36

Chapter- II : The Early Phase: Genial Comedy:

The Mystic Masseur

37

Chapter -II : The Early Phase: Genial Comedy: The Mystic Masseur

''We never are what we want to be ... but what we must

be' '(The Mystic Masseur 75).

''Because of its endurance, the Caribbean spirit can be

comic'' (Walcott and Baer 171 ).

The Mystic Masseur (1957) is the story of Ganesh

who from a failed school teacher, through a continuous

adaptation of several different roles -- of a masseur, an

author and a mystic -- ultimately becomes a member of

Trinidad's legislative assembly. In the words of the

narrator, the story of Ganesh can be taken as an allegory

of the "history of our times": "I myself believe that the

history of Ganesh is, in a way, the history of our times''

( 14 ). Set in Trinidad, the novel highlights displaced

individuals not of high genius, but individuals of medium

merit, in pursuit of societal recognition and success. And

the emphasis on this 'displacement' in the overall

structure and texture of the text is of immense importance

as it underlies, almost all the time, the thematic concerns

of the novel; it is manifest in the characters, their dress

and food, religion and habits, time and place, action and

language. It adds one important dimension to the reading

and subsequent analysis of the novel whereby it can still

be held as a hilarious comedy; at the same time it becomes

38

an ironic comment upon the essential tragic plight of an

exile -- the absurdity of his search for an identity in an

alien land. Here, in this novel, much source of fun and

laughter have been the mischievousness and trickiness of

characters but the complexity of this laughter -- the

seriousness behind it -- that it conceals something which is

serious and sad in nature, is accepted as well as asserted

by the author himself. In an interview V.S.Naipaul was

asked, "Your earliest books are hilarious, then they

become progressively more serious, then very grim

indeed. Why?" Naipaul's reply was: "Even my funniest

books were all begun in the blackest of moods ... " (News

week, 18th August, 1980:38). In spite of this, the book is a

bright comedy, an amusing, humorous comedy where

Naipaul by using his sense of humour makes close and

compassionate observation of individuals entrapped in a

umque situation. In a gentle, sympathetic and

compassionate tone, Naipaul gives a balanced criticism of

the characters and their activities iri this humorous

comedy.

It IS the characters' consciOusness of being

displaced, being caught between the two Indias- the one

far away 'there', governing and dictating the rituals,

habits, the way of life and the 'mimic' one 'here' in

Trinidad - that torments them all along in the novel. Yet

this sense of displacement has been harnessed to create the

uniquely tinged comic flavour of the book. The Place

names - Port of Spain, San Fernando, Fuent Grove,

Fourways, Trinidad, Swampland, Parrot Trace, Penal,

Arima, Debe, Princes Town, Chaguanas, Rio Claro,

Couva, Para, Georgetown, Carapichaima, Cunarigo, St.

39

Clair, Woodford Square, Lorimer's Park are constant

reminders to the characters that they are not in India, but

in Trinidad. The same purpose is served by the elaborate

topographical details of each of these places. In the very

first chapter, the narrator, now placed in London, recalls

his childhood memory of driving the long way to Fuent

Grove. ''There was no hint of a fountain anywhere, no

hint even of water. For miles around the land was flat,

treeless and hot. You drove through miles and miles of

sugarcane; then the sugarcane stopped abruptly to make

room for Fuent Grove. It was a sad little village with only

one tree" (8). He remembers that in "the hot and dull

village of Fuent Grove"(l3), he has noticed that

''someone had tried to scratch a little garden into the hard

and dusty front yard, but nothing remained now except the

bottle-borders and a few tough stumps of hibiscus"(lO).

Ganesh's father was able to send his son to the college

because of the royalties he got from his "five acres of

waste land" (15) near Fourways. Later, when Ganesh

comes to settle at Fuent Grove, once again the narrator

describes the hostile topography of the place; the place is

''so wretched'' ( 63)! ''In the dry season the earth baked,

cracked, and calcined; and in the rainy reason melted into

mud. Always it was hot ... ''(63). The villagers, working

at their vegetable gardens seem to forget the reality, ''that

sugarcane was the only thing that could grow in Fuent

Grove .... Once a year, at the 'crop-over' harvest festival,

when the sugarcane had been reaped, Fuent Grove made a

brave show of gaiety" (63). "It was like the gaiety of a

starving child"(64). The simile is eloquent one. It

highlights the way in which sadness underlies all that is

40

apparently comic in this novel. Lillian Feder correctly

observes that the simile "exceeds its immediate context,

suggesting the quality of much of the humour of this

novel"(167).

This 'quality' of humour infonns the many

detailed touches; for instance, Ganesh as a Hindu Brahmin

boy undergoes initiation ceremony. It is part of the ritual

that Ganesh should be asked to go to Benares to study

there. But when asked Ganesh starts walking and

continues until Dookhie runs up to stop him. The episode

is amusing but, as the narrator says, "significant" (21) as

it highlights the irony that is latent in the situation.

Though these Indian characters perform the traditional

Hindu initiation ceremony, they are reminded that they are •

not in India but in Trinidad. In this context the Stewart

episode acquires a special significance. Stewart is by birth

a British but he claims to be an ''Indian Kashmiri Hindu

too"(32). Stewart is only another version of "Hollywood

Hindus"(112; 155). He covers himself "here and there in

a yellow cotton robe like a Buddhist monk"(32). In

response to Ganesh's question "So why for you wearing

this yellow thing, then?"(32), Stewart is perplexed and

asks him "It isn't the right thing, you mean?"(33).

Ganesh replies, "Perhaps in Kashmir. Not here"(33). The

characters are very much conscious of this reality of living

'here' and not 'there', the reality of living in exile but still

they try to go on living a life of make-belief. Later Ganesh

dedicates his autobiography to Stewart and in the

dedication of his autobiography remembers him as

"Friend and Counsellor of Many Years"(37). Stewart has

never been a counsellor to Ganesh but his significance lies

41

elsewhere. Ganesh sees parity between his search for an

identity in a faraway country, and Stewart's absurd

attempt to identify himself with an alien culture and

religion.

In relation to his own exilic experience Naipaul says

in his Nobel Lecture: "Half of us (Indians) on this land of

the Chagunes (in Trinidad) were pretending - perhaps not

-perhaps only feeling, never formulating it as an idea -

that we brought a kind of India with us, which we could,

as it were, unroll like a carpet on the flat land'' (7). The

same can be said, about the displaced Indian characters of

this novel so far as their names, daily food, dress code,

habits, maintenance ·of past customs and rituals are

considered. The list of the names of the characters of this

novel - Ganesh, Ramlogan, Soomintra, Leela, Beharry,

Suraj, Dookhy, Bisson, Basdeo, Partap, Purshottam,

Sookhoo. Gopal, Narayan, Gowrie, Ganga, Doolarie,

Phulabassia, Sookram, Indarsingh etc. - shows that in

Trinidadian Indian Community people still continue

having names of Indian origin.

Similarly, they are still Indians or rather Hindus so

far as their daily food is concerned. What constitute their

daily food are - rice, "dal"(95), tea, "roti" (128),

coconut "chutney"(84) etc. Ganesh organizes a free

distribution of food at the "Bhagwat" he holds, and there

also we see the menu consists of ''rice, dal, potatoes,

pumpkins, spinach of many sorts, karee" and such "other

Hindu vegetarian things" (198). Still they do wear their

"good, Hindu clothes" (78) - "dhoti", "koortah"(119),

"sari" (135). For instance, Leela wears "sari" and

Trindad' s famous mystic Ganesh Pundit, wearing "dhoti"

42

and "koortah" postulates the appearance of a "pukka

brahmin''. Then, the cuisine and eating manners -

polishing the plate with one's fingers (97), drinking water

in the "orthodox Hindu way" (1 03 ), their habits -- the

loud washing of hands and mouth, rejection of food

offered by a non-Hindu -- all these speak of the

characters' attempt to cling to their past. At this stage they

still maintain almost all the past customs and rituals, the

details of which are as faithfully performed as possible in

accordance with the remembered norms of Hindu religion.

The maintenance of the initiation rites of a brahmin boy

(17), daily morning "puja", elaborate rituals of funeral

which seemingly ''replaced grief' (26), rites of a Hindu

marriage- the narrator speaks of "Hindu wedding songs"

( 49), "details of the night long ceremony" ( 49), and all

the other aspects of their life and living show their

adherence to the cultural memory of a lost place.

Hinduism and Indianness are the two facets of life

which these characters do not want to lose. That they still

seek necessary spiritual sustenance from Hindu religion, is

evident in the book. There is a picture of the goddess

Lakshmi on her lotus in Ganesh's room. Spare inches of

the local magazines are filled up with quotations from the

"Gita" or the "Upanishads" (158). The taxi driver on the

road to Fuent Grove sings a ''Hindi Song'' ( 141) in

between his talking and driving and where other taxi­

drivers hang up their tariff he has "a framed picture, ... of

the goddess Lakshmi standing, as usual, on her

lotus"(142). As Ganesh prospers, he decides to build a

temple and "an Indian architect came over from British

Guiana and builds a temple for Ganesh in proper Hindu

43

style" (149). Knowing the religious leanings of the

Hindus, on the occasions of his political meeting Ganesh

sits "on a low platform below a carving of Hanuman, the

monkey god. He recites a long Hindi Prayer, then uses a

mango leaf to sprinkle water, (supposedly Ganges water)

from a brass-jar over the meeting" ( 181 ). In the week

before the polling day Ganesh holds a "Bhagwat" (198),

a seven-day prayer meeting which is still common in rural

India. In relation to the books of Suraj, Beharry's son, the

narrator notices that "amidst this strange assortment the

'Gita' and the 'Ramaya1,1a' have sneaked in"(64). During

the days of the World War Ganesh and Beharry discuss

war and then "Beharry was full of quotations from the

'Gita', and Ganesh read with full appreciation, the

dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna on the field of

battle" (108). It becomes Ganesh's habit, on examining a

new book, ''to look first at the index to see whether there

are references to India and Hinduism or not. And if the

references are complimentary he buys the book" (168).

All these evidently show the characters' deeply felt love

for their ancestral homeland. Even in their day-to-day life

the characters show their fascination for the great leaders

of Indian independence movement. Sumintra calls her son

Jowharlal "after the Indian leader", and the daughter

Sarojini "after the Indian Poetess". She has already

decided that the baby in her womb would be named after

Motilal or Kamala depending on the gender (80). The

newly affluent man puts up on his drawing room wall ''a

photograph of a simpering Indian film-actress"(l51).

Ramlogan proudly reads out from Ganesh's first book:

"Who is the greatest modem Hindu? ... Mahatma

44

Gandhi ... who is the second greatest modem Hindu?

... Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru'' (96). Ganesh sends a copy of

his first book·to Mahatma Gandhi. Being thrown into an

unpleasant situation caused by the increasing attacks of

Narayan, the journalist, Ganesh asks Beharry: ''what

would Mahatma Gandhi do in a situation like this?"(! 53).

Narayan, the president of the Hindu Association of

Trinidad sits at the table "draped with the saffron, white

and green Indian tricolour"(188). Both Ganesh and

Narayan send cables respectively to All India Congress.

When Ganesh plans to put up his own paper, his partner

Pratap says to him: ''If I did ever start up a paper, I would

dedicate it (the first page) to Mahatma Gandhi"(l69).

Ganesh is only interested in the prestige that Mahatma's

name is supposed to bring to them. In their local political

squabbles, Ganesh and Narayan try to strengthen their

position by flaunting their correspondence with the great

Indian leaders. The act of sending cable to any leader in

India, thus becomes cause for boasting. As the President

of the Hindu Association of Trinidad, Narayan sends cable

to Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and the All-India

Congress. And every time he sends a cable to India it is

reported in Trinidad Sentinel. Later, as the President of the

same association Ganesh sends cable to All-India

Congress. He cables: "KEEP MAHA TMAJI IDEALS

ALIVE STOP HINDU ASSOCIATION TRINIDAD

WITH YOU INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE STOP

BEST WISHES "(192). All of these clearly manifest their

attempts to maintain their links with their lost homeland.

But in spite of the characters' genuine attempt to

maintain their past traditions, in the book there are

45

illustrations how these traditions gradually fade away

when the Indians are increasingly exposed to foreign

culture. Actually the broad theme of the novel is the

creolization of the Indians -- the process and stages by

which they adjust, to the Caribbean society, the displaced

community's attempt towards acculturation. There are

elements of grotesqueness in the portrayal of Indarsingh

and Narayan. Irrespective of the hot climate of Trinidad I

Indarsingh always wears an "Oxford blazer"(l98). While

he is among Indians, Narayan says his name is Chandra

Shekar Narayan but while with non-Indians, he says his

name is Cyks Stephen Narayan (168). lndarsingh,

Narayan, Mr. Primrose whose monocle falls into his soup,

are the 'mimic men' whose mimicry of the West turns

them into funny characters. Naipaul also satirises the

Hindu community for its ritualistic mode of behaviour; for

instance, the narrator observes how at Ganesh's father's

death, rituals seem to replace grief (26). Naipaul satirises

the materialistic tendencies of the Trinidadian Indians; it

is evident when he satirises the grubby shopkeeper

Ramlogan. Furthermore, he satirises the society that is

marked by moral degradation and lack of standard at

almost every level and thereby facilitates the rise of the

quacks and the knaves. Baidik Bhattacharya observes:

''Ganesh's deliberate manipulation of Sanskrit texts, his

self-promotional pamphlets, and his newspaper columns .

like 'A Little Bird Tells Us,' endorse· the derelict

intellectual and political atmosphere of the island where a

trickster like him can become a local hero by flaunting his

dubious 'learning' and 'knowledge' of

books"(Bhattacharya 253). But the fact to be noticed is

46

that here satire and mockery produce fun. For instance, the

way Ganesh and Narayan use their respective newspaper

columns to attack each other, contributes to the comic

aspect of the novel. Naipaul comically satirises the

materialistic tendencies of the Trinidadian Indians; it is

evident when he satirises the shopkeeper Ramlogan and

his son-in-law Ganesh. However, the scene where Ganesh

extracts dowry from his would-be father-in-law is

outrageously comic. In the kedgeree-eating ceremony

Ganesh refuses to take the meagre amount of money that

Ramlogan pleads him to accept. The calm and detached

manner in which he sits quietly without even looking at

the kedgeree has been rendered in a superb mock -heroic

manner: "Still Ganesh sat, serene and aloof, like an over­

dressed Buddha"( SO). Comedy arises out of the contrast

between Ganesh's greed and Buddha's ideal of non­

attachment. Ganesh leads Ramlogan to a miserable plight

- he is almost near to crying -- as he extracts a handsome

dowry from him. But, the way he tries to hide his

depression or misery before the assembled crowd of

relatives and friends is funny. Quite comically he starts

pretending that both of them - Ganesh and he, were

having only a joke. At the end of the kedgeree-eating

ceremony, he says again and again "The boy and I was

only having a joke ... He done know a long time now what

I was going to give him. We was only making joke, you

know"(52). Ramlogan hides his discomfiture behind the

fac;ade of fun.

Further, there are occasions or sources of real fun

and comic laughter which are unstinted by any amount of

irony or satire. The name of the central character -

47

Ganesh, has some comic implications. The Hindu God

Ganesha is supposed ·to help one who has undertaken a

journey or a trade and he is worshipped for his wisdom.

The reader should not miss the comic irony of it that

Naipaul's protagonist is named after the elephant God

Ganesha. The comic effect arises out of the incongruity

that lies between his real nature and what his name

implies. Leela wishes to have two stone elephants

installed on the roof of their house and Ganesh himself

designing the elephants, fall into the pattern. The character

of Ramlogan is mildly satirized but Ramlogan with his

sense of melodrama, his versatility and unswerving

confidence in his "cha' acter and sense a values" ( 46, 51)

becomes one important source of comedy in the novel. No

less comic is Great Belcher's burps that intervene her

speech almost at regular interval.

The language of the common folk, in contrast to

the ''lucidity and the silken run of the author's own voice,

which has a near-Latin order and assurance" (Walsh

1973: 5), has been a constant source of comedy in the

book. The contrast of the two often leads to an explosion

of fun; for instance, the confusion in using 'be' verbs:

''You is a man after my own heart, You and me going to

get on good" (10); repetition of words: "prutty, prutty

things"; "he thinking, thinking all the time"(27);

compressions: "two three months" (21) etc. The folk

language shows amusing adoption of English words into

the syntax of Hindi language. Leela's use of English

language is summed up by the narrator: ''She used a

private accent which softened all harsh vowel sounds; her

grammar owed nothing to anybody, and included a highly

48

personal conjugation of the verb to be" (155). Ganesh's

effort to improve her English is no less interesting:

Leela, is high time we realize that we living in

a British Country and I think we shouldn't be

shame to talk the people language good .

. . . All right man:

We starting now self, girl.

As you say, man.

Good. Let me now. Ah, yes. Leela, have you

lighted the fire? No, just give me a chance. Is

'lighted' or 'lit' girl?

Look, ease me up, man. The smoke going in

my eye.

You ain't paying attention, girl. You mean the

smoke is going in your eye (71-72).

In spite ofher 'improvement' of English which goes along

with a growing snobbery and preoccupation with material

possessions and social prestige, Leela continues in her

state of blissful chaos regarding the alien language. As she

says to Suraj Mooma, ''This house I are building. I

doesn't want it to come like any erther Indian house. I

wants it to have good fumitures and I wants everything to

remain prutty prutty. I are thinking about getting a

refrigerator and a few erther things like that" (150).

Ganesh's embarrassments at his inability to handle cutlery

and to learn European eating manners causes much

amusement in the episode describing the dinner at

"Government House"(201-204). Leela is shy to tum up

but she finds a suitable excuse. The narrator notices that

Leela pretends as having an instinctual inhibition against

"eating off other people's plates". Ganesh, however, is

49

"secretly relieved" at this, that is, at her unwillingness to

attend the party. But, the way he himself, ignorant of

European eating manners, tries to learn the ''drill'' from

Swami, is amusing. The comicality of the dress-up of the

M.L.C s has been finely brought out at the dinner party.

The narrator notices:

The dinner was a treat for the photographers.

Ganesh came in 'dhoti' and 'koortah' and

turban; the member of one of the Port of Spain

wards wore a khakhi suit and a sun helmet; a

third came in jodhpurs; a fourth, adhering for

the moment to his pre-election principles, came

in short trousers and an open shirt; the blackest

M.L.C wore a three-piece blue suit, yellow

woolen gloves and a monocle. Everybody else,

among the men, looked like pengums,

sometimes even down to black faces (20 1 ).

Such confusion regarding their best and most suitable

dresses to appear at the dinner party is comic. The comedy

results from the characters' desperate attempt and obvious

failure to imitate successfully the manners of the West.

And here is a comic rendering of this mimicry. In a fine

comic scene the M.L.C's monocle falls into his soup and

that makes him aggressive. Naipaul' s caricature of Mrs.

Primrose produces fun. Like the other men and women

her appearance is also ''disconcerting''. She appears in a

"floriferous print frock" and a "hat with floral design"

(202). During her conversation with the Governor's lady,

the way she tries to mimic the style and etiquette of the

woman ofhigher social strata is funny. Most of those who

are invited here are Indians and Negroes who find

50

themselves in an embarrassing situation. The narrator

notices that throughout the party Ganesh feels "alien and

uncomfortable"(209). He takes soup for meat and

dismisses the idea of eating it. The man in jodhpurs is to

pretend that he does not have a good appetite as he

declares: "I ain't so hungry today" and the readers are

increasingly amused when Mr. Primrose's monocle falls

into his soup. But there is sadness beneath what is 'comic'

here as the narrator notices: "The meal was torture to

Ganesh. He felt alien and uncomfortable. He grew sulkier

and sulkier and refused all the courses. He felt as if he

were a boy again, going to the Queen's Royal College for

the first" (204). When Ganesh returns home, he mixes

and drinks some Maclean's "Brand Stomach Powder",

gets into bed and reads some Epictetus.

Ganesh, however, pretends pomposity to hide the

sense of injury. His injury is caused by the wound his

exilic self receives there. The pathetic condition of this

exilic life is that they must go through continuous

transformation of selves. Though it is difficult for him,

Ganesh has to constantly adjust himself to the foreign

cultural frame, Westernized behavioural patterns and it

makes him heavily imitative in nature. Elizabeth

Hardwick observes that the novel is a comedy of a

''peculiarly modem pretension. Pretension trying to float

above its ignorance, fear and confusion as it expresses

itself in dialogue, commands, apologies: all of the

language of eloquent misapprehension" (The New York

Times May13, 1979). The comedy is a comedy of false

appearance, an acrid and grotesque vision of a fragmented

world where in the life and living of displaced individuals,

51

mockery pervades everywhere, making the attempts of the

individuals to survive, an absurdity, a folly. Naipaul

makes mockery of these characters' mimicry of the West.

According to Paul Edwards and Kenneth Ramchand ''The

episode dealing with the dinner at Government House (pp.

201-204) is ill-judged and aesthetically unsatisfactory:

comedy based upon such embarrassments as people's

inability to manipulate cutlery, or their ignorance of

wines, seems snobbish and unfeeling''(lntroduction to The

Mystic Masseur vii-ix). It seems that Naipaul is satirical of

the characters' attempts to acculturate to the new cultural

realities around them. But as he comically portrays the

colonial mimicry of these characters, the deep sadness that

marks their lives is also traced. Critics question Naipaul's

motive here while saying that it seems curious that

Naipaul, who managed to escape the enclosures of

Trinidad, should ultimately not be empathetic to the

protagonists who are also similarly trying to escape the

pathetic conditions of their life. But it appears that when

Naipaul comically portrays those who inhabit a previously

colonized society and mimic the so called superior culture

of the earlier colonizers, the description is not

"unnecessarily cruel" but "is relevant to portray the

contradictions in which the characters are trapped"

(White 66). It should be noted that this theme of 'colonial

mimicry' is one of his chief concerns in his later novels

where his depiction of mimicry no longer produces wide

laughter but a kind of grim mirth.

Naipaul not only brings our attention to this aspect

of a colonial exile's life, but he also depicts the other

dimensions of exilic experience as well. The complex

52

experience of exile includes also the exile's, the marginal

man's awkward yearning for the centre. In The Mystic

Masseur, as in his other novels, aspiration for freedom

from his (an exile's) social reality- marginalized position,

or in other words, search for an identity remains Naipaul's

theme. As Edward Said puts it, '' ... the exile refuses to sit

on the sidelines nursing a wound, there are things to be

learned: he or she must cultivate (not indulgent or sulky)

subjectivity" (Said 184). But that search for identity, that

quest for self-realization and fulfilment has to negotiate

with many frustrations as the fragmented self -­

fragmentation results from the conflict between two

patterns of culture, one inherited and the other imposed on

him -- does not get necessary sustenance from the alien

soil and ultimately deteriorates into disruptive emotional

and moral degeneration. Ganesh Ramsumair' s search for

identity takes him to various stages of transformation and

ultimately when he attains success, he is no longer a

Hindu Brahmin Ramsumair but is G. Ramsay Muir. Here

lies the essential sadness of his situation. Even his

attainment of success turns to be of a paradoxical kind.

The name is no longer his own and in his profession he is

ultimately a puppet. Ganesh spreads a story at Queen's

Royal College that his name is really Gareth and not

Ganesh but ironically his accent remains too clearly that

of an Indian from the backwater. The way Ganesh extracts

money (his dowry) from Ramlogan is an early hint that he

is tenacious in applying any amount of cleverness and

trickery to realize his goals. He seems to be always aware

of his own potential greatness. In response to the Great

Belcher's appreciation of his reading and writing Ganesh

53

says: "I did always feel I had something big to do" (112).

He is, in the opinion of William Walsh, ''dutiful, devious,

unscrupulous -- each where it is necessary to give his

greatness a chance to shine out" (Walsh 1970: 67). All the

qualities of Ganesh are not really on the virtuous side and

the way he tackles every critical situation with success,

shows that he has plenty of common-sense and that he

does first what puts him in an advantageous situation,

· rather than what is right. Perhaps in case of any individual

of medium-merit and marginal social position, it is mostly

needed to succeed in that exilic society of a farflung

Caribbean island. After an unsuccessful temporary job as

a school teacher, Ganesh fails to see any direction which

his life should take and he starts to tum the coincidences

in his life into providential pattern. But it is because of the

all permeating comic vision of the author that Ganesh

ultimately does not find his life altogether a mess. It is to

be noticed that in the case of Naipaul' s later protagonists

who have similarly believed in destiny or chances, like

Salim, Willie's father and Willie, life turns sour. It

signifies the growing darkening -vision of Naipaul.

However, having inherited his father's property, Ganesh

starts a cultural Institute at Fountain Grove. But soon on

the advice of his aunt and father-in-law he takes up the job

of a masseur. But disappointed in that masseur's trade,

soon he turns to writing which is at once hoped to

compensate his disappointment in having no children. He

produces "A Hundred and one Questions and Answers on

the Hindu Religion" which is merely a brochure and in the

words of Basdeo at printing place has the appearance of a

pamphlet, not even a booklet. But Ganesh tackles the

54

situation by saying that it is just a primer, because the

people of Trinidad are "just like children" (94).

However, the first book is not an immediate success and

that failure and resultant frustration lead Ganesh to take up

the role of a mystic, after going through a thorough

preparation for it. Ganesh becomes popular and dear to the

people of Trinidad as he starts making no demand for his

help but accepting only what is offered. And Ganesh is

successful, in the words of the narrator, to elevate ''the

profession by putting the charlatans out of business ... the

people of Trinidad knew that Ganesh was the only true

mystic in the island" (134). Ganesh is successful as a

mystic by raising mimicry to the ultimate level of

perfection. This time Ganesh writes a number of books on

psychological and philosophical subjects such as The

Road to Happiness, The Soul as I See It, The Years of

Guilt, What God Told Me. That here Naipaul makes a

comic rendering of Ganesh's story, is evident in his

description of the impact of his book What God Told Me

on the population of Trinidad. The book is said to have set

a fashion as many people in various parts of Trinidad start

claiming to have seen God. Among them the story of

Man-man is extremely comic. And it is amusing when just

after two months, Ganesh, a bit confused, shifting from

God to the practical problem of evacuation, writes another

book named Profitable Evacuations. But Ganesh has an

awareness of the world, intelligence and an excellent

presence of mind and by utilizing these, he takes decisions

quite appropriately so that his achieved success is

sustained for long. Ganesh writes these books to be

popular among Trinidadians, to attain success as a writer.

55

But when he finds that these books are likely to make

negative impact on his career as a mystic he closes

"Ganesh Publishing Company Limited". Naipaul

highlights not only his pragmatic wisdom, but also his

fraudulence. It is told that Ganesh has fifteen hundred

books in his library; books published by Everyman,

Penguin etc. But in reality he has neither seen nor read

them. To focus his mysticism and to deceive people he

starts wearing "dhoti" and "koortah" (119) but he

prefers wearing European dresses on other occasions. His

house has a Hindu exterior but the interior has all the

modem European household gadgets. H.S. Mann notes

that "Ill-prepared for the changes thrust on them by

World War II with its economic boom and by universal

adult franchise in 1946, Trinidadians tum to trickery, and

to the imitation of England and America" (Mann 171).

Patrick French holds: "It was not rare in Trinidad for

people to remake themselves, to change their name or

adjust their background. The 'smart-man' who managed

to deceive others cleverly was much admired in

Trinidad ... "(French 53). However, Ganesh 1s self­

conscious of the withering consequences of such

adjustments. He pathetically says: "We are never what we

want to be ... but what we must be" (75).

After attaining fame as a mystic Ganesh discovers

himself as a "Philosopher and arbiter" (156). He is then

often invited by village 'Panchayats', councils of elders,

to give judgment on several diverse issues or to address

Prayer-meetings. The narrator's description of his arrival

at such meetings: "He came out of his taxi with dignity ...

and shook hands with the officiating pundit. Then two

56

more taxis came up with his books. Helpers fell upon

these taxis, grabbed armfuls of books and took them to the

Platform. The helpers were proud and busy people then,

and looked almost as solemn as Ganesh"(l56) and of his

appearance there: "Seated on the platform ... surrounded

by his books, Ganesh looked the picture of authority and

piety" (156), highlights how Ganesh gets success by

pretension and imitativeness. Thus, Ganesh's life comes

by extension to serve as an illustration of imitativeness, a

characteristic of the people of former colonies, and this is

also how The Mystic Masseur comes to reflect the history

of our times. However, as a politician he seems to

combine in himself as many contradictory traits as

spirituality, materialism, secularism, Indian orthodoxy,

modem revolutionary ideas and is able to highlight any

one of these, depending on the need of a situation. Ganesh

successfully imitates all the roles that suit him. He can be

called first in the line of Naipaul 's 'mimic men'. His

imitativeness reveals his helplessness; for at any cost he

has to establish his own identity and the task is more

challenging as he lives in a foreign land. Ganesh becomes

a member of legislative assembly by virtue of his mystical

character for he has understood correctly that the voters

are not politically so conscious and would vote only

evaluating personalities without bothering for issues

raised by them. Actually, through the characterization of

Ganesh, the author also criticizes the money-making,

middle class picaroon society that appreciates such

success as that of Ganesh.

According to K. Ramchand, the place and the

milieu inform the process to a large extent. It is in this

57

"fossilized Indian community as well as the larger static

Trinidadian society in which Ganesh's predominantly

fortuitous drift to eminence takes place'' (Ramchand 7). It

is this society that facilitates his success. As illustration,

Ganesh is clever in' climaxing his political campaign by

organizing a seven-day recitation of 'Bhagwat' because he

. knows the religious leanings of the citizens. During the

prayer-meeting he also organizes free distribution of food.

He manipulates his Indian heritage to secure political

success. He safely depends on his· audience's favourable

reaction to a speech that is calculated to inflate the Indian

ego: "it is more likely that the Greek got the idea (about

the transmigration of souls) from India ... '' ( 194 ). Even he

tries to strengthen his position and to increase his

popularity among the Indians, by showing his

association's connection with All India Congress or any

great Indian political leader. But after getting political

success by inflating the Indian ego, he kicks it away and

changes his name to G. Ramsay Muir, this time to retain

that success in long term. This is how he begins as a

politician: ''He was a terror in the Legislative Council. It

was he who introduced the walk-out to Trinidad .... He

never went to a cocktail party at Government House ....

He exposed scandal after scandal .... And he was always

ready to do a favour for any member of the public, rich or

poor" (207& 208). And ''In Colonial office reports

Ganesh was dismissed as an irresponsible agitation with

no following"(209). When the strike breaks out in a sugar

estate, Ganesh tries to make an amicable settlement.

Unfortunately he fails and is rejected as a leader of the

labourers. But soon Ganesh learns to attain importance as

58

a politician. He condemns the labour movement of the

people by supporting the British colonialist: " ... his

defence of British colonial rule is memorable"(214) and

"In1953 Trinidad learned that Ganesh Ramsumair had

been made an M.B.E."(214).This is nothing but

opportunistic politics. But once more we see that what

more causes the change in Ganesh as a politician, is his

need to survive. By entering into politics, he puts himself

at a vulnerable position. Now in order to be popular as a

politician, he must show his allegiance to colonialist

mentality. The narrator notes that Ganesh calls a Press

conference and says: ''From now on .. .I pledge my life to

the fight against communism in Trinidad and the rest of

the free world. He expanded his views in a last book, Out

of the Red (Government Printer, Trinidad. Free on

Application). It was left to Indarsingh to note the

'capitalist mentality inherent in the title' ''(213). From his

earlier dismissal Ganesh learns the lesson to change

himself according to the need of the situation. Ganesh is

now deeply anglicized. He is now G. Ramsay Muir.

Patrick French notices that "It was necessary to have a

public face, since whatever your ethnicity you could be

sure that aspects of your home life, the familiar indoor

world, would be culturally alien to those you met

outside"(French 53). Ganesh, from the very beginning,

yearns to do "a big thing" (112). But in his attempt to

have an identity on an alien soil, one day he has to change

his name in order to be still in the move. This is what

invests the novel with its deep comic pathos. Naipaul

accepts that an awareness of the dark and tragic aspects of

59

life mark his writing here as he says: "I did The Mystic

Masseur with great unhappiness"(French 160).

However, thus from a masseur Ganesh becomes a

mystic and from a mystic a politician. His knavery only

comes to the surface when we see him to rapidly

incorporate various contradictory traits in his character.

The character deteriorates, is deracinated. But the story of

deracination acquires comic perspective when the

character, even after so much activity and movement

throughout the book, does not find the freedom he seeks,

from his societal reality. Through the central comedy of

this book, this sadness can be seen. Ganesh's struggle is

"pathetically comic" (Feder 167). The comic sap is

squeezed from the deceptions, pretensions, mimicry and

lies he uses to comfort himself, in his frustrated attempt to

survive, being separated from his roots, in a faraway

country. The Mystic Masseur is a bright comedy, a

delightful comedy that makes us cheerful as it is full of

life and gaiety. Michael Thorpe holds: "Naipaul exploits a

universal comic theme, a strategy reminiscent of such

English humorists of the rise of the underdog as Wells and

Bennett." But, as he further says: his "handling of the

theme is more detached'' (Thorpe 11 ). As a comedian

Naipaul has much sympathy for the mankind. But at the

same time it is this detachment that enables Naipaul to see

life comically. And as a comedian Naipaul does not

overlook the ironies of life. The book is an ironical one.

And the irony that permeates this book is mainly

situational irony. The characters are trapped in a unique

situation. They do not wholly belong either to their past or

to their present. Rather, they belong to a world that is

60

somewhere in between these two worlds; at this stage they

appear to be ridiculous and funny while undergoing the

process of adaptation. Naipaul does never harshly satirise

the characters; rather he employs comic ironies to portray

the characters' desperate attempts to learn the new cultural

realities around them. And while portraying the

characters, for instance, the character of Ganesh, nowhere

Naipaul is found to withdraw his sympathy from Ganesh,

the victim of situation. Here in place of anger, Naipaul

seems to be inclined to acceptance. Landeg White

observes: any indignation at Ganesh's activities "is

tempered by recognition that, he too is a victim of

displacement" who embodies his society's contradictions

(White 72). The Mystic Masseur is an amusing comedy

where, by employing his sense of humour, comic irony

and mockery, Naipaul gives a balanced criticism of the

protagonist's character, at once depicting the virtues and

the negative traits of this character whereby he appears to

us as both a hero and an anti-hero. Though he satirizes at

times, his tone is always gentle and compassionate and

such is his sense of humour that his mockery produces a

genuine, hilarious comic effect. And his usage of irony

encourages a ''tolerance, an affection for wit and style,

while it does not rule out assessment, definitely rejects

contempt or indignation"(White 73). So, it can be said

that The Mystic Masseur is a warm, humorous comedy by

Naipaul who writes from an all-inclusive comic vision, the

vision of a comedian who sees the sad aspects of life no

less than that of a tragedian but by using the comic

elements veils them differently.