Narcopolis

And just then they appeared, a grey-haired man in a kurta supporting another grey-haired man in a kurta, both apparently drunk, and, bringing up the rear, a peon in a short-sleeved blue shirt with PEN stitched in red letters on the breast pocket. The peon at least seemed sober. The first drunk, Akash Iskai, was a poet and art critic whose name appeared frequently in the newspapers. He helped his friend to a chair on the stage and shuffled to the podium where he launched into a long, unexpectedly coherent speech about modern Indian art.

‘Xavier and his old friends and colleagues in the Modern Autists Group invented modern art in India,’ he ended by saying. ‘I use the word advisedly, for these senior artists are.’

‘For God’s sake,’ the other man interrupted, ‘don’t call me senior, I’m not a fogey just yet. And don’t call them my friends: we went our separate ways a long time ago. If anything we’re old antagonists.’

The poet appeared unfazed by the interjection. The Modern Autists were reckless originators, he said, going where no one else had dared to venture. They were truthful innovators even when they were false and dissolute, yes, because they were babes in the urban wood. He called them chinless wonders, though I may have heard it wrong, he might have said sinless. I was nodding off a little by then. These bold men, for they were all men, overturned the dictatorship of the Academies and the Schools of Here and There, Iskai said. They made it new, in Ezra’s inimitable words, which, as poets know, is not a dictum as much as a piece of practical advice. At the mention of poetry, there was some unhappy murmuring in the audience. Sensing he had lost them, Iskai turned to Xavier, who sat motionless in his chair.

‘Perhaps you can tell us what the falling-out was about?’

‘Colour, brother Iskai. What else? It brought us together and tore us apart. I should mention that things were more desperate then. We were at the JJ School of Art, learning to paint by numbers, eating dead meat shipped out by the Royal School and the Bengal School, and then we discovered Picasso and Van Gogh and Gauguin. We were young, feeding off each other. Everything was wide open. Now, of course, things have changed. I don’t agree with their ideas about colour and I have no doubt they disagree with mine.’

There was an uncomfortable silence while the painter, spent from his outburst, stared expressionlessly at his audience. The silence stretched until a small figure at the back of the room raised his hand and Xavier pointed at the man.

‘Didn’t art school teach you anything about colour?’

Xavier said, ‘Certainly not, I learned about colour by looking at flowers. Let’s not talk about school.’

Iskai said, ‘No more questions, question time is later. We will proceed in orderly fashion, please. First, the guest of honour will make a speech. Join me in welcoming India’s own Newton Xavier.’

But the guest of honour was unable to get up from his seat. The peon shoved his hands under Xavier’s armpits and heaved. Nothing happened. Then Iskai suggested that Xavier read sitting down and the peon handed him a sheet of paper. The painter held the page in one shaking hand, the other pincering his spectacles in a two-fingered grip. He looked old and terminally ill. I wasn’t the only one who expected him to topple from his chair and it struck me that the people in the audience weren’t interested in Xavier’s poems or his views on colour. They were there to see if the bad boy of Indian art would live up to his reputation. They hoped to see him combust in front of their eyes, or implode, or die of a heart attack, or leap from his seat and rape an audience member. The worse his behaviour the happier they would be. It was voyeurism at its vilest and we were drinking in the details: the stains on his kurta — drink? blood? semen? — the disreputable rubber slippers, his binge stubble and rapid eyes, his death pallor, the wonderful fact that he was too drunk to stand.

‘Now you know what legless means,’ said the matron beside me in a stage whisper that carried through the room.

‘Madam, I have warned you before about your bad habit. Please keep quiet or I will be forced to have you ejected permanently,’ said Iskai, suddenly furious.

Someone had placed a glass of water near Xavier but in lifting it he shakily spilled some on the table and he put the glass down without wetting his lips. He was going to read a new poem, he said, speaking so softly that the audience had to lean forward to hear him. Then he started to read and his voice was mild, the words perfectly articulated, the accent round and rich and neutral, not British or American or Indian but godlike. Most striking of all was the tone of absolute authority. I heard the coldness under it and it gave me a shiver, even in that heat it gave me a shiver.

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