The objection cheered Avinash, and he laughed, throwing his arm over Maneck’s shoulders as they crossed the quadrangle. “I didn’t know you were an expert in Gandhian philosophy. Tell me, would you like to chair the cockroach subcommittee? I’ll second the motion.”
Maneck attended a few rallies and protests, only in order to support his friend. After a while, even that wasn’t a sufficient reason. The process was so tediously repetitious, he stopped going.
Avinash did not have time for chess in the evenings anymore. They still ate together but were seldom alone, and Maneck resented it. A crowd hung around his friend, discussing and arguing about things he did not understand and was not interested in understanding. Their talk was filled with words like democratization, constitution, alienation, degeneration, decentralization, collectivization, nationalism, capitalism, materialism, feudalism, imperialism, communalism, socialism, fascism, relativism, determinism, proletarianism — ism, ism, ism, ism, the words flying around him like buzzing insects.
Why couldn’t these fellows talk normally? wondered Maneck. To amuse himself he began counting their various isms, and stopped when he reached twenty. Sometimes, dogs came into their debates — imperialist dogs, running dogs of capitalism. Sometimes the dogs were pigs, capitalist pigs. Moneylending hyenas and landowning jackals also put in occasional appearances. And lately, besides the isms, there was this Emergency that they kept going on about, behaving as if the sky had fallen.
Feeling ignored, Maneck went to his room as soon as he finished his meal. He still had the plastic chessmen, and he set them up to play against himself. He made a move, then turned the board around. After a while it became boring. He tried the book Avinash had lent him, containing a series of endgame problems in increasing degrees of difficulty.
Hard though it was, Maneck continued to shun his friend’s company. Then, just as he was weakening after a few days of loneliness, deciding to give him a second chance, Avinash knocked on the door.
“Hi, what’s new?” He slapped Maneck’s back affectionately.
“This game.”
“Playing alone?”
“No, with me.” Maneck toppled his own king.
“Haven’t seen you much lately. Aren’t you curious about what’s been happening?”
“You mean in college?”
“Yes — and everywhere else, since the Emergency was declared.”
“Oh, that.” Maneck made an indifferent face. “I don’t know much about those things.”
“Don’t you read the newspapers?”
“Only the comics. All the political stuff is too boring.”
“Okay, I’ll make it simple and quick for you, so you don’t fall asleep.”
“Good. I’ll time you.” Maneck checked his watch. “Ready, begin.”
Avinash took a deep breath. “Three weeks ago the High Court found the Prime Minister guilty of cheating in the last elections. Which meant she had to step down. But she began stalling. So the opposition parties, student organizations, trade unions — they started mass demonstrations across the country. All calling for her resignation. Then, to hold on to power, she claimed that the country’s security was threatened by internal disturbances, and declared a State of Emergency.”
“Twenty-nine seconds,” said Maneck.
“Wait, there’s a bit more. Under the pretext of Emergency, fundamental rights have been suspended, most of the opposition is under arrest, union leaders are in jail, and even some student leaders.”
“You better be careful.”
“Oh, don’t worry, our college is not that important. But the worst thing is, the press is being censored — ”
“Not much point then in reading newspapers, is there?”
“And she has retroactively changed the election laws, turning her guilt into innocence.”
“And you don’t have time to play chess because of this.”
“I’m playing it all the time. Everything I do is chess. Come on, let’s see how much you’ve learned.” He set up the board, then concealed a white and a black pawn behind his back. Maneck guessed correctly and started the game by advancing the king’s pawn. Half an hour later he had won, much to his surprise.
“Serves me right, for teaching you so well,” said Avinash. “But we’ll have to have a return match soon.”
Now it would be like before, thought Maneck. Once again he would have Avinash to himself. His secret wish was that the Principal would ban the bloody Student Union because of the Emergency, as other universities were doing. Then there would be nothing to distract his friend.
But Maneck remained disappointed; their chess games did not resume. He knocked at Avinash’s door on several evenings, and there was no answer. Twice he slipped a note under the door: “Hi. Where have you been hiding? Afraid to face me over the chessboard or what? See you soon — Maneck.”
After the second note, when he saw him in the dining hall, Avinash only had time for a quick wave. “Got your message,” he said. “Free tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
And next night Maneck waited in his room, but his friend did not turn up. Angry and hurt, he went to bed promising himself this was it. If Avinash wanted to see him, he could chase after him for a change.
He missed Avinash. Strange, he thought, how a friendship could spring up suddenly one evening, facilitated by cockroaches and bedbugs. And then fizzle out just as suddenly, for reasons equally ludicrous. Maybe it was silly to have assumed it was a friendship in the first place.
Everything disgusting about the hostel that Maneck had learned to live with began to nauseate him with a renewed vengeance. As an antidote, he developed a morning waking routine: when his eyes opened, he shut them again and, head still on the pillow, imagined the mountains, swirling mist, birdsong, dogs’ paws pattering on the porch, the cool dawn air on his skin, the excited chatter of langurs, breakfast cooking in the kitchen, toast and fried eggs upon his tongue. When all his senses were thus anointed by home imaginings, he reopened his eyes and got out of bed.
On campus, a new group, Students For Democracy, which had surfaced soon after declaration of the Emergency, was now in the ascendant. Its sister organization, Students Against Fascism, maintained the integrity of both groups by silencing those who spoke against them or criticized the Emergency. Threats and assaults became so commonplace, they might have been part of the university curriculum. The police were now a permanent presence, helping to maintain the new and sinister brand of law and order.
Two professors who chose to denounce the campus goon squads were taken away by plainclothesmen for anti-government activities, under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act. Their colleagues did not interfere on their behalf because MISA allowed imprisonment without trial, and it was a well-known fact that those who questioned MISA sooner or later answered to MISA; it was safer not to tangle with something so pernicious.
Maneck worried about Avinash; as President of the original Student Union, surely he was in grave danger from the new groups on campus. At night, he listened for sounds from the room next to his. The door shutting softly, the clatter of the metal cupboard, the wheeze of the spray pump, the thunk of the bed revealed that his friend was fine, that he had not been assaulted or taken away into secret detention.
Maneck hurried between hostel and college without stopping to watch the daily farces of bullying, toadying, and submission. The office of the campus newspaper was attacked, the writers and editors roughed up and sent packing. The paper used to indulge in light satire and occasionally poke fun at the government or university administration, although satire had become increasingly difficult in recent times, for the government was practising the art in its own reports to the censored media, better than the campus paper had ever done.
After taking over, Students For Democracy released a statement in the next issue that the publication’s new voice would be more representative of the college population. The rest of the paper was filled with a model code of conduct for students and teachers.
One morning, classes were cancelled and a flag-raising ceremony was organized in the quadrangle. Attendance was compulsory, enforced by Students Against Fascism. The president of Students For Democracy took the microphone. He appealed to the figures of authority to come forward, prove their love for the country, set an example of patriotic behaviour.
On cue, lecturers, associate professors, full professors, and department heads approached the dais, en
