Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (63 page)

Sriram could merely mumble, ‘Thanks’, and drained his glass. The passage of the juice down his throat was so pleasant that he felt he could not interrupt it under any circumstance. He shut his eyes in ecstasy. For a moment he forgot politics, Bharati, strife, and even Mahatmaji. Just for a second the bliss lasted.

He put down his glass and sighed. The other had taken an invisible infinitesimal layer off the top level in his glass and was saying, ‘Care to have another?’

‘No,’ said Sriram and started to leave. The other walked with him halfway down the drive. Sriram said, ‘Don’t rub off the message I have painted on your doorway.’

‘Oh, no, I shan’t. It is a souvenir and I shall keep it proudly.’

‘But won’t you be leaving this country, quitting, I mean?’ asked Sriram.

‘I don’t think so. Do you wish to quit this country?’

‘Why should I? I was born here,’ said Sriram indignantly.

‘I was unfortunately not born here, but I have been here very much longer than you. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-seven, or thirty. What does it matter?’

‘Well, I was your age when I came here and I am sixty-two today. You see, it is just possible I am as much attached to this country as you are.’

‘But I am an Indian,’ Sriram persisted.

‘So am I,’ said the other, ‘and perhaps I am of some use to the people of this country seeing that I employ five thousand field labourers and about two hundred factory hands and office workers.’

‘You are doing it for your own profit. You think we can only be your servants and nothing else,’ said Sriram, not being able to think of anything better, and then he asked, ‘Aren’t you afraid? You are all alone, if the Indians decide to throw you out, it may not be safe for you.’

Mathieson remained thoughtful for a moment and said, ‘Well, I suppose I shall take my chance, that is all, but of one thing I feel pretty sure – I am not afraid of anything.’

‘It is because Mahatmaji is your best friend. He wants this struggle to be conducted on perfectly non-violent lines.’

‘Of course that is also a point. Well, it was nice meeting you,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Goodbye.’

Sriram went down the pathway, overhung with coffee shrubs, hedge plants, bamboo clusters, and pepper vine winding over everything else, with very dark green grass covering the ditches at the side. He felt so tired that he wondered why he did not lay himself down on the velvet turf and sleep, but he had other things to do. He had unremitting duties to perform.

It was the village named Solur three miles away that was his next destination. The place consisted of about fifty houses on a hill slope. Valleys and meadows stretched away below it. It was seven o’clock when Sriram arrived. The village was astir with activity. Men, women and children were enthusiastically gathered under the banyan tree of the village, in bright chattering groups. A gaslight had been hung from the tree, and one or two people were arranging a couple of iron chairs brought in from one of the richer households in the village. The two iron chairs were meant for some distinguished men who were expected. Sriram went to the only shop in the village, purchased a couple of plantains, and washed them down with a bottle of soda-water.
He felt refreshed. He asked the shopman, ‘What time does the meeting begin?’

‘Very soon, they are bringing someone to entertain us. It is going to be a nice function. Can’t you stay on for it?’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘Where are you coming from?’

‘From far away,’ said Sriram.

‘Where are you going?’ the other asked.

‘Far away again,’ said Sriram, attempting to be as evasive as possible. The other laughed, treating it as a nice joke. The man supported himself by clutching with one hand a rope dangling from the ceiling. It was a box-like little shop made entirely of old packing cases, with a seat cushioned with gunny-sacks for the proprietor to sit on. Bottles containing aerated water in rainbow colours adorned his top shelf, bunches of green bananas hung down by nails in front of his shop, almost hitting one in the face, and he had several little boxes and shallow tins filled with parched rice, fried gram, peppermints, sugar candy, and so forth. He enjoyed Sriram’s joke so much that he asked, ‘I have some nice biscuits, won’t you try them?’

‘Are they English biscuits?’ Sriram asked.

‘The best English biscuits.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I got them through a friend in the army. They are supplied only to the army now. Purely English biscuits which you cannot get for miles around. In these days, no one else can get them.’

‘Have you no sense of shame?’ Sriram asked.

‘Why, why, what is the matter?’ the other said, taken aback, and then said, ‘Hey, give me the money for what you took and get out of here. You are a fellow in
khadi
, are you? Oh! Oh! I didn’t notice. And so you think you can do what you like, talk as you like, and behave like a rowdy.’

‘You may say anything about me, but don’t talk ill of this dress. It is – it is – too sacred to be spoken about in that way.’

The shopman felt cowed by his manner and said, ‘All right, sir, please leave us alone and go your way. I don’t want you lecturing here. Your bill is two annas and six pies … two bananas one anna each, and soda six pies …’

‘Here it is,’ Sriram said, taking out of his tiny purse two small coins and a six-pie piece and passing them to him.

‘You see,’ the other said, softening, ‘this is not the season for bananas and so they are not as cheap as they might be.’

‘I am not questioning your price, but I want you to understand that you should not be selling foreign stuff. You should not sell English biscuits.’

‘All right, sir, hereafter I will be careful, after I dispose of the present stock.’

‘If you have any pride as an Indian you will throw the entire stock in the gutter and won’t let even a crow peck at it. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the shopman, not liking the little circle of watchful people who were gathering. At the end of the street the lecture platform was being set up with groups of people standing around watching. The villagers were very happy, some lively business was going on there as well starting here. The shopman saw an old enemy of his who liked to see him in trouble standing on the edge of the crowd with a grin on his face. As if to satisfy him, the gods had brought this man in
khadi
here, a born trouble-maker. He appealed to Sriram, ‘Now sir, please go away a little. I must close the shop.’

‘You may close the shop if you like but I want you to destroy those biscuits,’ said Sriram firmly.

‘What biscuits?’ asked the shopman alarmed. ‘Please leave me alone, sir.’

‘You have English biscuits, you said.’

‘I have no English biscuits, where should I get them? Even in the black market they are not available.’

‘If they are not English biscuits, so much the better. My esteem for you goes up, but may I have a look at one of them?’

‘I have no biscuits at all,’ pleaded the shopman. The crowd guffawed. Somebody shouted to someone else, ‘Hey, here is Ranga in the soup, come on.’

‘You have got them in that box,’ Sriram said, pointing to one of the tin boxes. The shopman immediately lifted its lid and displayed its contents, white flour, luckily for him.

‘But did you not say that you had biscuits a moment ago?’

‘Who? I? I was merely joking. I am a poor shopkeeper, how could I afford to pay black market rates for biscuits and keep them for sale?’

‘He has got them inside, sir. Let him show us the inside of his shop,’ said one of the wags.

‘Shut up and go your way,’ shouted the shopman.

The situation was getting more complicated every moment.

‘I am very sorry to note that you are a liar, in addition to being a seller of foreign black market stuff. I am prepared to lay my life at your threshold, if it will only make you truthful and patriotic. I will not leave this place until I see you empty all your stock in that drain, and give me an undertaking that you will never utter a falsehood again in your life. I am going to stay here till I drop dead at your door.’

‘You are picking an unnecessary fight with me,’ wailed the man.

‘I am only fighting the evil in you, it is a non-violent fight.’

A woman came to buy half an anna’s worth of salt. Sriram interposed and said, ‘Please don’t buy anything here.’ When the woman tried to get past him he threw himself before her on the muddy ground: ‘You can walk over me if you like, but I will not allow you to buy anything in his shop.’

The shopman looked miserable. What an evil day! What evil face did he open his eyes on when he awoke that morning! He pleaded, ‘Sir, I will do anything you say, please don’t create trouble for me.’

Sriram said: ‘You are completely mistaking me, my friend. It’s not my intention to create trouble for you. I only wish to help you.’

The woman who came to buy salt said: ‘The sauce on the oven will evaporate if I wait for your argument to finish,’ and, looking at the figure lying prone on the ground, she pleaded: ‘May I buy my salt at the other shop over there, sir?’

Sriram with his head down could not help laughing. He said: ‘Why should you not buy your salt wherever you like?’

She didn’t understand his point of view and explained: ‘I buy salt once a month, sir. After all, we are poor people. We cannot afford luxuries in life. Salt used to cost –’

Sriram, still on his belly, raised his head and said, ‘It’s for people like you that Mahatma Gandhi has been fighting. Do you know that he will not rest till the Salt Tax is repealed?’

‘Why, sir?’ she asked innocently.

‘For every pinch of salt you consume, you have to pay a tax to the English Government. That’s why you have to pay so much for salt.’

Someone interposed to explain: ‘And when the tax goes, you will get so much salt for an anna,’ he indicated a large quantity with his hands.

The woman was properly impressed and said, opening her eyes wide: ‘It used to be so cheap,’ and added, throwing a hostile glance at the shopman standing on his toes, supporting himself by the dangling rope, with tears in his eyes, ‘Our shopmen are putting up the prices of everything nowadays. They have become very avaricious,’ a sentiment with which most people were in agreement. A general murmur of approval went round the gathering.

The shopman standing on his toes said, ‘What can we do, we sell the salt at the price the government have fixed.’

‘You might support those of us who are fighting the government on these questions,’ said Sriram, ‘if you cannot do anything else. Do you remember Mahatma’s march to Dandi Beach in 1930? He walked three hundred miles across the country, in order to boil the salt-water on the beach of Dandi and help anyone to boil salt-water and make his own salt.’

The shopman was the very picture of misery. He said in an undertone, ‘I’ll do anything you want me to do, please get up and go away. Your clothes are getting so dirty lying in the dirt.’

‘Don’t bother about my clothes. I can look after them; I can wash them.’

‘But this mud is clayey, sir, it is not easily removed,’ said the shopman.

Someone in the crowd cried, ‘What do you care? He will probably give it to a good
dhobi
.’

‘If you can’t find a
dhobi
, you can give it to our
dhobi
Shama, he will remove any stain. Even Europeans in those estates above call him for washing their clothes, sir.’

Someone else nudged him and murmured, ‘Don’t mention Europeans now; he doesn’t like them.’

It seemed to Sriram that the people here liked to see him lying there on the ground, and were doing everything to keep him down. When this struck him, he raised himself on his hands and sat up. There was a smear of mud on his nose and forehead and sand on his hair. A little boy, wearing a short vest and a pair of trousers twice his size, came running, clutching tightly a six-pie coin in his hand. He shouted: ‘Give me good snuff for my grandfather, three pies, and coconut
bharfi
for three.’ He dashed past Sriram to the shop and held out his coin. The shopman snatched the coin from his hand in the twinkling of an eye. Sriram touched the feet of the young boy and importuned him: ‘Don’t buy anything in this shop.’

‘Why not?’

Sriram started to explain, ‘You see, our country – ‘when two or three people in the crowd pulled the young boy by the scruff, saying, ‘Why do you ask questions? Why don’t you just do what you are asked to do?’ They tried to pull him away, but he clung to a short wooden railing and cried: ‘He has taken my money. My money, my money.’

People shouted angrily at the shopman, ‘Give the boy his money.’

The shopman cried: ‘How can I? This is a Friday, and would it not be inauspicious to give back a coin? I’ll be ruined for the rest of my life. I am prepared to give him what he wants for the coin, even a little more if he wants; but no, I can’t give back the cash. Have pity on me, friends. I am a man with seven children.’

The little boy cried: ‘My grandfather will beat me if I don’t take him the snuff. His box is empty. He is waiting for me.’

‘Go and buy in that other shop,’ someone said.

The boy answered, ‘He’ll throw it away if it is from any other shop.’

The shopman added with untimely pride, ‘He has been my customer for the last ten years. He can’t get this snuff from any other place. I challenge anyone.’

The boy clung to the railing and cried, ‘I must have the snuff, otherwise –’

Someone from the crowd pounced upon him muttering imprecations and tore him away from the railing. The boy set up a howl. The crowd guffawed. The shopman wrung his hands in despair. Sriram sat in the dust like a statue, solemnly gazing at the ground before him. Someone pacified the boy, murmuring in his ears, ‘Come and fetch your snuff after that fellow leaves.’

‘When will he go?’ whispered the boy.

‘He will go away soon. He is not a man of this place,’ another whispered.

‘But my grandfather’s snuff-box must be filled at once.’

‘I’ll come and speak to your grandfather, don’t worry.’

Sriram sat listening to everything, but he said nothing, without moving.