The Ministry of Fear
Graham Greene
Penguin Books. First Published 1943.
The title page has the name 'Pravin Paul' written on it in ink. Obviously, the book belonged to Pravin, and I must have 'borrowed' it from him, probably the time I was sharing a room (B2) with him in IISc. This as good a place and time as any to memorialize him. Pravin Paul completed his MSc (Physics) at MCC about the same time I finished my MSc at Baroda. He joined for an MS in the ECE dept., IISc, (it was possible at that time) at the same time that I joined for a PhD at the Physics dept. MCC was the common factor, and my BSc classmates from MCC, Satish and PKC Paul, had been his tutors and friends at MCC. Now all of us were together at IISc and thus became friendly. Pravin was a happy-go-lucky chap, not a very strong reader, but he had a favourite author in Graham Greene, and introduced me to him. I had read about Graham Greene in the context of his helping R.K. Narayan to get published, but I had not read any of his books. Pravin talked to me about 'Our Man in Havana'. I liked that when I read it later, but at that time, I first bought, I think, 'Travels With My Aunt', and I remember discussing that, and other books by Greene that we read over the next year or so. In my second year at IISc, I moved into B2 with him, and he was a nice, comfortable, trouble-free room mate. We got along well together. He snored, but I got used to that soon, and he never complained, at least to me, about any of my habits. One of things I remember distinctly is that every Saturday afternoon, at about 5.00 pm, he would bathe, shave, neatly comb his hair, freshen himself with talcum powder, put on his best clothes (often a pale pink shirt), and go out to meet one of the girls in whom he was interested - either Baby, the sister of a common friend of ours, or Sandhya, a girl from a local college he met in the company of some friends. As far I know, he never really got to any level of intimacy with either of these, not even taking them out for tea or dinner, very 'properly' limiting himself to visiting them in their homes, in the presence of their respective families. After he got his degree, there was initially the exciting possibility that he would join Schlumberger, India, at a fabulous salary, but that job did not materialize. About 1984 he joined a computer company in Pondicherry. A couple of years later, when riding to work on his scooter, he was hit by a three-wheeler. He was thrown off and his back hit a stone, breaking his spine. He was taken, in an auto, to JIPMER, but, though alive, he was paralyzed from neck down. He was shifted to Apollo, Chennai, and then to CMC, Vellore, but the doctors could do nothing to return any function to his limbs. Pravin thus found himself in the position of Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of 'The Metamorphosis' by Franz Kafka, who woke up one day to find himself changed into a 'monstrous, verminous bug'. The subsequent sequence of events was remarkably like that described by Kafka - initial deep concern from family and friends, changing in a year or two to resignation and then to benign neglect and even active dislike. He passed away in 2004 or so. My relationship with him followed the 'Metamorphosis' pattern. I was in touch with him on and off when we left IISc. He had attended my wedding, but later I had not much contact with him. I was in Chennai, when I learnt of his accident from his colleagues. Pravin was then already in CMC. I visited him there two or three times, and then, at his home in Perambur when he shifted there. Then no contact for about 10 years, before in an idle moment I googled his name and, to my sorrow (and guilt) his obituary turned up. (Strangely, when I tried Google now, I could not get that reference again - in fact I get no mention of this Pravin Paul at all).
I do not recollect talking about 'The Ministry of Fear' to Pravin. Graham Greene calls it 'An Entertainment', his term for his own books over which, I think, he has not spent much time or effort. But it's really not very entertaining. The story is set in wartime London, constantly under threat of German bombardment. Arthur Rowe, a lonely, self-confessed murderer, who has performed euthanasia on his sick wife, gets involved in a German plot to steal some vaguely-described documents. He has one nightmarish experience after another, sequentially meeting sets of ostensible well-wishers, each of whom turn out to be not as benign as he initially supposes. The denouement is not clear, and, perhaps for that reason, not particularly exciting or interesting. Portions of the book remind me of the writing of Kazuo Ishiguro, e.g. 'The Unconsoled' or 'When we were Orphans'. Probably he was influenced by Greene. There is a sense of fear and mystery, of anxiety really, brooding over the book, which, of course is standard for Greene, but is used with greater purpose in his other books.
I saw a movie of the book in Paris in the company of Youri Timsit in 1999. Youri very kindly 'invited' me to the movie, which means that he simply refused to allow me to pay. It was one of the few English language movies to which we had easy access, and Youri allowed himself to watch the movie only because I had vague recollections of the book being a sophisticated read. (This means of course that I have read the book at least once earlier, probably as soon as I got it from Pravin in about 1984.) It turned out to be a bad choice. The movie had nothing of the sense of gloom and fear in the book. And the story, the acting, and the direction seemed downright silly. Reading the book again now, makes me see how it would have well nigh impossible to translate the book faithfully on to the screen.
No comments:
Post a Comment