I was forty years old then. I had requested a transfer from Delhi to Chennai. Delhi, being the capital, it was easy to ask to be transferred to another city from there. Initially, I didn’t want to relocate to Chennai, but due to some unavoidable circumstances, I had to make the move.

The Home Ministry asked, “Can we relocate you to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Chennai?”

I declined.

At that time, I believed in Che Guevara, the armed revolution, and everything else that went with it. I was afraid that if I, with my ultra-left leanings, joined the CBI, I would definitely be thrown out of the department. There was also another reason for me being so scared of the CBI.

In Delhi, there lived a critic- his name was Venkat Swaminathan. I was in touch with him from the time I first moved to Delhi in 1978 until 1982. In 1979, he sublet a room in his house to me. Generally, I don’t ask anyone the usual ‘Indian’ questions, such as, where they work, if they are married, how many kids they have, or whether they own or rent their house.

I don’t even know these details about some people I’ve known for years. 

I was working with the Civil Supplies department in Delhi at the time. And I would go to the office only once a month—to collect my salary. I will explain the reason in later episodes.

Swaminathan was just like me, with one difference: he went to the office every day, signed the attendance register, collected his personal mail, and left. He spent no more than half an hour at the office; the rest of his time was spent in libraries or watching international films at Mandi House.

Our daily routine was as follows: we would both leave home at half past nine in the morning. His office was half a kilometre away. We would reach his office at ten o’clock.

I never got a good look at his office, though. I just saw it from a distance, and it was a new building.

“You don’t have to come there, wait for me in the park,” he would say.   Back then in Delhi, there were numerous parks and I used to sit in one, waiting for him. He would come at half past ten. We would have a cup of tea there, catch a bus, and go straight to Lodhi Gardens. He used to bring curd rice for lunch every day. A little bit of rice floating in the buttermilk was what he called ‘curd rice’.

I would think that if I ate just that for a week, I would surely die. I often wonder how the Brahmins of Delhi managed to sustain themselves on such a diet. I would opt for tandoori roti and sabji at a roadside daba next to Lodhi Gardens. Swaminathan would join me for the meal and tuck it all in happily.

Our discussions covered a wide range of topics, including world literature, movies, plays, and philosophy. Our discussions would continue until half past four.

At that point, we would get up and make our way to Mandi House. Mandi House was surrounded by numerous auditoriums, each hosting a variety of international cinema, cultural events, and music programs daily. After watching the show of the evening, we usually wound up the day with dinner and returned home by half-past ten.

As I waited for Swaminathan in the park for half an hour, I often found myself wondering about his job. Based on his appearance and attire, one might assume he was either a clerk or a chaprasi. However, the chances of him being a chaprasiwere slim, as chaprasis were unlikely to be granted a three-bedroom house by their department. It was at the quarters allotted by the government to him that I was renting a room. Another room was occupied by a student from Uttar Pradesh.

The third room was for the critic, his wife, and their ten-year-old son. So I came to the conclusion that he could be a clerk.

One day, Swaminathan exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a Steno?” while observing me scribbling something in short hand on a piece of paper. I was quickly noting down something that he had said. That’s when I came to know that he knew shorthand too. I remarked, “You’re a stenographer too?” He said he used to work as a stenographer, and I thought he might be a clerk who had now been promoted to the role of a head clerk.

Later, he mentioned that he was employed at the Home Ministry. He was usually shabbily dressed, a pair of dungeon black shoes, a worn-out sweater, and a jolnabag (with holes here and there) slung over his shoulder. It was common to see him with a Ganesh beedi in hand, as there was no ‘hysteria’ about smoking in public in those days, and it was allowed almost everywhere.

One day, Swaminathan went to the office, following his usual routine. I was seated in the park waiting for him, and the distance between the office and the park was about one furlong. This was a time when terrorism was not prevalent in India, and all three Gandhis (Indira, Sanjay, and Rajiv) were still alive. The LTTE and Prabhakaran were not as widely known at that time.

Life in Delhi flowed like a calm river. Yadavs would come to your doorstep with a cow, allowing you to witness the milking process first hand. The butter that clung to your hands after eating curd rice required an entire bar of soap to remove it. If you dipped your finger in the milk, it would drip slowly from your hand.

Swaminathan, who had entered the office at ten o’clock, was nowhere to be found by half-past eleven. This was unusual. Curious, I decided to enter his office. To my surprise, ten to fifteen armed guards immediately surrounded me.

I yelled, “Swaminathan! Swaminathan!”

In response, they bombarded me with about fifty questions. They asked me which Swaminathan it was that I wanted to meet. They wanted his job description, my identity, my relationship with Swaminathan, and how I had come to know that he worked there. The rapid-fire questioning unsettled me. It seemed to me that they were treating me as a potential terrorist.

Eventually, they instructed me to produce my ID card. I explained that our civil supplies office did not issue any identity cards.

Finally, Swaminathan arrived after the entire episode had concluded. With his friendly smile, he explained in fluent Hindu (but of course with a “Madrasi” accent), “This Madrasi boy is clueless . Let him be; he entered without knowing.”

It was only then that I learned that he was working at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that those employed there were prohibited from disclosing this, even to their spouses. Even then, the specific position he held remained unknown to me. It was only later that I discovered that he was a Deputy Director at the CBI.

With this scary incident in mind, I declined the offer to join the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

By Charu Nivedita

About the columnist

Charu Nivedita is a post-modern, transgressive Tamil writer, based in Chennai, India. He is the first to write Auto-fiction in India. His magnum opus Zero Degree was longlisted for the 2013 edition of Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. He thus says about his oeuvre: “I convert my schizoid (state) into an art.” He is inspired by Marquis de Sade and Andal.

Charu Nivedita is known for his racy style of writing and his ability to write on untouched topics with ease. His first novel is ‘Existentialismum Fancy Baniyanum’. It was about how a young man overcomes the angst of his life through his writings. The emergency regime which affected the Indian life in the seventies and the lives of a few friends which were sacrificed in the Naxalite movement and the French existential thought were the key factors which made him to write this novel.

His next novel, his Magnum Opus Zero degree[60] is considered to be one of the best in transgressive fiction, as it completely transformed what is termed as taboo.

His next novel Raasa Leela proved to be a satire on governmental red tape-ism and the nuances of the novel successfully portray pragmatically the cry of a man lost amidst the numerous, colossal walls and pillars of the labyrinth that the system has created, his agony and his thirst to break the shackles.

He wrote his next novel Kaamarooba Kadhaigal as an internet novel. He says thus about the novel:”Lust is a celebration; at the same time, it’s a hell where cruel dreams are executed. This is the first time conflicting thoughts emerged in my works. There cannot be any sort of parody towards such thoughts, as it is not possible to do so when these thoughts emerge from the man-woman relationship which becomes more psychological than in any other context. I can say, this is the continuation of the Greek pathos plays created 2500 years ago. In my opinion, it appears that this novel talks about the bestiality in a man-woman relationship. We can trace the roots back to the Greek epics and Marquis de Sade’s works. Euripides’ Medea’s blood-chilling ululation can be very well sensed in the near end of this novel.”

He also adds, “While writing this novel, there was a crowd of young, beautiful women around me. But I experienced loneliness and emptiness to the core. On the contrary, in spite of living like a recluse currently, I do not experience emptiness now. The philistine crowd can never enter the world of a creator. They are like shells and bones without life inside them. Loneliness and other such feelings are absolutely impossible in the life of a man who traces his roots back to the numerous artists the world has seen so far. It is at this point that my autobiographical writing differs from my life, however similar they both may be. What the protagonist Perumal attains in this novel, is bitterness and when he is able to overcome the bitterness through his writing, he attains the state of bliss.”

He has written numerous articles on various topics such as politics, literature, music, cinema, post-modernism, general human beliefs and many more. His essays, articles and novels have the satirical parody towards being a goat in the herd, and they convey the message of humanism, peace and harmony, as an ultimate goal in life.

He is a social activist too, having participated in various movements and protests against the governmental oppression in the neighboring state Kerala where his writings are more popular than his native Tamil Nadu state and has represented the people in doing so.

He currently writes a column on Latin American Cinema in Pesaamoli; a Q & A column inAndhimazhai; a column in Puthiya Thalaimurai. His latest novel is New Exile (Tamil). He is working on his next novel Srivilliputhur and Judas, a novella.