Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (64 page)

The crowd by the shop gradually melted away as the gathering at the other end started to form. A second lantern was being taken up the tree. The crowd looked up and said, ‘Ramu is climbing the tree with the lantern.’ They pointed at a youth wearing a striped banian over his bare body and khaki shorts. His mother watching from below cried, ‘Hey, Ramu, don’t go up the tree, someone pull that boy down, he’s always climbing trees.’

‘Why do you bother, what if boys do climb trees?’ asked someone. A quarrel started, the mother retorting, ‘You wouldn’t talk like that if you had a son always endangering himself

The boy shouted from the tree-top, ‘If you are going to quarrel, I will jump down and make you all scream.’ The crowd enjoyed the situation. For a moment the shopman lost sight of his own troubles, gazed at the tree-top, and remarked, ‘That’s a terrible boy, always worrying his mother with his desperate antics. She knows no peace with him about.’

‘Well, he looks old enough to look after himself,’ said Sriram.

‘Yes, but he has been spoilt by his mother, he is always climbing trees, or swimming or teasing people, a rowdy,’ said the shopman.

‘You people trouble him too much. He will not bother anyone if he is left alone,’ said Sriram. ‘Everyone is advising and worrying him.’

Now came a shout from the tree-top: ‘I have fixed the lantern. Who else could have done it?’ The lantern swung in the air and
threw moving shadows on the rocky hill slope behind. The crowd jeered and laughed at him. ‘If anyone jeers at me, I’ll cut the rope and throw the lamp on you all,’ he challenged.

‘Devil of a boy,’ shouted his mother. It was pointless banter, it seemed to Sriram. He felt angry at the thought of all the aimless, light-hearted folk in this place. The shopman added, ‘There is no peace in this village – those two are always bothering everyone in some way or other.’

‘You are no better,’ said Sriram angrily. The country was engaged in a struggle for survival; in a flash there passed before his mind Gandhi, his spinning wheel, the hours he spent in walking, thinking and mortifying himself in various ways, his imprisonment, and all this seemed suddenly pointless, seeing the kind of people for whom it was intended. He suddenly felt unhappy. All his own activity seemed to him meaningless. He might as well return to the cosy isolation of Kabir Street – that would at least make one old soul happy. What did it matter whether the shopman sold British biscuits or Scandinavian ones or Chinese crackers or French butter? It was only a matter of commerce between a conscienceless tradesman and a thick-skinned public. All this sitting in the mud and bothering and fighting was uncalled for. He felt suddenly weary. He asked the shopman, ‘Can you give me a piece of paper and a pen and an envelope? I will pay for it.’

‘No, sir,’ said the shopman. ‘There is no demand for paper and such things at this shop. People who come here are all simple folk, who want something to eat or drink.’

‘And who ask only for English biscuits, I suppose?’ said Sriram cynically.

‘Forget it, sir. I’ll never do it again,’ assured the shopman, ‘if you will only get up from that spot and forget me.’

Sriram felt pleased at the compliment and at the great importance his personality had acquired. It was very gratifying. ‘You are not lying, I hope, about the paper and envelope?’ he asked. ‘Possibly you have only the costliest English paper and ink?’

‘No, sir, I swear by the goddess in that temple. I have no stock, and I swear by all that is holy I will hereafter avoid all English goods. I will fling into the gutter any biscuit that I may ever see
anywhere. I will kick anyone who asks for an English biscuit. At least in this village there will be no more English biscuits. Meanwhile, may I go to the school-master and fetch you a sheet of paper and a pen? He is the only one who ever writes anything in this place.’ The shopman added, ‘Please move up a little, I can’t leave the shop open, there are too many thieves about.’

Sriram said, ‘I’ll look after your shop while you are away,’ and then, in a sinister manner, ‘You know how well I can keep people off He seemed to enjoy it as a joke.

The shopman thought it best to join in and laughed nervously, preparing to close the doors of the shop. His nerves were taut lest Sriram should suddenly change his mind. He added, in order to safeguard himself against this possibility, ‘You must write your letters, sir, without fail, however busy you may be. I’ll be back in a moment.’ He felt happy when he gave a tug to his brass lock and jumped down. He felt like a free man. This was his first taste of absolute freedom in all his life. ‘I will be back, sir, I will be back, sir,’ he cried, running away jingling his bunch of keys. It was an amusing sight to watch the portly man run.

Sriram enjoyed it for a while, leaned back on the door of the shop decorated with enamel plates advertising soaps and hair-oil, and composed in his mind the letter he would write when the paper arrived. His eyes were watching the swaying lanterns dangling from the tree branch over the shrine, and the people assembled for the meeting under it. His mind was busy with the letter: ‘Revered Mahatmaji, I don’t know why we should bother about these folk. They don’t seem to deserve anything we may do for them. They sell and eat foreign biscuits. They are all frivolous-minded, always bothering too much about a young scamp who has climbed a tree. I don’t know if he has come down; I don’t care if he falls down; it’ll be a good riddance for all concerned. They will thank us for leaving them alone, rather than for telling them how to win
Swaraj
. They simply don’t care. At this very moment I find them engrossed in preparing for a Loyalists’ Meeting. What I want to know, my revered Mahatmaji, is – ‘He wondered what it was that he wanted to tell the Mahatmaji. What was really the problem?

He lost sight of the problem. He felt suddenly that he was too tired and unhappy. He was hungry and homesick. He wanted to go back to his Kabir Street home, preferably with Bharati, and forget all this. The banana and soda-water were hardly adequate for the strain he was undergoing. He wished he could ask the man for more if he came back and opened the shop door. He was seized with such inertia that he watched without stirring the proceedings of the meeting ahead of him. His conscience pricked him all the time. Something told him: ‘You are here to counteract this meeting, but you are doing nothing about it.’ He merely told himself, ‘I can’t do anything. I want to suspend everything till I have guidance from my leader. There is no use rushing along without a point.’ He saw without emotion a set of people arrive in a jeep. A gramophone ground away, with amplifiers, producing some film songs to which the public marked time. And then someone came up with a harmonium, and accompanied it in a loud voice. Sriram shut his ears at the sound of the harmonium: ‘Damned instrument,’ he muttered to himself. His nerves were a jangle with its raucous cry. ‘I hope when Mahatma Gandhi becomes the Emperor of India, he will make it a penal offence to make or play this instrument. This too is a British gift, I suppose,’ he told himself.

After the music someone presented a scene from Ramayana, with music and narration. The public enjoyed the show. Right in the midst of it all, the two officers occupying the iron chairs suddenly got up and delivered a speech in very bad Tamil. They explained the importance of the war, how Britain was winning, how it was India’s duty to help, and how India should protect herself from enemies within and without. There were policemen in plain clothes, made less plain by their broad belts and khaki shirts, civil officers in tweed and bush coats, with sleek hair; somebody was distributing toffee out of a tin to all the children in the assembly. Sriram said to himself, ‘I’m here to stop it, but – but – let me first write to the Mahatma and get his advice – ‘He looked about him. He had an excuse to wait for the promised letter-paper. But he spotted the shopman in the crowd. ‘Oh, liar!’ Sriram commented: ‘He is probably going to pretend that
he is a child, ask for toffee and sell it at black market rates tomorrow at his shop.’

As if in answer to his unwritten letter he received a communication from Mahatmaji. It was enclosed in a note to Bharati and said: ‘Your work should be a matter of inner faith. It cannot depend upon what you see or understand. Your conscience should be your guide in every action. Consult it and you won’t go wrong. Don’t guide yourself by what you see. You should do your duty because your inner voice drives you to do it. Look after Bharati as well as she looks after you, that’s all. God bless you both in your endeavours.’

The message had given Bharati an occasion to come up and see him. It was one of his off-days, a day of soldier’s leave, as he thought. He had sat at the portal of his ruined temple resigning himself to doing nothing for the day, going through an old issue of a paper he had picked up. It was full of dead news – of the Maginot Line and the like. But that was enough for him. The mail carrier had stepped off the boulder down below long ago on his return journey, and had gone back to the plains. The evening train had crawled in and out of the landscape. The sun stood poised over the western horizon.

Sriram brought out his rush mat, spread it out and threw himself on it, and was presently absorbed not only in reading all the stale news in the paper, but also in all those jokes, tit-bits, and syndicated cartoons which filled the bottom of its columns. He had picked up the paper on the highway, when returning from his expedition at Solur village. It had blown across the highway and hugged a tree-trunk. He unwound the sheet from the tree-trunk, flashed his torch on it and saw that it was an up-country paper which was well known for its reactionary views and carping references to Gandhiji, but still it contained some interesting Sunday reading. He felt irritated for a second at the thought that someone should have been scattering such an imperialistic paper in these parts, but he carefully folded it and put it into his bag. He had been the victim of certain moments of extreme boredom, when he felt that the huge teak trees and bamboo clumps and the estate trees covering slope upon slope
would destroy his mind. They got on his nerves and made him want to shout aloud in protest. He once tried talking aloud to himself in order to get over the tedium. He asked himself, ‘Hallo, what are you doing here?’ and told himself, ‘I am fighting for my country.’

‘What sort of fighting is it? You look like a vagabond, with no uniform, no weapon, and no enemy in sight, what sort of fight is this? Are you joking?’ and he laughed aloud, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ He spoke at the top of his voice till the hills echoed with his voice, and one or two birds sitting on a tree nearby took off in fright. This exuberance had greatly relieved his mind. Now he hoped to be provided against boredom with this sheet of newspaper. Here at least was something to read instead of watching endlessly those tree-tops and valleys. It was his lot to be here. He could not kick against it.

He stretched himself on his mat. He had rolled a block of stone over to serve as a back-support for his couch. He had found it a couple of days before lying about in the grass and weeds, and had moved it up with difficulty. It had taken him nearly an hour. There were smoothed-out lettering and ornamental carvings on the stone. He had speculated what they might signify, they were circular letters which looked familiar but eluded study; probably a message carved thousands of years ago by some king or emperor or tyrant one found pictured in history books. History books were full of ruffianly-looking characters, according to Sriram. He had often wondered what good purpose could possibly be served in reading and allowing oneself to be questioned about side-whiskered
goondas?
Reclining against his tablet he thought that if he had at least passed his examinations normally, he needn’t have got into this present life. He might have settled as a good-natured clerk in an office, as his friend Prasanna had done. It was only yesterday he had been a champion street-footballer, but already he was in harness, slaving at the Treasury desk several hours a day.

Sriram reclined comfortably against the ancient tablet, and read a joke in which a ‘He’ and a ‘She’ indulged in a four-line dialogue. ‘When am I going to get my tie pressed?’ To which she gave the smart reply: ‘Exactly an hour after I get that gown.’
Sriram read it over again and again, and felt irritated. What was the joke? Where lay its humour? He looked it over and examined it minutely, but failed to spot any sense in it. It was accompanied by a grotesque-looking couple, fat about the waist. Sriram thought: ‘One can’t tell what humour Englishmen will enjoy!’ He put away the paper and its corners rustled in the wind. Now it was as if he heard the anklet-sound of his beloved, and there she was down below. Bharati was coming up the road half a mile away. She had never been more welcome. He got up and ran to her with a wild cry of joy. He saw her as an angel come to relieve him of his tedium. She carried a bag in her hand, as usual, and she strode on with such assurance and happiness. She was taken aback, when turning a bend, she was accosted by Sriram.

‘Hallo!’ he cried at the top of his voice: ‘Here is my
Devata
come!’

She slowed down her pace and said: ‘What has come over you? What will anyone seeing us think!’

‘Who is there to see and think?’ he asked haughtily. ‘As if a big crowd were milling about!’ he said, putting into his expression all the venom he felt at his lonely existence. She detected his tone of bitterness but preferred to overlook it.

‘What do you want? A big fair around you all the time?’ she asked light-heartedly, walking on.

He asked, ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to meet you.’

‘Here I am!’

‘I won’t take official notice of your presence here, but if you want me to state my business, I will say it and go back. I have come to you with excellent news.’

‘What is it?’ he cried anxiously, following her.

She went on, saying, ‘Come and hear it at your own place.’

At his place, he ceremoniously showed her the mat, and begged her to recline with ease against the tablet. She obeyed him. She stretched her legs, leaned back on the tablet, and while her figure was rousing wild emotions in Sriram, she picked up the letter from her little bag and gave it to him. ‘Here is a letter from Bapu for you. How do you like it?’ He read it and remained
thoughtful. Owls were hooting, the sky had darkened; crickets were making a noise in the dark bushes. He sat beside her on the mat. He could see her left breast moving under her white
khadar sari
. She seemed to be unaware of the feelings she was rousing in him.