novels are amazing enough, but his short stories are also real masterpieces - especially the Mulliner series and the Golf stories.
I wanted to share with you the Wodehouse tribute stories I wrote to honour his memory. I wrote 2 stories, and this is the first one - Wodehouse style with a Desi twist, and some autobiographical angst too :)
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The wishing well
“There are more things in this heaven and earth…ho –hic – Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philo-hic-sophy.”
I turned and gave a sour look to my companion. Venugopal Rao was a normal person most times, but under the influence of Kingfisher he could become irritatingly pompous. And given to quoting – mostly misquoting – trite sayings to illustrate his point.
“Bah!” I replied.
“What do you mean sir?” Venu was aggravated. “What do you mean by that uncouth utterance?”
“I mean ‘Bah’. Or if you prefer the vernacular –‘Crap’, ‘Balls’ or ‘Eff off’. I don’t believe a word about magic or supernatural or your latest craze – Wishing wells, and anyway, you have misquoted Hamlet.”
“I haven’t!” Venu swelled up like an offended balloon. “I’ll have you know my good man, that I am an Arts major, and have studied literature for three years, and know Shakespeare from soup to nuts.”
“Why do people use that phrase, I wonder…I am sure that you have never had a formal dinner that began with soup and ended with nuts…and…oh never mind…” I said hastily before he could respond “Never mind about dinners or Shakespeare, the point I am making is that all your talk about Wishing wells is absurd.”
“Absurd, is it?”
“Yep. That’s what it is. Absurd.”
“Have you heard about Raju Golani’s experience ?”
“Who’s Raju Golani?”
“Ah. You have not heard then. Be of good cheer. I am about to tell you.” Venu broke off for a moment to tell the waiter to get him another beer, and make bloody sure that it was cold and not piss-warm like this one, or he would break his bloody neck, and turned back to me. “Well, its like this….there was a chap called Raju Golani…”
“…who lived long ago in a kingdom far far away.” I suggested, feeling that this is the ususal opening line of a fairy tale.
“Don’t interrupt, Blast you! Always yak-yak-yakking! No, he didn’t live long ago in any ruddy far away kingdom. He is very much alive and still lives in Bombay.
“There aren’t any wishing wells in Bombay.” I objected. “Hardly any normal wells either, nowadays. Only bore wells. And you cant drop coins into them, they will clog up the pump and then it will cost a packet to repair them…OK, OK…I am sorry…” I said, quickly changing gears when I saw Venu’s hand close tightly on the neck of the empty Kingfisher bottle. “Please carry on.”
Raju Golani (continued Venu) was a most prosaic character. By prosaic, I don’t mean that he was a dull dog, but was a writer of prose. This was remarkable because he was surrounded on all sides by wannabe poets of every description, all quick with a mordant verse, or a sad sonnet or even a naughty limerick. But his ambition was to become a writer of prose – write a book, strike it big like Rowling or Roy, show the middle finger to his boss and then retire to live the good life, instead of slogging away as a wage slave as he was currently doing.
So, if you count, you can see three ambitions
1. Strike it big as an author, make the lots of moolah
2. Show the middle finger to his boss.
3. Retire and live the ‘Good life’
And of course, if you have the keen, analytical and highly trained mind, like I do, you can see that all three hinged on one thing – him making it big as a writer. All other things would flow from it – Moolah, Middle finger and Mood life. (Well, ‘Good’ life actually, but it sounds so cool to have the words start from a single alphabet)
This was pretty apparent to Raju as well, so he tried hard to succeed – he wrote whimsical essays, amusing short stories, reams of satire, modern novels – in short, anything for which he felt that there could be a market; and sent reams and reams of paper to all the various newspapers and publishing houses like a snowstorm. But unfortunately – like the fellow who sowed the rain and reaped the whirlwind (did I get the saying right?) – he sowed the snowstorm of submissions and reaped a blizzard of rejection letters. All the papers and publishers he sent his stuff to, promptly returned them, with the speed of a tennis player returning a quick serve with a smashing crosscourt forehand.
After spending all his evenings in writing, and donating most of his savings to the A4 paper vendors and the courier companies, our friend Mr Golani was at his wits end. He had tried writing all the various types of stuff which he thought might have a market, he had tried meeting editors, other authors, journalists or anybody in the profession, he had tried submitting under false names, he had tried pretending to be a foreign author traveling in Mumbai, he had pretended to be Shobha De’s grand-nephew…he had even tried walking bare-chested and bare foot to the Shani temple for a month of ‘Shaniwars’.
But nothing seemed to work. When I bumped into him, he was tearing his hair out. All his poet friends and relatives were mocking him, his boss was still biting pieces out of his leg every now and then, and the moolah and the good life were nowhere in sight. All he had to show for his labours was a filing cabinet full of his work, an impressive scrap book of rejection letters and calloused finger-tips.
I felt sorry for him and decided to help him out and so I told him about this Wishing well which I just told you about. He was also a bit skeptical at first, but then he was so desperate that he was open to any idea at all.
“Wishing well, eh?” he said, biting his moustache.
“Yep.”
“The normal kind of well? I mean you just drop a coin into it, and make a wish and it comes true? You don’t have to drop a human sacrifice or anything?”
“No, no, no my dear chap! What an idea! No sacrifice nothing…just drop a rupee into it, close your eyes and make a wish.”
“Hmm…Where is this place?”
I told him the location, its tucked somewhere in the sahyadri hills, and not too many people know about it, or the crowds would be unmanageable. I just happen to know it because I caught the temple pujari in an guarded moment once, when we shared a pipe of Marijuana and he told me about it. But after he sobered up, he begged me not to tell anyone, and I promised that I would tell only someone whom I felt was in dire need of divine help. I put the same stipulation to Raju and he agreed.
He immediately set off to the place and was back in a couple of days.
“So, all well?” I asked when I saw him “Found the place? Dropped the rupee? Made the wish?”
“Yes, yes, yes and yes.” He replied to all my questions linearly. “But Venu, you weren’t pulling my leg? This thing actually works?”
“Why, of course it does. I dropped a rupee in it myself and my wish came true. Yours will too.”
“Well, it better. If I find out that you have just been pulling my leg and been laughing up your sleeve at my gullibility and desperation, I will break your neck!”
“My dear fellow!” I said with dignity. “I wouldn’t stoop to a thing like that. And anyway, I am wearing a sleeveless shirt, so I couldn’t laugh up my sleeve even if I wanted to. I would put a crick in my neck and choke in my armpit hair.”
He had no reply to my simple dignity and devastating comeback, so he just grunted and left. I reminded him to send out his manuscript to publishers, so that we could see the effect of the well at work.
I met him again after a few days.
“Well?” I asked
“Well.” He reassured me.
“Well well.” I said in relief. I hadn’t forgotten his threat to break my neck.
“Well, well, well…” he said in admiration of the well.
“Well then?” I enquired.
“Welling, its welling.” He replied with an upwelling of hope. “I sent it to Dodo India publishers and they said that they are interested. They are planning to start a new imprint – Buzzard India Books – and mine could be first book in that.”
“Swell”
“Alls well that ends well” he reminded me, “But it’s not ended yet.”
“That’s true. Let’s see what wells up.”
And on that note we left. I heard later that Buzzard India had accepted his book and signed a contract.
The months passed, and no news from Raju Golani. I must say that I was a bit hurt. I mean, success is good, but it shouldn’t make you forget old friends – especially ones who helped you succeed.
Then one day I bumped into him.
“Yaar, Raju. What is this? You have become a famous author and not even told us?”
He laughed bitterly. “Who’s become a famous author? Show him to me.”
I was taken aback.
“Who? You, of course. Haven’t you been published by Buzzard?”
“I am an author, yes – but not a famous one. My book did get published, but the Bustards didn’t market it well…”
“Patience, lad” I remonstrated. “They might not have done a good job, but there is no need to get into vulgar abuse.”
“Theres no abuse, you idiot. Bustard marketing is the sales arm of Dodo and Buzzard publishing.”
“Oh, sorry…continue”
“As I was saying, the Bustards took my novel, which I had spent so much time and effort on – and published it in a cheap and unattractive format, and didn’t market it at all, and so the book sank without a trace. Bah!”
“Oh dear.”
“Dear dear dear.”
“Well Well well.”
He started, and came to life and started walking towards me menacingly.
“And it’s all your fault!”
“Why my fault?” I paled and started backing off. Raju Golani was looking like one of those mass murderers who go around slaying six.
“You led me on with your ridiculous story about Wishing Wells!”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” I asked plaintively. “You wished to be an author, and you are one now.”
“I wished to be a successful author, goddamit!” he screamed and made a lunge for me, and it was only due to my sprinting for my life and jumping into a passing BEST bus that I survived that day.
Venu finished his story, took a long pull at his beer and looked at me proudly. I looked doubtfully at him.
“That’s it? That’s the story?”
“Well…yeah.”
“Then it’s a rotten bloody story! Your stupid wishing well didn’t work, did it?”
“Ah! That’s what I thought too – so I went to that place in the Sahyadris and cribbed to the pujari there. He was also quite surprised, and so he instituted enquiries.
And what do you think he found?”
“What?”
“In spite of my careful directions, the silly fool had dropped a fifty paise coin into the well, instead of a rupee as I had said!”
“What? So you mean…” slowly I began to understand
“So of course…” Venu took a long pull at his beer “Only half his wish came true!”
End
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