Ever picture a balding, constipated middleaged babu making merry in a nightclub – that too, under the sparkling skyline of New York, Durham or Amsterdam? I have witnessed it several times and, believe me, there is nothing more hilarious than an Indian babu on a foreign jaunt checking out the nightclub in town. He finds himself in a rare state of unbridled bliss, without a political fixer or, yet more obnoxious, service boss kneading away at his tail or worse. There is also the looming potential of his being discovered so he tends to hide where he can’t and usually ends up in double jeopardy.
The central actor of our story is the same friend from the Haryana cadre who propounded the theory of the Jhavad Bandar (“Monkey Business”, gfiles, September 2010). He was, for the lazy reader, the thinking tank who led our thirsty team through the pubs and bars of downtown Durham while on a sabbatical there a few years ago.
The day we checked into the hotel the university had booked for us, the Jhavad Babu (JB) pointed out to me a Durham city police car parked behind our hotel so as to escape instant detection. He whispered to me: “Bhaiyya, don’t ever bhe out of stebh here, the Shi I A and their shitty police are bhatching us bhery bhery closely…”
Maybe he sensed my puzzlement, for he added: “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of the honey trap?”
He went on to explain how so many senior Third World babus, diplomats and netas are forever caught in the honey trap of the West and are double agents, and so on. I allayed his fears, pointing out we were middle of the road babus attending to sanitation and garbage, and nowhere figuring in the A list of the most wanted in the US. Yet, he wouldn’t budge from his contentions.
I told him about the US’s attempt to honey-trap Idi Amin, the erstwhile Ugandan dictator. He was allegedly photographed in various sexual acts with a range of US models (selected from coast to coast) who seduced him during a state visit to the US, at the CIA’s behest. On the day of his departure, the CIA agents showed him proof of what he had been up to.
A nonchalant Amin asked for authenticated copies of the tapes and photographs to be released to his national media. He told the perplexed CIA operatives something to the effect of: “Since there is no bimari of the free media in Uganda, I am going to caption these pictures, ‘Hon’ble President Gen. Idi Amin screwing Nixon, Miss Nixon and her high school buddies who were enamoured by your machismo leader, all bundled together’, etc, with a personal commentary on the experience by the President and explaining why Ugandan ladies are better anyday.” The CIA simply vanished with its tapes.
As our two-week training programme in Durham University drew to a close, JB became restless. Reason: He had overheard stories by the nightclub revellers and lapdance aficionados who brought back sleazy reports of the supersized semi-nude women who danced on their laps, which was more mouthwateringly succulent than dry-as-drumstick project finance appraisal.
So, on the penultimate day of the course, he announced an all-paid visit to a nearby club (“Thirty Plus?”) and we set off. The team was just back from the formal reception and readers must appreciate that everyone was in high spirits. Three of us proceeded in a taxi to the club which was about to close. It was 11.30 pm or so.
The crowd was thin, but the girls were pretty and big. I recall chatting up an ebony nurse who was visiting her ailing mother and she asked whether I could find some time for her the next day. I cursed my luck, since we were flying back the next day. Things were fine until I noticed that JB had also got company – a stout black woman who looked a bit stern to me. They cuddled and were getting intimate in a corner. I couldn’t but admire the bastard. Here he was, 50 something, balding and greying, but scoring away in just about 30 minutes while all I had secured was a hint for an impossible tomorrow and two overpriced beers. And I was 15 years younger!
Then it happened. JB came rushing up in obvious angst, grabbed both of us by our shoulders, and forced us out and into the taxi. I was not even allowed to finish my beer. I asked him to explain his behaviour. The club was not the best I had seen, but it was better than masturbating watching the models on midnight television back in the hotel. Besides, he had paid the entry – a princely dollar sum.
“You idiots,” he yelled. “When I told you we were being tailed, you trashed me. That woman I kissed is a cop. Run for your asses.”
No amount of rationalizing would do. He made us leave.
I was thankful that the lady, who must have been relaxing after a hard day’s work, did not grow suspicious on account of JB’s sudden departure. We left a hopeful Durham woman cop confused – at least for the night.
I thought about it on the flight home and realized that the primary emotion that guides the civil servant affectionately called babu in all his actions, public and private, is fear. Freedom from fear seems to be a realistic goal to train babus, at least when they are bona fide. In India, somehow public service is styled according to the values of the Gandhi-Nehru era which even their grandchildren find hard to follow. We can’t accept that babus are fallible blokes who have a life of their own and are susceptible to the pulls and pressures of ordinary souls.
