The Solitude of Emperors Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘just don’t ever forget the final kick.’

 
     
    2
    The Indian Secularist
     
    The cornices and fretwork of Jehangir Mansion were crumbling, scaffolding propped up the west wing, but the grandeur of the five-storey building was still unmistakable 122 years after it was first built. Stately gulmohars and peltophorums kept out the tumult of the city from the wealthy enclave in which the building stood. It was from here that the legendary Rustom Sorabjee had published The Indian Secularist for a little over twenty of his eighty-three years. The magazine, still printed on one of the last surviving letter-presses in Bombay, had never missed an issue in this time; neither big events nor small—riots, cyclones, government censors, lawsuits, the death of Mr Sorabjee’s wife—had prevented its appearance on the first Monday of every month in the postboxes of its 3,200 faithful subscribers. At its peak, during emergency rule imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, when virtually all the mainstream media had meekly submitted to government pressure to conform and prevaricate, the magazine’s defiantly independent stance had caused its circulation almost to quadruple. Once law and order returned to the land, however, the surge abated.
    The Indian Secularist broke no new stories and was printed on cheap paper, but its faithful readership was not buying it for any of these things. They subscribed to it for its mix of informed commentary and analysis of the sectarian mischief of politicians and priests and especially for Mr Sorabjee’s thoughtful editorials that he still wrote out in long hand to be typed up on an old-fashioned Godrej typewriter by only the second secretary he had employed since he had started the magazine. Mrs Dastur, who had come on board when his first secretary had died a decade previously, was a small woman with iron-grey hair and oversized lilac-framed spectacles—an unexpectedly ill-judged touch to her attire, which was otherwise restricted to sober skirts, white blouses and sensible shoes. She was devoted to her employer, and guarded him with a ferocity that anyone misguided enough to cross him soon discovered. Mrs Dastur was the one who announced me the first time I met Mr Sorabjee. She led me into a room with high ceilings which, at first sight, seemed overwhelmingly given over to paper. Old issues of the magazine, newspapers, government reports and files stuffed with clippings were strewn everywhere on the sofas, bookshelves, sideboard and desk.
    ‘Don’t take too much of his time, he’s had a bad attack of gout,’ she whispered and left.
    Her employer was a small man with a large domed head that was totally bald and spattered with liver spots. He put me in mind of a judge, with his commanding nose and deep-socketed eyes—a figure of trust and authority. He shook hands with me, murmured, ‘Mr Vijay,’ and indicated that I should sit on the only chair besides his own that wasn’t littered with paper. A telephone rang in the outer office, and Mr Sorabjee cocked his head as if to hear what his secretary was saying. Then he said quietly, ‘I have published this magazine for two decades, Mr Vijay, and I have rarely despaired as much about the country’s future. Not since we put the insanity of the partition killings behind us have I felt things were so bleak; communalism seems to have become an everyday thing. And all because of a small group of people with a self-serving agenda and those who have been taken in by them. That’s why I was so heartened by your article—the sense of disgust with the way things are is good to see in someone so young. Although we’re one of the world’s oldest civilizations, in many ways we are a young country too, so it’s crucial we chart the right path for the future.’ The large domed head shook as if in sorrow and then he added, ‘But I am sure we will have plenty of time to talk. Shall we start the interview?’
    I had prepared for this day