“The best place to begin,”
an old geezer who knew a thing or two about horses once told me, “is at the
beginning. Then, one should go on to the middle, and if the end is in sight,
make a dash for it.”
He was referring, I believe,
to the Grand National in the year that Kais-Kous won it by a nose from
Muslintang, but I’ve generally found the approach to work just as well in
telling stories. But…I don’t know, one gets restless – it seems to make sense
to try something different, even if for no particular reason, and of this urge,
I suppose, the following story is born.
It all begins (though this
is really the middle, if anything) at the Socialist Club of Upper Mumbai, that
hoary bastion of the anti-Capitalist movement, ensconced comfortably between
the woods of the National Park and the club’s own golf course. A picturesque
post-colonial structure houses the club, which is the meeting ground of the
leading members of the Socialist Party and functions, for all intents and
purposes, as the Party HQ. It was the last day of the monsoon session of the
State Legislature and we had won a significant victory over the ruling
capitalist coalition, blocking a new Bill that proposed preventing employees of
private flour mills from forming a Union.
The sounds of revelry
ringing through the halls of the S.C.U.M were unmistakable. Glasses clinked,
uproarious laughter broke out in places, and every five minutes or so came the
sound of someone slapping someone else’s back. Wine flowed like water, and I
had the distinct feeling that getting the stains of red wine off the carpet
might turn out to be rather an ordeal the next day. But that was for the next
day; for now we were celebrating a significant political victory, and it was a
time to clink glasses, laugh uproariously and slap each other’s backs.
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