Inspired by the elusive Thomas Pynchon, the fictional Ben Narendran and
the imaginary Benno von Archimboldi.
Literature is rife with
stories about writers and their various quirks and eccentricities. Hemmingway
never talked about writing fearing he would jinx his ability, Joyce wrote with
crayons and so on. Some are true which reflect the peculiar nature of genius
while most are nonsense cooked up by admirers during cocktail parties. There is
a particular story though, one so stark from the rest that it represents the
essence of literature. That is the tale of the elusive writer. The writer we
don’t know anything about. He only talks through his works, save them he is
nothing. This complete shunning of fame is commendable as it prevents the
writer from becoming ‘an institution’ as Sartre feared. But no one has taken
the idea of anonymity to the extreme like Francis Drake.
His first work came 20
years ago, a tame novel called ‘Mad Cows’. Mad Cows wasn’t a great success. It
turned a few heads, but gave no glimpse of the impact Francis Drake will have
on literature on the years to come. In retrospect, Mad Cows for him was a
sparring arena where he sharpened his skills in novel writing, a whet stone
where he rubbed out the rust on his craft as he prepared himself for the one
book all great writers must write, the book that was to define him, the book
that will be him in all ways a book can be a man. It came out 4 years later,
called ‘Dead Gods’. It was no sprawling epic but a small 300 page work battling
with the definitions of God and the effects of that on the life of man. Dead
Gods shook up literary circles like no other, reviews heralded it as the novel
of the generation (actual reviews, not the atrocities they quote behind
paperbacks and dust jackets). More importantly Dead Gods grounded literature,
it threw a heavy anchor over the edge of contemporary literature which was
rising higher and away from things that mattered. It was as if, Francis Drake,
through Dead Gods was shouting. ‘This my friends, this is what matters! Fuck
the rest! Fuck the inconsequential shit. Burn them in your fireplaces on chilly
winter nights, tear out their pages to wipe your shit. Because none of it
matters, not even one bit!’
As Francis Drake’s
stock grew, so did the mystery surrounding him. Nobody knew him, no one had a
number, and no one had an address. The publisher had never seen him in person
(so they say), prizes were always collected by lawyers authorized by him, prize
money always ended up in numbered accounts in Geneva. Other novels came out
after Dead Gods, hitting the stands in a quasi-regular frequency of one every
3-4 years. They weren’t as good as his magnum opus, but they were still a lot
better than what his contemporaries were writing, and they cemented his
position as a magnificent dark obelisk in the literary universe.
But his admirers (me
included) were living on the edge. Who was he? How old was he? How many more
years of writing can we expect from him? There were a thousand questions about him
that needed answers. Once in a while he would write a newspaper column, a book
review, do a cameo on a TV show as a voice without a face, giving glimpses of
himself outside the bold letters on the cover of his novels. He teased us with
his anonymity, like a ghost in a haunted house, making the floorboards creak,
rocking the chandelier, whistling in the darkness and then going back into
silence only to reappear after a nervous wait.
Then I met Francis
Drake.
I was given the
difficult task of writing a feature on him by my editor. Even though I wasn’t
expected to catch hold of the man himself (Better journalists have tried and
failed he said), I took it upon myself to track him down and do an interview.
My search started with great enthusiasm, weeks wore on, clues and tips led to
dead ends, I grew wary and my search looked destined to end as a fruitless
embarrassment. Then I got another tip that Francis Drake (hopefully) goes every
week to a small café downtown to write. I wasn’t very hopeful but still went to
the café and talked to the waitress who was on duty. She confirmed that a
gentleman comes there to write every week for a couple of hours. My hopes where
up once more, what if… I gave her a 10$ bill and asked her to call me the next
time he came. I told her specifically to call me only after he was done with
his writing. The last thing I wanted to do was to irritate him by interrupting
his writing schedule.
A few days later I got
her call. When I got to the café he was the only person there, neatly arranging
his papers and checking what he had written. I sat down opposite to him. He was
a black man in his late 40s completely different from how I had imagined him.
He kept on doing what he was doing ignoring me or perhaps so blissfully
immersed in his own work that he failed to notice me. There was a great
vastness separating us, wider than the table in between. I attempted to cross
it with a question.
‘Are you Francis
Drake?’ my lack of tact surprised me. I had planned to talk to him as if all of
this was serendipity and to ask the question later. But on seeing the man
himself I lost all composure. I felt like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert,
hell I would have even pulled his tee shirt.
He looked up and smiled
‘Yes, yes I am’
I was completely thrown
off my guard. On my way to the café I had simulated in my mind numerous
possibilities our conversation could take after the question, and all of them
involved me coercing him to reveal his identity. Even if he was Francis Drake,
I didn’t expect him to concede it so easily. But now, like a naughty wavefunction,
he had collapsed on the most unexpected possibility imaginable. I could only
muster some obvious words in response.
‘I have a lot of things
to ask you’
‘So many people want to
ask me a lot of things’ he said.
He then slid his stack
of papers into his satchel, flung it over his shoulder and got up to leave. I
rose to my feet as if in a dream ‘But I was not done’ I said.
‘I know, I know, but I
don’t have time. The van driver is going to be pissed’ he said
I followed him out and
he didn’t seem to mind. My aim was to find out where he lived. He then turned a
street corner and there was parked a white van. He opened the back door and got
inside. As I got close to van and saw what was written on it I realized that
once again nothing was going as planned, ‘St Mark’s Hospital for the Mentally
Deranged’ it said. But it also made me excited in a certain way. The great
Francis Drake, a mad genius! What a story that would be! I could see it in my
mind, Drake in his green hospital robes, sitting in his room, white tiles on
the floor and on the walls, the whole room smelling like medicines and
denatured alcohol, and there he was writing his great works with a felt-tip
pen, not a normal pen as he stabbed a nurse with it once, gouged out her eye
balls and stuck it in her ears… There he was writing, writing…
The engine of the van
was trying hard to cough itself to a start. I banged on its body and shouted to
stop. I reached the front and asked the driver ‘How long has he been in there?’
‘Who?’
‘Francis Drake of
course’
‘Who!?’ the driver
seemed more confused. It occurred to me that the writer might not have heard
about Francis Drake as he didn’t look the kind of person who would read serious
literature. So I proceeded to educate him on Francis Drake.
‘The man you have
inside is the greatest writer of the century. His stature in literature
eclipses…’ I realized that I have no way to express the greatness of Drake
without running into generalities, so I resorted to a rather crude measure to
quantify his importance ‘He could win the Nobel Prize this year’
‘You don’t say!’ the
driver exclaimed.
He got out of the van
and opened the back door. Inside Francis Drake was staring at the ceiling, lost
in thought.
‘This guy says you are
some writer called Francis Drake’ the driver shouted.
He turned towards us
with blank eyes, his face was expressionless. ‘Yes I write by that name. Have
published a few novels’
‘Looks like you are
right’, the driver said to me. He then shouted into the dim interior of the van
like a lumberjack ‘This guy says you are James Joyce’
‘Yeah, I write by that
name too. Mostly unreadable rubbish’ he replied
‘He says you are Salman
Rushdie’ the driver shouted again, now laughing heartily.
‘Shh.. Keep it down. I
pissed off some guys in Iran with my works. Now they are out to get me for it’
The driver turned to
me, his eyes red and teary from laughter. ‘Anyone else you need to find? He
works for politicians too.’
I could only shake my
head.
‘He is a pretty
harmless guy. We bring him out here once a week for some fresh air. He has
never tried to run away’ he said. I couldn’t muster a single word. He patted me
on the back, got into the van and drove away.
‘Thanks
for bailing me out there Joe’
‘Don’t
mention it Francis’
‘Say,
have you read Joyce and Rushdie by any chance?’
‘Yeah,
ambulance drivers in mental hospitals get a lot of free time’
AJ
