‘Darako’: Parashar Kulkarni’s new novel about spitters and believers is a total riot

There was a time when the most spirited discussions about politics took place at the paan shop around the corner and not in the hallowed halls of elite institutions. Many traditions have died slow deaths over the years – however, this has thankfully survived. Paan shops, cigarette stalls, tea kiosks, shady waterholes – any gathering place where people are fuelled by cheaply acquired addictions have been a fertile ground for talking politics, economics, philosophy, and the very meaning of life.

Parashar Kulkarni’s new novel Darako is an ode to these democratic spaces that make a thinker out of every ‘loafer’ who graces them. The strange title, however, reveals nothing, but the catchy colours and illustrations on the front cover immediately catch your eye. A sparsely written blurb and a delicate page count of 140 convince you to find out for yourself what it is all about. The author’s vision is upheld by the design and structure of the book – it starts on a winning note.

Thankfully, it stays that way.

Spit, or hold your silence

The narrator of the story is Peter, a mute man who sees everything but says nothing. Bandu, a young man, is positioned outside Bhola’s paan shop and tasked with describing to the colonial police what he witnesses throughout the day. Revolution is in the air and sedition, not something that the Brown subjects care about anymore. What secrets could be revealed at a paan shop one wonders? Well, “Paan opens all mouth. You can spit or speak.” Bandu is hard at work but secrets are not spilled easily. The true revolutionaries speak in codes and they’re many times smarter than the moustache-twirling havaldars and police superintendents on the Crown’s payroll.

Industrious and indigenous, Bandu starts a spitting competition after witnessing one fine paan chewer who spat into a hole – clean, no splatter – from a distance of six feet. As its fame spreads far and wide, Indians of all colours turn up to win the big prize. This is “true swaraj” claims Bandu, who is moved by the earnestness of the competitors. Things take a serious turn when Dara Kosh Pathan – a mystic from Herat in Afghanistan – arrives at Bhola’s and spits into the drain from the record-breaking distance of 11.8 feet. No Indian has come close to this feat. Each competitor that turns thereafter is more eccentric than the one before – there’s a man in a steampunk costume, a woman whose assistants pull hard at her braids while she spits, a clown on stilts. It’s a “freak show”, says the narrator. And we agree.

Years pass in the attempt to beat Dara Kosh’s record and in the meantime, Bandu and Bhola have minted enviable amounts of money. Bandu lets the neighbouring brothel’s Bulbul guide him gently into manhood and they somehow manage to fall in love despite their busy schedules. As time goes by, Dara Kosh’s accomplishment becomes the stuff of legends. It has been a decade and still, no one has come close. As far as Bandu is concerned, he is Dara Kosh’s first disciple. “One day, Dara Kosh will come and spit and light the sky,” he firmly believes.

His belief is questioned by naysayers who don’t know any better. The record is a lie, someone accuses and with the devotion of the devoted, Bandu reminds them how every “experiment with variations in mouth sizes, jaw sizes, and orthopaedic devices” has failed to upstage Herat’s Dara Kosh.

The fun and games don’t last for long as the clamour for freedom gets louder by the day. Alongside paan, bullets are exchanged at Bhola’s. Spittle becomes the metaphor for life – now doubly fleeting in the nation’s quest for freedom. While Dara Kosh remains elusive, pearls of wisdom flow freely from Bandu’s lips. “Like spittle,” he writes, “you will disappear through a hole in the ground.” His words are not set free into the world in vain. While listening to them, a mother says to her little girl, “This is the Parable of the Spittle.”

Seditious behaviour will not be tolerated by the Crown and a tax is imposed on the paan. The reasons are unclear: paanwallahs are responsible for the spreading of cholera, dysentery, diarrhoea; spitting is claimed to be the first sexual act; it outrages public decency. Bandu and his Dara Kosh are above such petty laws – their story is written in the drains of the mohalla and the mountains of Herat.

Despite its slimness, Darako takes a little while to get used to the voice and once you do, you’re in for a wild ride. The cleverly conceived satire takes on the singular yet ridiculous devotion to the powers around us – be it of faith, government, or the transient ideas of justice. The poems and songs generously interspersed in the prose make you laugh out loud. Bhola and Bandu’s reality come alive in vivid colours in Kulkarni’s world where nothing is as it seems. A total riot, Darako is a treat to read during the dark times – and god knows we could use a good laugh.

Darako, Parashar Kulkarni, Penguin India.