|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Almost an Ambassador
Doot becomes the Ambassador of Princetown to Tertia. His ambition is to become an Ambassador Extraordinary. For that he has to perform the serious diplomatic business of doing nothing. It should not be difficult for him, keeping in view the guiding principle of climbing the trees he received from his would-be-wife during his courtship. Throughout the novel, Doot remains actively engaged in a series of adventures that turn out to be misadventures. The carefully cultivated style of the novelist inflates the little acts into something of epic proportions. There are innumerable instances of the juxtaposition of the great and the small. This is the source of constant comedy. Doot’s first encounter with the whisky bottle is like this: "In one momentous assertion of adulthood, he stepped purposefully across the room towards the mantle piece, took a deep breath as he stood facing the bottle. It was deep enough to cause a full-scale atmospheric upheaval. More immediately, it blew away the dust from the bottle. Some dust particles flew into his nostrils, and Doot sneezed." The novelist also uses the domestic variety of humour. A conversation between Doot and Sundari goes like this: "You`85" "I. What?" asked Doot, patting her face affectionately. "You... are going to become a father." "You are joking!" he said incredulously. "How did it happen?" he added, blundering again. We can well imagine what happens in the diplomatic circles when a person like Doot becomes an ambassador. Whatever happens lays bare the limits and redundancy of diplomacy. Through some deft narrative, we come to grasp many secrets of a successful diplomat. Good clothes, high-heeled shoes and wigs make good diplomats, and because half of the diplomacy is conducted at the dinner table, it is essential to have a good cook, too. Doot slowly learns all this and much more. On arrival at the airport, his wig flies and is caught in the mid-air by the indispensable Sundari just in the nick of time. He mistakes the Emir of Tertia for a beggar and is confined to an asylum because of his own mistaken identity. His staff-members rebel against him and he wraps around his body the national flag as a shield. Gradually, he becomes entangled in the war-politics waged between Tertia and her neighbour, Inertia. Later, in order to become an international hero, he reinterprets history to enable him to shift his loyalties guiltlessly and assist General Thinmeat in the coup against the Emir. But that is just another blunder. We are never sure what is it that we witness. Is it a fantasy propped up by names like Pridewallah and Chota-muh, or some kind of realism involving tender strains of domestic, but exaggerated feuds, or an amalgam of the two? In whatever way we look at the novel, it has unflagging hilarity from the beginning to the end. The mixture of realism and fantasy makes the satiric flavour pointed. It is a difficult accomplishment, considering that the matter has not slipped out of the bounds of measured prose and fluidity. |
THIS is the story of a man
named Doot. When he thinks that his courtship is at a sufficiently
advanced stage, he declares impulsively to Sundari: "You must marry
me." She retorts: "Marry? You? ... go climb a tree!" From
that point, his life changes. He is determined to climb the tree. Not
only does he start climbing the different social, political, sensual,
and diplomatic trees, but also wins Sundari for his bride.