An Irishman from Peshawar

KK, Preeta and I were standing at the bar at Irish Village. We didn’t quite notice the old man, about mid-60ish get up and ask KK his name. He complied, I next and finally Preeta. With a great flourish of his hands, the gentleman offered Preeta his bar stool.

“Where I come from that’s what we do. When there is a lady standing we Irish offer her our seat. That’s just what we do. That’s how we are.” He stuttered revealing that he was indeed quite drunk.

Preetha declined clarifying that we were headed to the open air section. KK politely asked him for his introduction.

“I am Francsish”. Like Saint Francsish”.

I tried hard to suppress my smirk at his drunken lisp.

“Saint Francsish of……” he paused searching.

“Of Assisi…” I volunteered help.

“Francsish, that’s my name, like St. Francsish of Assisi”.

“He’s buried in India, at Goa”, I added, to continue the conversation.

Francis, it seemed could only latch on to India from what I said.

“You know, who’s the greatest Saint of them all?” Francis asked looking at me but the question was posed to all of us. “Mahatma Gandhi….he was the greatest of them all. I have spent all my life reading and learning about him. I know everything that there is to know about Mahatma Gandhi”.

He stuck me as a missionary teacher. Or perhaps that was just the template of Irishmen in my mind having done some early schooling at St. Michael’s in Delhi and having gotten by backside whipped by the likes of Father McGinty and Father Tyson.

However, Francis claiming to be an authority and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, sitting, obviously inebriated in a bar, stuck me as a bit un-gandhian.

“Don’t you think that Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest person ever, the biggest saint ever?” Francis asked. The question was posed to me.

Now Gandhi, that’s a dicey subject for me. I paused, thinking so as to how to soften my tone on a topic of conversation that always angers me. Like many Indians I hold the belief that had it not been for Gandhi, India would have been a very different country for the better. His vision of India as one big happy commune as time has proved was so unrealistic.

“No. Had it not been for Gandhi, India would never have been partitioned.”

Francis was quite enraged. He cut me short before I could continue my argument, which I have had many a time before. It ends with me saying, “Quad, Erad, Demonstatum”.

“Gandhi had nothing to do with that. India was partitioned because that Jinnah just would not have it any other way”.

He was right and I knew it…Gandhi, Jinnah and Nehru the three architects of partition.

My tone agitated, I said, “All Gandhi had to do was to tell Nehru to let Jinnah be Prime Minister and there would have been no Pakistan”.

Tone apart I knew that my statement was merely a weak jab in an argument that requires a series of heavy punches.

“Did you know that Gandhi was bisexual”. KK said.

Wow! That was an uppercut that came out of nowhere. It took me by surprise though as I have never heard it before. It almost knocked out St. Francis.

KK had obviously touched a very raw nerve in St. Francis.

“No he was not”. St. Francis said very agitated.

“Yes he was. There was an article in Outlook which said so. It’s a leading magazine in India” KK stated the credentials of his statement.

St. Francis was enraged. “I do not care where it appeared, I know everything that there is to know about Mahatma Gandhi. I have spent all my life studying about him and that is something that enrages me. Gandhi was completely heterosexual”.

“Even if he was how does it matter? And he practiced abstinence” I said trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

St. Francis was still livid and he said to KK, “I am a lot older than you are but if I hear you say that Gandhi was bisexual, I will flatten you. You would be lying there”, he said pointing to the floor.

As soon as he said this, I labeled him from a drunk to a drunk fraud in my mind. No intellectual disciple of Gandhi would ever threaten a person with violence.

“We British (he had transitioned from being Irish to British and rightly so), we have done a lot of wrong things. India, South East Asia, Palestine…but don’t blame Mahatma Gandhi for the partition of India”.

I immediately warmed up to that statement and gave him some points for honesty.

“We are responsible for quite a few bad things and some good things too. We did…..”, again Francis searched.

“ built Institutions..” I helped him out.

“We built educational institutions, government….” He paused. “We screwed up quite a bit. But it saddens me that people do not know about their own countries. I go around telling all people about all the good things about their countries…that’s what I do. Take him he’s from Palestine”. He said turning to the person sitting next to him.

We did not know that he was with St. Francis, as a matter of fact I had not noticed him at all. A soft featured man in his mid 20’s, hair gelled back, trimmed mustache, plucked eye brows, effeminate smile.

“Have you been to India?” I asked.

“I was born in India. My father was a Major in the Indian army”.

“Where were you born?” I continued.

St. Francis again searched. It seemed as though he was trying to think of a name. Was he just a conjurer of conversation, I thought to myself. A person who just makes things up as he goes along!

“Peshawar”, he finally said. And I had a mental image of St. Francis driving a taxi, like most men from Peshawar whom I have come across.

More small talk followed, which revealed that the young man with St. Francis was not from Palestine but instead from Pakistan. We finally collected our drinks. KK and I experimented with Guinness. It seemed like the right thing to do being in Irish village.

After a while, I went back inside to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t find it and I heard a cacophonous rabble of British youngsters singing ‘Blowing in the wind’ with St. Francis in his midst. Now Bob Dylan draws me like a magnet and I went over to shout out a few lines. St. Francis greeted me warmly and asked me to join them.

“I was just leaving actually”, I lied.

“Would you like to have one last drink before you do?” Francis pointed me to the bar stool that was last occupied by the effeminate Pakistani. He did not sound drunk and the hint of proposition was clear in his eyes. I declined. He insisted. So I made up the excuse of going round the corner and coming back. Of course I had no intention of going back.

On way from the bathroom I saw the effeminate Pakistani again and it seemed to fall into place. I conjectured that it explained why St. Francis was so enraged at the thought of Gandhi being bisexual. Perhaps he had not yet come terms with his own bisexuality.
Was that also the reason why Mahatma Gandhi practiced abstinence? I was on a roll as far as conjectures go.

After a couple of hours, I saw the rabble of the English youth leaving with St. Francis walking behind everyone.
I felt sorry for him and conjectured yet again that perhaps he was just an old man trying to be interesting. Perhaps an old man just seeking the company of youth.