– hush goings – on inside the well – guarded precincts of the blue stocking club and on one memorable occasion, he had even garnered enough gumption to peep diffidently through the massive wrought iron gates before being brusquely shooed away by an imposing durwan who looked like a Commodore Second Class of the Royal Ruritanian Navy.

Puttanna could not believe his flapping ears and with amazing alacrity, he deserted me – a friend of 30 years standing and eagerly followed the white man into the club like a hungry bulldog going after a chicken bone.

Presently, a gentleman – undoubtedly a bearer of the white man’s burden east of the Suez for he was wearing a pair of Bermudas and a Panama hat and had a face as red as an angro tomato, came out of the club and crossing the road approached Puttanna. “Excuse me sir,” he said tipping his hat, “I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes? We want you for a scene in a film we’re shooting” (Yes, you are right, it was E.M. Foster’s ‘A Passage to India)

Puttanna could not believe his flapping ears and with amazing alacrity, he deserted me – a friend of 30 years standing and eagerly followed the white man into the club like a hungry bulldog going after a chicken bone. After that, there was no stopping Puttanna and his noisome bragging became the talk of the town. “After Sir Alec Guiness saw my acting, he came up to me and asked for my autograph!” and “Sir David Lean is going to nominate me for an Oscar” and “I’m seriously thinking of winding down my Bangalore establishment and re- locating to Hollywood. I’m receiving serious offers from MGM, Warner Brothers and United Artistes.”

I was not taken in though. A few discreet enquiries with the bar stewards and the proverbial cat was out of the bag. Puttanna’s was strictly a walk – on, walk – off role. The scene was a glittering evening garden party and ball hosted by the British Resident in honour of the visiting Viceroy and his lady and Puttanna in the garb of a native bearer had only to approach a minor prince of a Part C state, bow low and enquire “Hock or sherry, your Highness?” and withdraw and the audience attending the premiere of ‘A Passage to India’ had seen the last of Puttanna.

A fleeting association with the British has brought out the ham in Puttanna. He now dresses for dinner, eats with a knife and fork and reads the Daily Telegraph over a breakfast of eggs and bacon, vehemently assails the British for granting India (whose people he condescendingly calls ‘natives’) its independence, celebrates the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, swears by Nirad Chaufhuri and V.S. Naipaul and generally makes a squalid nuisance of himself.

You will appreciate how insufferably a ‘White Pretender Sahib’ Puttanna has become when I tell you that he has just hung a sign on his gate which reads ‘Indians and dogs not allowed’.