Read Online A Son Of The Circus by John Irving - Free Book Online Page B

Dhar; that he faithfully and cruelly spurned her was his signature, his trademark, and the part of his films that made Indian women and young girls adore him. Whether this aspect of Dhar’s character reflected his feelings for his mother or gave fictional evidence of his stated intentions to sire only Indian babies – well, who knew? Who really knew anything about Inspector Dhar? Hated by all men, loved by all women (who
said
that they hated him).
    Even the Indian women who’d dated him were uniform in the zeal they demonstrated in protection of his privacy. They would say, ‘He’s not at all like he is in his movies.’ (No examples were ever forthcoming.) They would say, ‘He’s very old-fashioned, a real gentleman.’ (No examples were ever asked for.) ‘He’s very modest, really – and very quiet,’ they would say.
    Everyone could believe he was ‘quiet’; there were suspicions that he never spoke an unscripted line –these were happy, mindless contradictions of the rumor regarding his accentless English. No one believed anything, or else they believed everything they’d ever heard. That he had two wives – one in Europe. That he had a dozen children – none he would acknowledge, all of them illegitimate. That he actually lived in Los Angeles, in his vile mother’s house!
    In the face of all rumors, and in keeping with the violent contrasts created by the extreme popularity of his movies and the extreme animosity toward him that was inspired by his sneer, Dhar himself remained inscrutable. No small amount of sarcasm was detectable in his sneer; no either thick-set, middle-aged man could possibly have seemed so self-possessed.
    Dhar endorsed only one charity; so totally and convincingly did he solicit the public’s support of his personal crusade that he had achieved a philanthropic status as high as any among the several benefactors of Bombay. He made television commercials for the Hospital for Crippled Children. The advertisements were made at Dhar’s own expense and they were devastatingly effective. (Dr Daruwalla was the author of these commercials as well.)
    On the TV, Inspector Dhar faces the camera in medium close-up, wearing a loose-fitting white shirt –a collarless or mandarin-style kurta – and he holds his practiced sneer only as long as he imagines it takes to get the viewer’s full attention. Then he says, ‘You may love to hate me – I make a lot of money and I don’t give any of it to anyone, except to these children.’ There then follows a series of shots of Dhar among the crippled children at the orthopedic hospital: a deformed little girl crawls toward Inspector Dhar, who holds out his hands to her; Inspector Dhar is surrounded by staring children in wheelchairs; Inspector Dhar lifts a little boy from a swirling whirlpool bath and carries him to a clean white table, where two nurses assemble the child’s leg braces for him – the boy’s legs aren’t as big around as his arms.
    Regardless, Inspector Dhar was still hated; on occasion, he was even attacked. Local bullies wanted to see if he was as tough and practiced in the martial arts as the police inspector he portrayed; apparently, he was. He would respond to any and all verbal abuse with a queerly restrained version of his sneer. It made him appear mildly drunk. But if physically threatened, he wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate in kind; once, assaulted by a man with a chair, Dhar struck back with a table. He was reputed to be as dangerous as his screen persona. He’d occasionally broken other people’s bones; perhaps from his understanding of orthopedics, he’d caused serious injuries to the joints of his assailants. He was capable of real damage. But Dhar didn’t pick fights, he simply won them.
    His trashy films were hastily made, his publicity appearances minimal; the rumor was, he spent next to no time in Bombay. His chauffeur was an unfriendly dwarf, a former circus clown whom the film-gossip press had confidently