Greatest Short Stories (15 page)

We all rushed towards him.

One of his friends had put his hand on the Nawab’s heart, another was stroking his back.

A soft gurgle reverberated from the Nawab’s mouth. Then there was the echo of a groan and he fell dead. He had been choked by his fit of laughter.

The boat rolled on across the still waters of the Wullar the way it had come, and we sat in the terrible darkness of our minds, utterly silent, till the
begari
began to cry and moan again.

‘Oh, my mother! Oh, my mother!’

^*
From
The Barber s Trade Uion and Other Stories
.

15

The Price of Bananas
^*

During the informal pilgrimage of the ancient cities of India which I made last year, I came across many things, multifarious beautiful and squalid scenes, and a great deal happened to me, which I hope to record in the only language I know, the language of the sharpened pencil, the coloured crayons and the paint brush. But there was one incident which I remember that compels me to put pen to paper, because a mere drawing will not help. So I am venturing on a verbal description of this episode, which may, perhaps, prove to be as amusing as it is significant of certain shades of feeling in our vast country.

I was on my way from Faizabad Railway Station to Lucknow. As everyone knows, Faizabad is the name, given in the days of the Moghul Empire, to the ancient city of Ayodhya, the capital of Maharaj Dasaratha, father of the God-king Rama, the hero of the epic, Ramayana. But many people may not be quite aware of the fact that, after the time of Rama’s just, righteous and brilliant victory over Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, with the help of the monkey general Hanuman and his hordes of monkeys, lemurs, apes and gorillas, the monkey army settled down in Ayodhaya under the shadow of protection of the hero Rama. And though, in time, many of the descendants of the God King Rama himself emigrated to different parts of the country, quite a few of the descendants have remained through the ages clinging to their heredity and preserving the traditions, the noble ideals, the rituals, and even the riotous excesses, of their ancestors.

In this respect, it may be observed that the Simians have preserved their glorious heritage, as well as their sense of hilarity, in a far more integral form than the humans. So that one can see thousands of monkeys, performing miracles, or tricks, just as you may prefer to call their antics, almost with the agility which General Hanuman brought to his noble task in helping Rama. Of course, as succeeding ages have brought more and more highly organised armies and improved weapons, the fighting skill of the monkeys has diminished through lack of regular training, until only the daring plans of the Pentagon for training gorillas and monkeys to fight in new wars, can revive their historic prowess. But the monkeys have lost none of their capacity for fun; and their instinctive ability to spot out a demon, whom they can fight or amuse themselves with, has remained as sharp and uncanny as of yore.

As I had arrived at Faizabad station, half an hour in advance of the time for the train’s departure, I sat on a bench watching the Simian hordes frolicking on the trees and on the open platform. The monkey mothers were hugging their little ones tenderly as they descended now and then from their perches to collect half-sucked mango stones and the remainders of food from the platform. The older monkeys sat enjoying a good old scratch, which is so soothing in the hot weather, as they have obviously learnt from the loin-cloth wearing merchants of our cities. And the younger fraternity sat adroitly on the thinnest boughs of neem and tamarind, trees, camouflaged by the leaves and so poised as to jump down with alacrity in pursuit of any meagre spoils that may be visible in the famished landscape of Uttar Pradesh.

Just then the train was announced by the ringing of the station bell, and, like everyone else, my whole attention was concentrated on securing a porch for myself. I noticed that, in our evolution from the quadruped to the biped stage, we have not only grown much clumsier but also less chivalrous with each other.

The mad rush for seats in the third class compartment by men with heavy bundles on their heads was forgivable enough, but the struggle of the lower middle class for an unreserved seat in the intermediate class was degrading because of the loud words and gnashing teeth. Having qualified into the middle-class, through the expenditure of my savings on a Delhi show of my pictures, I got my reserved seat in the first class compartment easily enough, with the added advantage that this seat was by a window overlooking the platform. Some other passengers, two Sikhs and three bureaucratic looking brown Sahibs, in English suits, joined me in the compartment, and we all began to fan ourselves with whatever came to hand to dry the copious sweet which the rising heat of the summer morning brought to our bodies. I, for one, found the torrid atmosphere of the compartment unbearable and walked out on to the platform. The bureaucrats followed my example. And the shade of the two neem trees was heavenly. For a while, I watched the third class passengers, who were busy filling up their small earthen pitchers and beautiful syphons from the water pump. Then I was fascinated by the genius of a monkey in snatching away the loin cloth of a pious Hindu who had begun to take bath under the pump. The general amusement that was caused by this incident became hilarious laughter when, after the bather had supplicated to the monkey with joined hands, the generous Simian threw down the loin cloth from the neem tree at the man’s feet. It seemed as though the Station Master had trained the monkeys to keep good order on the platform.

While all this was going on, I noticed that a gentlemen, a business man by the look of him, clad in a white muslin dhoti, a delicate ‘Lucknow’ tunic, and an embroidered cap on his head had come up towards our first class compartment and stood looking at the white reservation card to see if his name was on it. He recognised his name on the card, and turning beckoned to the coolie, who was following with his luggage, a big steel trunk and hold-all and several small baskets and a brass jug. Weighed down by the two enormous articles on his head, the coolie could not see the Seth. So the businessman shouted:

‘Are, come here! Can’t you see? Blind one!… Here!’

The coolie did not hear because he was still far away. So the Seth shouted again, lifting his hands as though in a panic:

‘Are, here, hurry, the train might go!’

‘Aya huzoor, aya…!’ the coolie said as he quickened his pace.

But before these reassuring words could have reached the Seth, he was unnerved completely, not by any default of the coolie, but by the adroit skill of a monkey, who leapt down from the top of our compartment, snatched away the fine embroidered cap of the businessman, and got up to the neem tree.

‘Are! Are! Father of fathers! What have you done, monkey, brother-in-law!’; the businessman shouted in utter confusion. And his face, which has been round and smug, was covered with perspiration.

By this time the coolie had arrived with his luggage and was waiting for orders. But the Seth had run up towards the tree over the pump and stood threatening the monkey with his fisticuffs and loud abuse. The more he abused the monkey, however, the remoter the monkey became. For, apparently, it was the same skilful Simian who had played the prank on the bather. And what added to the perplexity of the businessman was the completely unsympathetic attitude of the onlookers, who laughed out aloud or smiled as the Seth became more vociferous in his challenges, threats and imprecations.

‘Look people,’ he said stretching his hands to the crowd with a piteous and hopeless expression on his bespectacled face. He thought that the loss of his head-dress, which is the symbol of dignity in India, would be deplored by everyone and a sentiment of solidarity arise.

But the people just turned their faces away or looked stonefaced, as they often do for fear of being dragged into giving evidence before the police.

And the coolie made it worse by calling out,

‘Sethji, where? Where shall I put the luggage?’

I told the coolie to put the luggage in the compartment, as I knew the Sethji had found a seat here. And I began to help him with the luggage.

As I turned from the compartment, I saw that a fruit hawker had come forward pushing his little cart and was telling the Seth that he would rescue his cap.

Sethji seemed to be only slightly relieved by the voluntary offer of the fruit vendor.

But the vendor went ahead, nevertheless, dangling a couple of bananas before the monkey with this right hand, and stretching out his left hand for the cap.

The monkey seemed to hesitate, not because he was not tempted, but because there were too many people laughing and talking and offering advice and he probably dreaded some punishment if he came down.

‘Ao, ao, come down,’ the vendor coaxed the monkey, lifting the bananas higher up, even as he walked up towards the bough on which the animal was sitting.

The monkey responded by climbing down cautiously to a branch which was almost contiguous to the stretched right arm of the fruit vendor.

The whole platform became silent, as the people, who had been laughing and making odd remarks, waited, with bated breath, for the impossible to happen.

—But the impossible did happen.

The vendor cooed in a soft voice and gestured to the accompaniment of Ao, ao, and the monkey, after looking this side and that accepted the bargain, taking over the bananas with his right hand while he released the wonderful embroidered cap, slightly crumpled with his left hand.

‘Sabhash!
What to say. May I be a sacrifice for you!’ the different members of the crowd commented.

And the Sethji, to whom the cap belonged and whom the monkey had deprived of his dignity so suddenly rudely stretched out his hands towards the fruit vendor to receive the cap. His eyes were withdrawn as he had obviously felt very embarrassed at being made, by a cruel fate, the victim of what now seemed like the perverted sense of humour of the monkey; and he was eager to get into the compartment after the restoration, of his head gear.

The fruit-wallah came and humbly offered the Seth his cap, adding:

‘ Those
budmashes
are hungry. So they disturb the passengers. He really wanted the bananas…”

‘Acha’
, said the Seth surlily and turned to go into the compartment.

‘Sethji, please give me the two annas for the bananas which I had to offer to the monkey…’

‘
Are wahl
What impudence! Two annas if you please! For what?… Sethji shouted each word, with the mingled bitterness of his humiliation at the hands of the monkey and disgust in the face of a grimy fruit vendor

‘But Sethji?’ protested the vendor.

‘
Han, han
, Seth Sahib,’ I added. ‘Please give him two annas.’

‘
Han, han,
’ agreed one of the bureaucrats.

‘
Acha
, here is your money, coolie. Four annas for you! And an anna for you, fruit-wallah!’ Sethji conceded.

‘But huzoor!’ the coolie wailed. ‘Two big pieces of luggage and—’

‘Go, go! Sala! Crook!’ Sethji thundered, turning to the coolie. And he nearly came down from the eminent position he occupied in the doorway, to kick the coolie away.

The coolie went away but the fruit vendor persisted, saying:

‘Sethji, be just, I saved your cap, the mark of your izzat, for you and—’

The businessman threw an anna towards him on the platform and went into the compartment.

The guard’s whistle blew and everyone boarded the train.

The fruit vendor looked in from the window from outside to explore the compartment, so that he could make further please to the Seth. And, finding him settled down, by the Sikhs, he entreated with joined hands:

‘Sethji, do not rob the poor! I tried to—’

‘Ja, ja!
Take rest! do your work!’ the Sethji spat fire, while the frown on his face twisted his visage into an ugly, unhappy scowl.

‘Give, him one anna more, Sethji.’ I said with a straight face.

‘You don’t know, Sahib, you don’t know these
budmashes!
They are in league. with the monkeys! Bananas are two a pice! Fancy asking for an anna for one rotten banana! ‘

This seemed to me outrageous and I was dumb with the shock of the astute businessman’s calculations.

Meanwhile, the train had begun to move, and the fruit vendor first ran along with it, then got on to the footstep and clung to the window, appealing, threatening and pleading in turn. But Sethji had turned his head astray and was looking out of the window at the goods train on the other side.

At length the train passed the whole length of the platform and the frustrated fruit vendor dropped off after hurling the spiciest abuse on the merchant.

I looked at the bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats looked at me, while the Sikhs stared at the Seth, but the Seth kept his face averted from us and kept steadily looking out of the window.

When the train was well out of Faizabad station, he did sit back with his face, now towards the sanctum of the compartment, and began to see if his luggage was alright. Then he turned round to all of us and began to justify himself: “If he did not want to help me to get my cap back, he should not have offered the monkey the bananas! I did not ask him to help!…”

I could not bear this self-righteousness and, under cover of big words, tried to pontificate: ‘
Han, han,
all men are equipped with free will. They can go to hell or they can go to heaven… The rich Sahukars always go to heaven!…’

I impetuously tried to shame him by staring at him when I caught his eyes for a brief moment. But he was partly sheepish and partly knew me to be hostile. So he avoided looking in my direction.

The anger in my soul mounted even as the Seth seemed to cool down and assume an air of casual indifference. I felt that all the other passengers felt with the poor vendor and that the whole amusing occasion had ended in a sour and bitter sense of grievance against the businessman, who seemed tolerably well of from his clean clothes, but who had been so hard to the generous-hearted fruit vendor.

I took the only revenge I could take on this mean creature by drawing a caricature of him in the position in which I had seen him as he stood under the neem tree, supplicating to the monkey who had taken his cap away and I passed it on to the other passengers. The bureaucrats smiled, while the Sikhs began to laugh out aloud and were all for shaming the Seth by showing the cartoon to him. But I restrained them. I think he knew from the ease which arose after the cartoon had been passed round, that our relaxed smiles were the index of his discomfiture…