JOIN USI mourn for my good friend Puttanna. Death? No, it’s something worse and saddening. He has become a Pretender White Sahib. This distressing affliction came without warning and there is no immediate cure in sight for it.
I vividly recall the day the tragedy struck. We were waiting for a BMTC bus at the Cash Pharmacy stop opposite the venerable and ‘propah’ Bangalore Club. This was our routine and Puttanna often mused about the hush-hush goings-on within the well-guarded precincts of the club, and on one memorable occasion, he garnered gumption to peep through the massive wrought-iron gates before being shooed away by an imposing durwan who looked like Commodore, Second Class of the Royal Ruritanian Navy.
Then, a gentleman, undoubtedly a bearer of the white man’s burden, for he was wearing a pair of polka-dot bermuda shorts, straw hat and sandals and had a face as red as a tomato, came out of the club and approached Puttanna.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, tipping his hat. “I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes of your valuable time. We want you for a scene in a film we are shooting.” Yes, you are right! The film was A Passage to India, based on E M Forster’s novel of the same name.
Puttanna could not believe his luck. He deserted me, a friend of 25 years, and followed the white gentleman inside the club like a hungry bulldog after a chicken bone.
There was no stopping Puttanna from then on. His incessant bragging became the talk of the town...
“I tell you, sir, director David Lean is nominating me for an Oscar!”
“After Sir Alec Guinness saw my acting, he came up to me and asked for my autograph!”
“I’m thinking of giving away my Kathriguppe establishment and relocating to Hollywood. I’m receiving offers from MGM, Warner Brothers and United Artists to star opposite Sophia Loren.”
I did not think there was any truth in his bragging even for a moment, of course. A few enquiries with the bar stewards and the proverbial cat was out of the bag.
Puttanna’s role in the film was strictly a walk-on-walk-off one. The scene was an evening garden party and ball hosted by the British Resident Commissioner in honour of the king’s viceroy and his lady’s visit, attended by the elite, and Puttanna in the garb of a native waiter had to approach a prince of a princely state, bow low and enquire, “Hock or sherry, Your Highness?” and withdraw.
The audience attending the premiere of A Passage to India had seen the last of Puttanna.
A fleeting association with the British had brought out the ‘ham’ in Puttanna. He now dresses for dinner and eats with a knife and fork, reads the Daily Telegraph over a breakfast of eggs and bacon and kippers, assails the British for granting India (whose people he calls ‘natives’) its independence, and celebrates the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
He was delighted when Prince William and Kate were expecting their second child. He employs a routine of footmen, butlers and even a boy to clean his knives and boots. He even swears by Nirad Chaudhuri and V S Naipaul and makes a squalid nuisance out of himself.
You will understand how insufferable Pretender White Sahib Puttanna has become when I tell you that he has just hanged a sign on his gate that reads, ‘Indians and dogs not allowed’.