Both Keating and I set out to bring to life these two policemen and the city that they inhabit – Bombay/Mumbai – India’s city of dreams. Yet the respective roads that we travelled to do so could not have been more different. I spent ten years living and working in India; Keating only visited India for the first time a decade after The Perfect Murder was published.
That being the case, one might rightly ask why he chose the subcontinent as his muse in the first place? The answer: he picked up an atlas, flicked through it, and randomly chanced upon a map of India. From such moments of serendipity are legends born.
The novel that Keating subsequently wrote was published in 1964 and entitled The Perfect Murder. It featured Inspector Ganesh Ghote (pronounced Goh-té) of what was then known as the Bombay crime branch, a detective of considerable resourcefulness and tenacity. Ghote is not your typical western policeman. There is little of the maverick about him, no melodrama, no bitter divorces in his past (he is dedicated to his wife Protima), no hard-charging, hard-drinking machismo. He is a minor cog within a vast engine of bureaucracy and at the same time accepts this and chafes against it. He is set above the common man – by virtue of his uniform – and yet condemned to forever belong to the lower echelons of that vast stratified populace that gives India such colour and depth. Time and again in these immensely readable novels we see Ghote at the mercy of bombastic senior officers, villainous landlords and wealthy industrialists. In the face of abuse, obstacles and evil machinations, Ghote remains undeterred, finding his way to resolution in every case through a combination of understated intellect and quiet bloody-mindedness. When asked about the genesis of his seminal character, Keating would later reply, ‘Inspector Ghote came to me in a single flash: I pictured him exactly as he was, transposed as it were by some magic arc from Bombay to London. It was a tremendous piece of luck really, because I don’t think Inspector Ghote will now ever die. At least he’ll live as long as I do.’
Prophetic words. The Perfect Murder has met with enduring success. Upon publication it won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger in the UK and claimed an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Keating was on his way. And after twenty-five wonderful books and a short story collection, Inspector Ghote has joined the pantheon of great sleuths: Holmes, Poirot, Maigret. In his own way, Ghote has that shimmering of Golden Age stardust about him.
The first Ghote arrived more than half a century ago. The world has changed since then and literary sensibilities have moved with the times. Today, controversies abound under the banner of ‘cultural appropriation’, some justified, others perhaps trumpeted beyond the merits of the case by vested interests. Seasoned literary commentators and social media trolls alike are quick to pronounce judgment on writers they feel have not earned the right to depict a particular lived experience. No doubt they would make much of the fact that H.R.F. Keating, by his own admission, knew very little about India when he began researching these novels. His portrayals of India and Indians might offend some, an example of what they might term post-colonial hubris.
I think this is missing the point. That was a different era, with different dynamics at work. Yes, there will be some who find offence merely in the fact that a middle-aged white man who had never been to India should achieve literary acclaim for novels set in the country. Personally, I believe that writers must have the licence to write that which inspires them. Whilst diversity and cultural authenticity in publishing is something I fervently believe in – for obvious reasons – I will also stand by the right of authors to be authors, that is, to journey on those fantastical oceans of the imagination that make writing such an enjoyable endeavour. For me the key to all such quasi-moral quandaries is whether or not an author has treated his subject matter with respect and empathy. And in his treatment of the subcontinent and its people Keating did more than simply create a series of intriguing crime novels. He brought the India of that time – in all its grit and glory – to the attention of the wider world.
We only have to look at how appreciative Indian readers themselves were of his portrayal.
In a 1981 article for India Today (updated in 2014), Sunil Sethi tells the story of Keating’s third visit to Bombay. He is mildly astonished when a young woman, a fan of his books, approaches him to express her admiration. Keating, Sethi tells us, can’t quite believe the reception he received in India: ‘There you are quietly writing away at your desk, and you produce this little book. Your wife likes it, but she’s an interested party. Your agent approves, but he’s also an interested party. Then you come 5,000 miles from home, and people stop you on street-corners to tell you how much they love reading your books. Isn’t it wonderful?’
Of course, the country has changed dramatically since then. I wonder what Keating would make of this modern India? And what would modern Indians make of him and his work? More importantly, how would Ghote fare? I have a feeling that the inspector, a beacon of decency in a sometimes indecent world, would find himself quite at home as India continues its struggle to undo millennia of entrenched social attitudes: corruption, inequality, nepotism, and the debilitating effects of the caste system.
Ultimately, as a lifelong crime reader and now a relatively seasoned writer in the genre, I believe that there is nothing so likeable in the annals of crime fiction as an honourable detective. And in Ghote we find just such a man, a man for the times in which we live.
Vaseem Khan
London, 2020
ONE
Half an egg. Inspector Ghote, flat on his back on the high hard bed, his whole body gently exuding sweat despite the churning of the fan directly above him, found his tired mind repeating and repeating the phrase. Each time it seemed to sound more absurd.
Half an egg.
The Judge, Sir Asif, had used it the evening before down in the tall, book-lined, book-smelling library below. Half an egg. Something about ‘If the King …’ If the King permitted the something of but half an egg. The illicit demand. Yes. If the King permitted the illicit demand of but half an egg …
Those must be almost exactly the words the old man had quoted in that precise Englishman’s English of his. If the King permits the illicit demand of but half an egg … What?
Above, hanging evidently unsafe from the mazy cracked ceiling, the ancient broad-bladed fan heaved its way round once more. Each time it seemed as if, always at exactly the same point, it was going to come at last to a halt. It would slow, all but stop and then, barely moving, bump over whatever small obstacle there was in its works – A grain of heavy red dust? A flake of old yellowed plaster? – and with a little ‘bock’ continue its weary revolution.
The sound was maddening. Errr-bock. Long pause. Then again: errr-bock.
And its dull-white lazily twisting blades were hardly stirring the thick air. The thermometer must be at the hundred-degree mark. At least. And nothing here in the wide countryside to fend off the relentless sun.
Half an egg. If the King permits the illicit demand of but half an egg, his soldiers will extort a thousand capons. Yes, that was it. A thousand capons, that precise dry voice had articulated. A capon was a cockerel, an out-of-date English word for a cockerel that had been castrated so as to make it fatten better. Somewhere once he had learnt that.
A thousand capons and … And then what?
Ah, yes. Yes, got it. ‘… and roast them on the spit.’ The old man – that leathery face, those sunken eyes on either side of his curious squashed beak of a nose – had been quoting in English, but the words were those of a Muslim poet. Of course, Muslim. The ranked shelves in that long, high-ceilinged room were crammed with books in Urdu, old and leather-bound. Mostly poetry, the Judge had said. But a good many law books in English too.
‘Poetry is the solace of my retirement, Inspector.’
What did ‘solace’ mean exactly? If only he could be certain he was at least