This extract is taken from “Holy Warriors” essay, The Godfather. Bal Thackeray is the political powerbroker who founded the extreme rightwing Hindu nationalist movement Shiv Sena in 1966. Shiv Sena or Shivaji’s Army is the iron first of the Hindutva movement in India. In 2003, India Today magazine ranked Thackeray as the fourth most powerful man in the country because of his grip on Mumbai’s mob power. An open admirer of Hitler who has also called for Hindu suicide squads to be formed to attack Muslims, Thackeray talks to Fernandes as he sips Chardonnay, sitting in a black leather massage chair in his swanky perfumed parlour in Mumbai:

It was an ordinary middle class living room, except perhaps for the huge soft focus photo of Thackeray with his arm around Michael Jackson. On the opposite wall were family portraits: the austere black and white photograph of his father was draped with a single garland of yellow and white flowers and a painting of his mother with white and red carnations.

Without fanfare Mr Thackeray entered; he was small and frail but instantly recognizable in his trademark orange kurta as the iconic figure of Hindutva. Brown and white beads hung around his neck and his hair was swept back in a trademark quiff: black, silky and luxuriant. He looked like an Elvis Man. Large square Elvis-in-Las-Vegas-style sunglasses engulfed a thin, sharp-featured face, screening his reactions. I could picture him in a basement nightclub: piano tinkling in the corner, blue cigarette smoke suspended in the air like question marks, lithe-hipped Sena boys sipping whiskey by the bar. Through a haze of Marlboro Lights, a spot-lit Thackeray dressed in white tuxedo, chin dropped into his chest, thin-lipped mouth crooked into a sneer, croons into the microphone to whistles and applause. “Thankyouverymuch gennelmen, you’ve been beautiful!”

Back in the drawing room, Mr Thackeray made the namaskar greeting and sat on the massage chair. He lifted the remote control and pressed the ‘on’ switch. Red lights zipped across the panel as the chair was activated. The massage chair hissed softly and the seat eased higher as it began to work on his body. Small balls within the chair gently pummeled his back and buttocks, issuing a sigh with each elevation and compression. To the rhythm of his mechanical masseur, he was ready to begin.

(Text © Copyright Edna Fernandes, 2007).