The Moors Last Sigh

campaign were delivered with all the passion of Cyrano wooing his Roxane. But if bombs were the Tin-man’s first love, Nadia Wadia was his second.
    Fielding’s Bombay Municipal Corporation had arranged to give their girl a big send-off to the beauty finals in Granada, Spain. At the party, Nadia, free-spirited Parsi lovely that she was, spurned the reactionary, hard-line Mainduck in full view of the cameras (‘Shri Raman, in my personal opinion you are not so much frog as toad, and I do not think so that if I kissed you you would turn into a prince,’ she replied loudly to his clumsily murmured invitation to a private tête-à-tête) and – to underline her point – deliberately turned her charms upon his rather metallic personal bodyguard. (I was the other one; but was spared.) ‘Tell me,’ she purred at paralysed, sweating Sammy, ‘do you think so I can win?’
    Sammy couldn’t speak. He turned puce, and made a distant gargling noise. Nadia Wadia nodded gravely, as if she had been the beneficiary of true wisdom.
    ‘When I entered Miss Bombay competition,’ she growled, as Sammy quaked, ‘my boyfriend said to me, O, Nadia Wadia, look at those so-so beautiful ladies, I don’t think so you can win. But anyway, you see, I won!’ Sammy reeled beneath the violence of her smile.
    ‘Then when I entered Miss India competition,’ breathed Nadia, ‘my boyfriend said to me, O, Nadia Wadia, look at those so-so beautiful ladies, I don’t think so you can win. But again, you see, I won!’ Most of us in that room were wondering at the lèse-majesté of this unseen boyfriend, and finding it unsurprising that he had not been asked to accompany Nadia Wadia to this reception. Mainduck was trying to look graceful about having recently been called a toad; and Sammy – well, Sammy was just trying not to faint.
    ‘But now it is Miss World competition,’ pouted Nadia. ‘And I look in the magazine at the colour photos of all those so-so beautiful ladies, and I say to myself, Nadia Wadia, I don’t think so you can win.’ She looked yearningly at Sammy, craving the Tinman’s reassurance, while Raman Fielding stood ignored and desperate at her elbow.
    Sammy burst into speech. ‘But, Madam, never mind!’ he blurted. ‘You will get club-class round trip to Europe, and see such great things, and meet the great persons of the world. You will acquit yourself excellently and carry our national flag with honour. Yes! I am certain-sure. So, Madam, forget this winning. Who are those judges-shudges? For us – for people of India – you are already and always the winner.’ It was the most eloquent speech of his life.
    Nadia Wadia feigned dismay. ‘Oh,’ she moaned, breaking his inexpert heart as she moved away. ‘Then you also don’t think so I can win.’
    There was a song about Nadia Wadia after she conquered the world:
Nadia Wadia you’ve gone fardia
Whole of India has admiredia
Whole of world you put in whirlia
Beat their girls for you were girlia
I will buy you a brand new cardia
Let me be your bodyguardia
I love Nadia Wadia hardia
Hardia, Nadia Wadia, hardia .
    Nobody could stop singing it, certainly not the Tin-man. Let me be your bodyguardia  … the line seemed to him like a message from the gods, an intimation of destiny. I also heard a tuneless version of the song being hummed behind Mainduck’s office doors; for Nadia Wadia after her victory became an emblem of the nation, like Lady Liberty or the Marianne, she became the repository of our pride and self-belief. I could see how this affected Fielding, whose aspirations were beginning to burst the bounds of the city of Bombay and the state of Maharashtra; he gave up the mayor’s office to a fellow-MA politico and began to dream of bestriding the national stage, preferably with Nadia Wadia standing at his side. Hardia, Nadia Wadia  … Raman Fielding, that hideously driven man, had set himself a new goal.
    The Ganpati festival came round. It was the fortieth anniversary of Independence, and the MA-controlled Municipal Corporation tried to make this the most impressive Ganesha Chaturthi on record. Worshippers and their effigies were trucked in from outlying areas in their thousands. MA slogans on their saffron banners were all over the town. A special VIP stand was built just off Chowpatty, next to the footbridge; and Raman Fielding invited the new Miss World as guest of honour, and, out of respect for the festive day, she accepted. So the first