gardens, though. The police are quite ineffectual, and I wouldn’t be too sure of their loyalties either, in the circumstances.’
‘What would you advise, Heaslop?’
‘Well, sir, I wonder if we don’t stand to lose more by trying to stop a rally we can’t effectively prevent from taking place.’
‘Yes?’
‘So my idea would be a sort of strategic retreat, sir. Let them go ahead with their rally, let off steam.’
‘You mean, do nothing?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes, sir. But then passions would subside. Once they’ve had their chance to listen to a few speeches and shout a few slogans, they’ll go back to their normal lives soon enough.’
‘Stuff and nonsense, Heaslop. Once they’ve listened to a few speeches from the likes of Ganga Datta and his treacherous ilk, there’s no telling what they might do. Burn down the residency, like as not. No, this rally of theirs has to be stopped. But you’re right about the police. They won’t be able to do it.’
‘That’s what I thought, sir,’ Heaslop said unhappily. ‘Not much we can do, then.’
‘Oh yes, there is,’ Sir Richard retorted decisively. ‘There’s only one thing for it, Heaslop. Get me Colonel Rudyard at the cantonment. This situation calls for the army.’
20
The Bibigarh Gardens were no great masterpiece of landscaping, Ganapathi, but they were the only thing in Hastinapur that could pass for a public park. The plural came from the fact that Bibigarh was not so much one garden as a succession of them, separated by high walls and hedges into little plots of varying sizes. The enclosures permitted the municipal authorities the mild conceit of creating differing effects in each garden: a little rectangular pool surrounded by a paved walkway in one, fountains and rose-beds in another, a small open park for children in a third. There was even a ladies’ park in which women in and out of purdah could ride or take the air, free from the prying eyes of male intruders; here the hedge was particularly high and thick. The gardens were connected to each other and to the main road only by narrow gates, which normally were quite wide enough for the decorous entrances and exits of pram-pushing ayahs and strolling wooers. On this day, however, they were to prove hopelessly inadequate.
One of the gardens, a moderately large open space entirely surrounded by a high brick wall, was used - when it was not taken over by the local teenagers for impromptu games of cricket - as a sort of traditional open-air theatre-cum-Speakers’ Corner. It was the customary venue (since the
maidan
was too big) for the few public meetings anyone in Hastinapur bothered to hold. These were usually
mushairas
featuring local poetic talent or folk-theatre on a rudimentary stage, neither of which ever attracted more than a few hundred people. It was the mere fact of having staged such functions that gave the Bibigarh Gardens their credentials for this more momentous occasion.
When news spread of a possible address by Gangaji on the day of the state’s annexation, Bibigarh seemed the logical place to drift towards. Soon the garden was full, Ganapathi; not of a few hundred, not of a thousand, but of ten thousand people, men, women, even some children, squeezed uncomplainingly against each other, waiting with the patience instilled in them over timeless centuries.
When Colonel Rudyard of the Fifth Baluch arrived at the spot with a detachment, it did not take him long to assess the scene. He saw the crowd of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, standing, sitting, talking, expectant but not restless, as a milling mob. He also saw very clearly - more clearly than God allows the rest of us to see - what he had to do. He ordered his men to take up positions on the high ground all round the enclosure, just behind the brick walls.
It is possible that his instructions had been less than precise. Perhaps he was under the assumption that the people of Hastinapur
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