However, when independence finally happened, Dhamu felt utterly lost and despondent. He felt that his fame was fading away rapidly. The only thing more short-lived than people’s passion was their memory. At a time when people might ask, at any moment, who M. K. Gandhi was, Dhamu shouldn’t be surprised that they would forget his name. But he still took it personally. What is fame, after all? Isn’t it simply the pleasure of being recognized by people we don’t know? Only those who have experienced it would know how precious it is. It is an extraordinary pleasure, no doubt about it. There is nothing small about the pleasure you get when you walk down the road and hear whispers behind you; you see people pointing you out to others, telling them who you are, but you walk on, pretending not to have noticed. Seeing your photo printed in the newspaper with opinions gives you immense joy. Anyone can pretend that they have renounced such attachments. But pleasure is pleasure. You do feel thrilled when people garland you. When they applaud you. Dhamu had grown accustomed to such pleasures—very much so. One of his dreams was for a cartoonist to draw a caricature of him. To make the prospective cartoonist’s job easier, he made sure he dressed consistently and curled his lower lip in a particular way. Now, when he rose to political stardom and became a worthy subject for a cartoon, the cartoonist would know what to highlight in his drawing!

But then—alas!—India gained her independence, and all his dreams were snatched away. It felt like he had been picked up and cast aside without warning while he was still in the middle of a fiery speech on a public stage. Suddenly one morning, he and the other freedom fighters like him had awakened to the new reality that they were ordinary subjects just like everyone else. People seemed lost, like they had been robbed of something, yet they could not tell what it was, so they wandered aimlessly. Nobody could figure out how to reinvent themselves. Dhamu felt that life had come to a standstill. What was he to do with the tongue that still longed to lash out with fiery speeches? Even his own wife wouldn’t applaud him. Not even if he bribed her.