded piece of paper containing a list of slogans, copied out in Udayan’s hand. China’s Chairman is our Chairman! Down with elections! Our path is the path of Naxalbari!
    The walls of the city were turning thick with them now. The walls of campus buildings, the high walls of the film studios. The lower walls flanking the lanes of their enclave.
    One night, Subhash heard Udayan come into the house and go straight to the bathroom. The sound of water hitting the floor. Subhash was sitting at the study table, his back to the room. Udayan slid the bucket of paint beneath their bed.
    Subhash closed his notebook, replaced the cap on his pen. What were you doing just now?
    Rinsing off.
    Udayan crossed the room and sat in a chair by the window. He was wearing pajamas that hung on him loosely. The air was still. His chest was bare. He put a cigarette to his lips and slid open a matchbox. It took him a few tries to strike the match.
    You were painting slogans? Subhash asked him.
    The ruling class puts its propaganda everywhere. Why should they be allowed to influence people and no one else?
    What happens if the police catch you?
    They won’t.
    He turned on the radio. If we don’t stand up to a problem, we contribute to it, Subhash.
    After a pause he added, Come with me tomorrow, if you want.
    Again Subhash was the lookout. Again alert to every sound.
    They crossed a wooden bridge that spanned a narrow section of Tolly’s Nullah. It was a neighborhood considered remote when they were younger, where they’d been told not to wander.
    Subhash held the flashlight. He illuminated a section of the wall. It was close to midnight. They’d told their parents that they were going to a late show of a film.
    He stood close. He held his breath. The pond frogs were calling, monotonous, insistent.
    He watched as Udayan dipped the paintbrush into the can. He was writing, in English, Long live Naxalbari!
    Quickly Udayan formed the letters of the slogan. But his hand was