Topi

As an urban, middle-class youth, what are your first images when I say ‘Socialist India’?  A country stricken by poverty, where the common man’s spirit, optimism and aspirations are crushed by the apathetic politician and the leviathan bureaucracy, where one’s enterprise has to fight not just the official license raj, but also the parallel goonda system? A society where one had to, and often did, cynically resort to sneaky opportunism to rise above the ordinary? A society where the Ambassador was a symbol of prosperity and power? At least, this is the image that has been painted in popular culture- movies, novels, TV shows.

This is the India Topi is set in yet. Sanjay Sahay, in this wryly-humorous yet tragic short story, captures the travails of Ramai, your archetypical, small town youth from the Hindi hinterland, who struggles with on and off employment to make a mark for himself. Ramai is the only major human character one meets in this story- a man with low self-esteem, who has been always put down by those around him, one who has been bullied, and even seen his father bullied and abused in the choicest of words by the local goonda, Baalo without being able to do anything about it. If ever there was a socially anonymous person, it was Ramai- or so it would seem. What would he do when he had a shot at illegitimate power? Would he take it, would he overcome years of slight and humiliation to get back at those who bullied him? Would there be redemption, fooling not just the goonda and the common man, but also escaping the long arms of big brother?

The two other prominent human characters are only the antagonists who provide the setting for Ramai’s character to flower- we are hardly told anything about their past. Baalo is the constant figure that haunts Ramai, the neighborhood bully who goes around collecting illegal taxes. One has met Baalo many a time- in the movies and in real life. He could be the goonda who gets a cut in every property transaction, the guy who runs the local crime racket in cohort with the officials, the guy you would have to pay off to get your "work done". The DSP on the other hand, is the official face of power, the ‘benevolent’ benefactor who could provide a job, as a driver or cleaner perhaps, to the Ramais of the world. Of course, one couldn’t reach him except through one of his cronies.

The reason I described the DSP and Baalo as the two other prominent human character is that, funnily enough, the most rounded character in the story after Ramai is the Topi, the symbol of power- illegitimate, ephemeral, corrupting, transforming, and fun when it lasts. The story, and Ramai’s life it would seem, reaches its high point when he gets the chance to slip on the DSP’s hat, and lo the cat transforms into a lion! Under his new garb, Ramai lives his dream, even daring to abuse a dumbstruck, previously unapproachable Baalo. But, almost inevitably, it would seem that all good things must come to an end, and Ramai is found out while pushing his luck a bit too much. The fall from grace is all too swift, and brutal.

The strength of the story lies in its metaphor that resonates with our popular image of pre-liberalization India. Was the mood really as dampening and cynical, I wouldn’t be able to say for I haven’t experienced it. But why really did Ramai have to get caught and beaten up? Couldn’t the author have ended it on a more cheerful note? Was he trying to make a point that power always corrupted, that it could turn even a Ramai into a bully, or just that one couldn’t escape the angst and frustration of the times? Either way, one couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ramai.

Once one gets caught up in the metaphor, it is easy to look past the human story beneath. It might seem like Sahay pushes it to fit the metaphor- wouldn’t the townsfolk, and Baalo in particular not really recognize Ramai just because he is wearing a DSP’s Topi? But as I said, such exaggerations are overshadowed by the metaphor.

Given all this, one would think it would be hard to miss the metaphor- but miss I did when I read it the first time! It was only when a member of the circle pointed out that the Topi was an important character and a symbol of power did it all come together for me- the suffocation caused by being bullied by the parallel system of law on the one side and being at the mercy of a faceless state for livelihood on the other, and what it did to the one’s self-esteem and aspirations.