"The Malgudi Days"

R. K. NARAYAN 

Malgudi Days 




AN ASTROLOGER'S DAY 


Punctually at midday he opened his bag and spread out his professional equipment, which 
consisted of a dozen cowrie shells, a square piece of cloth with obscure mystic charts on it, a 
notebook and a bundle of palmyra writing. His forehead was resplendent with sacred ash and 
vermilion, and his eyes sparkled with a sharp abnormal gleam which was really an outcome of a 
continual searching look for customers, but which his simple clients took to be a prophetic light 
and felt comforted. The power of his eyes was considerably enhanced by their position—placed 
as they were between the painted forehead and the dark whiskers which streamed down his 
cheeks: even a half-wit's eyes would sparkle in such a setting. To crown the effect he wound a 
saffron-coloured turban around his head. This colour scheme never failed. People were 
attracted to him as bees are attracted to cosmos or dahlia stalks. He sat under the boughs of a 
spreading tamarind tree which flanked a path running through the Town Hall Park. It was a 
remarkable place in many ways: a surging crowd was always moving up and down this narrow 
road morning till night. A variety of trades and occupations was represented all along its way: 
medicine-sellers, sellers of stolen hardware and junk, magicians and, above all, an auctioneer of 
cheap cloth, who created enough din all day to attract the whole town. Next to him in 
vociferousness came a vendor of fried groundnuts, who gave his ware a fancy name each day, 
calling it Bombay Ice-Cream one day, and on the next Delhi Almond, and on the third Raja's 
Delicacy, and so on and so forth, and people flocked to him. A considerable portion of this 
crowd dallied before the astrologer too. The astrologer transacted his business by the light of a 
flare which crackled and smoked up above the groundnut heap nearby. Half the enchantment 
of the place was due to the fact that it did not have the benefit of municipal lighting. The place 
was lit up by shop lights. One or two had hissing gaslights, some had naked flares stuck on 
poles, some were lit up by old cycle lamps and one or two, like the astrologer's, managed 
without lights of their own. It was a bewildering crisscross of light rays and moving shadows. 
This suited the astrologer very well, for the simple reason that he had not in the least intended 
to be an astrologer when he began life; and he knew no more of what was going to happen to 
others than he knew what was going to happen to himself next minute. He was as much a 
stranger to the stars as were his innocent customers. Yet he said things which pleased and 
astonished everyone: that was more a matter of study, practice and shrewd guesswork. All the 
same, it was as much an honest man's labour as any other, and he deserved the wages he 
carried home at the end of a day. 

He had left his village without any previous thought or plan. If he had continued there he would 
have carried on the work of his forefathers—namely, tilling the land, living, marrying and 
ripening in his cornfield and ancestral home. But that was not to be. He had to leave home 
without telling anyone, and he could not rest till he left it behind a couple of hundred miles. To 
a villager it is a great deal, as if an ocean flowed between. 

He had a working analysis of mankind's troubles: marriage, money and the tangles of human 
ties. Long practice had sharpened his perception. Within five minutes he understood what was 
wrong. He charged three pies per question and never opened his mouth till the other had 
spoken for at least ten minutes, which provided him enough stuff for a dozen answers and 
advices. When he told the person before him, gazing at his palm, 'In many ways you are not 
getting the fullest results for your efforts,' nine out of ten were disposed to agree with him. Or 
he questioned: 'Is there any woman in your family, maybe even a distant relative, who is not 
well disposed towards you?' Or he gave an analysis of character: 'Most of your troubles are due 
to your nature. How can you be otherwise with Saturn where he is? You have an impetuous 



nature and a rough exterior.' This endeared him to their hearts immediately, for even the 
mildest of us loves to think that he has a forbidding exterior. 

The nuts-vendor blew out his flare and rose to go home. This was a signal for the astrologer to 
bundle up too, since it left him in darkness except for a little shaft of green light which strayed 
in from somewhere and touched the ground before him. He picked up his cowrie shells and 
paraphernalia and was putting them back into his bag when the green shaft of light was blotted 
out; he looked up and saw a man standing before him. He sensed a possible client and said: 
'You look so careworn. It will do you good to sit down for a while and chat with me.' The other 
grumbled some vague reply. The astrologer pressed his invitation; whereupon the other thrust 
his palm under his nose, saying: 'You call yourself an astrologer?' The astrologer felt challenged 
and said, tilting the other's palm towards the green shaft of light: 'Yours is a nature . . .' 'Oh, 
stop that,' the other said. 'Tell me something worthwhile . ..' 

Our friend felt piqued. 'I charge only three pies per question, and what you get ought to be 
good enough for your money . . .' At this the other withdrew his arm, took out an anna and 
flung it out to him, saying, 'I have some questions to ask. If I prove you are bluffing, you must 
return that anna to me with interest.' 

'If you find my answers satisfactory, will you give me five rupees?' 

'No.' 

'Or will you give me eight annas?' 

'All right, provided you give me twice as much if you are wrong,' said the stranger. This pact 
was accepted after a little further argument. The astrologer sent up a prayer to heaven as the 
other lit a cheroot. The astrologer caught a glimpse of his face by the match-light. There was a 
pause as cars hooted on the road, jutka -drivers swore at their horses and the babble of the 
crowd agitated the semi-darkness of the park. The other sat down, sucking his cheroot, puffing 
out, sat there ruthlessly. The astrologer felt very uncomfortable. 'Here, take your anna back. I 
am not used to such challenges. It is late for me today . . .' He made preparations to bundle up. 
The other held his wrist and said, 'You can't get out of it now. You dragged me in while I was 
passing.' The astrologer shivered in his grip; and his voice shook and became faint. 'Leave me 
today. I will speak to you tomorrow.' The other thrust his palm in his face and said, 'Challenge is 
challenge. Go on.' The astrologer proceeded with his throat drying up. 'There is a woman . ..' 

'Stop,' said the other. 'I don't want all that. Shall I succeed in my present search or not? Answer 
this and go. Otherwise I will not let you go till you disgorge all your coins.' The astrologer 
muttered a few incantations and replied, 'All right. I will speak. But will you give me a rupee if 
what I say is convincing? Otherwise I will not open my mouth, and you may do what you like.' 
After a good deal of haggling the other agreed. The astrologer said, 'You were left for dead. Am 
I right?' 

'Ah, tell me more.' 

'A knife has passed through you once?' said the astrologer. 

'Good fellow!' He bared his chest to show the scar. 'What else?' 

'And then you were pushed into a well nearby in the field. You were left for dead.' 

'I should have been dead if some passer-by had not chanced to peep into the well,' exclaimed 



the other, overwhelmed by enthusiasm. 'When shall I get at him?' he asked, clenching his fist. 


'In the next world,' answered the astrologer. 'He died four months ago in a far-off town. You 
will never see any more of him.' The other groaned on hearing it. The astrologer proceeded. 

'Guru Nayak—' 

'You know my name!' the other said, taken aback. 

'As I know all other things. Guru Nayak, listen carefully to what I have to say. Your village is two 
days' journey due north of this town. Take the next train and be gone. I see once again great 
danger to your life if you go from home.' He took out a pinch of sacred ash and held it out to 
him. 'Rub it on your forehead and go home. Never travel southward again, and you will live to 
be a hundred.' 

'Why should I leave home again?' the other said reflectively. 'I was only going away now and 
then to look for him and to choke out his life if I met him.' He shook his head regretfully. 'He 
has escaped my hands. I hope at least he died as he deserved.' 'Yes,' said the astrologer. 'He 
was crushed under a lorry.' The other looked gratified to hear it. 

The place was deserted by the time the astrologer picked up his articles and put them into his 
bag. The green shaft was also gone, leaving the place in darkness and silence. The stranger had 
gone off into the night, after giving the astrologer a handful of coins. 

It was nearly midnight when the astrologer reached home. His wife was waiting for him at the 
door and demanded an explanation. He flung the coins at her and said, 'Count them. One man 
gave all that.' 

'Twelve and a half annas,' she said, counting. She was overjoyed. 'I can buy some jaggery and 
coconut tomorrow. The child has been asking for sweets for so many days now. I will prepare 
some nice stuff for her.' 

'The swine has cheated me! He promised me a rupee,' said the astrologer. She looked up at 
him. 'You look worried. What is wrong?' 

'Nothing.' 

After dinner, sitting on the pyol, he told her, 'Do you know a great load is gone from me today? 
I thought I had the blood of a man on my hands all these years. That was the reason why I ran 
away from home, settled here and married you. He is alive.' 

She gasped. 'You tried to kill!' 

'Yes, in our village, when I was a silly youngster. We drank, gambled and quarrelled badly one 
day—why think of it now? Time to sleep,' he said, yawning, and stretched himself on the pyol. 



THE MISSING MAIL 


Though his beat covered Vinayak Mudali Street and its four parallel roads, it took him nearly six 
hours before he finished his round and returned to the head office in Market Road to deliver 
accounts. He allowed himself to get mixed up with the fortunes of the persons to whom he was 
carrying letters. At No. 13, Kabir Street, lived the man who had come halfway up the road to ask 
for a letter for so many years now. Thanappa had seen him as a youngster, and had watched 
him day by day greying on the pyol, sitting there and hoping for a big prize to come his way 
through solving crossword puzzles. 'No prize yet,' he announced to him every day. 'But don't be 
disheartened.' 'Your interest has been delayed this month somehow,' he said to another. 'Your 
son at Hyderabad has written again, madam. How many children has he now?' 'I did not know 
that you had applied for this Madras job; you haven't cared to tell me! It doesn't matter. When 
I bring you your appointment order you must feed me with coconut payasam.' And at each of 
these places he stopped for nearly half an hour. Especially if anyone received money orders, he 
just settled down quite nicely, with his bags and bundles spread about him, and would not rise 
till he gathered an idea of how and where every rupee was going. If it was a hot day he 
sometimes asked for a tumbler of buttermilk and sat down to enjoy it. Everybody liked him on 
his beat. He was a part and parcel of their existence, their hopes, aspirations and activities. 

Of all his contacts, the one with which he was most intimately bound up was No. 10, Vinayak 
Mudali Street. Ramanujam was a senior clerk in the Revenue Division Office, and Thanappa had 
carried letters to that address for over a generation now. His earliest association with 
Ramanujam was years and years ago. Ramanujam's wife was away in the village. A card arrived 
for Ramanujam. Thanappa, as was his custom, glanced through it at the sorting table itself; and, 
the moment they were ready to start out, went straight to Vinayak Mudali Street, though in the 
ordinary course over 150 addresses preceded it. He went straight to Ramanujam's house, 
knocked on the door and shouted, 'Postman, sir, postman.' When Ramanujam opened it, he 
said, 'Give me a handful of sugar before I give you this card. Happy father! After all these years 
of prayers! Don't complain that it is a daughter. Daughters are God's gift, you know . . . 
Kamakshi —lovely name!' 


'Kamakshi,' he addressed the tall, bashful girl, years later, 'get your photo ready. Ah so shy! 
Here is your grandfather's card asking for your photo. Why should he want it, unless it be . . .' 

'The old gentleman writes rather frequently now, doesn't he, sir?' he asked Ramanujam, as he 
handed him his letter and waited for him to open the envelope and go through its contents. 
Ramanujam looked worried after reading it. The postman asked, 'I hope it's good news?' He 
leaned against the veranda pillar, with a stack of undelivered letters still under his arm. 
Ramanujam said, 'My father-in-law thinks I am not sufficiently active in finding a husband for 
my daughter. He has tried one or two places and failed. He thinks I am very indifferent . . .' 
'Elderly people have their own anxiety,' the postman replied. 'The trouble is,' said Ramanujam, 
'that he has set apart five thousand rupees for this girl's marriage and is worrying me to find a 
husband for her immediately. But money is not everything . . .' 'No, no,' echoed the postman; 
'unless the destined hour is at hand, nothing can help . . .' 

Day after day for months Thanappa delivered the letters and waited to be told the news. 'Same 
old news, Thanappa . . . Horoscopes do not agree . . . They are demanding too much . . . 



Evidently they do not approve of her appearance.' 'Appearance! She looks like a queen. Unless 
one is totally blind . . .' the postman retorted angrily. The season would be closing, with only 
three more auspicious dates, the last being May 20. The girl would be seventeen in a few days. 
The reminders from her grand-father were becoming fiercer. Ramanujam had exhausted all the 
possibilities and had drawn a blank everywhere. He looked helpless and miserable. 'Postman,' 
he said, 'I don't think there is a son-in-law for me anywhere . . .' 

'Oh, don't utter inauspicious words, sir,' the postman said. 'When God wills it . . .' He reflected 
for a while and said, 'There is a boy in Delhi earning two hundred rupees. Makunda of Temple 
Street was after him. Makunda and you are of the same subcaste, I believe .. .' 

'Yes . . .' 

'They have been negotiating for months now. Over a hundred letters have passed between 
them already . . . But I know they are definitely breaking off . . . It is over some money question 
. . . They have written their last message on a postcard and it has infuriated these people all the 
more. As if postcards were an instrument of insult! I have known most important 
communications being written even on picture postcards; when Rajappa went to America two 
years ago he used to write to his sons every week on picture postcards . . .' After this digression 
he came back to the point. 'I will ask Makunda to give me the horoscope. Let us see . . .' Next 
day he brought the horoscope with him. 'The boy's parents are also in Delhi, so you can write to 
them immediately. No time to waste now.' 

A ray of hope touched Ramanujam's family. 

'I have still a hundred letters to deliver, but I came here first because I saw this Delhi postmark. 
Open it and tell me what they have written,' said Thanappa. He trembled with suspense. 'How 
prompt these people are! So they approve of the photo! Who wouldn't?' 

'A letter every day! I might as well apply for leave till Kamakshi's marriage is over . . .' he said 
another day. 'You are already talking as if it were coming off tomorrow! God knows how many 
hurdles we have to cross now. Liking a photo does not prove anything . . .' 

The family council was discussing an important question: whether Ramanujam should go to 
Madras, taking the girl with him, and meet the party, who could come down for a day from 
Delhi. The family was divided over the question. Ramanujam, his mother and his wife—none of 
them had defined views on the question, but yet they opposed each other vehemently. 

'We shall be the laughingstock of the town,' said Ramanujam's wife, 'if we take the girl out to 
be shown round . . .' 

'What queer notions! If you stand on all these absurd antiquated formalities, we shall never get 
anywhere near a marriage. It is our duty to take the girl over even to Delhi if necessary . . .' 'It is 
your pleasure, then; you can do what you please; why consult me? . . .' 

Tempers were at their worst, and no progress seemed possible. The postman had got into the 
habit of dropping in at the end of his day's work and joining in the council. 'I am a third party. 
Listen to me,' he said. 'Sir, please take the train to Madras immediately. What you cannot 
achieve by a year's correspondence you can do in an hour's meeting.' 

'Here is a letter from Madras, madam. I am sure it is from your husband. What is the news?' He 
handed the envelope to Ramanujam's wife, and she took it in to read. He said, 'I have some 
registered letters for those last houses. I will finish my round and come back ...' He returned as 



promised. 'Have they met, madam?' 


'Yes, Kamakshi's father has written that they have met the girl, and from their talk Kamakshi's 
father infers they are quite willing . . .' 

'Grand news! I will offer a coconut to our Vinayaka tonight.' 

'But,' the lady added, half-overwhelmed with happiness and half-worried, 'there is this 
difficulty. We had an idea of doing it during next Thai month ... It will be so difficult to hurry 
through the arrangements now. But they say that if the marriage is done it must be done on the 
twentieth of May. If it is postponed the boy can't marry for three years. He is being sent away 
for some training ...' 

'The old gentleman is as good as his word,' the postman said, delivering an insurance envelope 
to Ramanujam. 'He has given the entire amount. You can't complain of lack of funds now. Go 
ahead. I'm so happy you have his approval. More than their money, we need their blessings, sir. 

I hope he has sent his heartiest blessings . . .' 'Oh, yes, oh, yes,' replied Ramanujam. 'My father- 
in-law seems to be very happy at this proposal.' 

A five-thousand-rupee marriage was a big affair for Malgudi. Ramanujam, with so short a time 
before him, and none to share the task of arrangements, became distraught. Thanappa placed 
himself at his service during all his off-hours. He cut short his eloquence, advice and exchanges 
in other houses. He never waited for anyone to come up and receive the letters. He just tossed 
them through a window or an open door with a stentorian 'Letter, sir.' If they stopped him and 
asked, 'What is the matter with you? In such a hurry!' 'Yes, leave me alone till the twentieth of 
May. I will come and squat in your house after that'—and he was off. Ramanujam was in great 
tension. He trembled with anxiety as the day approached nearer. 'It must go on smoothly. 
Nothing should prove a hindrance.' 'Do not worry, sir; it will go through happily, by God's grace. 
You have given them everything they wanted in cash, presents and style. They are good people 


'It is not about that. It is the very last date for the year. If for some reason some obstruction 
comes up, it is all finished for ever. The boy goes away for three years. I don't think either of us 
would be prepared to bind ourselves to wait for three years.' 

It was four hours past the Muhurtam on the day of the wedding. A quiet had descended on the 
gathering. The young smart bridegroom from Delhi was seated in a chair under the pandal. 
Fragrance of sandal, and flowers, and holy smoke hung about the air. People were sitting 
around the bridegroom talking. Thanappa appeared at the gate loaded with letters. Some 
young men ran up to him demanding, 'Postman! Letters?' He held them off. 'Get back. I know 
to whom to deliver.' He walked over to the bridegroom and held up to him a bundle of letters 
very respectfully. 'These are all greetings and blessings from well-wishers, I believe, sir, and my 
own go with every one of them . . .' He seemed very proud of performing this task, and looked 
very serious. The bridegroom looked up at him with an amused smile and muttered, 'Thanks.' 
'We are all very proud to have your distinguished self as a son-in-law of this house. I have 
known that child, Kamakshi, ever since she was a day old, and I always knew she would get a 
distinguished husband,' added the postman, and brought his palms together in a salute, and 
moved into the house to deliver other letters and to refresh himself in the kitchen with tiffin 
and coffee. Ten days later he knocked on the door and, with a grin, handed Kamakshi her first 
letter. 'Ah, scented envelope! I knew it was coming when the mail van was three stations away. 
I have seen hundreds like this. Take it from me. Before he has written the tenth letter he will 



command you to pack up and join him, and you will grow a couple of wings and fly away that 
very day, and forget for ever Thanappa and this street, isn't it so?' Kamakshi blushed, snatched 
the letter from his hands and ran in to read it. He said, turning away, 'I don't think there is any 
use waiting for you to finish the letter and tell me its contents.' 

On a holiday, when he was sure Ramanujam would be at home, Thanappa knocked on the door 
and handed him a card. 'AhI' cried Ramanujam. 'Bad news, Thanappa. My uncle, my father's 
brother, is very ill in Salem, and they want me to start immediately.' 

'I'm very sorry to hear it, sir,' said Thanappa, and handed him a telegram. 'Here's another. . .' 

Ramanujam cried, 'A telegram!' He glanced at it and screamed, 'Oh, he is dead!' He sat down 
on the pyol, unable to stand the shock. Thanappa looked equally miserable. Ramanujam rallied, 
gathered himself up and turned to go in. Thanappa said, 'One moment, sir. I have a confession 
to make. See the date on the card.' 

'May the nineteenth, nearly fifteen days ago!' 

'Yes, sir, and the telegram followed next day—that is, on the day of the marriage. I was 
unhappy to see it . . . "But what has happened has happened," I said to myself, and kept it 
away, fearing that it might interfere with the wedding.' 

Ramanujam glared at the postman and said, 'I would not have cared to go through the marriage 
when he was dying . . .' The postman stood with bowed head and mumbled, 'You can complain 
if you like, sir. They will dismiss me. It is a serious offence.' He turned and descended the steps 
and went down the street on his rounds. Ramanujam watched him dully for a while and 
shouted, 'Postman!' Thanappa turned round; Ramanujam cried, 'Don't think that I intend to 
complain. I am only sorry you have done this .. .' 

'I understand your feelings, sir,' replied the postman, disappearing around a bend. 



THE DOCTOR'S WORD 


People came to him when the patient was on his last legs. Dr Raman often burst out, 'Why 
couldn't you have come a day earlier?' The reason was obvious—visiting fee twenty-five 
rupees, and more than that, people liked to shirk the fact that the time had come to call in Dr 
Raman; for them there was something ominous in the very association. As a result, when the 
big man came on the scene it was always a quick decision one way or another. There was no 
scope or time for any kind of wavering or whitewashing. Long years of practice of this kind had 
bred in the doctor a certain curt truthfulness; for that very reason his opinion was valued; he 
was not a mere doctor expressing an opinion but a judge pronouncing a verdict. The patient's 
life hung on his words. This never unduly worried Dr Raman. He never believed that agreeable 
words ever saved lives. He did not think it was any of his business to provide comforting lies 
when as a matter of course nature would tell them the truth in a few hours. However, when he 
glimpsed the faintest sign of hope, he rolled up his sleeve and stepped into the arena: it might 
be hours or days, but he never withdrew till he wrested the prize from Yama's hands. 

Today, standing over a bed, the doctor felt that he himself needed someone to tell him 
soothing lies. He mopped his brow with his kerchief and sat down in the chair beside the bed. 
On the bed lay his dearest friend in the world: Gopal. They had known each other for forty 
years now, starting with their kindergarten days. They could not, of course, meet as much as 
they wanted, each being wrapped in his own family and profession. Occasionally, on a Sunday, 
Gopal would walk into the consulting room and wait patiently in a corner till the doctor was 
free. And then they would dine together, see a picture and talk of each other's life and 
activities. It was a classic friendship, which endured untouched by changing times, 
circumstances and activities. 

In his busy round of work. Dr Raman had not noticed that Gopal had not called in for over three 
months now. He only remembered it when he saw Gopal's son sitting on a bench in the 
consulting hall one crowded morning. Dr Raman could not talk to him for over an hour. When 
he got up and was about to pass on to the operating room, he called up the young man and 
asked, 'What brings you here, sir?' The youth was nervous and shy. 'Mother sent me here.' 

'What can I do for you?' 

'Father is ill ...' 

It was an operation day and he was not free till three in the afternoon. He rushed off straight 
from the clinic to his friend's house, in Lawley Extension. 

Gopal lay in bed as if in sleep. The doctor stood over him and asked Gopal's wife, 'How long has 
he been in bed?' 

'A month and a half. Doctor.' 

'Who is attending him?' 

'A doctor in the next street. He comes down once in three days and gives him medicine.' 

'What is his name?' He had never heard of him. 'Someone I don't know, but I wish he had had 
the goodness to tell me about it. Why, why couldn't you have sent me word earlier?' 



'We thought you would be busy and did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily.' They were 
apologetic and miserable. There was hardly any time to be lost. He took off his coat and opened 
his bag. He took out an injection tube, the needle sizzled over the stove. The sick man's wife 
whimpered in a corner and essayed to ask questions. 

'Please don't ask questions/ snapped the doctor. He looked at the children, who were watching 
the sterilizer, and said, 'Send them all away somewhere, except the eldest.' 

He shot in the drug, sat back in his chair and gazed at the patient's face for over an hour. The 
patient still remained motionless. The doctor's face gleamed with perspiration, and his eyelids 
drooped with fatigue. The sick man's wife stood in a corner and watched silently. She asked 
timidly, 'Doctor, shall I make some coffee for you?' 'No,' he replied, although he felt famished, 
having missed his midday meal. He got up and said, 'I will be back in a few minutes. Don't 
disturb him on any account.' He picked up his bag and went to his car. In a quarter of an hour 
he was back, followed by an assistant and a nurse. The doctor told the lady of the house, 'I have 
to perform an operation.' 

'Why, why? Why?' she asked faintly. 

'I will tell you all that soon. Will you leave your son here to help us, and go over to the next 
house and stay there till I call you?' 

The lady felt giddy and sank down on the floor, unable to bear the strain. The nurse attended to 
her and led her out. 

At about eight in the evening the patient opened his eyes and stirred slightly in bed. The 
assistant was overjoyed. He exclaimed enthusiastically, 'Sir, he will pull through.' The doctor 
looked at him coldly and whispered, 'I would give anything to see him pull through but, but the 
heart...' 

'The pulse has improved, sir.' 

'Well, well,' replied the doctor. 'Don't trust it. It is only a false flash-up, very common in these 
cases.' He ruminated for a while and added, 'If the pulse keeps up till eight in the morning, it 
will go on for the next forty years, but I doubt very much if we shall see anything of it at all after 
two tonight.' 

He sent away the assistant and sat beside the patient. At about eleven the patient opened his 
eyes and smiled at his friend. He showed a slight improvement, he was able to take in a little 
food. A great feeling of relief and joy went through the household. They swarmed around the 
doctor and poured out their gratitude. He sat in his seat beside the bed, gazing sternly at the 
patient's face, hardly showing any signs of hearing what they were saying to him. The sick 
man's wife asked, 'Is he now out of danger?' Without turning his head the doctor said, 'Give 
glucose and brandy every forty minutes; just a couple of spoons will do.' The lady went away to 
the kitchen. She felt restless. She felt she must know the truth whatever it was. Why was the 
great man so evasive? The suspense was unbearable. Perhaps he could not speak so near the 
patient's bed. She beckoned to him from the kitchen doorway. The doctor rose and went over. 
She asked, 'What about him now? How is he?' The doctor bit his lips and replied, looking at the 
floor, 'Don't get excited. Unless you must know about it, don't ask now.' Her eyes opened wide 
in terror. She clasped her hands together and implored, 'Tell me the truth.' The doctor replied, 
'I would rather not talk to you now.' He turned round and went back to his chair. A terrible 
wailing shot through the still house; the patient stirred and looked about in bewilderment. The 



doctor got up again, went over to the kitchen door, drew it in securely and shut off the wail. 


When the doctor resumed his seat the patient asked in the faintest whisper possible, 'Is that 
someone crying?' The doctor advised, 'Don't exert yourself. You mustn't talk.' He felt the pulse. 
It was already agitated by the exertion. The patient asked, 'Am I going? Don't hide it from me.' 
The doctor made a deprecating noise and sat back in his chair. He had never faced a situation 
like this. It was not in his nature to whitewash. People attached great value to his word because 
of that. He stole a look at the other. The patient motioned a finger to draw him nearer and 
whispered, 'I must know how long I am going to last. I must sign the will. It is all ready. Ask my 
wife for the despatch box. You must sign as a witness.' 

'Oh I' the doctor exclaimed. 'You are exerting yourself too much. You must be quieter.' He felt 
idiotic to be repeating it. 'How fine it would be,' he reflected, 'to drop the whole business and 
run away somewhere without answering anybody any question!' The patient clutched the 
doctor's wrist with his weak fingers and said, 'Ramu, it is my good fortune that you are here at 
this moment. I can trust your word. I can't leave my property unsettled. That will mean endless 
misery for my wife and children. You know all about Subbiah and his gang. Let me sign before it 
is too late. Tell me . ..' 

'Yes, presently,' replied the doctor. He walked off to his car, sat in the back seat and reflected. 
He looked at his watch. Midnight. If the will was to be signed, it must be done within the next 
two hours, or never. He could not be responsible for a mess there; he knew the family affairs 
too well and about those wolves, Subbiah and his gang. But what could he do? If he asked him 
to sign the will, it would virtually mean a death sentence and destroy the thousandth part of a 
chance that the patient had of survival. He got down from the car and went in. He resumed his 
seat in the chair. The patient was staring at him appealingly. The doctor said to himself, 'If my 
word can save his life, he shall not die. The will be damned.' He called, 'Gopal, listen.' This was 
the first time he was going to do a piece of acting before a patient, simulate a feeling and 
conceal his judgement. He stooped over the patient and said, with deliberate emphasis, 'Don't 
worry about the will now. You are going to live. Your heart is absolutely sound.' A new glow 
suffused the patient's face as he heard it. He asked in a tone of relief, 'Do you say so? If it 
comes from your lips it must be true . . .' The doctor said, 'Quite right. You are improving every 
second. Sleep in peace. You must not exert yourself on any account. You must sleep very 
soundly. I will see you in the morning.' The patient looked at him gratefully for a moment and 
then closed his eyes. The doctor picked up his bag and went out, shutting the door softly 
behind him. 

On his way home he stopped for a moment at his hospital, called out his assistant and said, 
'That Lawley Extension case. You might expect the collapse any second now. Go there with a 
tube of-in hand, and give it in case the struggle is too hard at the end. Hurry up.' 

Next morning he was back at Lawley Extension at ten. From his car he made a dash for the sick 
bed. The patient was awake and looked very well. The assistant reported satisfactory pulse. The 
doctor put his tube to his heart, listened for a while and told the sick man's wife, 'Don't look so 
unhappy, lady. Your husband will live to be ninety.' When they were going back to the hospital, 
the assistant sitting beside him in the car asked, 'Is he going to live, sir?' 

'I will bet on it. He will live to be ninety. He has turned the corner. How he has survived this 
attack will be a puzzle to me all my life,' replied the doctor. 



GATEMAN'S GIFT 


When a dozen persons question openly or slyly a man's sanity, he begins to entertain serious 
doubts himself. This is what happened to ex-gateman Govind Singh. And you could not blame 
the public either. What could you do with a man who carried about in his hand a registered 
postal envelope and asked, 'Please tell me what there is inside?' The obvious answer was: 
'Open it and see . . .' He seemed horrified at this suggestion. 'Oh, no, no, can't do it,' he 
declared, and moved off to another friend and acquaintance. Everywhere the suggestion was 
the same, till he thought everyone had turned mad. And then somebody said, 'If you don't like 
to open it and yet want to know what is inside you must take it to the X-ray Institute.' This was 
suggested by an ex-compounder who lived in the next street. 

'What is it?' asked Govind Singh. It was explained to him. 'Where is it?' He was directed to the 
City X-ray Institute. 

But before saying anything further about his progress, it would be useful to go back to an 
earlier chapter in his history. After war service in 1914-18, he came to be recommended for a 
gatekeeper's post at Engladia's. He liked the job very much. He was given a khaki uniform, a 
resplendent band across his shoulder and a short stick. He gripped the stick and sat down on a 
stool at the entrance to the office. And when his chief's car pulled up at the gate he stood at 
attention and gave a military salute. The office consisted of a staff numbering over a hundred, 
and as they trooped in and out every day he kept an eye on them. At the end of the day he 
awaited the footsteps of the General Manager coming down the stairs, and rose stiffly and 
stood at attention, and after he left, the hundreds of staff poured out. The doors were shut; 
Singh carried his stool in, placed it under the staircase and placed his stick across it. Then he 
came out and the main door was locked and sealed. In this way he had spent twenty-five years 
of service, and then he begged to be pensioned off. He would not have thought of retirement 
yet, but for the fact that he found his sight and hearing playing tricks on him; he could not catch 
the Manager's footsteps on the stairs, and it was hard to recognize him even at ten yards. He 
was ushered into the presence of the chief, who looked up for a moment from his papers and 
muttered, 'We are very pleased with your work for us, and the company will give you a pension 
of twelve rupees for life . . .' Singh clicked his heels, saluted, turned on his heel and went out of 
the room, his heart brimming with gratitude and pride. This was the second occasion when the 
great man had spoken to him, the first being on the first day of his service. As he had stood at 
his post, the chief, entering the office just then, looked up for a moment and asked, 'Who are 
you?' 

'I'm the new gatekeeper, master,' he had answered. And he spoke again only on this day. 
Though so little was said, Singh felt electrified on both occasions by the words of his master. In 
Singh's eyes the chief had acquired a sort of godhood, and it would be quite adequate if a god 
spoke to one only once or twice in a lifetime. In moments of contemplation Singh's mind dwelt 
on the words of his master, and on his personality. 

His life moved on smoothly. The pension together with what his wife earned by washing and 
sweeping in a couple of houses was quite sufficient for him. He ate his food, went out and met 
a few friends, slept and spent some evenings sitting at a cigarette shop which his cousin owned. 
This tenor of life was disturbed on the first of every month when he donned his old khaki suit, 
walked to his old office and salaamed the accountant at the counter and received his pension. 
Sometimes if it was closing he waited on the roadside for the General Manager to come down. 



and saluted him as he got into his car. 


There was a lot of time all around him, an immense sea of leisure. In this state he made a new 
discovery about himself, that he could make fascinating models out of clay and wood dust. The 
discovery came suddenly, when one day a child in the neighbourhood brought to him its little 
doll for repair. He not only repaired it but made a new thing of it. This discovery pleased him so 
much that he very soon became absorbed in it. His back yard gave him a plentiful supply of 
pliant clay, and the carpenter's shop next to his cousin's cigarette shop sawdust. He purchased 
paint for a few annas. And lo! he found his hours gliding. He sat there in the front part of his 
home, bent over his clay, and brought into existence a miniature universe; all the colours of life 
were there, all the forms and creatures, but of the size of his middle finger; whole villages and 
towns were there, all the persons he had seen passing before his office when he was sentry 
there—that beggar woman coming at midday, and that cucumber-vendor; he had the eye of a 
cartoonist for human faces. Everything went down into clay. It was a wonderful miniature 
reflection of the world; and he mounted them neatly on thin wooden slices, which enhanced 
their attractiveness. He kept these in his cousin's shop and they attracted huge crowds every 
day and sold very briskly. More than from the sales Singh felt an ecstasy when he saw admiring 
crowds clustering around his handiwork. 

On his next pension day he carried to his office a street scene (which he ranked as his best), and 
handed it over the counter to the accountant with the request: 'Give this to the Sahib, please!' 

'All right,' said the accountant with a smile. It created a sensation in the office and disturbed 
the routine of office working for nearly half an hour. On the next pension day he carried 
another model (children at play) and handed it over the counter. 

'Did the Sahib like the last one?' 

'Yes, he liked it.' 

'Please give this one to him—' and he passed it over the counter. He made it a convention to 
carry on every pension day an offering for his master, and each time his greatest reward was 
the accountant's stock reply to his question: 'What did the Sahib say?' 

'He said it was very good.' 

At last he made his masterpiece. A model of his office frontage with himself at his post, a car at 
the entrance and the chief getting down: this composite model was so realistic that while he sat 
looking at it, he seemed to be carried back to his office days. He passed it over the counter on 
his pension day and it created a very great sensation in the office. 'Fellow, you have not left 
yourself out, either!' people cried, and looked admiringly at Singh. A sudden fear seized Singh 
and he asked, 'The master won't be angry, I hope?' 

'No, no, why should he be?' said the accountant, and Singh received his pension and went 
home. 

A week later when he was sitting on the pyol kneading clay, the postman came and said, 'A 
registered letter for you ...' 

'For me!' Any letter would have upset Singh; he had received less than three letters in his 
lifetime, and each time it was a torture for him till the contents were read out. Now a 
registered letter! This was his first registered letter. 'Only lawyers send registered letters, isn't it 
so?' 



'Usually/ said the postman. 

'Please take it back. I don't want it/ said Singh. 

'Shall I say "Refused"?' asked the postman. 'No, no,' said Singh. 'Just take it back and say you 
have not found me . . .' 

'That I can't do . . .' said the postman, looking serious. 

Singh seemed to have no option but to scrawl his signature and receive the packet. He sat 
gloomily—gazing at the floor. His wife who had gone out and just returned saw him in this 
condition and asked, 'What is it?' His voice choked as he replied, 'It has come.' He flung at her 
the registered letter. 'What is it?' she asked. He said, 'How should I know. Perhaps our ruin . . .' 
He broke down. His wife watched him for a moment, went in to attend to some domestic duty 
and returned, still found him in the same condition and asked, 'Why not open it and see, ask 
someone to read it?' He threw up his arms in horror. 'Woman, you don't know what you are 
saying. It cannot be opened. They have perhaps written that my pension is stopped, and God 
knows what else the Sahib has said . . .' 

'Why not go to the office and find out from them?' 

'Not I! I will never show my face there again,' replied Singh. 'I have lived without a single 
remark being made against me, all my life. Now!' He shuddered at the thought of it. 'I knew I 
was getting into trouble when I made that office model . . .' After deeper reflection he said, 
'Every time I took something there, people crowded round, stopped all work for nearly an hour 
. . . That must also have reached the Sahib's ears.' 

He wandered about saying the same thing, with the letter in his pocket. He lost his taste for 
food, wandered about unkempt, with his hair standing up like a halo—an unaccustomed sight, 
his years in military service having given him a habitual tidiness. His wife lost all peace of mind 
and became miserable about him. He stood at crossroads, clutching the letter in his hand. He 
kept asking everyone he came across, 'Tell me, what is there in this?' but he would not brook 
the suggestion to open it and see its contents. 

So forthwith Singh found his way to the City X-ray Institute at Race Course Road. As he entered 
the gate he observed dozens of cars parked along the drive, and a Gurkha watchman at the 
gate. Some people were sitting on sofas reading books and journals. They turned and threw a 
brief look at him and resumed their studies. As Singh stood uncertainly at the doorway, an 
assistant came up and asked, 'What do you want?' Singh gave a salute, held up the letter 
uncertainly and muttered, 'Can I know what is inside this?' The assistant made the obvious 
suggestion. But Singh replied, 'They said you could tell me what's inside without opening it—' 
The assistant asked, 'Where do you come from?' Singh explained his life, work and outlook, and 
concluded, 'I've lived without remark all my life. I knew trouble was coming—' There were tears 
on his cheeks. The assistant looked at him curiously as scores of others had done before, smiled 
and said, 'Go home and rest. You are not all right. . . Go, go home.' 

'Can't you say what is in this?' Singh asked pathetically. The assistant took it in his hand, 
examined it and said, 'Shall I open it?' 'No, no, no,' Singh cried, and snatched it back. There was 
a look of terror in his eyes. The assembly looked up from their pages and watched him with 
mild amusement in their eyes. The assistant kindly put his arms on his shoulder and led him 
out. 'You get well first, and then come back. I tell you—you are not all right.' 



Walking back home, he pondered over it. 'Why are they all behaving like this, as if I were a 
madman?' When this word came to his mind, he stopped abruptly in the middle of the road 
and cried, 'Oh! That's it, is that it?—Mad! Mad!' He shook his head gleefully as if the full truth 
had just dawned upon him. He now understood the looks that people threw at him. 'Oh! oh!' 
he cried aloud. He laughed. He felt a curious relief at this realization. 'I have been mad and 
didn't know it . . .' He cast his mind back. Every little action of his for the last so many days 
seemed mad; particularly the doll-making. 'What sane man would make clay dolls after twenty- 
five years of respectable service in an office?' He felt a tremendous freedom of limbs, and 
didn't feel it possible to walk at an ordinary pace. He wanted to fly. He swung his arms up and 
down and ran on with a whoop. He ran through the Market Road. When people stood about 
and watched he cried, 'Hey, don't laugh at a madman, for who knows, you will also be mad 
when you come to make clay dolls,' and charged into their midst with a war cry. When he saw 
children coming out of a school, he felt it would be nice to amuse their young hearts by 
behaving like a tiger. So he fell on his hands and knees and crawled up to them with a growl. 

He went home in a terrifying condition. His wife, who was grinding chilli in the back yard, 
looked up and asked, 'What is this?' His hair was covered with street dust; his body was 
splashed with mud. He could not answer because he choked with mirth as he said, 'Fancy what 
has happened!' 

'What is it?' 


'I'm mad, mad.' He looked at his work-basket in a corner, scooped out the clay and made a 
helmet of it and put it on his head. Ranged on the floor was his latest handiwork. After his last 
visit to the office he had been engaged in making a model village. It was a resplendent group: a 
dun road, red tiles, green coconut trees swaying, and the colour of the saris of the village 
women carrying water pots. He derived the inspiration for it from a memory of his own village 
days. It was the most enjoyable piece of work that he had so far undertaken. He lived in a kind 
of ecstasy while doing it. 'I am going to keep this for myself. A memento of my father's village,' 
he declared. 'I will show it at an exhibition, where they will give me a medal.' He guarded it like 
a treasure: when it was wet he never allowed his wife to walk within ten yards of it. 'Keep off, 
we don't want your foot dust for this village . . .' 

Now, in his madness, he looked down on it. He raised his foot and stamped everything down 
into a multicoloured jam. They were still half-wet. He saw a donkey grazing in the street. He 
gathered up the jam and flung it at the donkey with the remark: 'Eat this if you like. It is a nice 
village . . .' And he went out on a second round. This was a quieter outing. He strode on at an 
even pace, breathing deeply, with the clay helmet on, out of which peeped his grey hair, his 
arms locked behind, his fingers clutching the fateful letter, his face tilted towards the sky. He 
walked down the Market Road, with a feeling that he was the sole occupant of this globe: his 
madness had given him a sense of limitless freedom, strength and buoyancy. The remarks and 
jeers of the crowds gaping at him did not in the least touch him. 

While he walked thus, his eye fell on the bulb of a tall street lamp. 'Bulb of the size of a papaya 
fruit!' he muttered and chuckled. It had been a long cherished desire in him to fling a stone at 
it; now he felt, in his joyous and free condition, that he was free from the trammels of 
convention and need not push back any inclination. He picked up a pebble and threw it with 
good aim. The shattering noise of glass was as music to his ears. A policeman put his hand on 
his shoulder. 'Why did you do it?' Singh looked indignant. 'I like to crack glass papaya fruit, that 
is all,' was the reply. The constable said, 'Come to the station.' 



'Oh, yes, when I was in Mesopotamia they put me on half-ration once,' he said, and walked on 
to the station. He paused, tilted his head to the side and remarked, 'This road is not straight...' 
A few carriages and cycles were coming up to him. He found that everything was wrong about 
them. They seemed to need some advice in the matter. He stopped in the middle of the road, 
stretched out his arms and shouted, 'Halt!' The carriages stopped, the cyclists jumped off and 
Singh began a lecture: 'When I was in Mesopotamia—I will tell you fellows who don't know 
anything about anything.' The policeman dragged him away to the side and waved to the traffic 
to resume. One of the cyclists who resumed jumped off the saddle again and came towards him 
with, 'Why! It is Singh, Singh, what fancy dress is this? What is the matter?' Even through the 
haze of his insane vision Singh could recognize the voice and the person—the accountant at the 
office. Singh clicked his heels and gave a salute. 'Excuse me, sir, didn't intend to stop you. You 
may pass . . .' He pointed the way generously, and the accountant saw the letter in his hand. He 
recognized it although it was mud-stained and crumpled. 

'Singh, you got our letter?' 

'Yes, sir—Pass. Do not speak of it. . .' 

'What is the matter?' He snatched it from his hand. 'Why haven't you opened it!' He tore open 
the envelope and took out of it a letter and read aloud: 'The General Manager greatly 
appreciates the very artistic models you have sent, and he is pleased to sanction a reward of 
one hundred rupees and hopes it will be an encouragement for you to keep up this interesting 
hobby.' 

It was translated to him word for word, and the enclosure, a cheque for one hundred rupees, 
was handed to him. A big crowd gathered to watch this scene. Singh pressed the letter to his 
eyes. He beat his brow and wailed, 'Tell me, sir, am I mad or not?' 

'You look quite well, you aren't mad,' said the accountant. Singh fell at his feet and said with 
tears choking his voice, 'You are a god, sir, to say that I am not mad. I am so happy to hear it.' 

On the next pension day he turned up spruce as ever at the office counter. As they handed him 
the envelope they asked, 'What toys are you making now?' 


'Nothing, sir. Never again. It is no occupation for a sane man . . .' he said, received his pension 
and walked stiffly out of the office. 



THE BLIND DOG 


It was not a very impressive or high-class dog; it was one of those commonplace dogs one sees 
everywhere—colour of white and dust, tail mutilated at a young age by God knows whom, born 
in the street, and bred on the leavings and garbage of the marketplace. He had spotty eyes and 
undistinguished carriage and needless pugnacity. Before he was two years old he had earned 
the scars of a hundred fights on his body. When he needed rest on hot afternoons he lay curled 
up under the culvert at the eastern gate of the market. In the evenings he set out on his daily 
rounds, loafed in the surrounding streets and lanes, engaged himself in skirmishes, picked up 
edibles on the roadside and was back at the Market Gate by nightfall. 

This life went on for three years. And then a change in his life occurred. A beggar, blind in both 
eyes, appeared at the Market Gate. An old woman led him up there early in the morning, 
seated him at the gate, and came up again at midday with some food, gathered his coins and 
took him home at night. 

The dog was sleeping nearby. He was stirred by the smell of food. He got up, came out of his 
shelter and stood before the blind man, wagging his tail and gazing expectantly at the bowl, as 
he was eating his sparse meal. The blind man swept his arms about and asked, 'Who is there?' 
at which the dog went up and licked his hand. The blind man stroked its coat gently tail to ear 
and said, 'What a beauty you are. Come with me—' He threw a handful of food, which the dog 
ate gratefully. It was perhaps an auspicious moment for starting a friendship. They met every 
day there, and the dog cut off much of its rambling to sit up beside the blind man and watch 
him receive alms morning to evening. In course of time, observing him, the dog understood 
that the passers-by must give a coin, and whoever went away without dropping a coin was 
chased by the dog; he tugged the edge of their clothes by his teeth and pulled them back to the 
old man at the gate and let go only after something was dropped in his bowl. Among those who 
frequented this place was a village urchin, who had the mischief of a devil in him. He liked to 
tease the blind man by calling him names and by trying to pick up the coins in his bowl. The 
blind man helplessly shouted and cried and whirled his staff. On Thursdays this boy appeared at 
the gate, carrying on his head a basket loaded with cucumber or plantain. Every Thursday 
afternoon it was a crisis in the blind man's life. A seller of bright-coloured but doubtful 
perfumes with his wares mounted on a wheeled platform, a man who spread out cheap 
storybooks on a gunnysack, another man who carried coloured ribbons on an elaborate 
frame—these were the people who usually gathered under the same arch. On a Thursday when 
the young man appeared at the eastern gate one of them remarked, 'Blind fellow! Here comes 
your scourge—' 

'Oh, God, is this Thursday?' he wailed. He swept his arms about and called, 'Dog, dog, come 
here, where are you?' He made the peculiar noise which brought the dog to his side. He stroked 
his head and muttered, 'Don't let that little rascal—' At this very moment the boy came up with 
a leer on his face. 

'Blind man! Still pretending you have no eyes. If you are really blind, you should not know this 
either—' He stopped, his hand moving towards the bowl. The dog sprang on him and snapped 
his jaws on the boy's wrist. The boy extricated his hand and ran for his life. The dog bounded up 
behind him and chased him out of the market. 

'See the mongrel's affection for this old fellow,' marvelled the perfume-vendor. 



One evening at the usual time the old woman failed to turn up, and the blind man waited at the 
gate, worrying as the evening grew into night. As he sat fretting there, a neighbour came up 
and said, 'Sami, don't wait for the old woman. She will not come again. She died this 
afternoon—' 

The blind man lost the only home he had, and the only person who cared for him in this world. 
The ribbon-vendor suggested, 'Here, take this white tape' —he held a length of the white cord 
which he had been selling—'I will give this to you free of cost. Tie it to the dog and let him lead 
you about if he is really so fond of you—' 

Life for the dog took a new turn now. He came to take the place of the old woman. He lost his 
freedom completely. His world came to be circumscribed by the limits of the white cord which 
the ribbon-vendor had spared. He had to forget wholesale all his old life—all his old haunts. He 
simply had to stay on for ever at the end of that string. When he saw other dogs, friends or 
foes, instinctively he sprang up, tugging the string, and this invariably earned him a kick from 
his master. 'Rascal, want to tumble me down—have sense—' In a few days the dog learnt to 
discipline his instinct and impulse. He ceased to take notice of other dogs, even if they came up 
and growled at his side. He lost his own orbit of movement and contact with his fellow- 
creatures. 

To the extent of this loss his master gained. He moved about as he had never moved in his life. 
All day he was on his legs, led by the dog. With the staff in one hand and the dog-lead in the 
other, he moved out of his home—a corner in a choultry veranda a few yards off the market: he 
had moved in there after the old woman's death. He started out early in the day. He found that 
he could treble his income by moving about instead of staying in one place. He moved down 
the choultry street, and wherever he heard people's voices he stopped and held out his hands 
for alms. Shops, schools, hospitals, hotels—he left nothing out. He gave a tug when he wanted 
the dog to stop, and shouted like a bullock-driver when he wanted him to move on. The dog 
protected his feet from going into pits, or stumping against steps or stones, and took him up 
inch by inch on safe ground and steps. For this sight people gave coins and helped him. Children 
gathered round him and gave him things to eat. A dog is essentially an active creature who 
punctuates his hectic rounds with well-defined periods of rest. But now this dog (henceforth to 
be known as Tiger) had lost all rest. He had rest only when the old man sat down somewhere. 
At night the old man slept with the cord turned around his finger. 'I can't take chances with 
you—' he said. A great desire to earn more money than ever before seized his master, so that 
he felt any resting a waste of opportunity, and the dog had to be continuously on his feet. 
Sometimes his legs refused to move. But if he slowed down even slightly his master goaded him 
on fiercely with his staff. The dog whined and groaned under this thrust. 'Don't whine, you 
rascal. Don't I give you your food? You want to loaf, do you?' swore the blind man. The dog 
lumbered up and down and round and round the marketplace with slow steps, tied down to 
the blind tyrant. Long after the traffic at the market ceased, you could hear the night stabbed 
by the far-off wail of the tired dog. It lost its original appearance. As months rolled on, bones 
stuck up at his haunches and ribs were reliefed through his fading coat. 

The ribbon-seller, the novel-vendor and the perfumer observed it one evening when business 
was slack, and held a conference among themselves. 'It rends my heart to see that poor dog 
slaving. Can't we do something?' The ribbon-seller remarked, 'That rascal has started lending 
money for interest—I heard it from the fruit-seller—He is earning more than he needs. He has 
become a very devil for money—' At this point the perfumer's eyes caught the scissors dangling 
from the ribbon-rack. 'Give it here,' he said and moved on with the scissors in hand. 



The blind man was passing in front of the eastern gate. The dog was straining the lead. There 
was a piece of bone lying on the way and the dog was straining to pick it up. The lead became 
taut and hurt the blind man's hand, and he tugged the string and kicked till the dog howled. It 
howled, but could not pass the bone lightly; it tried to make another dash for it. The blind man 
was heaping curses on it. The perfumer stepped up, applied the scissors and snipped the cord. 
The dog bounced off and picked up the bone. The blind man stopped dead where he stood, 
with the other half of the string dangling in his hand. 'Tiger! Tiger! Where are you?' he cried. 
The perfumer moved away quietly, muttering, 'You heartless devil! You will never get at him 
again! He has his freedom!' The dog went off at top speed. He nosed about the ditches happily, 
hurled himself on other dogs and ran round and round the fountain in the Market Square 
barking, his eyes sparkling with joy. He returned to his favourite haunts and hung about the 
butcher's shop, the tea-stall and the bakery. 

The ribbon-vendor and his two friends stood at the Market Gate and enjoyed the sight 
immensely as the blind man struggled to find his way about. He stood rooted to the spot, 
waving his stick; he felt as if he were hanging in mid-air. He was wailing. 'Oh, where is my dog? 
Where is my dog? Won't someone give him back to me? I will murder it when I get at it again!' 
He groped about, tried to cross the road, came near being run over by a dozen vehicles at 
different points, tumbled and struggled and gasped. 'He'd deserve it if he was run over, this 
heartless blackguard—' they said, observing him. However, the old man struggled through and 
with the help of someone found his way back to his corner in the choultry veranda and sank 
down on his gunnysack bed, half-faint with the strain of his journey. 

He was not seen for ten days, fifteen days and twenty days. Nor was the dog seen anywhere. 
They commented among themselves: 'The dog must be loafing over the whole earth, free and 
happy. The beggar is perhaps gone for ever—' Hardly was this sentence uttered when they 
heard the familiar tap-tap of the blind man's staff. They saw him again coming up the 
pavement—led by the dog. 'Look! Look!' they cried. 'He has again got at it and tied it up—' The 
ribbon-seller could not contain himself. He ran up and said, 'Where have you been all these 
days?' 

'Know what happened!' cried the blind man. 'This dog ran away. I should have died in a day or 
two, confined to my corner, no food, not an anna to earn—imprisoned in my corner. I should 
have perished if it continued for another day—But this thing returned—' 

'When? When?' 

'Last night. At midnight as I slept in bed, he came and licked my face. I felt like murdering him. I 
gave him a blow which he will never forget again,' said the blind man. 'I forgave him, after all a 
dog! He loafed as long as he could pick up some rubbish to eat on the road, but real hunger has 
driven him back to me, but he will not leave me again. See! I have got this—' and he shook the 
lead: it was a steel chain this time. 

Once again there was the dead, despairing look in the dog's eyes. 'Go on, you fool,' cried the 
blind man, shouting like an ox-driver. He tugged the chain, poked with the stick, and the dog 
moved away on slow steps. They stood listening to the tap-tap going away. 


'Death alone can help that dog,' cried the ribbon-seller, looking after it with a sigh. 'What can 
we do with a creature who returns to his doom with such a free heart?' 



FELLOW-FEELING 


The Madras-Bangalore Express was due to start in a few minutes. Trolleys and barrows piled 
with trunks and beds rattled their way through the bustle. Fruit-sellers and beed/'-and-betel- 
sellers cried themselves hoarse. Latecomers pushed, shouted and perspired. The engine added 
to the general noise with the low monotonous hum of its boiler; the first bell rang, the guard 
looked at his watch. Mr Rajam Iyer arrived on the platform at a terrific pace, with a small roll of 
bedding under one arm and an absurd yellow trunk under the other. He ran to the first third- 
class compartment that caught his eye, peered in and, since the door could not be opened on 
account of the congestion inside, flung himself in through the window. 

Fifteen minutes later Madras flashed past the train in window-framed patches of sun-scorched 
roofs and fields. At the next halt, Mandhakam, most of the passengers got down. The 
compartment built to 'seat 8 passengers; 4 British Troops, or 6 Indian Troops' now carried only 
nine. Rajam Iyer found a seat and made himself comfortable opposite a sallow, meek 
passenger, who suddenly removed his coat, folded it and placed it under his head and lay 
down, shrinking himself to the area he had occupied while he was sitting. With his knees drawn 
up almost to his chin, he rolled himself into a ball. Rajam Iyer threw at him an indulgent, 
compassionate look. He then fumbled for his glasses and pulled out of his pocket a small book, 
which set forth in clear Tamil the significance of the obscure Sandhi rites that every Brahmin 
worth the name performs thrice daily. 

He was startled out of this pleasant languor by a series of growls coming from a passenger who 
had got in at Katpadi. The newcomer, looking for a seat, had been irritated by the spectacle of 
the meek passenger asleep and had enforced the law of the third-class. He then encroached on 
most of the meek passenger's legitimate space and began to deliver home-truths which passed 
by easy stages from impudence to impertinence and finally to ribaldry. 

Rajam Iyer peered over his spectacles. There was a dangerous look in his eyes. He tried to 
return to the book, but could not. The bully's speech was gathering momentum. 

'What is all this?' Rajam Iyer asked suddenly, in a hard tone. 

'What is what?' growled back the newcomer, turning sharply on Rajam Iyer. 

'Moderate your style a bit,' Rajam Iyer said firmly. 

'You moderate yours first,' replied the other. 

A pause. 

'My man,' Rajam Iyer began endearingly, 'this sort of thing will never do.' 

The newcomer received this in silence. Rajam Iyer felt encouraged and drove home his moral: 
'Just try and be more courteous, it is your duty.' 

'You mind your business,' replied the newcomer. 

Rajam Iyer shook his head disapprovingly and drawled out a 'No.' The newcomer stood looking 
out for some time and, as if expressing a brilliant truth that had just dawned on him, said, 'You 
are a Brahmin, I see. Learn, sir, that your days are over. Don't think you can bully us as you have 
been bullying us all these years.' 



Rajam Iyer gave a short laugh and said, 'What has it to do with your beastly conduct to this 
gentleman?' The newcomer assumed a tone of mock humility and said, 'Shall I take the dust 
from your feet, 0 Holy Brahmin? 0 Brahmin, Brahmin.' He continued in a singsong fashion: 
'Your days are over, my dear sir, learn that. I should like to see you trying a bit of bossing on us.' 

'Whose master is who?' asked Rajam Iyer philosophically. 

The newcomer went on with no obvious relevance: 'The cost of mutton has gone up out of all 
proportion. It is nearly double what it used to be.' 

'Is it?' asked Rajam Iyer. 

'Yes, and why?' continued the other. 'Because Brahmins have begun to eat meat and they pay 
high prices to get it secretly.' He then turned to the other passengers and added, 'And we non- 
Brahmins have to pay the same price, though we don't care for the secrecy.' 

Rajam Iyer leaned back in his seat, reminding himself of a proverb which said that if you threw a 
stone into a gutter it would only spurt filth in your face. 

'And,' said the newcomer, 'the price of meat used to be five annas per pound. I remember the 
days quite well. It is nearly twelve annas now. Why? Because the Brahmin is prepared to pay so 
much, if only he can have it in secret. I have with my own eyes seen Brahmins, pukkah 
Brahmins with sacred threads on their bodies, carrying fish under their arms, of course all 
wrapped up in a towel. Ask them what it is, and they will tell you that it is plantain. Plantain 
that has life, I suppose! I once tickled a fellow under the arm and out came the biggest fish in 
the market. Hey, Brahmin,' he said, turning to Rajam Iyer, 'what did you have for your meal this 
morning?' 'Who? I?' asked Rajam Iyer. 'Why do you want to know?' 'Look, sirs,' said the 
newcomer to the other passengers, 'why is he afraid to tell us what he ate this morning?' And 
turning to Rajam Iyer, 'Mayn't a man ask another what he had for his morning meal?' 

'Oh, by all means. I had rice, ghee, curds, brinjal soup, fried beans.' 

'Oh, is that all?' asked the newcomer, with an innocent look. 

'Yes,' replied Rajam Iyer. 

'Is that all?' 

'Yes, how many times do you want me to repeat it?' 

'No offence, no offence,' replied the newcomer. 

'Do you mean to say I am lying?' asked Rajam Iyer. 

'Yes,' replied the other, 'you have omitted from your list a few things. Didn't I see you this 
morning going home from the market with a banana, a water banana, wrapped up in a towel, 
under your arm? Possibly it was somebody very much like you. Possibly I mistook the person. 
My wife prepares excellent soup with fish. You won't be able to find the difference between 
dhall soup and fish soup. Send your wife, or the wife of the person that was exactly like you, to 
my wife to learn soup-making. Hundreds of Brahmins have smacked their lips over the dhall 
soup prepared in my house. I am a leper if there is a lie in anything I say.' 


'You are,' replied Rajam Iyer, grinding his teeth. 'You are a rabid leper.' 



'Whom do you call a leper!' 

'You!' 

'I? You call me a leper?' 

'No. I call you a rabid leper.' 

'You call me rabid?' the newcomer asked, striking his chest to emphasize 'me'. 

'You are a filthy brute,' said Rajam Iyer. 'You must be handed over to the police.' 

'BahI' exclaimed the newcomer. 'As if I didn't know what these police were.' 

'Yes, you must have had countless occasions to know the police. And you will see more of them 
yet in your miserable life, if you don't get beaten to death like the street mongrel you are,' said 
Rajam Iyer in great passion. 'With your foul mouth you are bound to come to that end.' 

'What do you say?' shouted the newcomer menacingly. 'What do you say, you vile humbug?' 

'Shut up,' Rajam Iyer cried. 

'You shut up.' 

'Do you know to whom you are talking?' 

'What do I care who the son of a mongrel is?' 

'I will thrash you with my slippers,' said Rajam Iyer. 

'I will pulp you down with an old rotten sandal,' came the reply. 

'I will kick you,' said Rajam Iyer. 

'Will you?' howled the newcomer. 

'Come on, let us see.' 

Both rose to their feet simultaneously. 

There they stood facing each other on the floor of the compartment. Rajam Iyer was seized by a 
sense of inferiority. The newcomer stood nine clean inches over him. He began to feel 
ridiculous, short and fat, wearing a loose dhoti and a green coat, while the newcomer towered 
above him in his grease-spotted khaki suit. Out of the corner of his eye he noted that the other 
passengers were waiting eagerly to see how the issue would be settled and were not in the 
least disposed to intervene. 

'Why do you stand as if your mouth was stopped with mud?' asked the newcomer. 

'Shut up,' Rajam Iyer snapped, trying not to be impressed by the size of the adversary. 

'Your honour said that you would kick me,' said the newcomer, pretending to offer himself. 
'Won't I kick you?' asked Rajam Iyer. 

'Try.' 



'No/ said Rajam Iyer, 'I will do something worse.' 

'Do it/ said the other, throwing forward his chest and pushing up the sleeves of his coat. 

Rajam Iyer removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He rubbed his hands and commanded 
suddenly, 'Stand still!' The newcomer was taken aback. He stood for a second baffled. Rajam 
Iyer gave him no time to think. With great force he swung his right arm and brought it near the 
other's cheek, but stopped it short without hitting him. 

'Wait a minute, I think I had better give you a chance/ said Rajam Iyer. 

'What chance?' asked the newcomer. 

'It would be unfair if I did it without giving you a chance.' 

'Did what?' 

'You stand there and it will be over in a fraction of a second.' 

'Fraction of a second? What will you do?' 

'Oh, nothing very complicated,' replied Rajam Iyer nonchalantly, 'nothing very complicated. I 
will slap your right cheek and at the same time tug your left ear, and your mouth, which is now 
under your nose, will suddenly find itself under your left ear, and, what is more, stay there. I 
assure you, you won't feel any pain.' 

'What do you say?' 

'And it will all be over before you say "Sri Rama".' 

'I don't believe it/ said the newcomer. 

'Well and good. Don't believe it/ said Rajam Iyer carelessly. 'I never do it except under extreme 
provocation.' 

'Do you think I am an infant?' 

'I implore you, my man, not to believe me. Have you heard of a thing called jujitsu? Well, this is 
a simple trick in jujitsu perhaps known to half a dozen persons in the whole of South India.' 

'You said you would kick me,' said the newcomer. 

'Well, isn't this worse?' asked Rajam Iyer. He drew a line on the newcomer's face between his 
left ear and mouth, muttering, 'I must admit you have a tolerably good face and round figure. 
But imagine yourself going about the streets with your mouth under your left ear . . .' He 
chuckled at the vision. 'I expect at Jalarpet station there will be a huge crowd outside our 
compartment to see you.' The newcomer stroked his chin thoughtfully. Rajam Iyer continued, 'I 
felt it my duty to explain the whole thing to you beforehand. I am not as hot-headed as you are. 
I have some consideration for your wife and children. It will take some time for the kids to 
recognize Papa when he returns home with his mouth under. . . How many children have you?' 

'Four.' 

'And then think of it,' said Rajam Iyer. 'You will have to take your food under your left ear, and 
you will need the assistance of your wife to drink water. She will have to pour it in.' 



'I will go to a doctor/ said the newcomer. 


'Do go,' replied Rajam Iyer, 'and I will give you a thousand rupees if you find a doctor. You may 
try even European doctors.' 

The newcomer stood ruminating with knitted brow. 'Now prepare,' shouted Rajam Iyer, 'one 
blow on the right cheek. I will jerk your left ear, and your mouth . . .' 

The newcomer suddenly ran to the window and leaned far out of it. Rajam decided to leave the 
compartment at Jalarpet. 

But the moment the train stopped at Jalarpet station, the newcomer grabbed his bag and 
jumped out. He moved away at a furious pace and almost knocked down a coconut-seller and a 
person carrying a trayload of coloured toys. Rajam Iyer felt it would not be necessary for him to 
get out now. He leaned through the window and cried, 'Look here!' The newcomer turned. 

'Shall I keep a seat for you?' asked Rajam Iyer. 

'No, my ticket is for Jalarpet,' the newcomer answered and quickened his pace. 


The train had left Jalarpet at least a mile behind. The meek passenger still sat shrunk in a corner 
of the seat. Rajam Iyer looked over his spectacles and said, 'Lie down if you like.' 

The meek passenger proceeded to roll himself into a ball. Rajam Iyer added, 'Did you hear that 
bully say that his ticket was for Jalarpet?' 

'Yes.' 

'Well,' he lied, 'he is in the fourth compartment from here. I saw him get into it just as the train 
started.' 

Though the meek passenger was too grateful to doubt this statement, one or two other 
passengers looked at Rajam Iyer sceptically. 



THE TIGER'S CLAW 


The man-eater's dark career was ended. The men who had laid it low were the heroes of the 
day. They were garlanded with chrysanthemum flowers and seated on the arch of the highest 
bullock cart and were paraded in the streets, immediately followed by another bullock-drawn 
open cart, on which their trophy lay with glazed eyes—overflowing the cart on every side, his 
tail trailing the dust. The village suspended all the normal activity for the day; men, women and 
children thronged the highways, pressing on with the procession, excitedly talking about the 
tiger. The tiger had held a reign of terror for nearly five years, in the villages that girt Mempi 
Forest. 

We watched this scene, fascinated, drifting along with the crowd—till the Talkative Man patted 
us from behind and cried, 'Lost in wonder! If you've had your eyeful of that carcass, come aside 
and listen to me . . .' After the crowd surged past us, he sat us on a rock mount, under a 
margosa tree, and began his tale: I was once camping in Koppal, the most obscure of all the 
villages that lie scattered about the Mempi region. You might wonder what I was doing in that 
desolate corner of the earth. I'll tell you. You remember I've often spoken to you about my 
work as agent of a soil fertilizer company. It was the most miserable period of my life. Twenty- 
five days in the month, I had to be on the road, visiting nooks and corners of the country and 
popularizing the stuff . . . One such journey brought me to the village Koppal. It was not really a 
village but just a clearing with about forty houses and two streets, hemmed in by the jungle on 
all sides. The place was dingy and depressing. Why our company should have sought to reach a 
place like this for their stuff, I can't understand. They would not have known of its existence but 
for the fact that it was on the railway. Yes, actually on the railway, some obscure branch-line 
passed through this village, though most trains did not stop there. Its centre of civilization was 
its railway station—presided over by a porter in blue and an old station-master, a wizened man 
wearing a green turban, and with red and green flags always tucked under his arms. Let me tell 
you about the station. It was not a building but an old railway carriage, which, having served its 
term of life, was deprived of its wheels and planted beside the railway lines. It had one or two 
windows through which the station-master issued tickets, and spoke to those occasional 
passengers who turned up in this wilderness. A convolvulus creeper was trained over its 
entrance: no better use could be found for an ex-carriage. 

One November morning a mixed train put me down at this station and puffed away into the 
forest. The station-master, with the flags under his arm, became excited on seeing me. He had 
seen so few travellers arriving that it gave him no end of pleasure to see a new face. He 
appointed himself my host immediately, and took me into the ex-compartment and seated me 
on a stool. He said, 'Excuse me. I'll get off these papers in a minute . . .' He scrawled over some 
brown sheets, put them away and rose. He locked up the station and took me to his home—a 
very tiny stone building consisting of just one room, a kitchen and a back yard. The station- 
master lived here with his wife and seven children. He fed me. I changed. He sent the porter 
along with me to the village, which was nearly a mile off in the interior. I gathered about me the 
peasants of those forty houses and lectured to them from the pyol of the headman's house. 
They listened to me patiently, received the samples and my elaborate directions for their use, 
and went away to their respective occupations, with cynical comments among themselves 
regarding my ideas of manuring. I packed up and started back for the station-master's house at 
dusk, my throat smarting and my own words ringing in my ears. Though a couple of trains were 
now passing, the only stopping train would be at 5:30 on the following morning. After dinner at 
the station-master's house, I felt the time had come for me to leave: it would be indelicate to 



stay on when the entire family was waiting to spread their beds in the hall. I said I would sleep 
on the platform till my train arrived . . . 'No, no, these are very bad parts. Not like your town. 
Full of tigers . . .' the station-master said. He let me, as a special concession, sleep in the station. 
A heavy table, a chair and a stool occupied most of the space in the compartment. I pushed 
them aside and made a little space for myself in a corner. I'd at least eight hours before me. I 
laid myself down: all kinds of humming and rustling sounds came through the still night, and 
telegraph poles and night insects hummed, and bamboo bushes creaked. I got up, bolted the 
little station door and lay down, feeling forlorn. It became very warm, and I couldn't sleep. I got 
up again, opened the door slightly to let in a little air, placed the chair across the door and went 
back to my bed. 

I fell asleep and dreamt. I was standing on the crest of a hill and watching the valley below, 
under a pale moonlight. Far off a line of catlike creatures was moving across the slope, half¬ 
shadows, and I stood looking at them admiringly, for they marched on with great elegance. I 
was so much lost in this vision that I hadn't noticed that they had moved up and come by a 
winding path right behind me. I turned and saw that they were not catlike in size but full-grown 
tigers. I made a dash to the only available shelter—the station room. 

At this point the dream ended as the chair barricading the door came hurtling through and fell 
on me. I opened my eyes and saw at the door a tiger pushing himself in. It was a muddled 
moment for me: not being sure whether the dream was continuing or whether I was awake. I at 
first thought it was my friend the station-master who was coming in, but my dream had fully 
prepared my mind —I saw the thing clearly against the starlit sky, tail wagging, growling, and, 
above all, his terrible eyes gleaming through the dark. I understood that the fertilizer company 
would have to manage without my lectures from the following day. The tiger himself was rather 
startled by the noise of the chair and stood hesitating. He saw me quite clearly in my corner, 
and he seemed to be telling himself, 'My dinner is there ready, but let me first know what this 
clattering noise is about.' Somehow wild animals are less afraid of human beings than they are 
of pieces of furniture like chairs and tables. I have seen circus men managing a whole 
menagerie with nothing more than a chair. God gives us such recollections in order to save us 
at critical moments; and as the tiger stood observing me and watching the chair, I put out my 
hands and with desperate strength drew the table towards me, and also the stool. I sat with my 
back to the corner, the table wedged in nicely with the corner. I sat under it, and the stool 
walled up another side. While I dragged the table down, a lot of things fell off it, a table lamp, a 
long knife and pins. From my shelter I peeped at the tiger, who was also watching me with 
interest. Evidently he didn't like his meal to be so completely shut out of sight. So he cautiously 
advanced a step or two, making a sort of rumbling noise in his throat which seemed to shake up 
the little station house. My end was nearing. I really pitied the woman whose lot it was to have 
become my wife. 

I held up the chair like a shield and flourished it, and the tiger hesitated and fell back a step or 
two. Now once again we spent some time watching for each other's movements. I held my 
breath and waited. The tiger stood there fiercely waving its tail, which sometimes struck the 
side walls and sent forth a thud. He suddenly crouched down without taking his eyes off me, 
and scratched the floor with his claws. 'He is sharpening them for me,' I told myself. The little 
shack had already acquired the smell of a zoo. It made me sick. The tiger kept scratching the 
floor with his forepaws. It was the most hideous sound you could think of. 

All of a sudden he sprang up and flung his entire weight on this lot of furniture. I thought it'd be 
reduced to matchwood, but fortunately our railways have a lot of foresight and choose the 
heaviest timber for their furniture. That saved me. The tiger could do nothing more than perch 



himself on the roof of the table and hang down his paws: he tried to strike me down, but I 
parried with the chair and stool. The table rocked under him. I felt smothered: I could feel his 
breath on me. He sat completely covering the top, and went on shooting his paws in my 
direction. He would have scooped portions of me out for his use, but fortunately I sat right in 
the centre, a hair's-breadth out of his reach on any side. He made vicious sounds and wriggled 
over my head. He could have knocked the chair to one side and dragged me out if he had come 
down, but somehow the sight of the chair seemed to worry him for a time. He preferred to be 
out of its reach. This battle went on for a while, I cannot say how long: time had come to a dead 
stop in my world. He jumped down and walked about the table, looking for a gap; I rattled the 
chair a couple of times, but very soon it lost all its terror for him; he patted the chair and found 
that it was inoffensive. At this discovery he tried to hurl it aside. But I was too quick for him. I 
swiftly drew it towards me and wedged it tight into the arch of the table, and the stool 
protected me on another side. I was more or less in a stockade made of the legs of furniture. 
He sat up on his haunches in front of me, wondering how best to get at me. Now the chair, 
table and stool had formed a solid block, with me at their heart, and they could withstand all 
his tricks. He scrutinized my arrangement with great interest, espied a gap and thrust his paw 
in. It dangled in my eyes with the curved claws opening out towards me. I felt very angry at the 
sight of it. Why should I allow the offensive to be developed all in his own way? I felt very 
indignant. The long knife from the station-master's table was lying nearby. I picked it up and 
drove it in. He withdrew his paw, maddened by pain. He jumped up and nearly brought down 
the room, and then tried to crack to bits the entire stockade. He did not succeed. He once again 
thrust his paw in. I employed the long knife to good purpose and cut off a digit with the claw on 
it. It was a fight to the finish between him and me. He returned again and again to the charge. 
And I cut out, let me confess, three claws, before I had done with him. I had become as 
bloodthirsty as he. (Those claws, mounted on gold, are hanging around the necks of my three 
daughters. You can come and see them if you like sometime.) 

At about five in the morning the station-master and the porter arrived, and innocently walked 
in. The moment they stepped in the tiger left me and turned on them. They both ran at top 
speed. The station-master flew back to his house and shut the door. The porter on fleet foot 
went up a tree, with the tiger halfway up behind him. Thus they stopped, staring at each other 
till the goods train lumbered in after 5:30. It hissed and whistled and belched fire, till the tiger 
took himself down and bolted across the tracks into the jungle. 

He did not visit these parts again, though one was constantly hearing of his ravages. I did not 
meet him again—till a few moments ago when I saw him riding in that bullock cart. I instantly 
recognized him by his right forepaw, where three toes and claws are missing. You seemed to be 
so much lost in admiration for those people who met the tiger at their own convenience, with 
gun and company, that I thought you might give a little credit to a fellow who has faced the 
same animal, alone, barehanded. Hence this narration. 

When the Talkative Man left us, we moved on to the square, where they were keeping the 
trophy in view and hero-worshipping and feting the hunters, who were awaiting a lorry from 
the town. We pushed through the crowd, and begged to be shown the right forepaw of the 
tiger. Somebody lowered a gas lamp. Yes, three toes were missing, and a deep black scar 
marked the spot. The man who cut it off must have driven his knife with the power of a 
hammer. To a question, the hunters replied, 'Can't say how it happens. We've met a few 
instances like this. It's said that some forest tribes, if they catch a tiger cub, cut off its claws for 
some talisman and let it go. They do not usually kill cubs.' 



ISWARAN 


When the whole of the student world in Malgudi was convulsed with excitement, on a certain 
evening in June when the Intermediate Examination results were expected, Iswaran went about 
his business, looking very unconcerned and detached. 

He had earned the reputation of having aged in the Intermediate Class. He entered the 
Intermediate Class in Albert Mission College as a youngster, with faint down on his upper lip. 
Now he was still there; his figure had grown brawny and athletic, and his chin had become 
tanned and leathery. Some people even said that you could see grey hairs on his head. The first 
time he failed, his parents sympathized with him, the second time also he managed to get their 
sympathies, but subsequently they grew more critical and unsparing, and after repeated 
failures they lost all interest in his examination. He was often told by his parents, 'Why don't 
you discontinue your studies and try to do something useful?' He always pleaded, 'Let me have 
this one last chance.' He clung to university education with a ferocious devotion. And now the 
whole town was agog with the expectation of the results in the evening. Boys moved about the 
street in groups; and on the sands of Sarayu they sat in clusters, nervously smiling and biting 
their fingernails. Others hung about the gates of the Senate House staring anxiously at the walls 
behind which a meeting was going on. 

As much as the boys, if not more, the parents were agitated, except Iswaran's, who, when they 
heard their neighbours discussing their son's possible future results, remarked with a sigh, 'No 
such worry for Iswaran. His results are famous and known to everyone in advance.' Iswaran said 
facetiously, 'I have perhaps passed this time. Father, who knows? I did study quite hard.' 

'You are the greatest optimist in India at the moment; but for this obstinate hope you would 
never have appeared for the same examination every year.' 

'I failed only in Logic, very narrowly, last year,' he defended himself. At which the whole family 
laughed. 'In any case, why don't you go and wait along with the other boys, and look up your 
results?' his mother asked. 'Not at all necessary,' Iswaran replied. 'If I pass they will bring home 
the news. Do you think I saw my results last year? I spent my time in a cinema. I sat through 
two shows consecutively.' 

He hummed as he went in for a wash before dressing to go out. He combed his hair with 
deliberate care, the more so because he knew everybody looked on him as a sort of an outcast 
for failing so often. He knew that behind him the whole family and the town were laughing. He 
felt that they remarked among themselves that washing, combing his hair and putting on a 
well-ironed coat were luxuries too far above his state. He was a failure and had no right to such 
luxuries. He was treated as a sort of thick-skinned idiot. But he did not care. He answered their 
attitude by behaving like a desperado. He swung his arms, strode up and down, bragged and 
shouted, and went to a cinema. But all this was only a mask. Under it was a creature hopelessly 
seared by failure, desperately longing and praying for success. On the day of the results he was, 
inwardly, in a trembling suspense. 'Mother,' he said as he went out, 'don't expect me for dinner 
tonight. I will eat something in a hotel and sit through both the shows at the Palace Talkies.' 

Emerging from Vinayak Street, he saw a group of boys moving up the Market Road towards the 
college. Someone asked: 'Iswaran, coming up to see the results?' 

'Yes, yes, presently. But now I have to be going on an urgent business.' 



'Where?' 


'Palace Talkies.' At this all the boys laughed. 'You seem to know your results already. Do you?' 

'I do. Otherwise do you think I would be celebrating it with a picture?' 

'What is your number?' 

'Seven-eight-five/ he said, giving the first set of numbers that came to his head. The group 
passed on, joking, 'We know you are going to get a first-class this time.' 

He sat in a far-off corner in the four-anna class. He looked about: not a single student in the 
whole theatre. All the students of the town were near the Senate House, waiting for their 
results. Iswaran felt very unhappy to be the only student in the whole theatre. Somehow fate 
seemed to have isolated him from his fellow-beings in every respect. He felt very depressed 
and unhappy. He felt an utter distaste for himself. 

Soon the lights went out and the show started—a Tamil film with all the known gods in it. He 
soon lost himself in the politics and struggles of gods and goddesses; he sat rapt in the vision of 
a heavenly world which some film director had chosen to present. This felicity of forgetfulness 
lasted but half an hour. Soon the heroine of the story sat on a low branch of a tree in paradise 
and wouldn't move out of the place. She sat there singing a song for over half an hour. This 
portion tired Iswaran, and now there returned all the old pains and gloom. 'Oh, lady,' Iswaran 
appealed, 'don't add to my troubles, please move on.' As if she heard this appeal the lady 
moved off, and brighter things followed. A battle, a deluge, somebody dropping headlong from 
cloud-land, and somebody coming up from the bed of an ocean, a rain of fire, a rain of flowers, 
people dying, people rising from graves and so on. All kinds of thrills occurred on that white 
screen beyond the pall of tobacco smoke. The continuous babble on and off the screen, music 
and shouting, the cry of pedlars selling soda, the unrestrained comments of the spectators—all 
this din and commotion helped Iswaran to forget the Senate House and student life for a few 
hours. 

The show ended at ten o'clock in the night. A crowd was waiting at the gate for the night show. 
Iswaran walked across to Ananda Bhavan—a restaurant opposite the Palace Talkies. The 
proprietor, a genial Bombay man, was a friend of his and cried, 'Ishwar Sab, the results were 
announced today. What about yours?' 

'I did not write any examination this year,' Iswaran said. 

'Why, why, I thought you paid your examination fees!' 

Iswaran laughed. 'You are right. I have passed my Intermediate just this evening.' 

'Ah, how very good. How clever you must be! If you pray to Hanuman he will always bring you 
success. What are you going to do next?' 

'I will go to a higher class, that is all,' Iswaran said. He ordered a few tidbits and coffee and rose 
to go. As he paid his bill and walked out, the hotel proprietor said, 'Don't leave me out when 
you are giving a dinner to celebrate your success.' 

Iswaran again purchased a ticket and went back to the picture. Once more all strifes and 
struggles and intrigues of gods were repeated before him. He was once again lost in it. When 
he saw on the screen some young men of his age singing as they sported in the waters of some 



distant heaven, he said, 'Well might you do it, boys. I suppose you have no examination where 
you are . . .' And he was seized with a longing to belong to that world. 

Now the leading lady sat on the low branch of a tree and started singing, and Iswaran lost 
interest in the picture. He looked about for the first time. He noticed, in the semi-darkness, 
several groups of boys in the hall—happy groups. He knew that they must all have seen their 
results, and come now to celebrate their success. There were at least fifty. He knew that they 
must be a happy and gay lot, with their lips red from chewing betel leaves. He knew that all of 
them would focus their attention on him the moment the lights went up. They would all rag 
him about his results—all the old tedious joking over again, and all the tiresome pose of a 
desperado. He felt thoroughly sick of the whole business. He would not stand any more of 
it—the mirthful faces of these men of success and their leers. He was certain they would all 
look on him with the feeling that he had no business to seek the pleasure of a picture on that 
day. 

He moved on to a more obscure corner of the hall. He looked at the screen, nothing there to 
cheer him: the leading lady was still there, and he knew she would certainly stay there for the 
next twenty minutes singing her masterpiece ... He was overcome with dejection. He rose, 
silently edged towards the exit and was out of the theatre in a moment. He felt a loathing for 
himself after seeing those successful boys. 'I am not fit to live. A fellow who cannot pass an 
examination . . .' This idea developed in his mind—a glorious solution to all difficulties. Die and 
go to a world where there were young men free from examination who sported in lotus pools 
in paradise. No bothers, no disgusting Senate House wall to gaze on hopelessly, year after year. 
This solution suddenly brought him a feeling of relief. He felt lighter. He walked across to the 
hotel. The hotel man was about to rise and go to bed. 'Saitji,' Iswaran said, 'please forgive my 
troubling you now. Give me a piece of paper and pencil. I have to note down something 
urgently.' 'So late as this,' said the hotel man, and gave him a slip of paper and a pencil stub. 
Iswaran wrote down a message for his father, folded the slip and placed it carefully in the inner 
pocket of his coat. 

He returned the pencil and stepped out of the hotel. He had only the stretch of the Race Course 
Road, and, turning to his right, half the Market Road to traverse, and then Ellaman Street, and 
then Sarayu ... Its dark swirling waters would close on him and end all his miseries. 'I must 
leave this letter in my coat pocket and remember to leave my coat on the river step,' he told 
himself. 

He was soon out of Ellaman Street. His feet ploughed through the sands of the riverbank. He 
came to the river steps, removed his coat briskly and went down the steps. '0 God,' he 
muttered with folded hands, looking up at his stars. 'If I can't pass an examination even with a 
tenth attempt, what is the use of my living and disgracing the world?' His feet were in water. 
He looked over his shoulder at the cluster of university buildings. There was a light burning on 
the porch of the Senate House. It was nearing midnight. It was a quarter of an hour's walk. Why 
not walk across and take a last look at the results board? In any case he was going to die, and 
why should he shirk and tremble before the board? 

He came out of the water and went up the steps, leaving his coat behind, and he walked across 
the sand. Somewhere a time gong struck twelve, stars sparkled overhead, the river flowed on 
with a murmur and miscellaneous night sounds emanated from the bushes on the bank. A cold 
wind blew on his wet, sand-covered feet. He entered the Senate porch with a defiant heart. 'I 
am in no fear of anything here,' he muttered. The Senate House was deserted, not a sound 
anywhere. The whole building was in darkness, except the staircase landing, where a large bulb 



was burning. And notice-boards hung on the wall. 


His heart palpitated as he stood tiptoe to scan the results. By the light of the bulb he scrutinized 
the numbers. His throat went dry. He looked through the numbers of people who had passed in 
third-class. His own number was 501. The successful number before him was 498, and after 
that 703. 'So I have a few friends on either side/ he said with a forced mirth. He had a wild 
hope as he approached the Senate House that somehow his number would have found a place 
in the list of successful candidates. He had speculated how he should feel after that ... He 
would rush home and demand that they take back all their comments with apologies. But now 
after he gazed at the notice-board for quite a while, the grim reality of his failure dawned on 
him: his number was nowhere. 'The river . . .' he said. He felt desolate, like a condemned man 
who had a sudden but false promise of reprieve. 'The river,' Iswaran muttered. 'I am going,' he 
told the notice-board, and moved a few steps. 'I haven't seen how many have obtained 
honours.' He looked at the notice-board once again. He gazed at the top columns of the results. 
First-classes—curiously enough a fellow with number one secured a first-class, and six others. 
'Good fellows, wonder how they managed it!' he said with admiration. His eyes travelled down 
to second-classes—it was in two lines starting with 98. There were about fifteen. He looked 
fixedly at each number before going on to the next. He came to 350, after that 400, and after 
that 501 and then 600. 

'Five-nought-one in second-class! Can it be true?' he shrieked. He looked at the number again 
and again. Yes, there it was. He had obtained a second-class. 'If this is true I shall sit in the B.A. 
class next month,' he shouted. His voice rang through the silent building. 'I will flay alive anyone 
who calls me a fool hereafter . . .' he proclaimed. He felt slightly giddy. He leant against the 
wall. Years of strain and suspense were suddenly relaxed; and he could hardly bear the force of 
this release. Blood raced along his veins and heaved and knocked under his skull. He steadied 
himself with an effort. He softly hummed a tune to himself. He felt he was the sole occupant of 
the world and its overlord. He thumped his chest and addressed the notice-board: 'Know who I 
am?' He stroked an imaginary moustache arrogantly, laughed to himself and asked, 'Is the 
horse ready, groom?' He threw a supercilious side glance at the notice-board and strutted out 
like a king. He stood on the last step of the porch and looked for his steed. He waited for a 
minute and commanded, 'Fool, bring the horse nearer. Do you hear?' The horse was brought 
nearer. He made a movement as if mounting and whipped his horse into a fury. His voice rang 
through the dark riverside, urging the horse on. He swung his arms and ran along the sands. He 
shouted at the top of his voice: 'Keep off; the king is coming; whoever comes his way will be 
trampled ...' 

'I have five hundred and one horses,' he spoke to the night. The number stuck in his mind and 
kept coming up again and again. He ran the whole length of the riverbank up and down. 
Somehow this did not satisfy him. 'Prime Minister,' he said, 'this horse is no good. Bring me the 
other five hundred and one horses, they are all in second-classes—' He gave a kick to the horse 
which he had been riding and drove it off. Very soon the Prime Minister brought him another 
horse. He mounted it with dignity and said, 'This is better.' Now he galloped about on his horse. 
It was a strange sight. In the dim starlight, alone at that hour, making a tap-tap with his tongue 
to imitate galloping hoofs. With one hand swinging and tugging the reins, and with the other 
stroking his moustache defiantly, he urged the horse on and on until it attained the speed of a 
storm. He felt like a conqueror as the air rushed about him. Soon he crossed the whole stretch 
of sand. He came to the water's edge, hesitated for a moment and whispered to his horse, 'Are 
you afraid of water? You must swim across, otherwise I will never pay five-nought-one rupees 
for you.' He felt the horse make a leap. 



Next afternoon his body came up at a spot about a quarter of a mile down the course of the 
river. Meanwhile, some persons had already picked up the coat left on the step and discovered 
in the inner pocket the slip of paper with the inscription: 

'My dear father: By the time you see this letter I shall be at the bottom of Sarayu. I don't want 
to live. Don't worry about me. You have other sons who are not such dunces as I am—' 



SUCH PERFECTION 


A sense of great relief filled Soma as he realized that his five years of labour were coming to an 
end. He had turned out scores of images in his lifetime, but he had never done any work to 
equal this. He often said to himself that long after the Deluge had swept the earth this Nataraja 
would still be standing on His pedestal. 

No other human being had seen the image yet. Soma shut himself in and bolted all the doors 
and windows and plied his chisel by the still flame of a mud lamp, even when there was a bright 
sun outside. It made him perspire unbearably, but he did not mind it so long as it helped him to 
keep out prying eyes. He worked with a fierce concentration and never encouraged anyone to 
talk about it. 

After all, his labours had come to an end. He sat back, wiped the perspiration off his face and 
surveyed his handiwork with great satisfaction. As he looked on he was overwhelmed by the 
majesty of this image. He fell prostrate before it, praying, 'I have taken five years to make you. 
May you reside in our temple and bless all human beings!' The dim mud flame cast subtle 
shadows on the image and gave it an undertone of rippling life. The sculptor stood lost in this 
vision. A voice said, 'My friend, never take this image out of this room. It is too perfect . . .' 
Soma trembled with fear. He looked round. He saw a figure crouching in a dark corner of the 
room—it was a man. Soma dashed forward and clutched him by the throat. 'Why did you come 
here?' The other writhed under the grip and replied, 'Out of admiration for you. I have always 
loved your work. I have waited for five years . . .' 

'How did you come in?' 

'With another key while you were eating inside . . .' 

Soma gnashed his teeth. 'Shall I strangle you before this God and offer you as sacrifice?' 'By all 
means,' replied the other, 'if it will help you in any way . . . but I doubt it. Even with a sacrifice 
you cannot take it out. It is too perfect. Such perfection is not for mortals.' The sculptor wept. 
'Oh, do not say that. I worked in secrecy only for this perfection. It is for our people. It is a God 
coming into their midst. Don't deny them that.' The other prostrated before the image and 
prayed aloud, 'God give us the strength to bear your presence . . .' 

This man spoke to people and the great secret was out. A kind of dread seized the people of the 
village. On an auspicious day. Soma went to the temple priest and asked, 'At the coming full 
moon my Nataraja must be consecrated. Have you made a place for him in the temple?' The 
priest answered, 'Let me see the image first. . .' He went over to the sculptor's house, gazed on 
the image and said, 'This perfection, this God, is not for mortal eyes. He will blind us. At the first 
chant of prayer before him, he will dance . . . and we shall be wiped out. . .' The sculptor looked 
so unhappy that the priest added, 'Take your chisel and break a little toe or some other part of 
the image, and it will be safe . . .' The sculptor replied that he would sooner crack the skull of 
his visitor. The leading citizens of the village came over and said, 'Don't mistake us. We cannot 
give your image a place in our temple. Don't be angry with us. We have to think of the safety of 
all the people in the village . .. Even now if you are prepared to break a small finger. . .' 

'Get out, all of you,' Soma shouted. 'I don't care to bring this Nataraja to your temple. I will 
make a temple for him where he is. You will see that it becomes the greatest temple on earth . . 
.' Next day he pulled down a portion of the wall of the room and constructed a large doorway 



opening on the street. He called Rama, the tom-tom beater, and said, 'I will give you a silver 
coin for your trouble. Go and proclaim in all nearby villages that this Nataraja will be 
consecrated at the full moon. If a large crowd turns up, I will present you with a lace shawl.' 

At the full moon, men, women and children poured in from the surrounding villages. There was 
hardly an inch of space vacant anywhere. The streets were crammed with people. Vendors of 
sweets and toys and flowers shouted their wares, moving about in the crowd. Pipers and 
drummers, groups of persons chanting hymns, children shouting in joy, men greeting each 
other—all this created a mighty din. Fragrance of flowers and incense hung over the place. 
Presiding over all this there was the brightest moon that ever shone on earth. 

The screen which had covered the image parted. A great flame of camphor was waved in front 
of the image, and bronze bells rang. A silence fell upon the crowd. Every eye was fixed upon the 
image. In the flame of the circling camphor Nataraja's eyes lit up. His limbs moved, his anklets 
jingled. The crowd was awe-stricken. The God pressed one foot on earth and raised the other in 
dance. He destroyed the universe under his heel, and smeared the ashes over his body, and the 
same God rattled the drum in his hand and by its rhythm set life in motion again . . . Creation, 
Dissolution and God attained a meaning now; this image brought it out. . . the bells rang louder 
every second. The crowd stood stunned by this vision vouchsafed to them. 

At this moment a wind blew from the east. The moon's disc gradually dimmed. The wind 
gathered force, clouds blotted out the moon; people looked up and saw only pitchlike darkness 
above. Lightning flashed, thunder roared and fire poured down from the sky. It was a 
thunderbolt striking a haystack and setting it ablaze. Its glare illuminated the whole village. 
People ran about in panic, searching for shelter. The population of ten villages crammed in that 
village. Another thunderbolt hit a house. Women and children shrieked and wailed. The fires 
descended with a tremendous hiss as a mighty rain came down. It rained as it had never rained 
before. The two lakes, over which the village road ran, filled, swelled and joined over the road. 
Water flowed along the streets. The wind screamed and shook the trees and the homes. 'This is 
the end of the world!' wailed the people through the storm. 

The whole of the next day it was still drizzling. Soma sat before the image, with his head bowed 
in thought. Trays and flowers and offerings lay scattered under the image, dampened by rain. 
Some of his friends came wading in water, stood before him and asked, 'Are you satisfied?' 
They stood over him like executioners and repeated the question and added, 'Do you want to 
know how many lives have been lost, how many homes washed out and how many were 
crushed by the storm?' 

'No, no, I don't want to know anything,' Soma replied. 'Go away. Don't stand here and talk.' 

'God has shown us only a slight sign of his power. Don't tempt Him again. Do something. Our 
lives are in your hands. Save us, the image is too perfect.' 

After they were gone he sat for hours in the same position, ruminating. Their words still 
troubled him. 'Our lives are in your hands.' He knew what they meant. Tears gathered in his 
eyes. 'How can I mutilate this image? Let the whole world burn, I don't care. I can't touch this 
image.' He lit a lamp before the God and sat watching. Far off the sky rumbled. 'It is starting 
again. Poor human beings, they will all perish this time.' He looked at the toe of the image. 'Just 
one neat stroke with the chisel, and all troubles will end.' He watched the toe, his hands 
trembled. 'How can I?' Outside, the wind began to howl. People were gathering in front of his 
house and were appealing to him for help. 



Soma prostrated before the God and went out. He stood looking at the road over which the 
two lakes had joined. Over the eastern horizon a dark mass of cloud was rolling up. 'When that 
cloud comes over, it will wash out the world. Nataraja! I cannot mutilate your figure, but I can 
offer myself as a sacrifice if it will be any use . . .' He shut his eyes and decided to jump into the 
lake. He checked himself. 'I must take a last look at the God before I die.' He battled his way 
through the oncoming storm. The wind shrieked. Trees shook and trembled. Men and cattle ran 
about in panic. 

He was back just in time to see a tree crash on the roof of his house. 'My home/ he cried, and 
ran in. He picked up his Nataraja from amidst splintered tiles and rafters. The image was unhurt 
except for a little toe which was found a couple of yards off, severed by a falling splinter. 

'God himself has done this to save us I' people cried. 

The image was installed with due ceremonies at the temple on the next full moon. Wealth and 
honours were showered on Soma. He lived to be ninety-five, but he never touched his mallet 
and chisel again. 



FATHER'S HELP 


Lying in bed, Swami realized with a shudder that it was Monday morning. It looked as though 
only a moment ago it had been the last period on Friday; already Monday was here. He hoped 
that an earthquake would reduce the school building to dust, but that good building—Albert 
Mission School —had withstood similar prayers for over a hundred years now. At nine o'clock 
Swaminathan wailed, 'I have a headache.' His mother said, 'Why don't you go to school in a 
jutka ?' 

'So that I may be completely dead at the other end? Have you any idea what it means to be 
jolted in a jutka?' 

'Have you many important lessons today?' 

'Important! Bah! That geography teacher has been teaching the same lesson for over a year 
now. And we have arithmetic, which means for a whole period we are going to be beaten by 
the teacher. . . Important lessons!' 

And Mother generously suggested that Swami might stay at home. 

At 9:30, when he ought to have been shouting in the school prayer hall, Swami was lying on the 
bench in Mother's room. Father asked him, 'Have you no school today?' 

'Headache,' Swami replied. 

'Nonsense! Dress up and go.' 

'Headache.' 

'Loaf about less on Sundays and you will be without a headache on Monday.' 

Swami knew how stubborn his father could be and changed his tactics. 'I can't go so late to the 
class.' 

'I agree, but you'll have to; it is your own fault. You should have asked me before deciding to 
stay away.' 

'What will the teacher think if I go so late?' 

'Tell him you had a headache and so are late.' 

'He will beat me if I say so.' 

'Will he? Let us see. What is his name?' 

'Samuel.' 

'Does he beat the boys?' 

'He is very violent, especially with boys who come late. Some days ago a boy was made to stay 
on his knees for a whole period in a corner of the class because he came late, and that after 
getting six cuts from the cane and having his ears twisted. I wouldn't like to go late to Samuel's 
class.' 



'If he is so violent, why not tell your headmaster about it?' 

'They say that even the headmaster is afraid of him. He is such a violent man.' 

And then Swami gave a lurid account of Samuel's violence; how when he started caning he 
would not stop till he saw blood on the boy's hand, which he made the boy press to his 
forehead like a vermilion marking. Swami hoped that with this his father would be made to see 
that he couldn't go to his class late. But Father's behaviour took an unexpected turn. He 
became excited. 'What do these swine mean by beating our children? They must be driven out 
of service. I will see ...' 

The result was he proposed to send Swami late to his class as a kind of challenge. He was also 
going to send a letter with Swami to the headmaster. No amount of protest from Swami was of 
any avail: Swami had to go to school. 

By the time he was ready Father had composed a long letter to the headmaster, put it in an 
envelope and sealed it. 

'What have you written. Father?' Swaminathan asked apprehensively. 

'Nothing for you. Give it to your headmaster and go to your class.' 

'Have you written anything about our teacher Samuel?' 

'Plenty of things about him. When your headmaster reads it he will probably dismiss Samuel 
from the school and hand him over to the police.' 

'What has he done. Father?' 

'Well, there is a full account of everything he has done in the letter. Give it to your headmaster 
and go to your class. You must bring an acknowledgement from him in the evening.' 

Swami went to school feeling that he was the worst perjurer on earth. His conscience bothered 
him: he wasn't at all sure if he had been accurate in his description of Samuel. He could not 
decide how much of what he had said was imagined and how much of it was real. He stopped 
for a moment on the roadside to make up his mind about Samuel: he was not such a bad man 
after all. Personally he was much more genial than the rest; often he cracked a joke or two 
centring around Swami's inactions, and Swami took it as a mark of Samuel's personal regard for 
him. But there was no doubt that he treated people badly ... His cane skinned people's hands. 
Swami cast his mind about for an instance of this. There was none within his knowledge. Years 
and years ago he was reputed to have skinned the knuckles of a boy in First Standard and made 
him smear the blood on his face. No one had actually seen it. But year after year the story 
persisted among the boys . . . Swami's head was dizzy with confusion in regard to Samuel's 
character—whether he was good or bad, whether he deserved the allegations in the letter or 
not. . . Swami felt an impulse to run home and beg his father to take back the letter. But Father 
was an obstinate man. 

As he approached the yellow building he realized that he was perjuring himself and was ruining 
his teacher. Probably the headmaster would dismiss Samuel and then the police would chain 
him and put him in jail. For all this disgrace, humiliation and suffering who would be 
responsible? Swami shuddered. The more he thought of Samuel, the more he grieved for 
him—the dark face, his small red-streaked eyes, his thin line of moustache, his unshaven cheek 
and chin, his yellow coat; everything filled Swami with sorrow. As he felt the bulge of the letter 



in his pocket, he felt like an executioner. For a moment he was angry with his father and 
wondered why he should not fling into the gutter the letter of a man so unreasonable and 
stubborn. 

As he entered the school gate an idea occurred to him, a sort of solution. He wouldn't deliver 
the letter to the headmaster immediately, but at the end of the day—to that extent he would 
disobey his father and exercise his independence. There was nothing wrong in it, and Father 
would not know it anyway. If the letter was given at the end of the day there was a chance that 
Samuel might do something to justify the letter. 

Swami stood at the entrance to his class. Samuel was teaching arithmetic. He looked at Swami 
for a moment. Swami stood hoping that Samuel would fall on him and tear his skin off. But 
Samuel merely asked, 'Are you just coming to the class?' 

'Yes, sir.' 

'You are half an hour late.' 

'I know it.' Swami hoped that he would be attacked now. He almost prayed: 'God of Thirupathi, 
please make Samuel beat me.' 

'Why are you late?' 

Swami wanted to reply, 'Just to see what you can do.' But he merely said, 'I have a headache, 
sir.' 

'Then why did you come to the school at all?' 

A most unexpected question from Samuel. 'My father said that I shouldn't miss the class, sir,' 
said Swami. 

This seemed to impress Samuel. 'Your father is quite right; a very sensible man. We want more 
parents like him.' 

'Oh, you poor worm!' Swami thought. 'You don't know what my father has done to you.' He 
was more puzzled than ever about Samuel's character. 

'All right, go to your seat. Have you still a headache?' 

'Slightly, sir.' 

Swami went to his seat with a bleeding heart. He had never met a man so good as Samuel. The 
teacher was inspecting the home lessons, which usually produced (at least, according to 
Swami's impression) scenes of great violence. Notebooks would be flung at faces, boys would 
be abused, caned and made to stand up on benches. But today Samuel appeared to have 
developed more tolerance and gentleness. He pushed away the bad books, just touched people 
with the cane, never made anyone stand up for more than a few minutes. Swami's turn came. 
He almost thanked God for the chance. 

'Swaminathan, where is your homework?' 

'I have not done any homework, sir,' he said blandly. 

There was a pause. 



'Why—headache?' asked Samuel. 

'Yes, sir.' 

'All right, sit down.' Swami sat down, wondering what had come over Samuel. The period came 
to an end, and Swami felt desolate. The last period for the day was again taken by Samuel. He 
came this time to teach them Indian history. The period began at 3:45 and ended at 4:30. 
Swaminathan had sat through the previous periods thinking acutely. He could not devise any 
means of provoking Samuel. When the clock struck four Swami felt desperate. Half an hour 
more. Samuel was reading the red text, the portion describing Vasco da Gama's arrival in India. 
The boys listened in half-languor. Swami suddenly asked at the top of his voice, 'Why did not 
Columbus come to India, sir?' 

'He lost his way.' 

'I can't believe it; it is unbelievable, sir.' 

'Why?' 

'Such a great man. Would he have not known the way?' 

'Don't shout. I can hear you quite well.' 

'I am not shouting, sir; this is my ordinary voice, which God has given me. How can I help it?' 
'Shut up and sit down.' 

Swaminathan sat down, feeling slightly happy at his success. The teacher threw a puzzled, 
suspicious glance at him and resumed his lessons. 

His next chance occurred when Sankar of the first bench got up and asked, 'Sir, was Vasco da 
Gama the very first person to come to India?' 

Before the teacher could answer, Swami shouted from the back bench, 'That's what they say.' 

The teacher and all the boys looked at Swami. The teacher was puzzled by Swami's obtrusive 
behaviour today. 'Swaminathan, you are shouting again.' 

'I am not shouting, sir. How can I help my voice, given by God?' The school clock struck a 
quarter-hour. A quarter more. Swami felt he must do something drastic in fifteen minutes. 
Samuel had no doubt scowled at him and snubbed him, but it was hardly adequate. Swami felt 
that with a little more effort Samuel could be made to deserve dismissal and imprisonment. 

The teacher came to the end of a section in the textbook and stopped. He proposed to spend 
the remaining few minutes putting questions to the boys. He ordered the whole class to put 
away their books, and asked someone in the second row, 'What is the date of Vasco da Gama's 
arrival in India?' 

Swaminathan shot up and screeched, '1648, December 20.' 

'You needn't shout,' said the teacher. He asked, 'Has your headache made you mad?' 

'I have no headache now, sir,' replied the thunderer brightly. 

'Sit down, you idiot.' Swami thrilled at being called an idiot. 'If you get up again I will cane you,' 



said the teacher. Swami sat down, feeling happy at the promise. The teacher then asked, 'I am 
going to put a few questions on the Mughal period. Among the Mughal emperors, whom would 
you call the greatest, whom the strongest and whom the most religious emperor?' 

Swami got up. As soon as he was seen, the teacher said emphatically, 'Sit down.' 

'I want to answer, sir.' 

'Sit down.' 

'No, sir; I want to answer.' 

'What did I say I'd do if you got up again?' 

'You said you would cane me and peel the skin off my knuckles and make me press it on my 
forehead.' 

'All right; come here.' 

Swaminathan left his seat joyfully and hopped on the platform. The teacher took out his cane 
from the drawer and shouted angrily, 'Open your hand, you little devil.' He whacked three 
wholesome cuts on each palm. Swami received them without blenching. After half a dozen the 
teacher asked, 'Will these do, or do you want some more?' 

Swami merely held out his hand again, and received two more; and the bell rang. Swami 
jumped down from the platform with a light heart, though his hands were smarting. He picked 
up his books, took out the letter lying in his pocket and ran to the headmaster's room. He found 
the door locked. 

He asked the peon, 'Where is the headmaster?' 

'Why do you want him?' 

'My father has sent a letter for him.' 

'He has taken the afternoon off and won't come back for a week. You can give the letter to the 
assistant headmaster. He will be here now.' 

'Who is he?' 

'Your teacher, Samuel. He will be here in a second.' 

Swaminathan fled from the place. As soon as Swami went home with the letter. Father 
remarked, 'I knew you wouldn't deliver it, you coward.' 

'I swear our headmaster is on leave,' Swaminathan began. 

Father replied, 'Don't lie in addition to being a coward . . .' 

Swami held up the envelope and said, 'I will give this to the headmaster as soon as he is back . . 
.' Father snatched it from his hand, tore it up and thrust it into the wastepaper basket under his 
table. He muttered, 'Don't come to me for help even if Samuel throttles you. You deserve your 
Samuel.' 



THE SNAKE-SONG 


We were coming out of the music hall quite pleased with the concert. We thought it a very fine 
performance. We thought so till we noticed the Talkative Man in our midst. He looked as 
though he had been in a torture chamber. We looked at him sourly and remarked, 'We suppose 
you are one of those great men who believe that South Indian music died one hundred years 
ago. Or were you at any time hobnobbing with all our ancient musicians and composers, the 
only reason many persons like you have for thinking that all modern singing is childish and 
inane? Or are you one of those restless theorists who can never hear a song without splitting it 
into atoms?' 

'None of these,' answered the Talkative Man. 'I am just a simple creature who knows what he is 
talking about. I know something of music, perhaps just a little more than anyone else here, and 
that is why I am horrified to see the level to which taste has sunk . . .' 

We tried to snub him by receiving his remarks in cold silence and talking among ourselves. But 
he followed us all the way, chatting, and we had to listen to him. 

Seeing me now (said the Talkative Man), perhaps you think I am capable of doing nothing more 
artistic than selling chemical fertilizers to peasants. But I tell you I was at one time ambitious of 
becoming a musician. I came near being one. It was years and years ago. I was living at the time 
in Kumbum, a small village eighty miles from Malgudi. A master musician lived there. When he 
played on the flute, it was said, the cattle of the village followed him about. He was perhaps the 
greatest artist of the century, but quite content to live in obscurity, hardly known to anyone 
outside the village, giving concerts only in the village temple and absolutely satisfied with the 
small income he derived from his ancestral lands. I washed his clothes, swept his house, ran 
errands for him, wrote his accounts, and when he felt like it, he taught me music. His 
personality and presence had a value all their own, so that even if he taught only for an hour it 
was worth a year's tuition under anyone else. The very atmosphere around him educated one. 

After three years of chipping and planing, my master felt that my music was after all taking 
some shape. He said, 'In another year, perhaps, you may go to the town and play before a 
public, that is, if you care for such things.' You may be sure I cared. Not for me the greatness of 
obscurity. I wanted wealth and renown. I dreamt of going to Madras and attending the music 
festival next year, and then all the districts would ring with my name. I looked on my bamboo 
flute as a sort of magic wand which was going to open out a new world to me. 

I lived in a small cottage at the end of the street. It was my habit to sit up and practise far into 
the night. One night as I was just losing myself in bhairavi raga, there came a knock on the 
door. I felt irritated at the interruption. 

'Who is there?' I asked. 

'A sadhu; he wants a mouthful of food.' 

'At this hour! Go, go. Don't come and pester people at all hours.' 

'But hunger knows no time.' 

'Go away. I have nothing here. I myself live on my master's charity.' 



'But can't you give a small coin or at least a kind word to a sodhu ? He has seen Kasi, 
Rameswaram . . .' 

'Shut up,' I cried, glared at the door and resumed my bhairavi. 

Fifteen minutes later the knocks were repeated. I lost my temper. 'Have you no sense? Why do 
you disturb me?' 

'You play divinely. Won't you let me in? You may not give me food for my stomach, but don't 
deny me your music.' 

I didn't like anyone to be present when I practised, and this constant interruption was 
exasperating. 'Don't stand there and argue. If you don't go at once, I will open the door and 
push you out.' 

'Ah, bad words. You needn't push me out. I am going. But remember, this is your last day of 
music. Tomorrow you may exchange your flute for a handful of dried dates.' 

I heard his wooden clogs going down the house steps. I felt relieved and played for about ten 
minutes. But my mind was troubled. His parting words . . . what did he mean by them? I got up, 
took the lantern from its nail on the wall and went out. I stood on the last step of my cottage 
and looked up and down the dark street, holding up the lantern. I turned in. Vaguely hoping 
that he might call again, I left the door half-open. I hung up the lantern and sat down. I looked 
at the pictures of gods on the wall and prayed to be protected from the threat of the unseen 
mendicant. And then I was lost in music once again. 

Song after song flowed from that tiny bamboo and transformed my lonely cottage. I was no 
longer a petty mortal blowing through a piece of bamboo. I was among the gods. The lantern 
on the wall became a brilliant star illuminating a celestial hall . . . And I came to the snake-song 
in punnaga varali. I saw the serpent in all its majesty: the very venom in its pouch had a touch 
of glory: now I saw its divinity as it crowned Shiva's head: Parvathi wore it as a wristlet: 
Subramanya played with it: and it was Vishnu's couch . . . The whole composition imparted to 
the serpent a quality which inspired awe and reverence. 

And now what should I see between the door and me but a black cobra! It had opened its 
immense hood and was swaying ecstatically. I stopped my song and rubbed my eyes to see if I 
was fully awake. But the moment the song ceased, the cobra turned and threw a glance at me, 
and moved forward. I have never seen such a black cobra and such a long one in my life. Some 
saving instinct told me: 'Play on! Play on! Don't stop.' I hurriedly took the flute to my lips and 
continued the song. The snake, which was now less than three yards from me, lifted a quarter 
of its body, with a gentle flourish reared its head, fixed its round eyes on me and listened to the 
music without making the slightest movement. It might have been a carven snake in black 
stone, so still it was. 

And as I played with my eyes fixed on the snake I was so much impressed with its dignity and 
authority that I said to myself, 'Which God would forgo the privilege of wearing this in His hair? 
. . .' After playing the song thrice over, I commenced a new song. The cobra sharply turned its 
head and looked at me as if to say, 'Now what is all this?' and let out a terrible hiss, and made a 
slight movement. I quickly resumed the snake-song, and it assumed once again its carven 
posture. 


So I played the song again and again. But however great a composition might be, a dozen 



repetitions of it was bound to prove tiresome. I attempted to change the song once or twice, 
but I saw the snake stir menacingly. I vainly tried to get up and dash out, but the snake nearly 
stood up on its tail and promised to finish me. And so I played the same song all night. My 
distinguished audience showed no sign of leaving. By and by I felt exhausted. My head swam, 
my cheeks ached from continuous blowing and my chest seemed to be emptied of the last wisp 
of breath. I knew I was going to drop dead in a few seconds. It didn't seem to matter very much 
if the snake was going to crush me in its coils and fill me with all the venom in its sac. I flung 
down the flute, got up and prostrated before it, crying, 'Oh, Naga Raja, you are a god; you can 
kill me if you like, but I can play no more . . .' 

When I opened my eyes again the snake was gone. The lantern on the wall had turned pale in 
the morning light. My flute lay near the doorway. 

Next day I narrated my experiences to my master. He said, 'Don't you know you ought not to 
play purmaga varali at night? That apart, now you can never be sure you will not get the snake 
in again if you play. And when he comes he won't spare you unless you sing his song over again. 
Are you prepared to do it?' 

'No, no, a thousand times no,' I cried. The memory of the song was galling. I had repeated it 
enough to last me a lifetime. 

'If it is so, throw away your flute and forget your music . . . You can't play with a serpent. It is a 
plaything of gods. Throw away your bamboo. It is of no use to you any more. . . .' I wept at the 
thought of this renunciation. My master pitied me and said, 'Perhaps all will be well again if you 
seek your visitor of that night and beg his forgiveness. Can you find him?' 

I put away my flute. I have ever since been searching for an unknown, unseen mendicant, in 
this world. Even today, if by God's grace I meet him, I will fall at his feet, beg his forgiveness and 
take up my flute again. 



ENGINE TROUBLE 


There came down to our town some years ago (said the Talkative Man) a showman owning an 
institution called the Gaiety Land. Overnight our Gymkhana Grounds became resplendent with 
banners and streamers and coloured lamps. From all over the district crowds poured into the 
show. Within a week of opening, in gate money alone they collected nearly five hundred rupees 
a day. Gaiety Land provided us with all sorts of fun and gambling and sideshows. For a couple of 
annas in each booth we could watch anything from performing parrots to crack motorcyclists 
looping the loop in the Dome of Death. In addition to this there were lotteries and shooting 
galleries where for an anna you always stood a chance of winning a hundred rupees. 

There was a particular corner of the show which was in great favour. Flere for a ticket costing 
eight annas you stood a chance of acquiring a variety of articles—pincushions, sewing 
machines, cameras or even a road engine. On one evening they drew ticket number 1005, and I 
happened to own the other half of the ticket. Glancing down the list of articles, they declared 
that I became the owner of the road engine! Don't ask me how a road engine came to be 
included among the prizes. It is more than I can tell you. 

I looked stunned. People gathered round and gazed at me as if I were some curious animal. 
'Fancy anyone becoming the owner of a road engine!' some persons muttered, and giggled. 

It was not the sort of prize one could carry home at short notice. I asked the showman if he 
would help me to transport it. Fie merely pointed at a notice which decreed that all winners 
should remove the prizes immediately on drawing and by their own effort. Flowever, they had 
to make an exception in my case. They agreed to keep the engine on the Gymkhana Grounds till 
the end of their season, and then I would have to make my own arrangements to take it out. 
When I asked the showman if he could find me a driver he just smiled. 'The fellow who brought 
it here had to be paid a hundred rupees for the job and five rupees a day. I sent him away and 
made up my mind that if no one was going to draw it, I would just leave it to its fate. I got it 
down just as a novelty for the show. God! What a bother it has proved!' 

'Can't I sell it to some municipality?' I asked innocently. Fie burst into a laugh. 'As a showman I 
have enough troubles with municipal people. I would rather keep out of their way . . .' 

My friends and well-wishers poured in to congratulate me on my latest acquisition. No one 
knew precisely how much a road engine would fetch; all the same they felt that there was a lot 
of money in it. 'Even if you sell it as scrap iron you can make a few thousands,' some of my 
friends declared. Every day I made a trip to the Gymkhana Grounds to have a look at my engine. 

I grew very fond of it. I loved its shining brass parts. I stood near it and patted it affectionately, 
hovered about it and returned home every day only at the close of the show. I was a poor man. 

I thought that, after all, my troubles were coming to an end. Flow ignorant we are! Flow little 
did I guess that my troubles had just begun. 

When the showman took down his booths and packed up, I received a notice from the 
municipality to attend to my road engine. When I went there next day it looked forlorn with no 
one about. The ground was littered with torn streamers and paper decorations. The showman 
had moved on, leaving the engine where it stood. It was perfectly safe anywhere! 

I left it alone for a few days, not knowing what to do with it. I received a notice from the 
municipality ordering that the engine be removed at once from the grounds, as otherwise they 



would charge rent for the occupation of the Gymkhana Grounds. After deep thought I 
consented to pay the rent, and I paid ten rupees a month for the next three months. Dear sirs, I 
was a poor man. Even the house which I and my wife occupied cost me only four rupees a 
month. And fancy my paying ten rupees a month for the road engine. It cut into my slender 
budget, and I had to pledge a jewel or two belonging to my wife! And every day my wife was 
asking me what I proposed to do with this terrible property of mine and I had no answer to give 
her. I went up and down the town offering it for sale to all and sundry. Someone suggested that 
the secretary of the local Cosmopolitan Club might be interested in it. When I approached him 
he laughed and asked what he could do with a road engine. 'I'll dispose of it at a concession for 
you. You have a tennis court to be rolled every morning,' I began, and even before I saw him 
smile I knew it was a stupid thing to say. Next someone suggested, 'See the Municipal 
Chairman. He may buy it for the municipality.' With great trepidation I went to the municipal 
office one day. I buttoned up my coat as I entered the chairman's room and mentioned my 
business. I was prepared to give away the engine at a great concession. I started a great 
harangue on municipal duties, the regime of this chairman and the importance of owning a 
road roller—but before I was done with him I knew there was greater chance of my selling it to 
some child on the roadside for playing with. 

I was making myself a bankrupt maintaining this engine in the Gymkhana Grounds. I really 
hoped someday there would come my way a lump sum to make amends for all this deficit and 
suffering. Fresh complications arose when a cattle show came in the offing. It was to be held on 
the grounds. I was given twenty-four hours to get the thing out of the grounds. The show was 
opening in a week and the advance party was arriving and insisted upon having the engine out 
of the way. I became desperate; there was not a single person for fifty miles around who knew 
anything about a road engine. I begged every passing bus-driver to help me, but without use. I 
even approached the station-master to put in a word with the mail engine-driver. But the 
engine-driver pointed out that he had his own locomotive to mind and couldn't think of 
jumping off at a wayside station for anybody's sake. Meanwhile, the municipality was pressing 
me to clear out. I thought it over. I saw the priest of the local temple and managed to gain his 
sympathy. He offered me the services of his temple elephant. I also engaged fifty coolies to 
push the engine from behind. You may be sure this drained all my resources. The coolies 
wanted eight annas per head, and the temple elephant cost me seven rupees a day and I had to 
give it one feed. My plan was to take the engine out of the Gymkhana and then down the road 
to a field half a furlong off. The field was owned by a friend. He would not mind if I kept the 
engine there for a couple of months, when I could go to Madras and find a customer for it. 

I also took into service one Joseph, a dismissed bus-driver who said that although he knew 
nothing of road rollers he could nevertheless steer one if it was somehow kept in motion. 

It was a fine sight: the temple elephant yoked to the engine by means of stout ropes, with fifty 
determined men pushing it from behind, and my friend Joseph sitting in the driving seat. A 
huge crowd stood around and watched in great glee. The engine began to move. It seemed to 
me the greatest moment in my life. When it came out of the Gymkhana and reached the road, 
it began to behave in a strange manner. Instead of going straight down the road it showed a 
tendency to wobble and move zigzag. The elephant dragged it one way, Joseph turned the 
wheel for all he was worth without any idea of where he was going, and fifty men behind it 
clung to it in every possible manner and pushed it just where they liked. As a result of all this 
confused dragging, the engine ran straight into the opposite compound wall and reduced a 
good length of it to powder. At this the crowd let out a joyous yell. The elephant, disliking the 
behaviour of the crowd, trumpeted loudly, strained and snapped its ropes and kicked down a 



further length of the wall. The fifty men fled in panic, the crowd created a pandemonium. 
Someone slapped me in the face—it was the owner of the compound wall. The police came on 
the scene and marched me off. 

When I was released from the lockup I found the following consequences awaiting me: (1) 
several yards of compound wall to be built by me; (2) wages of fifty men who ran away (they 
would not explain how they were entitled to the wages when they had not done their job); (3) 
Joseph's fee for steering the engine over the wall; (4) cost of medicine for treating the knee of 
the temple elephant, which had received some injuries while kicking down the wall (here again 
the temple authorities would not listen when I pointed out that I didn't engage an elephant to 
break a wall); (5) last, but not least, the demand to move the engine out of its present station. 

Sirs, I was a poor man. I really could not find any means of paying these bills. When I went 
home my wife asked, 'What is this I hear about you everywhere?' I took the opportunity to 
explain my difficulties. She took it as a hint that I was again asking for her jewels, and she lost 
her temper and cried that she would write to her father to come and take her away. 

I was at my wits' end. People smiled at me when they met me in the streets. I was seriously 
wondering why I should not run away to my village. I decided to encourage my wife to write to 
her father and arrange for her exit. Not a soul was going to know what my plans were. I was 
going to put off my creditors and disappear one fine night. 

At this point came unexpected relief in the shape of a Swamiji. One fine evening under the 
distinguished patronage of our Municipal Chairman a show was held in our small town hall. It 
was a free performance and the hall was packed with people. I sat in the gallery. Spellbound we 
witnessed the Swamiji's yogic feats. He bit off glass tumblers and ate them with contentment; 
he lay on spike boards; gargled and drank all kinds of acids; licked white-hot iron rods; chewed 
and swallowed sharp nails; stopped his heartbeat and buried himself underground. We sat 
there and watched him in stupefaction. At the end of it all he got up and delivered a speech in 
which he declared that he was carrying on his master's message to the people in this manner. 
His performance was the more remarkable because he had nothing to gain by all this 
extraordinary meal except the satisfaction of serving humanity, and now he said he was coming 
to the very masterpiece and the last act. He looked at the Municipal Chairman and asked, 'Have 
you a road engine? I would like to have it driven over my chest.' The chairman looked abashed 
and felt ashamed to acknowledge that he had none. The Swamiji insisted, 'I must have a road 
engine.' 

The Municipal Chairman tried to put him off by saying, 'There is no driver.' The Swamiji replied, 
'Don't worry about it. My assistant has been trained to handle any kind of road engine.' At this 
point I stood up in the gallery and shouted, 'Don't ask him for an engine. Ask me.' In a moment I 
was on the stage and became as important a person as the fire-eater himself. I was pleased 
with the recognition I now received from all quarters. The Municipal Chairman went into the 
background. 

In return for lending him the engine he would drive it where I wanted. Though I felt inclined to 
ask for a money contribution I knew it would be useless to expect it from one who was doing 
missionary work. 

Soon the whole gathering was at the compound wall opposite the Gymkhana. Swamiji's 
assistant was an expert in handling engines. In a short while my engine stood steaming up 
proudly. It was a gratifying sight. The Swamiji called for two pillows, placed one near his head 



and the other at his feet. He gave detailed instructions as to how the engine should be run over 
him. He made a chalk mark on his chest and said, 'It must go exactly on this; not an inch this 
way or that.' The engine hissed and waited. The crowd watching the show became suddenly 
unhappy and morose. This seemed to be a terrible thing to be doing. The Swamiji lay down on 
the pillows and said, 'When I say Om, drive it on.' He closed his eyes. The crowd watched 
tensely. I looked at the whole show in absolute rapture—after all, the road engine was going to 
get on the move. 

At this point a police inspector came into the crowd with a brown envelope in his hand. He held 
up his hand, beckoned to the Swamiji's assistant and said, 'I am sorry, I have to tell you that you 
can't go on with this. The magistrate has issued an order prohibiting the engine from running 
over him.' The Swamiji picked himself up. There was a lot of commotion. The Swamiji became 
indignant. 'I have done it in hundreds of places already and nobody questioned me about it. 
Nobody can stop me from doing what I like—it's my master's order to demonstrate the power 
of the Yoga to the people of this country, and who can question me?' 

'A magistrate can,' said the police inspector, and held up the order. 'What business is it of yours 
or his to interfere in this manner?' 'I don't know all that; this is his order. He permits you to do 
everything except swallow potassium cyanide and run this engine over your chest. You are free 
to do whatever you like outside our jurisdiction.' 

'I am leaving this cursed place this very minute,' the Swamiji said in great rage, and started to 
go, followed by his assistant. I gripped his assistant's arm and said, 'You have steamed it up. 
Why not take it over to that field and then go.' He glared at me, shook off my hand and 
muttered, 'With my guru so unhappy, how dare you ask me to drive?' He went away. I 
muttered, 'You can't drive it except over his chest, I suppose?' 

I made preparations to leave the town in a couple of days, leaving the engine to its fate, with all 
its commitments. However, nature came to my rescue in an unexpected manner. You may have 
heard of the earthquake of that year which destroyed whole towns in North India. There was a 
reverberation of it in our town, too. We were thrown out of our beds that night, and doors and 
windows rattled. 

Next morning I went over to take a last look at my engine before leaving the town. I could 
hardly believe my eyes. The engine was not there. I looked about and raised a hue and cry. 
Search parties went round. The engine was found in a disused well nearby, with its back up. I 
prayed to heaven to save me from fresh complications. But the owner of the house, when he 
came round and saw what had happened, laughed heartily and beamed at me. 'You have done 
me a service. It was the dirtiest water on earth in that well and the municipality was sending 
notice to close it, week after week. I was dreading the cost of closing, but your engine fits it like 
a cork. Just leave it there.' 

'But, but. . .' 

'There are no buts. I will withdraw all complaints and charges against you, and build that 
broken wall myself, but only leave the thing there.' 

'That's hardly enough.' I mentioned a few other expenses that this engine had brought on me. 
He agreed to pay for all that. 


When I again passed that way some months later I peeped over the wall. I found the mouth of 
the well neatly cemented up. I heaved a sigh of great relief. 



FORTY-FIVE A MONTH 


Shanta could not stay in her class any longer. She had done clay-modelling, music, drill, a bit of 
alphabets and numbers, and was now cutting coloured paper. She would have to cut till the bell 
rang and the teacher said, 'Now you may all go home/ or 'Put away the scissors and take up 
your alphabets—' Shanta was impatient to know the time. She asked her friend sitting next to 
her, 'Is it five now?' 

'Maybe,' she replied. 

'Or is it six?' 


'I don't think so,' her friend replied, 'because night comes at six.' 

'Do you think it is five?' 

'Yes.' 

'Oh, I must go. My father will be back at home now. He has asked me to be ready at five. He is 
taking me to the cinema this evening. I must go home.' She threw down her scissors and ran up 
to the teacher. 'Madam, I must go home.' 

'Why, Shanta Bai?' 

'Because it is five o'clock now.' 

'Who told you it was five?' 

'Kamala.' 

'It is not five now. It is—do you see the clock there? Tell me what the time is. I taught you to 
read the clock the other day.' Shanta stood gazing at the clock in the hall, counted the figures 
laboriously and declared, 'It is nine o'clock.' 

The teacher called the other girls and said, 'Who will tell me the time from that clock?' Several 
of them concurred with Shanta and said it was nine o'clock, till the teacher said, 'You are seeing 
only the long hand. See the short one, where is it?' 

'Two and a half.' 

'So what is the time?' 

'Two and a half.' 

'It is two forty-five, understand? Now you may all go to your seats—' Shanta returned to the 
teacher in about ten minutes and asked, 'Is it five, madam, because I have to be ready at five. 
Otherwise my father will be very angry with me. He asked me to return home early.' 

'At what time?' 

'Now.' The teacher gave her permission to leave, and Shanta picked up her books and dashed 
out of the class with a cry of joy. She ran home, threw her books on the floor and shouted, 
'Mother, Mother,' and Mother came running from the next house, where she had gone to chat 
with her friends. 



Mother asked, 'Why are you back so early?' 


'Has Father come home?' Shanta asked. She would not take her coffee or tiffin but insisted on 
being dressed first. She opened the trunk and insisted on wearing the thinnest frock and 
knickers, while her mother wanted to dress her in a long skirt and thick coat for the evening. 
Shanta picked out a gorgeous ribbon from a cardboard soap box in which she kept pencils, 
ribbons and chalk bits. There was a heated argument between mother and daughter over the 
dress, and finally mother had to give in. Shanta put on her favourite pink frock, braided her hair 
and flaunted a green ribbon on her pigtail. She powdered her face and pressed a vermilion 
mark on her forehead. She said, 'Now Father will say what a nice girl I am because I'm ready. 
Aren't you also coming. Mother?' 

'Not today.' 

Shanta stood at the little gate looking down the street. 

Mother said, 'Father will come only after five; don't stand in the sun. It is only four o'clock.' 

The sun was disappearing behind the house on the opposite row, and Shanta knew that 
presently it would be dark. She ran in to her mother and asked, 'Why hasn't Father come home 
yet. Mother?' 

'How can I know? He is perhaps held up in the office.' 

Shanta made a wry face. 'I don't like these people in the office. They are bad people—' 

She went back to the gate and stood looking out. Her mother shouted from inside, 'Come in, 
Shanta. It is getting dark, don't stand there.' But Shanta would not go in. She stood at the gate 
and a wild idea came into her head. Why should she not go to the office and call out Father and 
then go to the cinema? She wondered where his office might be. She had no notion. She had 
seen her father take the turn at the end of the street every day. If one went there, perhaps one 
went automatically to Father's office. She threw a glance about to see if Mother was anywhere 
and moved down the street. 

It was twilight. Everyone going about looked gigantic, walls of houses appeared very high and 
cycles and carriages looked as though they would bear down on her. She walked on the very 
edge of the road. Soon the lamps were twinkling, and the passers-by looked like shadows. She 
had taken two turns and did not know where she was. She sat down on the edge of the road 
biting her nails. She wondered how she was to reach home. A servant employed in the next 
house was passing along, and she picked herself up and stood before him. 

'Oh, what are you doing here all alone?' he asked. She replied, 'I don't know. I came here. Will 
you take me to our house?' She followed him and was soon back in her house. 


Venkat Rao, Shanta's father, was about to start for his office that morning when a jutka passed 
along the street distributing cinema handbills. Shanta dashed to the street and picked up a 
handbill. She held it up and asked, 'Father, will you take me to the cinema today?' He felt 
unhappy at the question. Here was the child growing up without having any of the amenities 
and the simple pleasures of life. He had hardly taken her twice to the cinema. He had no time 
for the child. While children of her age in other houses had all the dolls, dresses and outings 



that they wanted, this child was growing up all alone and like a barbarian more or less. He felt 
furious with his office. For forty rupees a month they seemed to have purchased him outright. 

He reproached himself for neglecting his wife and child—even the wife could have her own 
circle of friends and so on: she was after all a grown-up, but what about the child? What a drab, 
colourless existence was hers! Every day they kept him at the office till seven or eight in the 
evening, and when he came home the child was asleep. Even on Sundays they wanted him at 
the office. Why did they think he had no personal life, a life of his own? They gave him hardly 
any time to take the child to the park or the pictures. He was going to show them that they 
weren't to toy with him. Yes, he was prepared even to quarrel with his manager if necessary. 

He said with resolve, 'I will take you to the cinema this evening. Be ready at five.' 

'Really! Mother!' Shanta shouted. Mother came out of the kitchen. 

'Father is taking me to a cinema in the evening.' 

Shanta's mother smiled cynically. 'Don't make false promises to the child—' Venkat Rao glared 
at her. 'Don't talk nonsense. You think you are the only person who keeps promises—' 

He told Shanta, 'Be ready at five, and I will come and take you positively. If you are not ready, I 
will be very angry with you.' 

He walked to his office full of resolve. He would do his normal work and get out at five. If they 
started any old tricks of theirs, he was going to tell the boss, 'Here is my resignation. My child's 
happiness is more important to me than these horrible papers of yours.' 

All day the usual stream of papers flowed onto his table and off it. He scrutinized, signed and 
drafted. He was corrected, admonished and insulted. He had a break of only five minutes in the 
afternoon for his coffee. 

When the office clock struck five and the other clerks were leaving, he went up to the manager 
and said, 'May I go, sir?' The manager looked up from his paper. 'You!' It was unthinkable that 
the cash and account section should be closing at five. 'How can you go?' 

'I have some urgent private business, sir,' he said, smothering the lines he had been rehearsing 
since the morning: 'Herewith my resignation.' He visualized Shanta standing at the door, 
dressed and palpitating with eagerness. 

'There shouldn't be anything more urgent than the office work; go back to your seat. You know 
how many hours I work?' asked the manager. The manager came to the office three hours 
before opening time and stayed nearly three hours after closing, even on Sundays. The clerks 
commented among themselves, 'His wife must be whipping him whenever he is seen at home; 
that is why the old owl seems so fond of his office.' 

'Did you trace the source of that ten-eight difference?' asked the manager. 

'I shall have to examine two hundred vouchers. I thought we might do it tomorrow.' 

'No, no, this won't do. You must rectify it immediately.' 

Venkat Rao mumbled, 'Yes, sir,' and slunk back to his seat. The clock showed 5:30. Now it 
meant two hours of excruciating search among vouchers. All the rest of the office had gone. 
Only he and another clerk in his section were working, and of course, the manager was there. 



Venkat Rao was furious. His mind was made up. He wasn't a slave who had sold himself for 
forty rupees outright. He could make that money easily; and if he couldn't, it would be more 
honourable to die of starvation. 

He took a sheet of paper and wrote: 'Herewith my resignation. If you people think you have 
bought me body and soul for forty rupees, you are mistaken. I think it would be far better for 
me and my family to die of starvation than slave for this petty forty rupees on which you have 
kept me for years and years. I suppose you have not the slightest notion of giving me an 
increment. You give yourselves heavy slices frequently, and I don't see why you shouldn't think 
of us occasionally. In any case it doesn't interest me now, since this is my resignation. If I and 
my family perish of starvation, may our ghosts come and haunt you all your life—' He folded 
the letter, put it in an envelope, sealed the flap and addressed it to the manager. He left his 
seat and stood before the manager. The manager mechanically received the letter and put it on 
his pad. 

'Venkat Rao,' said the manager, 'I'm sure you will be glad to hear this news. Our officer 
discussed the question of increments today, and I've recommended you for an increment of 
five rupees. Orders are not yet passed, so keep this to yourself for the present.' Venkat Rao put 
out his hand, snatched the envelope from the pad and hastily slipped it in his pocket. 

'What is that letter?' 

'I have applied for a little casual leave, sir, but I think . . .' 'You can't get any leave for at least a 
fortnight to come.' 

'Yes, sir. I realize that. That is why I am withdrawing my application, sir.' 

'Very well. Have you traced that mistake?' 

'I'm scrutinizing the vouchers, sir. I will find it out within an hour...' 

It was nine o'clock when he went home. Shanta was already asleep. Her mother said, 'She 
wouldn't even change her frock, thinking that any moment you might be coming and taking her 
out. She hardly ate any food; and wouldn't lie down for fear of crumpling her dress . . .' 

Venkat Rao's heart bled when he saw his child sleeping in her pink frock, hair combed and face 
powdered, dressed and ready to be taken out. 'Why should I not take her to the night show?' 
He shook her gently and called, 'Shanta, Shanta.' Shanta kicked her legs and cried, irritated at 
being disturbed. Mother whispered, 'Don't wake her,' and patted her back to sleep. 

Venkat Rao watched the child for a moment. 'I don't know if it is going to be possible for me to 
take her out at all—you see, they are giving me an increment—' he wailed. 



OUT OF BUSINESS 


Little over a year ago Rama Rao went out of work when a gramophone company, of which he 
was the Malgudi agent, went out of existence. He had put into that agency the little money he 
had inherited, as security. For five years his business brought him enough money, just enough, 
to help him keep his wife and children in good comfort. He built a small bungalow in the 
Extension and was thinking of buying an old Baby car for his use. 

And one day, it was a bolt from the blue, the crash came. A series of circumstances in the world 
of trade, commerce, banking and politics was responsible for it. The gramophone company, 
which had its factory somewhere in North India, automatically collapsed when a bank in Lahore 
crashed, which was itself the result of a Bombay financier's death. The financier was driving 
downhill when his car flew off sideways and came to rest three hundred feet below the road. It 
was thought that he had committed suicide because the previous night his wife eloped with his 
cashier. 

Rama Rao suddenly found himself in the streets. At first he could hardly understand the full 
significance of this collapse. There was a little money in the bank and he had some stock on 
hand. But the stock moved out slowly; the prices were going down, and he could hardly realize 
a few hundred rupees. When he applied for the refund of his security, there was hardly anyone 
at the other end to receive his application. 

The money in the bank was fast melting. Rama Rao's wife now tried some measures of 
economy. She sent away the cook and the servant; withdrew the children from a fashionable 
nursery school and sent them to a free primary school. And then they let out their bungalow 
and moved to a very small house behind the Market. 

Rama Rao sent out a dozen applications a day and wore his feet out looking for employment. 
For a man approaching forty, looking for employment does not come very easily, especially 
when he has just lost an independent, lucrative business. Rama Rao was very businesslike in 
stating his request. He sent his card in and asked, 'I wonder, sir, if you could do something for 
me. My business is all gone through no fault of my own. I shall be very grateful if you can give 
me something to do in your office . . .' 

'What a pity, Rama Rao! I am awfully sorry, there is nothing at present. If there is an 
opportunity I will certainly remember you.' 

It was the same story everywhere. He returned home in the evening; his heart sank as he 
turned into his street behind the Market. His wife would invariably be standing at the door with 
the children behind her, looking down the street. What anxious, eager faces they had! So much 
of trembling, hesitating hope in their faces. They seemed always to hope that he would come 
back home with some magic fulfilment. As he remembered the futile way in which he searched 
for a job, and the finality with which people dismissed him, he wished that his wife and children 
had less trust in him. His wife looked at his face, understood and turned in without uttering a 
word; the children took the cue and filed in silently. Rama Rao tried to improve matters with a 
forced heartiness. 'Well, well. How are we all today?' To which he received mumbling, feeble 
responses from his wife and children. It rent his heart to see them in this condition. At the 
Extension how this girl would sparkle with flowers and a bright dress; she had friendly 
neighbours, a women's club and everything to keep her happy there. But now she hardly had 
the heart or the need to change in the evenings, for she spent all her time cooped up in the 



kitchen. And then the children. The house in the Extension had a compound and they romped 
about with a dozen other children; it was possible to have numerous friends in the fashionable 
nursery school. But here the children had no friends and could play only in the back yard of the 
house. Their shirts were beginning to show tears and frays. Formerly they were given new 
clothes once in three months. Rama Rao lay in bed and spent sleepless nights over it. 

All the cash in hand was now gone. Their only source of income was the small rent they were 
getting for their house in the Extension. They shuddered to think what would happen to them if 
their tenant should suddenly leave. 

It was in this condition that Rama Rao came across a journal in the Jubilee Reading Room. It 
was called The Captain. It consisted of four pages, and all of them were devoted to crossword 
puzzles. It offered every week a first prize of four thousand rupees. 

For the next few days his head was free from family cares. Fie was thinking intensely of his 
answers: whether it should be TALLOW or FOLLOW. Whether BAD or MAD or SAD would be 
most apt for a clue which said, 'Men who are this had better be avoided.' He hardly stopped to 
look at his wife and children standing in the doorway when he returned home in the evenings. 
Week after week he invested a little money and sent his solutions, and every week he awaited 
the results with a palpitating heart. On the day a solution was due he hung about the 
newsagent's shop, worming himself into his favour in order to have a look into the latest issue 
of The Captain without paying for it. He was too impatient to wait till the journal came on the 
table in the Jubilee Reading Room. Sometimes the newsagent would grumble, and Rama Rao 
would pacify him with an awkward, affected optimism. 'Please wait. When I get a prize I will 
give you three years' subscription in advance . . .' His heart quailed as he opened the page 
announcing the prize-winners. Someone in Baluchistan, someone in Dacca and someone in 
Ceylon had hit upon the right set of words; not Rama Rao. It took three hours for Rama Rao to 
recover from this shock. The only way to exist seemed to be to plunge into the next week's 
puzzle; that would keep him buoyed up with hope for a few days more. 

This violent alternating between hope and despair soon wrecked his nerves and balance. At 
home he hardly spoke to anyone. His head was always bowed in thought. He quarrelled with 
his wife if she refused to give him his rupee a week for the puzzles. She was of a mild 
disposition and was incapable of a sustained quarrel, with the result that he always got what he 
wanted, though it meant a slight sacrifice in household expenses. 

One day the good journal announced a special offer of eight thousand rupees. It excited Rama 
Rao's vision of a future tenfold. He studied the puzzle. There were only four doubtful corners in 
it, and he might have to send in at least four entries. A larger outlay was indicated. 'You must 
give me five rupees this time,' he said to his wife, at which that good lady became speechless. 
He had become rather insensitive to such things these days, but even he could not help feeling 
the atrocious nature of his demand. Five rupees were nearly a week's food for the family. He 
felt disturbed for a moment; but he had only to turn his attention to speculate whether HOPE 
or DOPE or ROPE made most sense (for 'Some people prefer this to despair') and his mind was 
at once at rest. 

After sending away the solutions by registered post he built elaborate castles in the air. Even if 
it was only a share, he would get a substantial amount of money. He would send away his 
tenants, take his wife and children back to the bungalow in the Extension and leave all the 
money in his wife's hands for her to manage for a couple of years or so; he himself would take a 
hundred and go away to Madras and seek his fortune there. By the time the money in his wife's 



hands was spent, he would have found some profitable work in Madras. 


On the fateful day of results Rama Rao opened The Captain, and the correct solution stared him 
in the face. His blunders were numerous. There was no chance of getting back even a few 
annas now. He moped about till the evening. The more he brooded over this the more 
intolerable life seemed ... All the losses, disappointments and frustrations of his life came 
down on him with renewed force. In the evening instead of turning homeward he moved along 
the Railway Station Road. He slipped in at the level crossing and walked down the line a couple 
of miles. It was dark. Far away the lights of the town twinkled, and the red and green light of a 
signal post loomed over the surroundings a couple of furlongs behind him. He had come to the 
conclusion that life was not worth living. If one had the misfortune to be born in the world, the 
best remedy was to end matters on a railway line or with a rope ('Dope? Hope?' his mind asked 
involuntarily). He pulled it back. 'None of that/ he said to it and set it rigidly to contemplate the 
business of dying. Wife, children . . . nothing seemed to matter. The only important thing now 
was total extinction. He lay across the lines. The iron was still warm. The day had been hot. 
Rama Rao felt very happy as he reflected that in less than ten minutes the train from 
Trichinopoly would be arriving. 

He lay there he did not know how long. He strained his ears to catch the sound of the train, but 
he heard nothing more than a vague rattling and buzzing far off . . . Presently he grew tired of 
lying down there. He rose and walked back to the station. There was a good crowd on the 
platform. He asked someone, 'What has happened to the train?' 

'A goods train has derailed three stations off, and the way is blocked. They have sent up a relief. 
All the trains will be at least three hours late today . . .' 

'God, you have shown me mercy!' Rama Rao cried, and ran home. 

His wife was waiting at the door, looking down the street. She brightened up and sighed with 
relief on seeing Rama Rao. She welcomed him with a warmth he had not known for over a year 
now. 'Oh, why are you so late today?' she asked. 'I was somehow feeling very restless the 
whole evening. Even the children were worried. Poor creatures! They have just gone to sleep.' 

When he sat down to eat she said, 'Our tenants in the Extension bungalow came in the evening 
to ask if you would sell the house. They are ready to offer good cash for it immediately.' She 
added quietly, 'I think we may sell the house.' 

'Excellent idea,' Rama Rao replied jubilantly. 'This minute we can get four and a half thousand 
for it. Give me the half thousand and I will go away to Madras and see if I can do anything 
useful there. You keep the balance with you and run the house. Let us first move to a better 
locality...' 

'Are you going to employ your five hundred to get more money out of crossword puzzles?' she 
asked quietly. At this Rama Rao felt depressed for a moment and then swore with great 
emphasis, 'No, no. Never again.' 



ATTILA 


In a mood of optimism they named him 'Attila'. What they wanted of a dog was strength, 
formidableness and fight, and hence he was named after the 'Scourge of Europe'. 

The puppy was only a couple of months old; he had square jaws, red eyes, a pug nose and a 
massive head, and there was every reason to hope that he would do credit to his name. The 
immediate reason for buying him was a series of house-breakings and thefts in the 
neighbourhood, and our householders decided to put more trust in a dog than in the police. 
They searched far and wide and met a dog fancier. He held up a month-old black-and-white 
puppy and said, 'Come and fetch him a month hence. In six months he will be something to be 
feared and respected.' He spread out before them a pedigree sheet which was stunning. The 
puppy had running in his veins the choicest and the most ferocious blood. 

They were satisfied, paid an advance, returned a month later, put down seventy-five rupees 
and took the puppy home. The puppy, as I have already indicated, did not have a very 
prepossessing appearance and was none too playful, but this did not prevent his owners from 
sitting in a circle around him and admiring him. There was a prolonged debate as to what he 
should be named. The youngest suggested, 'Why not call him Tiger?' 

'Every other street-mongrel is named Tiger,' came the reply. 'Why not Caesar?' 

'Caesar! If a census was taken of dogs you would find at least fifteen thousand Caesars in South 
India alone . . . Why not Fire?' 

'It is fantastic.' 

'Why not Thunder?' 

'It is too obvious.' 

'Grip?' 


'Still obvious, and childish.' 

There was a deadlock. Someone suggested Attila, and a shout of joy went up to the skies. No 
more satisfying name was thought of for man or animal. 

But as time passed our Attila exhibited a love of humanity which was sometimes disconcerting. 
The Scourge of Europe—could he ever have been like this? They put it down to his age. What 
child could help loving all creatures? In their zeal to establish this fact, they went to the extent 
of delving into ancient history to find out what the Scourge of Europe was like when he was a 
child. It was rumoured that as a child he clung to his friends and to his parents' friends so fast 
that often he had to be beaten and separated from them. But when he was fourteen he 
showed the first sign of his future: he knocked down and plunged his knife into a fellow who 
tried to touch his marbles. Ah, this was encouraging. Let our dog reach the parallel of fourteen 
years and people would get to know his real nature. 

But this was a vain promise. He stood up twenty inches high, had a large frame and a forbidding 
appearance on the whole—but that was all. A variety of people entered the gates of the house 
every day: mendicants, bill-collectors, postmen, trades-men and family friends. All of them 
were warmly received by Attila. The moment the gate clicked he became alert and stood up 



looking towards the gate. By the time anyone entered the gate Attila went blindly charging 
forward. But that was all. The person had only to stop and smile, and Attila would melt. He 
would behave as if he apologized for even giving an impression of violence. He would lower his 
head, curve his body, tuck his tail between his legs, roll his eyes and moan as if to say, 'How sad 
that you should have mistaken my gesture! I only hurried down to greet you.' Till he was patted 
on the head, stroked and told that he was forgiven, he would be in extreme misery. 

Gradually he realized that his bouncing advances caused much unhappy misunderstanding. And 
so when he heard the gate click he hardly stirred. He merely looked in that direction and 
wagged his tail. The people at home did not like this attitude very much. They thought it rather 
a shame. 

'Why not change his name to Blind Worm?' somebody asked. 

'He eats like an elephant,' said the mother of the family. 'You can employ two watchmen for 
the price of the rice and meat he consumes. Somebody comes every morning and steals all the 
flowers in the garden and Attila won't do anything about it.' 

'He has better business to do than catch flower thieves,' replied the youngest, always the 
defender of the dog. 

'What is the better business?' 

'Well, if somebody comes in at dawn and takes away the flowers, do you expect Attila to be 
looking out for him even at that hour?' 

'Why not? It's what a well-fed dog ought to be doing instead of sleeping. You ought to be 
ashamed of your dog.' 

'He does not sleep all night. Mother. I have often seen him going round the house and watching 
all night.' 

'Really! Does he prowl about all night?' 

'Of course he does,' said the defender. 

'I am quite alarmed to hear it,' said the mother. 'Please lock him up in a room at night, 
otherwise he may call in a burglar and show him round. Left alone, a burglar might after all be 
less successful. It wouldn't be so bad if he at least barked. He is the most noiseless dog I have 
ever seen in my life.' 

The young man was extremely irritated at this. He considered it to be the most uncharitable 
cynicism, but the dog justified it that very night. 

Ranga lived in a hut three miles from the town. He was a 'gang coolie'—often employed in 
road-mending. Occasionally at nights he enjoyed the thrill and profit of breaking into houses. At 
one o'clock that night Ranga removed the bars of a window on the eastern side of the house 
and slipped in. He edged along the wall, searched all the trunks and almirahs in the house and 
made a neat bundle of all the jewellery and other valuables he could pick up. 

He was just starting to go out. He had just put one foot out of the gap he had made in the 
window when he saw Attila standing below, looking up expectantly. Ranga thought his end had 
come. He expected the dog to bark. But not Attila. He waited for a moment, grew tired of 
waiting, stood up and put his forepaws on the lap of the burglar. He put back his ears, licked 



Ranga's hands and rolled his eyes. Ranga whispered, 'I hope you aren't going to bark .. .' 

'Don't you worry. I am not the sort,' the dog tried to say. 

'Just a moment. Let me get down from here,' said the burglar. 

The dog obligingly took away his paws and lowered himself. 

'See there,' said Ranga, pointing to the back yard, 'there is a cat.' Attila put up his ears at the 
mention of the cat and dashed in the direction indicated. One might easily have thought he was 
going to tear up a cat, but actually he didn't want to miss the pleasure of the company of a cat 
if there was one. 

As soon as the dog left him Ranga made a dash for the gate. Given a second more he would 
have hopped over it. But the dog turned and saw what was about to happen and in one spring 
was at the gate. He looked hurt. 'Is this proper?' he seemed to ask. 'Do you want to shake me 
off?' 

He hung his heavy tail down so loosely and looked so miserable that the burglar stroked his 
head, at which he revived. The burglar opened the gate and went out, and the dog followed 
him. Attila's greatest ambition in life was to wander in the streets freely. Now things seemed to 
be shaping up ideally. 

Attila liked his new friend so much that he wouldn't leave him alone even for a moment. He lay 
before Ranga when he sat down to eat, sat on the edge of his mat when he slept in his hut, 
waited patiently on the edge of the pond when Ranga went there now and then for a wash, 
slept on the roadside when Ranga was at work. 

This sort of companionship got on Ranga's nerves. He implored, 'Oh, dog. Leave me alone for a 
moment, won't you?' Unmoved, Attila sat before him with his eyes glued on his friend. 

Attila's disappearance created a sensation in the bungalow. 'Didn't I tell you,' the mother said, 
'to lock him up? Now some burglar has gone away with him. What a shame! We can hardly 
mention it to anyone.' 

'You are mistaken,' replied the defender. 'It is just a coincidence. He must have gone off on his 
own account. If he had been here no thief would have dared to come in . ..' 

'Whatever it is, I don't know if we should after all thank the thief for taking away that dog. He 
may keep the jewels as a reward for taking him away. Shall we withdraw the police complaint?' 

This facetiousness ceased a week later, and Attila rose to the ranks of a hero. The eldest son of 
the house was going towards the market one day. He saw Attila trotting behind someone on 
the road. 

'Hey,' shouted the young man, at which Ranga turned and broke into a run. Attila, who always 
suspected that his new friend was waiting for the slightest chance to desert him, galloped 
behind Ranga. 

'Hey, Attila!' shouted the young man, and he also started running. Attila wanted to answer the 
call after making sure of his friend, and so he turned his head for a second and galloped faster. 
Ranga desperately doubled his pace. Attila determined to stick to him at any cost. As a result, 
he ran so fast that he overtook Ranga and clumsily blocked his way, and Ranga stumbled over 
him and fell. As he rolled on the ground a piece of jewellery (which he was taking to a receiver 



of stolen property) flew from his hand. The young man recognized it as belonging to his sister 
and sat down on Ranga. A crowd collected and the police appeared on the scene. 

Attila was the hero of the day. Even the lady of the house softened towards him. She said, 
'Whatever one might say of Attila, one has to admit that he is a very cunning detective. He is 
too deep for words.' 

It was as well that Attila had no powers of speech. Otherwise he would have burst into a 
lamentation which would have shattered the pedestal under his feet. 



THE AXE 


An astrologer passing through the village foretold that Velan would live in a three-storeyed 
house surrounded by many acres of garden. At this everybody gathered round young Velan and 
made fun of him. For Koppal did not have a more ragged and godforsaken family than Velan's. 
His father had mortgaged every bit of property he had, and worked, with his whole family, on 
other people's lands in return for a few annas a week ... A three-storeyed house for Velan 
indeed! . . . But the scoffers would have congratulated the astrologer if they had seen Velan 
about thirty or forty years later. He became the sole occupant of Kumar Baugh—that palatial 
house on the outskirts of Malgudi town. 

When he was eighteen Velan left home. His father slapped his face one day for coming late 
with the midday-meal, and he did that in the presence of others in the field. Velan put down 
the basket, glared at his father and left the place. He just walked out of the village, and walked 
on and on till he came to the town. He starved for a couple of days, begged wherever he could 
and arrived in Malgudi, where after much knocking about, an old man took him on to assist him 
in laying out a garden. The garden existed only in the mind of the gardener. What they could 
see now was acre upon acre of weed-covered land. Velan's main business consisted in 
destroying all the vegetation he saw. Day after day he sat in the sun and tore up by hand the 
unwanted plants. And all the jungle gradually disappeared and the land stood as bare as a 
football field. Three sides of the land were marked off for an extensive garden, and on the rest 
was to be built a house. By the time the mangoes had sprouted they were laying the foundation 
of the house. About the time the margosa sapling had shot up a couple of yards, the walls were 
also coming up. 

The flowers—hibiscus, chrysanthemum, jasmine, roses and canna—in the front park suddenly 
created a wonderland one early summer. Velan had to race with the bricklayers. He was now 
the chief gardener, the old man he had come to assist having suddenly fallen ill. Velan was 
proud of his position and responsibility. He keenly watched the progress of the bricklayers and 
whispered to the plants as he watered them, 'Now look sharp, young fellows. The building is 
going up and up every day. If it is ready and we aren't, we shall be the laughingstock of the 
town.' He heaped manure, aired the roots, trimmed the branches and watered the plants twice 
a day, and on the whole gave an impression of hustling nature; and nature seemed to respond. 
For he did present a good-sized garden to his master and his family when they came to occupy 
the house. 

The house proudly held up a dome. Balconies with intricately carved woodwork hung down 
from the sides of the house; smooth, rounded pillars, deep verandas, chequered marble floors 
and spacious halls, ranged one behind another, gave the house such an imposing appearance 
that Velan asked himself, 'Can any mortal live in this? I thought such mansions existed only in 
Swarga Loka.' When he saw the kitchen and the dining room he said, 'Why, our whole village 
could be accommodated in this eating place alone!' The house-builder's assistant told him, 'We 
have built bigger houses, things costing nearly two lakhs. What is this house? It has hardly cost 
your master a lakh of rupees. It is just a little more than an ordinary house, that is all . . .' After 
returning to his hut Velan sat a long time trying to grasp the vision, scope and calculations of 
the builders of the house, but he felt dizzy. He went to the margosa plant, gripped its stem with 
his fingers and said, 'Is this all, you scraggy one? What if you wave your head so high above 
mine? I can put my fingers around you and shake you up like this. Grow up, little one, grow up. 
Grow fat. Have a trunk which two pairs of arms can't hug, and go up and spread. Be fit to stand 



beside this palace; otherwise I will pull you out.' 


When the margosa tree came up approximately to this vision, the house had acquired a 
mellowness in its appearance. Successive summers and monsoons had robbed the paints on 
the doors and windows and woodwork of their brightness and the walls of their original colour, 
and had put in their place tints and shades of their own choice. And though the house had lost 
its resplendence, it had now a more human look. Hundreds of parrots and mynas and unnamed 
birds lived in the branches of the margosa, and under its shade the master's great¬ 
grandchildren and the (younger) grandchildren played and quarrelled. The master walked 
about leaning on a staff. The lady of the house, who had looked such a blooming creature on 
the inauguration day, was shrunken and grey and spent most of her time in an invalid's chair on 
the veranda, gazing at the garden with dull eyes. Velan himself was much changed. Now he had 
to depend more and more upon his assistants to keep the garden in shape. He had lost his 
parents, his wife and eight children out of fourteen. He had managed to reclaim his ancestral 
property, which was now being looked after by his sons-in-law and sons. He went to the village 
for Pongal, New Year's and Deepavali , and brought back with him one or the other of his 
grandchildren, of whom he was extremely fond. 

Velan was perfectly contented and happy. He demanded nothing more of life. As far as he could 
see, the people in the big house too seemed to be equally at peace with life. One saw no reason 
why these good things should not go on and on for ever. But Death peeped around the corner. 
From the servants' quarters whispers reached the gardener in his hut that the master was very 
ill and lay in his room downstairs (the bedroom upstairs so laboriously planned had to be 
abandoned with advancing age). Doctors and visitors were constantly coming and going, and 
Velan had to be more than ever on guard against 'flower-pluckers'. One midnight he was 
awakened and told that the master was dead. 'What is to happen to the garden and to me? The 
sons are no good,' he thought at once. 

And his fears proved to be not entirely groundless. The sons were no good, really. They stayed 
for a year more, quarrelled among themselves and went away to live in another house. A year 
later some other family came in as tenants. The moment they saw Velan they said, 'Old 
gardener? Don't be up to any tricks. We know the sort you are. We will sack you if you don't 
behave yourself.' Velan found life intolerable. These people had no regard for a garden. They 
walked on flower beds, children climbed the fruit trees and plucked unripe fruits, and they dug 
pits on the garden paths. Velan had no courage to protest. They ordered him about, sent him 
on errands, made him wash the cow and lectured to him on how to grow a garden. He detested 
the whole business and often thought of throwing up his work and returning to his village. But 
the idea was unbearable: he couldn't live away from his plants. Fortune, however, soon 
favoured him. The tenants left. The house was locked up for a few years. Occasionally one of 
the sons of the late owner came round and inspected the garden. Gradually even this ceased. 
They left the keys of the house with Velan. Occasionally a prospective tenant came down, had 
the house opened and went away after remarking that it was in ruins—plaster was falling off in 
flakes, paint on doors and windows remained only in a few small patches and white ants were 
eating away all the cupboards and shelves ... A year later another tenant came, and then 
another, and then a third. No one remained for more than a few months. And then the house 
acquired the reputation of being haunted. 

Even the owners dropped the practice of coming and seeing the house. Velan was very nearly 
the master of the house now. The keys were with him. He was also growing old. Although he 
did his best, grass grew on the paths, weeds and creepers strangled the flowering plants in the 
front garden. The fruit trees yielded their load punctually. The owners leased out the whole of 



the fruit garden for three years. 


Velan was too old. His hut was leaky and he had no energy to put up new thatch. So he shifted 
his residence to the front veranda of the house. It was a deep veranda running on three sides, 
paved with chequered marble. The old man saw no reason why he should not live there. He had 
as good a right as the bats and the rats. 

When the mood seized him (about once a year) he opened the house and had the floor swept 
and scrubbed. But gradually he gave up this practice. He was too old to bother about these 
things. 

Years and years passed without any change. It came to be known as the 'Ghost House', and 
people avoided it. Velan found nothing to grumble about in this state of affairs. It suited him 
excellently. Once a quarter he sent his son to the old family in the town to fetch his wages. 
There was no reason why this should not have gone on indefinitely. But one day a car sounded 
its horn angrily at the gate. Velan hobbled up with the keys. 

'Have you the keys? Open the gate,' commanded someone in the car. 

'There is a small side-gate,' said Velan meekly. 

'Open the big gate for the carl' 

Velan had to fetch a spade and clear the vegetation which blocked the entrance. The gates 
opened on rusty hinges, creaking and groaning. 

They threw open all the doors and windows, went through the house keenly examining every 
portion and remarked, 'Did you notice the crack on the dome? The walls too are cracked . . . 
There is no other way. If we pull down the old ramshackle carefully we may still be able to use 
some of the materials, though I am not at all certain that the wooden portions are not hollow 
inside . . . Heaven alone knows what madness is responsible for people building houses like 
this.' 

They went round the garden and said, 'We have to clear every bit of this jungle. All this will 
have to go . . .' Some mighty person looked Velan up and down and said, 'You are the gardener, 
I suppose? We have not much use for a garden now. All the trees, except half a dozen on the 
very boundary of the property, will have to go. We can't afford to waste space. This flower 
garden . . . H'm, it is . . . old-fashioned and crude, and apart from that the front portion of the 
site is too valuable to be wasted ...' 

A week later one of the sons of his old master came and told Velan, 'You will have to go back to 
your village, old fellow. The house is sold to a company. They are not going to have a garden. 
They are cutting down even the fruit trees; they are offering compensation to the leaseholder; 
they are wiping out the garden and pulling down even the building. They are going to build 
small houses by the score without leaving space even for a blade of grass.' 

There was much bustle and activity, much coming and going, and Velan retired to his old hut. 
When he felt tired he lay down and slept; at other times he went round the garden and stood 
gazing at his plants. He was given a fortnight's notice. Every moment of it seemed to him 
precious, and he would have stayed till the last second with his plants but for the sound of an 
axe which stirred him out of his afternoon nap two days after he was given notice. The dull 
noise of a blade meeting a tough surface reached his ears. He got up and rushed out. He saw 
four men hacking the massive trunk of the old margosa tree. He let out a scream: 'Stop that!' 



He took his staff and rushed at those who were hacking. They easily avoided the blow he 
aimed. 'What is the matter?' they asked. 

Velan wept. 'This is my child. I planted it. I saw it grow. I loved it. Don't cut it down . . .' 

'But it is the company's orders. What can we do? We shall be dismissed if we don't obey, and 
someone else will do it.' 

Velan stood thinking for a while and said, 'Will you at least do me this good turn? Give me a 
little time. I will bundle up my clothes and go away. After I am gone do what you like.' They laid 
down their axes and waited. 

Presently Velan came out of his hut with a bundle on his head. He looked at the tree-cutters 
and said, 'You are very kind to an old man. You are very kind to wait.' He looked at the margosa 
and wiped his eyes. 'Brothers, don't start cutting till I am really gone far, far away.' 

The tree-cutters squatted on the ground and watched the old man go. Nearly half an hour later 
his voice came from a distance, half-indistinctly: 'Don't cut yet. I am still within hearing. Please 
wait till I am gone farther.' 



FROM LAWLEY ROAD 



LAWLEY ROAD 


The Talkative Man said: 

For years people were not aware of the existence of a Municipality in Malgudi. The town was 
none the worse for it. Diseases, if they started, ran their course and disappeared, for even 
diseases must end someday. Dust and rubbish were blown away by the wind out of sight; 
drains ebbed and flowed and generally looked after themselves. The Municipality kept itself in 
the background, and remained so till the country got its independence on the fifteenth of 
August 1947. History holds few records of such jubilation as was witnessed on that day from 
the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Our Municipal Council caught the inspiration. They swept the 
streets, cleaned the drains and hoisted flags all over the place. Their hearts warmed up when a 
procession with flags and music passed through their streets. 

The Municipal Chairman looked down benignly from his balcony, muttering, 'We have done our 
bit for this great occasion. ' I believe one or two members of the Council who were with him 
saw tears in his eyes. He was a man who had done well for himself as a supplier of blankets to 
the army during the war, later spending a great deal of his gains in securing the chairmanship. 
That's an epic by itself and does not concern us now. My present story is different. The 
satisfaction the Chairman now felt was, however, short-lived. In about a week, when the 
bunting was torn off, he became quite dispirited. I used to visit him almost every day, trying to 
make a living out of news-reports to an upcountry paper which paid me two rupees for every 
inch of published news. Every month I could measure out about ten inches of news in that 
paper, which was mostly a somewhat idealized account of municipal affairs. This made me a 
great favourite there. I walked in and out of the Municipal Chairman's office constantly. Now he 
looked so unhappy that I was forced to ask, 'What is wrong, Mr Chairman?' 

'I feel we have not done enough,' he replied. 

'Enough of what?' I asked. 

'Nothing to mark off the great event.' He sat brooding and then announced, 'Come what may, I 
am going to do something great!' He called up an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council, and 
harangued them, and at once they decided to nationalize the names of all the streets and 
parks, in honour of the birth of independence. They made a start with the park at the Market 
Square. It used to be called the Coronation Park—whose coronation God alone knew; it might 
have been the coronation of Victoria or of Asoka. No one bothered about it. Now the old board 
was uprooted and lay on the lawn, and a brand-new sign stood in its place declaring it 
henceforth to be Hamara Hindustan Park. 

The other transformation, however, could not be so smoothly worked out. Mahatma Gandhi 
Road was the most sought-after name. Eight different ward councillors were after it. There 
were six others who wanted to call the roads in front of their houses Nehru Road or Netaji 
Subash Bose Road. Tempers were rising and I feared they might come to blows. There came a 
point when, I believe, the Council just went mad. It decided to give the same name to four 
different streets. Well, sir, even in the most democratic or patriotic town it is not feasible to 
have two roads bearing the same name. The result was seen within a fortnight. The town 
became unrecognizable with new names. Gone were the Market Road, North Road, Chitra 
Road, Vinayak Mudali Street and so on. In their place appeared the names, repeated in four 
different places, of all the ministers, deputy ministers and the members of the Congress 



Working Committee. Of course, it created a lot of hardship—letters went where they were not 
wanted, people were not able to say where they lived or direct others there. The town became 
a wilderness with all its landmarks gone. 

The Chairman was gratified with his inspired work—but not for long. He became restless again 
and looked for fresh fields of action. 

At the corner of Lawley Extension and Market there used to be a statue. People had got so used 
to it that they never bothered to ask whose it was or even to look up. It was generally used by 
the birds as a perch. The Chairman suddenly remembered that it was the statue of Sir Frederick 
Lawley. The Extension had been named after him. Now it was changed to Gandhi Nagar, and it 
seemed impossible to keep Lawley's statue there any longer. The Council unanimously resolved 
to remove it. The Council with the Chairman sallied forth triumphantly next morning and 
circumambulated the statue. They now realized their mistake. The statue towered twenty feet 
above them and seemed to arise from a pedestal of molten lead. In their imagination they had 
thought that a vigorous resolution would be enough to topple down the statue of this satrap, 
but now they found that it stood with the firmness of a mountain. They realized that Britain, 
when she was here, had attempted to raise herself on no mean foundation. But it made them 
only firmer in their resolve. If it was going to mean blasting up that part of the town for the 
purpose, they would do it. For they unearthed a lot of history about Sir Frederick Lawley. He 
was a combination of Attila, the Scourge of Europe, and Nadir Shah, with the craftiness of a 
Machiavelli. He subjugated Indians with the sword and razed to the ground the villages from 
which he heard the slightest murmur of protest. He never countenanced Indians except when 
they approached him on their knees. 


People dropped their normal occupations and loitered around the statue, wondering how they 
could have tolerated it for so many years. The gentleman seemed to smile derisively at the 
nation now, with his arms locked behind and his sword dangling from his belt. There could be 
no doubt that he must have been the worst tyrant imaginable: the true picture—with breeches 
and wig and white waistcoat and that hard, determined look—of all that has been hatefully 
familiar in the British period of Indian history. They shuddered when they thought of the fate of 
their ancestors who had to bear the tyrannies of this man. 

Next the Municipality called for tenders. A dozen contractors sent in their estimates, the lowest 
standing at fifty thousand rupees, for removing the statue and carting it to the Muncipal Office, 
where they were already worried about the housing of it. The Chairman thought it over and 
told me, 'Why don't you take it yourself? I will give you the statue free if you do not charge us 
anything for removing it.' I had thought till then that only my municipal friends were mad, but 
now I found I could be just as mad as they. I began to calculate the whole affair as a pure 
investment. Suppose it cost me five thousand rupees to dislodge and move the statue (I knew 
the contractors were overestimating), and I sold it as metal for six thousand . . . About three 
tons of metal might fetch anything. Or I could probably sell it to the British Museum or 
Westminster Abbey. I saw myself throwing up the upcountry paper job. 

The Council had no difficulty in passing a resolution permitting me to take the statue away. I 
made elaborate arrangements for the task ... I borrowed money from my father-in-law, 
promising him a fantastic rate of interest. I recruited a team of fifty coolies to hack the 
pedestal. I stood over them like a slave-driver and kept shouting instructions. They put down 



their implements at six in the evening and returned to their attack early next day. They were 
specially recruited from Koppal, where the men's limbs were hardened by generations of teak¬ 
cutting in Mempi Forest. 


We hacked for ten days. No doubt we succeeded in chipping the pedestal here and there, but 
that was all; the statue showed no sign of moving. At this rate I feared I might become bankrupt 
in a fortnight. I received permission from the District Magistrate to acquire a few sticks of 
dynamite, cordoned off the area and lighted the fuse. I brought down the knight from his 
pedestal without injuring any limb. Then it took me three days to reach the house with my 
booty. It was stretched out on a specially designed carriage drawn by several bullocks. The 
confusion brought about by my passage along Market Road, the crowd that followed uttering 
jokes, the incessant shouting and instructions I had to be giving, the blinding heat of the day. Sir 
F.'s carriage coming to a halt at every inconvenient spot and angle, moving neither forwards nor 
backwards, holding up the traffic on all sides, and darkness coming on suddenly with the statue 
nowhere near my home—all this was a nightmare I wish to pass over. I mounted guard over 
him on the roadside at night. As he lay on his back staring at the stars, I felt sorry for him and 
said, 'Well, this is what you get for being such a haughty imperialist. It never pays.' In due 
course, he was safely lodged in my small house. His head and shoulders were in my front hall, 
and the rest of him stretched out into the street through the doorway. It was an obliging 
community there at Kabir Lane and nobody minded this obstruction. 


The Municipal Council passed a resolution thanking me for my services. I wired this news to my 
paper, tacking onto it a ten-inch story about the statue. A week later the Chairman came to my 
house in a state of agitation. I seated him on the chest of the tyrant. He said, 'I have bad news 
for you. I wish you had not sent up that news item about the statue. See these . . .' He held out 
a sheaf of telegrams. They were from every kind of historical society in India, all protesting 
against the removal of the statue. We had all been misled about Sir F. All the present history 
pertained to a different Lawley of the time of Warren Hastings. This Frederick Lawley (of the 
statue) was a military governor who had settled down here after the Mutiny. He cleared the 
jungles and almost built the town of Malgudi. He established here the first cooperative society 
for the whole of India, and the first canal system by which thousands of acres of land were 
irrigated from the Sarayu, which had been dissipating itself till then. He established this, he 
established that, and he died in the great Sarayu floods while attempting to save the lives of 
villagers living on its banks. He was the first Englishman to advise the British Parliament to 
involve more and more Indians in all Indian affairs. In one of his despatches he was said to have 
declared, 'Britain must quit India someday for her own good.' 

The Chairman said, 'The government have ordered us to reinstate the statue.' 'Impossible!' I 
cried. 'This is my statue and I will keep it. I like to collect statues of national heroes.' This heroic 
sentiment impressed no one. Within a week all the newspapers in the country were full of Sir 
Frederick Lawley. The public caught the enthusiasm. They paraded in front of my house, 
shouting slogans. They demanded the statue back. I offered to abandon it if the Municipality at 
least paid my expenses in bringing it here. The public viewed me as their enemy. 'This man is 
trying to black-market even a statue,' they remarked. Stung by it, I wrote a placard and hung it 
on my door: STATUE FOR SALE. TWO AND A HALF TONS OF EXCELLENT METAL. IDEAL GIFT FOR 



A PATRIOTIC FRIEND. OFFERS ABOVE TEN THOUSAND WILL BE CONSIDERED. It infuriated them 
and made them want to kick me, but they had been brought up in a tradition of non-violence 
and so they picketed my house; they lay across my door in relays holding a flag and shouting 
slogans. I had sent away my wife and children to the village in order to make room for the 
statue in my house, and so this picketing did not bother me—only I had to use the back door a 
great deal. The Municipality sent me a notice of prosecution under the Ancient Monuments Act 
which I repudiated in suitable terms. We were getting into bewildering legalities—a battle of 
wits between me and the municipal lawyer. The only nuisance about it was that an abnormal 
quantity of correspondence developed and choked up an already congested household. 

I clung to my statue, secretly despairing how the matter was ever going to end. I longed to be 
able to stretch myself fully in my own house. 


Six months later relief came. The government demanded a report from the Municipality on the 
question of the statue, and this together with other lapses on the part of the Municipality made 
them want to know why the existing Council should not be dissolved and re-elections ordered. I 
called on the Chairman and said, 'You will have to do something grand now. Why not acquire 
my house as a National Trust?' 

'Why should I?' he asked. 

'Because,' I said, 'Sir F. is there. You will never be able to cart him to his old place. It'll be a 
waste of public money. Why not put him up where he is now? He has stayed in the other place 
too long. I'm prepared to give you my house for a reasonable price.' 

'But our funds don't permit it,' he wailed. 

'I'm sure you have enough funds of your own. Why should you depend on the municipal funds? 
It'll indeed be a grand gesture on your part, unique in India . . .' I suggested he ought to relieve 
himself of some of his old blanket gains. 'After all . . . how much more you will have to spend if 
you have to fight another election!' It appealed to him. We arrived at a figure. He was very 
happy when he saw in the papers a few days later: 'The Chairman of Malgudi Municipality has 
been able to buy back as a present for the nation the statue of Sir Frederick Lawley. He 
proposed to install it in a newly acquired property which is shortly to be converted into a park. 
The Municipal Council have resolved that Kabir Lane shall be changed to Lawley Road.' 



TRAIL OF THE GREEN BLAZER 


The Green Blazer stood out prominently under the bright sun and blue sky. In all that jostling 
crowd one could not help noticing it. Villagers in shirts and turbans, townsmen in coats and 
caps, beggars bare-bodied and women in multicoloured saris were thronging the narrow 
passage between the stalls and moving in great confused masses, but still the Green Blazer 
could not be missed. The jabber and babble of the marketplace was there, as people 
harangued, disputed prices, haggled or greeted each other; over it all boomed the voice of a 
Bible-preacher, and when he paused for breath, from another corner the loudspeaker of a 
health van amplified on malaria and tuberculosis. Over and above it all the Green Blazer 
seemed to cry out an invitation. Raju could not ignore it. It was not in his nature to ignore such 
a persistent invitation. He kept himself half-aloof from the crowd; he could not afford to remain 
completely aloof or keep himself in it too conspicuously. Wherever he might be, he was 
harrowed by the fear of being spotted by a policeman; today he wore a loincloth and was bare¬ 
bodied, and had wound an enormous turban over his head, which overshadowed his face 
completely, and he hoped that he would be taken for a peasant from a village. 

He sat on a stack of cast-off banana stalks beside a shop awning and watched the crowd. When 
he watched a crowd he did it with concentration. It was his professional occupation. 
Constitutionally he was an idler and had just the amount of energy to watch in a crowd and put 
his hand into another person's pocket. It was a gamble, of course. Sometimes he got nothing 
out of a venture, counting himself lucky if he came out with his fingers intact. Sometimes he 
picked up a fountain pen, and the 'receiver' behind the Municipal Office would not offer even 
four annas for it, and there was always the danger of being traced through it. Raju promised 
himself that someday he would leave fountain pens alone; he wouldn't touch one even if it 
were presented to him on a plate; they were too much bother—inky, leaky and next to 
worthless if one could believe what the receiver said about them. Watches were in the same 
category, too. 

What Raju loved most was a nice, bulging purse. If he saw one he picked it up with the greatest 
deftness. He took the cash in it, flung it far away and went home with the satisfaction that he 
had done his day's job well. He splashed a little water over his face and hair and tidied himself 
up before walking down the street again as a normal citizen. He bought sweets, books and 
slates for his children, and occasionally a jacket-piece for his wife, too. He was not always easy 
in mind about his wife. When he went home with too much cash, he had always to take care to 
hide it in an envelope and shove it under a roof tile. Otherwise she asked too many questions 
and made herself miserable. She liked to believe that he was reformed and earned the cash he 
showed her as commission; she never bothered to ask what the commissions were for: a 
commission seemed to her something absolute. 


Raju jumped down from the banana stack and followed the Green Blazer, always keeping 
himself three steps behind. It was a nicely calculated distance, acquired by intuition and 
practice. The distance must not be so much as to obscure the movement of the other's hand to 
and from his purse, nor so close as to become a nuisance and create suspicion. It had to be 
finely balanced and calculated—the same sort of calculations as carry a shikari through his 
tracking of game and see him safely home again. Only this hunter's task was more complicated. 



The hunter in the forest could count his day a success if he laid his quarry flat; but here one had 
to extract the heart out of the quarry without injuring it. 


Raju waited patiently, pretending to be examining some rolls of rush mat, while the Green 
Blazer spent a considerable length of time drinking a coconut at a nearby booth. It looked as 
though he would not move again at all. After sucking all the milk in the coconut, he seemed to 
wait interminably for the nut to be split and the soft white kernel scooped out with a knife. The 
sight of the white kernel scooped and disappearing into the other's mouth made Raju, too, 
crave for it. But he suppressed the thought: it would be inept to be spending one's time 
drinking and eating while one was professionally occupied; the other might slip away and be 
lost forever. . . Raju saw the other take out his black purse and start a debate with the coconut- 
seller over the price of coconuts. He had a thick, sawing voice which disconcerted Raju. It 
sounded like the growl of a tiger, but what jungle-hardened hunter ever took a step back 
because a tiger's growl sent his heart racing involuntarily! The way the other haggled didn't 
appeal to Raju either; it showed a mean and petty temperament . . . too much fondness for 
money. Those were the narrow-minded troublemakers who made endless fuss when a purse 
was lost . . . The Green Blazer moved after all. He stopped before a stall flying coloured 
balloons. He bought a balloon after an endless argument with the shopman—a further 
demonstration of his meanness. He said, 'This is for a motherless boy. I have promised it him. If 
it bursts or gets lost before I go home, he will cry all night, and I wouldn't like it at all.' 

Raju got his chance when the other passed through a narrow stile, where people were passing 
four-thick in order to see a wax model of Mahatma Gandhi reading a newspaper. 


Fifteen minutes later Raju was examining the contents of the purse. He went away to a 
secluded spot, behind a disused well. Its crumbling parapet seemed to offer an ideal screen for 
his activities. The purse contained ten rupees in coins and twenty in currency notes and a few 
annas in nickel. Raju tucked the annas at his waist in his loincloth. 'Must give them to some 
beggars, ' he reflected generously. There was a blind fellow yelling his life out at the entrance 
to the fair and nobody seemed to care. People seemed to have lost all sense of sympathy these 
days. The thirty rupees he bundled into a knot at the end of his turban and wrapped this again 
round his head. It would see him through the rest of the month. He could lead a clean life for at 
least a fortnight and take his wife and children to a picture. 

Now the purse lay limp within the hollow of his hand. It was only left for him to fling it into the 
well and dust off his hand and then he might walk among princes with equal pride at heart. He 
peeped into the well. It had a little shallow water at the bottom. The purse might float, and a 
floating purse could cause the worst troubles on earth. He opened the flap of the purse in order 
to fill it up with pebbles before drowning it. Now, through the slit at its side, he saw a balloon 
folded and tucked away. 'Oh, this he bought . . .' He remembered the other's talk about the 
motherless child. 'What a fool to keep this in the purse,' Raju reflected. 'It is the carelessness of 
parents that makes young ones suffer,' he ruminated angrily. For a moment he paused over a 
picture of the growling father returning home and the motherless one waiting at the door for 
the promised balloon, and this growling man feeling for his purse . . . and, oh! it was too 
painful! 

Raju almost sobbed at the thought of the disappointed child—the motherless boy. There was 
no one to comfort him. Perhaps this ruffian would beat him if he cried too long. The Green 



Blazer did not look like one who knew the language of children. Raju was filled with pity at the 
thought of the young child —perhaps of the same age as his second son. Suppose his wife were 
dead . . . (personally it might make things easier for him, he need not conceal his cash under the 
roof ); he overcame this thought as an unworthy side issue. If his wife should die it would make 
him very sad indeed and tax all his ingenuity to keep his young ones quiet . . . That motherless 
boy must have his balloon at any cost, Raju decided. But how? He peeped over the parapet 
across the intervening space at the far-off crowd. The balloon could not be handed back. The 
thing to do would be to put it back into the empty purse and slip it into the other's pocket. 

The Green Blazer was watching the heckling that was going on as the Bible-preacher warmed 
up to his subject. A semicircle was asking, 'Where is your God?' There was a hubbub. Raju 
sidled up to the Green Blazer. The purse with the balloon (only) tucked into it was in his palm. 
He'd slip it back into the other's pocket. 

Raju realized his mistake in a moment. The Green Blazer caught hold of his arm and cried, 
'Pickpocket!' The hecklers lost interest in the Bible and turned their attention to Raju, who tried 
to look appropriately outraged. He cried, 'Let me go.' The other, without giving a clue to what 
he proposed, shot out his arm and hit him on the cheek. It almost blinded him. For a fraction of 
a second Raju lost his awareness of where and even who he was. When the dark mist lifted and 
he was able to regain his vision, the first figure he noticed in the foreground was the Green 
Blazer, looming, as it seemed, over the whole landscape. His arms were raised ready to strike 
again. Raju cowered at the sight. He said, 'I ... I was trying to put back your purse.' The other 
gritted his teeth in fiendish merriment and crushed the bones of his arm. The crowd roared 
with laughter and badgered him. Somebody hit him again on the head. 


Even before the Magistrate Raju kept saying, 'I was only trying to put back the purse.' And 
everyone laughed. It became a stock joke in the police world. Raju's wife came to see him in jail 
and said, 'You have brought shame on us,' and wept. 

Raju replied indignantly, 'Why? I was only trying to put it back.' 

He served his term of eighteen months and came back into the world —not quite decided what 
he should do with himself. He told himself, 'If ever I pick up something again, I shall make sure I 
don't have to put it back.' For now he believed God had gifted the likes of him with only one¬ 
way deftness. Those fingers were not meant to put anything back. 



THE MARTYR'S CORNER 


Just at that turning between Market Road and the lane leading to the chemist's shop he had his 
establishment. If anyone doesn't like the word 'establishment', he is welcome to say so, 
because it was actually something of a vision spun out of air. At eight you would not see him, 
and again at ten you would see nothing, but between eight and ten he arrived, sold his goods 
and departed. 

Those who saw him remarked thus, 'Lucky fellow! He has hardly an hour's work a day and he 
pockets ten rupees—what graduates are unable to earn! Three hundred rupees a month!' He 
felt irritated when he heard such glib remarks and said, 'What these folk do not see is that I sit 
before the oven practically all day frying all this stuff . . .' 

He got up when the cock in the next house crowed; sometimes it had a habit of waking up at 
three in the morning and letting out a shriek. 'Why has the cock lost its normal sleep?' Rama 
wondered as he awoke, but it was a signal he could not miss. Whether it was three o'clock or 
four, it was all the same to him. He had to get up and start his day. 

At about 8:15 in the evening he arrived with a load of stuff. He looked as if he had four arms, so 
many things he carried about him. His equipment was the big tray balanced on his head, with 
its assortment of edibles, a stool stuck in the crook of his arm, a lamp in another hand, a couple 
of portable legs for mounting his tray. He lit the lamp, a lantern which consumed six pies' worth 
of kerosene every day, and kept it near at hand, since he did not like to depend only upon 
electricity, having to guard a lot of loose cash and a variety of miscellaneous articles. 

When he set up his tray with the little lamp illuminating his display, even a confirmed dyspeptic 
could not pass by without throwing a look at it. A heap of bondas, which seemed puffed and big 
but melted in one's mouth; dosais, white, round and limp, looking like layers of muslin; 
chappatis so thin that you could lift fifty of them on a little finger; duck's eggs, hard-boiled, 
resembling a heap of ivory balls; and perpetually boiling coffee on a stove. He had a separate 
aluminium pot in which he kept chutney, which went gratis with almost every item. 

He always arrived in time to catch the cinema crowd coming out after the evening show. A 
pretender to the throne, a young scraggy fellow, sat on his spot until he arrived and did 
business, but our friend did not let that bother him unduly. In fact, he felt generous enough to 
say, 'Let the poor rat do his business when I am not there.' This sentiment was amply 
respected, and the pretender moved off a minute before the arrival of the prince among 
caterers. 

His customers liked him. They said in admiration, 'Is there another place where you can get 
coffee for six pies and four chappatis for an anna?' They sat around his tray, taking what they 
wanted. A dozen hands hovered about it every minute, because his customers were entitled to 
pick up, examine and accept their stuff after proper scrutiny. 

Though so many hands were probing the lot, he knew exactly who was taking what: he knew by 
an extraordinary sense which of the yut/co-drivers was picking up chappatis at a given moment; 
he could even mention his licence number; he knew that the stained hand nervously coming up 
was that of the youngster who polished the shoes of passers-by; and he knew exactly at what 
hour he would see the wrestler's arm searching for the perfect duck's egg, which would be 
knocked against the tray corner before consumption. 



His custom was drawn from the population swarming the pavement: the boot-polish boys, for 
instance, who wandered to and fro with brush and polish in a bag, endlessly soliciting, 'Polish, 
sir, polish!' Rama had a soft corner in his heart for the waifs. When he saw some fat customer 
haggling over the payment to one of these youngsters he felt like shouting, 'Give the poor 
fellow a little more. Don't grudge it. If you pay an anna more he can have a dosai and a 
chappati. As it is, the poor fellow is on half-rations and remains half-starved all day.' 

It rent his heart to see their hungry, hollow eyes; it pained him to note the rags they wore; and 
it made him very unhappy to see the tremendous eagerness with which they came to him, 
laying aside their brown bags. But what could he do? He could not run a charity show; that was 
impossible. He measured out their half-glass of coffee correct to the fraction of an inch, but 
they could cling to the glass as long as they liked. 

The blind beggar, who whined for alms all day in front of the big hotel, brought him part of his 
collection at the end of the day and demanded refreshment . . . and the grass-selling women. 
He disliked serving women; their shrill, loud voices got on his nerves. These came to him after 
disposing of head-loads of grass satisfactorily. And that sly fellow with a limp who bought a 
packet of mixed fare every evening and carried it to a prostitute-like creature standing under a 
tree on the pavement opposite. 

All the coppers that men and women of this part of the universe earned through their 
miscellaneous jobs ultimately came to him at the end of the day. He put all this money into a 
little cloth bag dangling from his neck under his shirt, and carried it home, soon after the night 
show had started at the theatre. 

He lived in the second lane behind the market. His wife opened the door, throwing into the 
night air the scent of burnt oil which perpetually hung about their home. She snatched from his 
hands all his encumbrances, put her hand under his shirt to pull out his cloth bag and counted 
the cash immediately. They gloated over it. 'Five rupees invested in the morning has brought us 
another five . . .' They ruminated on the exquisite mystery of this multiplication. She put back 
into his cloth bag the capital for further investment on the morrow, and carefully separated the 
gains and put them away in a little wooden box that she had brought from her parents' house 
years before. 

After dinner, he tucked a betel leaf and tobacco in his cheek and slept on the pyol of his house, 
and had dreams of traffic constables bullying him to move on and health inspectors saying that 
he was spreading all kinds of disease and depopulating the city. But fortunately in actual life no 
one bothered him very seriously. He gave an occasional packet of his stuff to the traffic 
constable going off duty or to the health-department menial who might pass that way. The 
health officer no doubt came and said, 'You must put all this under a glass lid, otherwise I shall 
destroy it all someday . . . Take care!' But he was a kindly man who did not pursue any matter 
but wondered in private, 'How his customers survive his food, I can't understand! I suppose 
people build up a sort of immunity to such poisons, with all that dust blowing on it and the 
gutter behind . . .' Rama no doubt violated all the well-accepted canons of cleanliness and 
sanitation, but still his customers not only survived his fare but seemed actually to flourish on 
it, having consumed it for years without showing signs of being any the worse for it. 



Rama's life could probably be considered a most satisfactory one, without agitation or 
heartburn of any kind. Why could it not go on forever, endlessly, till the universe itself cooled 
off and perished, when by any standard he could be proved to have led a life of pure effort? No 
one was hurt by his activity and money-making, and not many people could be said to have 
died of taking his stuff; there were no more casualties through his catering than, say, through 
the indifferent municipal administration. 

But such security is unattainable in human existence. The gods grow jealous of too much 
contentment anywhere, and they show their displeasure all of a sudden. One night, when he 
arrived as usual at his spot, he found a babbling crowd at the corner where he normally sat. He 
said authoritatively, 'Leave way, please.' But no one cared. It was the young shop-boy of the 
stationer's that plucked his sleeve and said, 'They have been fighting over something since the 
evening . . .' 

'Over what?' asked Rama. 

'Over something . . .' the boy said. 'People say someone was stabbed near the Sales Tax Office 
when he was distributing notices about some votes or something. It may be a private quarrel. 
But who cares? Let them fight who want a fight.' 

Someone said, 'How dare you speak like that about us?' 

Everyone turned to look at this man sourly. Someone in that crowd remarked, 'Can't a man 
speak .. . ?' 

His neighbour slapped him for it. Rama stood there with his load about him, looking on 
helplessly. This one slap was enough to set off a fuse. Another man hit another man, and then 
another hit another, and someone started a cry, 'Down with .. .' 

'Ah, it is as we suspected, preplanned and organized to crush us,' another section cried. 

People shouted, soda-water bottles were used as missiles. Everyone hit everyone else. A set of 
persons suddenly entered all the shops and demanded that these be closed. 'Why?' asked the 
shop-men. 

'How can you have the heart to do business when . . . ?' 

The restraints of civilized existence were suddenly abandoned. Everyone seemed to be angry 
with everyone else. Within an hour the whole scene looked like a battlefield. Of course the 
police came to the spot presently, but this made matters worse, since it provided another side 
to the fight. The police had a threefold task: of maintaining law and order and also maintaining 
themselves intact and protecting some party whom they believed to be injured. Shops that 
were not closed were looted. 

The cinema house suddenly emptied itself of its crowd, which rushed out to enter the fray at 
various points. People with knives ran about, people with bloodstains groaned and shouted, 
ambulance vans moved here and there. The police used lathis and tear gas, and finally opened 
fire. Many people died. The public said that the casualties were three thousand, but the official 
communique maintained that only five were injured and four and a quarter killed in the police 
firing. At midnight Rama emerged from his hiding place under a culvert and went home. 

The next day Rama told his wife, 'I won't take out the usual quantity. I doubt if there will be 
anyone there. God knows what devil has seized all those folk! They are ready to kill each other 



for some votes . . His instinct was right. There were more policemen than public on Market 
Road and his corner was strongly guarded. He had to set up his shop on a farther spot indicated 
by a police officer. 

Matters returned to normal in about ten days, when all the papers clamoured for a full public 
inquiry into this or that: whether the firing was justified and what precautions were taken by 
the police to prevent this flare-up and so on. Rama watched the unfolding of contemporary 
history through the shouts of newsboys, and in due course tried to return to his corner. The 
moment he set up his tray and took his seat, a couple of young men wearing badges came to 
him and said, 'You can't have your shop here.' 

'Why not, sir?' 

'This is a holy spot on which our leader fell that day. The police aimed their guns at his heart. 
We are erecting a monument here. This is our place; the Municipality have handed this corner 
to us.' 


Very soon this spot was cordoned off, with some congregation or the other always there. 
Money-boxes jingled for collections and people dropped coins. Rama knew better than anyone 
else how good the place was for attracting money. They collected enough to set up a memorial 
stone and, with an ornamental fencing and flower pots, entirely transformed the spot. 

Austere, serious-looking persons arrived there and spoke among themselves. Rama had to 
move nearly two hundred yards away, far into the lane. It meant that he went out of the range 
of vision of his customers. He fell on their blind spot. The cinema crowd emerging from the 
theatre poured away from him; the jutka -drivers who generally left their vehicles on the 
roadside for a moment while the traffic constable showed indulgence and snatched a mouthful 
found it inconvenient to come so far; the boot-boys patronized a fellow on the opposite 
footpath, the scraggy pretender, whose fortunes seemed to be rising. 

Nowadays Rama prepared a limited quantity of snacks for sale, but even then he had to carry 
back remnants; he consumed some of it himself, and the rest, on his wife's advice, he warmed 
up and brought out for sale again next day. One or two who tasted the stuff reacted badly and 
spread the rumour that Rama's quality was not what it used to be. One night, when he went 
home with just two annas in his bag, he sat up on the pyol and announced to his wife, 'I believe 
our business is finished. Let us not think of it any more.' 

He put away his pans and trays and his lamp, and prepared himself for a life of retirement. 
When all his savings were exhausted he went to one Restaurant Kohinoor, from which 
loudspeakers shrieked all day, and queued up for a job. For twenty rupees a month he waited 
eight hours a day on the tables. People came and went, the radio music frayed his nerves, but 
he stuck on; he had to. When some customer ordered him about too rudely, he said, 'Gently, 
brother. I was once a hotel-owner myself.' And with that piece of reminiscence he attained 
great satisfaction. 



WIFE'S HOLIDAY 


Kannan sat at the door of his hut and watched the village go its way. Sami the oil-monger was 
coming up the street driving his ox before him. He remarked while passing, 'This is your idling 
day, is it? Why don't you come to the Mantapam this afternoon? ' Some more people passed, 
but Kannan hardly noticed anyone. The oil-monger's words had thrown him into a dream. The 
Mantapam was an ancient pillared structure, with all its masonry cracking and crumbling down 
on the tank bund. It served as a clubhouse for Kannan and his friends, who gathered there on 
an afternoon and pursued the game of dice with considerable intensity and fury. Kannan loved 
not only the game but also the muddy smell of the place, the sky seen through the cracking 
arches and the far-off hillocks. He hummed a little tune to himself at the thought of the 
Mantapam. 

He knew people would call him an idler for sitting there at his door and sunning himself. But he 
didn't care. He would not go to work; there was no one to goad him out of the house—his wife 
being still away. It was with a quiet joy that he put her into a bullock cart and saw her off a few 
days ago. He hoped her parents would insist on her staying on at least ten days more, though it 
meant a wrench for him to be parted from his little son. But Kannan accepted it as an inevitable 
price to pay for his wife's absence. He reflected, 'If she were here, would she let me rest like 
this?' He would have to be climbing coconut trees, clearing their tops of beetles and other 
pests, plucking down coconuts, haggling with miserly tree-owners, and earning his rupee a day. 
Now he celebrated his wife's absence by staying at home most of the day. But the worst of it 
was that he had not a quarter of an anna anywhere about him and he wouldn't see a coin 
unless he climbed some trees for it today. He stretched his legs and arms and brooded how it 
would feel to go up a tree now. Of course the ten trees in the back yard of that big house 
needed attention: that work awaited him anytime he cared to go there. But it was impossible. 
His limbs felt stiff and unwieldy and seemed good only for the visit to the Mantapam. But what 
was the use of going there empty-handed? If only he had four annas on hand, he could 
probably return home with a rupee in the evening. But that woman! He felt indignant at the 
thought of his wife, who did not seem to think that he deserved to keep an anna of his hard- 
earned cash about him. Without four annas to call one's own! He had been drudging and 
earning for years now, ever since ... He gave up the attempt to think it out, since it took him 
into the realm of numbers, and numbers were complex and elusive except when one rolled the 
dice and counted cash. 

An idea struck him and he suddenly rose to his feet and turned in. In a corner there was a large 
tin trunk, painted black years ago—the most substantial possession of that household. It was 
his wife's. He sat down before it and stared at the lock hopelessly. It was a cast-iron lock with 
sharp edges. He took hold of it and tugged at it, and, much to his surprise, it came off. 'God is 
kind to me,' he told himself, and threw open the lid. He beheld his wife's prized possessions 
there: a few jackets and two or three saris, one of which he had bought her as a young 
bridegroom. He was surprised that she should still preserve it though it was ... it was ... he 
checked himself at the threshold of numbers once again. 'She can preserve it because she is too 
niggardly to wear it, I suppose!' he remarked and laughed, pleased at this malicious conclusion. 
He threw aside the clothes impatiently and searched for a little wooden box in which she 
usually kept her cash. He found it empty but for a smooth worn-out copper just left there for 
luck. 'Where is all the cash gone?' he asked angrily. He brooded, 'She must have taken every 
anna for her brother or someone there. Here I slave all the day, only to benefit her brother, is 
it? . . . Next time I see her brother, I will wring his neck,' he said to himself with considerable 



satisfaction. Rummaging further he caught sight of a cigarette tin in a corner of the box. He 
shook it. It jingled satisfactorily with coins. He felt tender at the sight of it. It was his little son's, 
a red cigarette tin. He remembered how the little fellow had picked it from the rubbish dump 
behind the travellers' bungalow and come running, clutching it to his bosom. The boy had 
played with the red tin a whole day in the street, filling it with dust and emptying it. And then 
Kannan had suggested he make a money-box of it, the young fellow protesting against it 
vigorously. But Kannan argued with him elaborately; and became so persuasive that his son 
presently accepted the proposition with enthusiasm. 'When the box is full I will buy a motorcar 
like that boy in the big house. I must also have a mouth-harmonium and a green pencil.' Kannan 
laughed uproariously on hearing his son's plans. He took the tin to the blacksmith, sealed its lid 
with lead and had a slit cut on it—just wide enough to admit a coin. It became a treasure for 
the young fellow, and he often held it aloft to his father for him to drop a copper in. The boy 
quite often asked with a puckered brow, 'Father, is it full? When can I open it?' He always kept 
it in his mother's trunk, safely tucked away amidst the folds of her saris, and would not rest till 
he saw the trunk properly locked up again. Watching him, Kannan often remarked proudly, 
'Very careful boy. He will do big things. We must send him to a school in the town.' 

Now Kannan shook the box, held the slit up to light and tried to find out how much it 
contained. A dull resentment that he felt at the thought of his wife made him prey to a wicked 
idea. He held the box upside down and shook it violently till he felt deaf with the clanging of 
coins. But not one came out of it. The blacksmith had made a good job of it—the slit was 
exactly the thickness of a coin, which could go one way through it. No power on earth could 
shake a coin out of it again. After a while Kannan paused to ask himself, 'Am I right in taking my 
youngster's money?' 'Why not?' whispered a voice within seductively. 'Son and father are the 
same. Moreover, you are going to double or treble the amount, and then you can put it all back 
into the box. That way it is really a benefit you are conferring on the son by opening this little 
box.' That settled it. He looked about for something with which to widen the slit. He got up and 
ransacked an odd assortment of useless things—strings, bottle-corks, cast-off ox-shoe, and so 
on. Not a single sharp instrument anywhere. What had happened to that knife? He felt 
annoyed at the thought of his wife, that woman's habit of secreting away everything on earth, 
or perhaps she had carried it away to her brother. He clutched the box and kept banging it 
against the floor for a while. It only lost shape and looked battered, but it would not yield its 
treasure. He looked about. There was a framed picture of a god hanging by a nail on the wall. 
He took down the picture and plucked out the nail. He threw a look at the god on the floor, felt 
uneasy and briefly pressed his eyes to its feet. He brought in a piece of stone, poised the nail 
over the box with one hand and brought the stone down on it with the other. The nail slipped 
sideways and the stone hit his thumb and crushed it to a blue. He yelled with pain and flung 
away the box. It lay in a corner and seemed to look back at him viciously. 'You dog!' he hissed 
at it. He sat nursing his thumb for a while, looked again at the red tin and said, 'I will deal with 
you now.' He went to the kitchen-corner and came out bearing a large stone pestle with both 
hands over his head. He held the pestle high above the box and dropped it vertically. It proved 
too much even for that box, which flattened and split sideways. He put his fingers in, scooped 
out the coins hungrily and counted: six annas in three-pie copper coins. He tucked up the coins 
at his waist in his dhoti, locked the door and started out. 

At Mantapam luck deserted him, or rather never came near him. Within a short time he lost all 
his money. He continued on credit for a while till someone suggested he should give up his 
place to someone else more solvent. He rose abruptly and started homeward while the sun was 
still bright. 



As he turned into his lane, he saw at the other end his wife coming up with a bundle in one 
hand and the youngster clinging to the other. Kannan stood stunned. 'May it be a dream!' he 
muttered to himself. She came nearer and said, 'A bus came this way and I returned home.' She 
was going towards the door. He watched her in a sort of dull panic. Her box with all its contents 
scattered, the god's picture on the floor, the battered red tin—she would see them all at once 
the moment she stepped in. The situation was hopeless. He opened the door mechanically. 
'Why do you look like that?' she asked, going in. His son held a couple of coins up to him. 'Uncle 
gave me these. Put them into the box.' A groan of misery escaped Kannan. 'Why do you do 
that. Father?' the boy asked. Kannan held up his thumb and mumbled, 'Nothing. I have crushed 
my thumb.' He followed them in, resigning himself to face an oncoming storm. 



A SHADOW 


Sambu demanded, 'You must give me four annas to see the film tomorrow.' His mother was 
horrified. How could this boy! She had been dreading for six months past the arrival of the film. 
How could people bear to see him on the screen when they knew he was no more? She had 
had a vague hope that the producers might not release the picture out of consideration for her 
feelings. And when a procession appeared in the street with tom-tom and band, and with 
young boys carrying placards and huge coloured portraits of her husband, she resolved to go 
out of town for a while; but it was a desperate and unpractical resolve. Now the picture had 
arrived. Her husband was going to speak, move and sing, for at least six hours a day in that 
theatre three streets off. 

Sambu was as delighted as if his father had come back to life. 

'Mother, won't you also come and see the picture?' 

'No.' 

'Please, please. You must come.' 

She had to explain to him how utterly impossible it would be for her to see the picture. The boy 
had a sort of ruthless logic: 'Why should it be impossible? Aren't you seeing his photos, even 
that big photo on the wall, every day?' 

'But these photos do not talk, move or sing.' 

'And yet you prefer them to the picture which has life!' 

The whole of the next day Sambu was in great excitement. In his classroom whenever his 
master took his eyes off him for a moment he leant over and whispered to his neighbour, 'My 
father was paid ten thousand rupees to act in that film. I am seeing it this evening. Aren't you 
also coming?' 

'To see Kumari I' sneered his friend. He hated Tamil pictures. 'I won't even pass that way.' 

'This is not like other Tamil films. My father used to read the story to us every night. It is a very 
interesting story. He wrote the whole story himself. He was paid ten thousand rupees for 
writing and acting. I will take you to the picture if you are also coming.' 

'I won't see a Tamil picture.' 

'This is not an ordinary Tamil picture. It is as good as an English picture.' 

But Sambu's friend was adamant. Sambu had to go alone and see the picture. It was an attempt 
at a new style in Tamil films—a modern story with a minimum of music. It was the story of 
Kumari, a young girl who refused to marry at fourteen but wanted to study in a university and 
earn an independent living, and was cast away by her stern father (Sambu's father) and 
forgiven in the end. 

Sambu, sitting in the four-anna class, was eagerly waiting for the picture to begin. It was six 
months since he had seen his father, and he missed him badly at home. 

The hall darkened. Sambu sat through the trailers and slide advertisements without 



enthusiasm. Finally, his father came on the screen. He was wearing just the dhoti and shirt he 
used to wear at home; he was sitting at his table just as he used to sit at home. And then a little 
girl came up, and he patted her on the head and spoke to her exactly as he used to speak to 
Sambu. And then Father taught the girl arithmetic. She had a slate on her knee and he dictated 
to her: 'A cartman wants two annas per mile. Rama has three annas on hand. How far will the 
cartman carry him?' The girl chewed her slate pencil and blinked. Father was showing signs of 
impatience. 'Go on, Kumari,' Sambu muttered. 'Say something, otherwise you will receive a slap 
presently. I know him better than you do.' Kumari, however, was a better arithmetician than 
Sambu. She gave the right answer. Father was delighted. How he would jump about in sheer 
delight whenever Sambu solved a sum correctly! Sambu was reminded of a particular occasion 
when by sheer fluke he blundered through a puzzle about a cistern with a leak and a tap above 
it. How father jumped out of his chair when he heard Sambu declare that it would take three 
hours for the cistern to fill again. 

When the film ended and the lights were switched on, Sambu turned about and gazed at the 
aperture in the projection room as if his father had vanished into it. The world now seemed to 
be a poorer place without Father. He ran home. His mother was waiting for him at the door. 'It 
is nine o'clock. You are very late.' 

'I would have loved it if the picture had lasted even longer. You are perverse. Mother. Why 
won't you see it?' 

Throughout the dinner he kept talking. 'Exactly as Father used to sing, exactly as he used to 
walk, exactly . . .' His mother listened to him in grim silence. 

'Why don't you say something. Mother?' 

'I have nothing to say.' 

'Don't you like the picture?' 

She didn't answer the question. She asked, 'Would you like to go and see the picture again 
tomorrow?' 

'Yes, Mother. If possible every day as long as the picture is shown. Will you give me four annas 
every day?' 

'Yes.' 

'Will you let me see both the shows every day?' 

'Oh, no. You can't do that. What is to happen to your lessons?' 

'Won't you come and see the picture. Mother?' 

'No, impossible.' 

For a week more, three hours in the day, Sambu lived in his father's company, and felt 
depressed at the end of every show. Every day it was a parting for him. He longed to see the 
night show too, but Mother bothered too much about school lessons. Time was precious, but 
Mother did not seem to understand it; lessons could wait, but not Father. He envied those who 
were seeing the picture at night. 


Unable to withstand his persuasions any more, his mother agreed to see the picture on the last 



day. They went to the night show. She sat in the women's class. She had to muster all her 
courage to sit down for the picture. She had a feeling of great relief as long as the slide 
advertisements and trailer pieces lasted. When the picture began, her heart beat fast. Her 
husband talking to his wife on the screen, playing with his child, singing, walking, dressing; 
same clothes, same voice, same anger, same joy—she felt that the whole thing was a piece of 
cruelty inflicted on her. She shut her eyes several times, but the picture fascinated her: it had 
the fascination of a thing which is painful. And then came a scene in which he reclined in a chair 
reading a newspaper. How he would sit absorbed in a newspaper! In their years of married life, 
how often had she quarrelled with him for it! Even on the last day he had sat thus after dinner, 
in his canvas chair, with the newspaper before him; she had lost her temper at the sight of it 
and said, 'You and your newspaper! I could as well go and sleep off the rest of the day,' and left 
his company. When she saw him later he had fallen back in his chair with the sheets of 
newspaper over his face . . . 

This was an unbearable scene. A sob burst from her. 

Sambu, sitting in his seat on the men's side, liked to see his father in the newspaper scene 
because the girl would presently come and ask him what he was reading, annoy him with 
questions and get what she deserved: Father would shout, 'Kumari! Will you go out or shall I 
throw you out?' That girl didn't know how to behave with Father, and Sambu disliked her 
intensely . . . 

While awaiting eagerly the snubbing of the girl, Sambu heard a burst of sobbing in the women's 
class; presently there was a scramble of feet and a cry: 'Put the lights on! Accident to someone! 
' The show was stopped. People went hither and thither. Sambu, cursing this interruption, 
stood up on a bench to see what the matter was. He saw his mother being lifted from the floor. 
'That is my mother! Is she also dead?' screamed Sambu, and jumped over the barrier. He 
wailed and cried. Someone told him, 'She has only fainted. Nothing has happened to her. Don't 
make a fuss.' They carried her out and laid her in the passage. The lights were put out again, 
people returned to their seats and the show continued. Mother opened her eyes, sat up and 
said, 'Let us go away.' 

'Yes, Mother.' He fetched a jutka and helped her into it. As he was climbing into it himself, from 
the darkened hall a familiar voice said, 'Kumari! Will you go out or shall I throw you out?' 
Sambu's heart became heavy and he burst into tears: he was affected both by his mother's 
breakdown and by the feeling that this was the final parting from his father. They were 
changing the picture next day. 



A WILLING SLAVE 


No one in the house knew her name; no one for a moment thought that she had any other than 
Ayah. None of the children ever knew when she had first come into the family, the eldest being 
just six months old when she entered service; now he was seventeen and studied in a college. 
There were five children after him, and the last was four years old. 

The Ayah repeatedly renewed her infancy with each one of them, kept pace with them till they 
left her behind and marched forward. And then she slipped back to the youngest and grew up 
with him or her. It might be said that the limit to which she could go in years was six; if she 
stepped beyond that boundary she proved herself a blundering nuisance. For instance, how 
hard it was for her to conduct herself in the servant world, which consisted of the cook, two 
men servants, a maid servant, a gardener and his unpaid assistant. Their jokes fell flat on her, 
their discussions did not interest her and she reported to her mistress everything that she 
heard. The gardener very nearly lost his job once for his opinion of his master, which was duly 
conveyed by the Ayah. She was fairly unpopular in the servants' quarters. She constituted 
herself a time-keeper, and those who came late for work could not escape her notice. The 
moment a latecomer was sighted, the old woman would let out such a scream demanding an 
explanation that the mistress of the house would come out and levy a fine. 

This was an entirely self-imposed task, just as she also kept an eye on the home-tutor who 
came in the mornings and taught children arithmetic and English. The Ayah hovered about all 
the time the teacher was present, for she had a suspicion that he would torture the children. 
She viewed all teachers as her enemies and all schools as prison houses. She thought it was a 
cruel perversity that made people send children to school. She remembered how her two 
children (now grandfathers) used to come home and demand three pies for buying some herb, 
a paste of which was indispensable for preparing their skins for the next day's pinching and 
caning. They said that the school inspector himself had ordered the purchase of the herb. It was 
a part of their education. 

She had asked once or twice, 'Why do you stand there and allow yourselves to be beaten?' 

'We have got to do it,' the boys answered. 'It is a part of our studies. It seems that our teachers 
won't get their wages unless they cane us a certain number of times every day.' 

The old woman had no occasion to know more about teachers. And so she kept a watch over 
the home-tutor. If he so much as raised his voice, she checked him with, 'Don't you try any of 
your tricks on these angels. These are no ordinary children. If you do anything, my master will 
lock you up in jail. Be careful.' Her other self-imposed tasks were to see that the baker's boy 
didn't cycle on the lawn, that the newspaper man didn't drop the paper into the nursery and 
that the servant didn't doze off in the afternoon; she also attended on guests, took charge of 
their clothes and acted as an intermediary between them and washing boy; and above all, 
when everyone in the house was out, she shut and bolted all the doors, sat down on the front 
porch and acted as the watchman. These were all her secondary duties. Her main job, for which 
she received two meals a day, fifteen rupees a month and three saris a year, kept her active for 
over twelve hours in the day. 

At six in the morning, Radha, the last child of the house, shouted from her bed upstairs, 'Ayah!' 
And the Ayah would run up the stairs as fast as her size permitted, because Radha would not 
give more than a quarter of an hour's interval between shouts. And now when the Ayah stood 



near the cot and parted the mosquito net, Radha would ask, 'Where were you. Ayah?' 

'Here all the time, my darling.' 

'Were you here all night?' 

'Of course I was.' 

'Were you sleeping or sitting up?' 

'Oh, would I lie down when my Radha was sleeping? I was sitting up with a knife in my hand. If 
any bad men had tried to come near you, I would have chopped off their heads.' 

'Where is the knife?' 

'I just went down and put it away.' 

'Won't you let me have a look at the knife. Ayah?' 

'Oh, no. Children must never see it. When you grow up into a big girl, when you are tall enough 
to touch the lock of that almirah , I will show you the knife. Would you like to be very tall?' 

'Yes, I can then open the almirah and take the biscuits myself, isn't it so. Ayah?' 

'Yes, yes. But you will never be tall if you stay in bed in the mornings. You must get up, wash 
and drink milk, and you will see how very fast you grow. Three days ago you were so high 
because you got up without giving me any trouble.' 

After drinking her glass of milk Radha would run into the garden and suggest that they play 
trains. The Ayah now had to take out a tricycle and a doll. Radha sat on the tricycle clasping the 
doll to her bosom, and the Ayah bent nearly double and pushed the tricycle. The tricycle was 
the train, the flower pots were stations and the circular fernhouse was Bangalore. Ayah was the 
engine-driver, the doll was Radha and Radha was her mother sometimes and sometimes the 
man who commanded the train to stop or go. Now and then the Ayah stopped to take out her 
pouch and put a piece of tobacco into her mouth. 'Why has the train stopped?' demanded 
Radha. 

'The screw is loose, I am fitting it up.' 

'You are chewing?' 

'Yes, but it is not tobacco. It is a medicine for headache. I bought it from the medicine-seller at 
this station.' 

'Is there a medicine-seller here?' 

'Yes, yes,' said the Ayah and pointed at the jasmine bush. 

Radha looked at the bush and said, 'Oh, Seller, give some good medicine for my poor Ayah. She 
has such a bad headache. Doctor.' 

At Bangalore the train stopped for a long time. There the Ayah was asked to lie down and sleep 
on a patch of sand and Radha went round the town with the child . . . The game went on till 
Radha's mother called her in for a bath, and after that the Ayah was free for an hour or more. 


At midday she squatted amidst toys in the nursery, her immense figure contrasting grotesquely 



with the tiny elephants and horses, cooking vessels and dolls around her. She and Radha sat a 
yard apart, but each was in her own house. They cooked, performed puja and called on each 
other. It was easy for Radha to spring up and pay Ayah a visit, but it would be an extreme 
torture for the Ayah to return the call in the same manner, and so if the Ayah stooped forward 
it was accepted as a visit. After playing this game for an hour the Ayah felt drowsy and said, 
'Radha, night has come. Let us go to bed so that we may get up early in the morning.' 

'Is it already night?' 

'It is. I lit the lamp hours ago,' replied the Ayah, indicating some knick-knack which stood for the 
lamp. 

'Good night. Ayah . . . You must also lie down.' The Ayah cleared a space for herself and lay 
down. 

'Are you asleep. Ayah?' 

'Yes, just "play" sleep, not real . . .' the Ayah said every five minutes, and very soon Radha fell 
asleep. 

The Ayah's duties commenced again at four o'clock. Radha kept her running continuously till 
eight, when she had to be carried off to her bed. In bed she had to have her stories. The Ayah 
squatted below the cot and narrated the story of the black monkey which rolled in a sack of 
chalk powder, became white and married a princess; at the wedding somebody sprinkled water 
on him and he came out in his true colour; he was chased out; presently a dhobi took pity on 
him and washed, bleached and ironed him, in which state he regained the affection of the 
princess. When the story was over, Radha said, 'I don't like to sleep. Let us play something.' 
Ayah asked, 'Do you want the Old Fellow in?' The mention of the Old Fellow worked wonders, 
and child after child was kept in terror of him. He was supposed to be locked up in a disused 
dog kennel in the compound. He was always shouting for the Ayah. He was ever ready to break 
the door open and carry her away. The Ayah always referred to him in scathing language: 'I 
have beaten that scoundrel into pulp. Very bad fellow, disgusting monkey. He won't leave me in 
peace even for a moment. If you don't sleep, how can I find the time to go and kick him back 
into his house?' 

Once in three months the Ayah oiled and combed her hair, put on a bright sari, bade everyone 
in the house an elaborate goodbye and started for Saidapet. There she had her home. The only 
evidence others had of her far-off home was the presence of a couple of rowdy-looking men in 
the back yard of the bungalow at the beginning of every month. The Ayah spoke of them as 
'those Saidapet robbers'. 

'Why do you encourage them?' asked her mistress sometimes. 

'What can I do? It is the price I pay for having borne them for nine months.' And she received 
her month's pay and divided most of it between them. 

So old, clumsy and so very unwieldy, it was often a wonder to others how she was going to get 
in and out of buses, reach Saidapet and return. But she would be back by the evening, bringing 
a secret gift of peppermints for Radha, secret because she had often been warned not to give 
unclean sweets to the children. 


Once she went to Saidapet and did not return in the evening. Radha stood on the porch gazing 
at the gate. Even the next day there was no sign of her. Radha wept. Her mother and others 



were furious. 'She has perhaps been run over and killed/ they said. 'Such a blundering, blind 
fool. I am surprised it didn't happen before. She must have taken it into her head to give herself 
a holiday suddenly. I will dismiss her for this. No one is indispensable. These old servants take 
too much for granted, they must be taught a lesson.' 

Three days later the Ayah stood before the lady of the house and saluted her. The lady was 
half-glad to see her and half-angry. 'You will never get leave again or you may go away once 
and for all. Why didn't you return in time? . . .' The Ayah laughed uncontrollably; even her dark 
face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. 

'Why do you laugh, you idiot? What is the matter?' The Ayah covered her face with her sari and 
mumbled, 'He has come . . .' And she giggled. 

'Who?' 

'The Old Fellow . . .' At the mention of the Old Fellow, Radha, who had all the time been tightly 
hugging the Ayah, freed herself, ran into the kitchen and shut the door. 

'Who is the Old Fellow?' asked the lady. 

'I can't tell his name,' the Ayah said shyly. 

'Your husband?' 

'Yes,' said Ayah and writhed awkwardly. 'He wants me to cook for him and look after him . . . 
The man was there when I went home. He sat as if he had never gone out of the house. He 
gave me a fright, madam. He is out there in the garden. Please, won't you look at him?' The 
lady went out and saw a wizened old man standing in the drive. 

'Salute our lady, don't stand there and blink,' the Ayah said. The old man raised his arm stiffly 
and salaamed. He said, 'I want Thayi.' It seemed odd to hear the Ayah being called by her name. 
'I want Thayi. She is to cook for me. She must go with me,' he said sullenly. 

'You want to go. Ayah?' 

The Ayah averted her face and shook with laughter. 'He went away years ago. He was in Ceylon 
tea gardens. How could anyone know he was coming? The circar sent him back. Who will take 
care of him now?' 

Half an hour later she walked out of the house, led by a husband proud of his slave. She took 
leave, in a most touching and ceremonious manner, of everyone except Radha, who refused to 
come out of the kitchen. When the Ayah stood outside the kitchen door and begged her to 
come out, Radha asked, 'Is the Old Fellow carrying you off?' 

'Yes, dear, bad fellow.' 

'Who left the door of the dog house open?' 

'No one. He broke it open.' 

'What does he want?' 

'He wants to carry me off,' said the Ayah. 

'I won't come out till he is gone. All right. Go, go before he comes here for you.' The Ayah acted 



on this advice after waiting at the kitchen door for nearly half an hour. 



LEELA'S FRIEND 


Sidda was hanging about the gate at a moment when Mr Sivasanker was standing in the front 
veranda of his house, brooding over the servant problem. 

'Sir, do you want a servant?' Sidda asked. 

'Come in,' said Mr Sivasanker. As Sidda opened the gate and came in, Mr Sivasanker subjected 
him to a scrutiny and said to himself, 'Doesn't seem to be a bad sort... At any rate, the fellow 
looks tidy.' 

'Where were you before?' he asked. 

Sidda said, 'In a bungalow there,' and indicated a vague somewhere, 'in the doctor's house.' 
'What is his name?' 

'I don't know, master,' Sidda said. 'He lives near the market.' 

'Why did they send you away?' 

'They left the town, master,' Sidda said, giving the stock reply. 

Mr Sivasanker was unable to make up his mind. He called his wife. She looked at Sidda and said, 
'He doesn't seem to me worse than the others we have had.' Leela, their five-year-old 
daughter, came out, looked at Sidda and gave a cry of joy. 'Oh, Father!' she said, 'I like him. 
Don't send him away. Let us keep him in our house.' And that decided it. 

Sidda was given two meals a day and four rupees a month, in return for which he washed 
clothes, tended the garden, ran errands, chopped wood and looked after Leela. 

'Sidda, come and play!' Leela would cry, and Sidda had to drop any work he might be doing and 
run to her, as she stood in the front garden with a red ball in her hand. His company made her 
supremely happy. She flung the ball at him and he flung it back. And then she said, 'Now throw 
the ball into the sky.' Sidda clutched the ball, closed his eyes for a second and threw the ball up. 
When the ball came down again, he said, 'Now this has touched the moon and come. You see 
here a little bit of the moon sticking.' Leela keenly examined the ball for traces of the moon and 
said, 'I don't see it.' 

'You must be very quick about it,' said Sidda, 'because it will all evaporate and go back to the 
moon. Now hurry up . . .' He covered the ball tightly with his fingers and allowed her to peep 
through a little gap. 

'Ah, yes,' said Leela. 'I see the moon, but is the moon very wet?' 

'Certainly, it is,' Sidda said. 

'What is in the sky, Sidda?' 

'God,' he said. 

'If we stand on the roof and stretch our arms, can we touch the sky?' 

'Not if we stand on the roof here,' he said. 'But if you stand on a coconut tree you can touch the 



sky.' 

'Have you done it?' asked Leela. 

'Yes, many times' said Sidda. 'Whenever there is a big moon, I climb a coconut tree and touch 
it.' 

'Does the moon know you?' 

'Yes, very well. Now come with me. I will show you something nice.' They were standing near 
the rose plant. He said, pointing, 'You see the moon there, don't you?' 

'Yes.' 

'Now come with me,' he said, and took her to the back yard. He stopped near the well and 
pointed up. The moon was there, too. Leela clapped her hands and screamed in wonder, 'The 
moon here! It was there! How is it?' 

'I have asked it to follow us about.' 


Leela ran in and told her mother, 'Sidda knows the moon.' At dusk he carried her in and she 
held a class for him. She had a box filled with catalogues, illustrated books and stumps of 
pencils. It gave her great joy to play the teacher to Sidda. She made him squat on the floor with 
a pencil between his fingers and a catalogue in front of him. She had another pencil and a 
catalogue and commanded, 'Now write.' And he had to try and copy whatever she wrote in the 
pages of her catalogue. She knew two or three letters of the alphabet and could draw a kind of 
cat and crow. But none of these could Sidda copy even remotely. She said, examining his effort, 
'Is this how I have drawn the crow? Is this how I have drawn the B?' She pitied him and 
redoubled her efforts to teach him. But that good fellow, though an adept at controlling the 
moon, was utterly incapable of plying the pencil. Consequently, it looked as though Leela would 
keep him there pinned to his seat till his stiff, inflexible wrist cracked. He sought relief by 
saying, 'I think your mother is calling you in to dinner.' Leela would drop the pencil and run out 
of the room, and the school hour would end. 

After dinner Leela ran to her bed. Sidda had to be ready with a story. He sat down on the floor 
near the bed and told incomparable stories: of animals in the jungle, of gods in heaven, of 
magicians who could conjure up golden castles and fill them with little princesses and their pets 


Day by day she clung closer to him. She insisted upon having his company all her waking hours. 
She was at his side when he was working in the garden or chopping wood, and accompanied 
him when he was sent on errands. 

One evening he went out to buy sugar and Leela went with him. When they came home, Leela's 
mother noticed that a gold chain Leela had been wearing was missing. 'Where is your chain?' 
Leela looked into her shirt, searched and said, 'I don't know.' Her mother gave her a slap and 
said, 'How many times have I told you to take it off and put it in the box?' 


'Sidda, Sidda!' she shouted a moment later. As Sidda came in, Leela's mother threw a glance at 
him and thought the fellow already looked queer. She asked him about the chain. His throat 



went dry. He blinked and answered that he did not know. She mentioned the police and 
shouted at him. She had to go back into the kitchen for a moment because she had left 
something in the oven. Leela followed her, whining, 'Give me some sugar. Mother, I am 
hungry.' When they came out again and called, 'Sidda, Siddal' there was no answer. Sidda had 
vanished into the night. 

Mr Sivasanker came home an hour later, grew very excited over all this, went to the police 
station and lodged a complaint. 

After her meal Leela refused to go to bed. 'I won't sleep unless Sidda comes and tells me stories 
. . . I don't like you. Mother. You are always abusing and worrying Sidda. Why are you so 
rough?' 

'But he has taken away your chain . . .' 

'Let him. It doesn't matter. Tell me a story.' 

'Sleep, sleep,' said Mother, attempting to make her lie down on her lap. 

'Tell me a story. Mother,' Leela said. It was utterly impossible for her mother to think of a story 
now. Her mind was disturbed. The thought of Sidda made her panicky. The fellow, with his 
knowledge of the household, might come in at night and loot. She shuddered to think what a 
villain she had been harbouring all these days. It was God's mercy that he hadn't killed the child 
for the chain . . . 'Sleep, Leela, sleep,' she cajoled. 

'Can't you tell the story of the elephant?' Leela asked. 

'No.' 

Leela made a noise of deprecation and asked, 'Why should not Sidda sit in our chair. Mother?' 
Mother didn't answer the question. Leela said a moment later, 'Sidda is gone because he 
wouldn't be allowed to sleep inside the house just as we do. Why should he always be made to 
sleep outside the house. Mother? I think he is angry with us. Mother.' 

By the time Sivasanker returned, Leela had fallen asleep. He said, 'What a risk we took in 
engaging that fellow. It seems he is an old criminal. He has been in jail half a dozen times for 
stealing jewellery from children. From the description I gave, the inspector was able to identify 
him in a moment.' 

'Where is he now?' asked the wife. 

'The police know his haunts. They will pick him up very soon, don't worry. The inspector was 
furious that I didn't consult him before employing him . . .' 

Four days later, just as Father was coming home from the office, a police inspector and a 
constable brought in Sidda. Sidda stood with bowed head. Leela was overjoyed. 'Sidda! Siddal' 
she cried, and ran down the steps to meet him. 

'Don't go near him,' the inspector said, stopping her. 

'Why not?' 

'He is a thief. He has taken away your gold chain.' 

'Let him. I will have a new chain,' Leela said, and all of them laughed. And then Mr Sivasanker 



spoke to Sidda; and then his wife addressed him with a few words on his treachery. They then 
asked him where he had put the chain. 

'I have not taken it/ Sidda said feebly, looking at the ground. 

'Why did you run away without telling us?' asked Leela's mother. There was no answer. 

Leela's face became red. 'Oh, policemen, leave him alone. I want to play with him.' 

'My dear child,' said the police inspector, 'he is a thief.' 

'Let him be,' Leela replied haughtily. 

'What a devil you must be to steal a thing from such an innocent child!' remarked the 
inspector. 'Even now it is not too late. Return it. I will let you off, provided you promise not to 
do such a thing again.' Leela's father and mother, too, joined in this appeal. Leela felt disgusted 
with the whole business and said, 'Leave him alone, he hasn't taken the chain.' 

'You are not at all a reliable prosecution witness, my child,' observed the inspector humorously. 

'No, he hasn't taken it!' Leela screamed. 

Her father said, 'Baby, if you don't behave, I will be very angry with you.' 

Half an hour later the inspector said to the constable, 'Take him to the station. I think I shall 
have to sit with him tonight.' The constable took Sidda by the hand and turned to go. Leela ran 
behind them crying, 'Don't take him. Leave him here, leave him here.' She clung to Sidda's 
hand. He looked at her mutely, like an animal. Mr Sivasanker carried Leela back into the house. 
Leela was in tears. 

Every day when Mr Sivasanker came home he was asked by his wife, 'Any news of the jewel?' 
and by his daughter, 'Where is Sidda?' 

'They still have him in the lockup, though he is very stubborn and won't say anything about the 
jewel,' said Mr Sivasanker. 

'Bah! What a rough fellow he must be!' said his wife with a shiver. 

'Oh, these fellows who have been in jail once or twice lose all fear. Nothing can make them 
confess.' 

A few days later, putting her hand into the tamarind pot in the kitchen, Leela's mother picked 
up the chain. She took it to the tap and washed off the coating of tamarind on it. It was 
unmistakably Leela's chain. When it was shown to her, Leela said, 'Give it here. I want to wear 
the chain.' 

'How did it get into the tamarind pot?' Mother asked. 

'Somehow,' replied Leela. 

'Did you put it in?' asked Mother. 

'Yes.' 


'When?' 



'Long ago, the other day,' 

'Why didn't you say so before?' 

'I don't know,' said Leela. 

When Father came home and was told, he said, 'The child must not have any chain hereafter. 
Didn't I tell you that I saw her carrying it in her hand once or twice? She must have dropped it 
into the pot sometime . . . And all this bother on account of her.' 

'What about Sidda?' asked Mother. 

'I will tell the inspector tomorrow ... in any case, we couldn't have kept a criminal like him in 
the house.' 



MOTHER AND SON 


Ramu's mother waited till he was halfway through dinner and then introduced the subject of 
marriage. Ramu merely replied, 'So you are at it again!' He appeared more amused than angry, 
and so she brought out her favourite points one by one: her brother's daughter was getting on 
to fourteen, the girl was good-looking and her brother was prepared to give a handsome 
dowry; she (Ramu's mother) was getting old and wanted a holiday from housekeeping: she 
might die any moment and then who would cook Ramu's food and look after him? And the 
most indisputable argument: a man's luck changed with marriage. 'The harvest depends not on 
the hand that holds the plough but on the hand which holds the pot.' Earlier in the evening 
Ramu's mother had decided that if he refused again or exhibited the usual sullenness at the 
mention of marriage, she would leave him to his fate; she would leave him absolutely alone 
even if she saw him falling down before a coming train. She would never more interfere in his 
affairs. She realized what a resolute mind she possessed, and felt proud of the fact. That was 
the kind of person one ought to be. It was all very well having a mother's heart and so on, but 
even a mother could have a limit to her feelings. If Ramu thought he could do what he pleased 
just because she was only a mother, she would show him he was mistaken. If he was going to 
slight her judgement and feelings, she was going to show how indifferent she herself could be . 


With so much preparation she broached the subject of marriage and presented a formidable 
array of reasons. But Ramu just brushed them aside and spoke slightingly of the appearance of 
her brother's daughter. And then she announced, 'This is the last time I am speaking about this. 
Hereafter I will leave you alone. Even if I see you drowning I will never ask why you are 
drowning. Do you understand?' 

'Yes.' Ramu brooded. He could not get through his Intermediate even at the fourth attempt; he 
could not get a job, even at twenty rupees a month. And here was Mother worrying him to 
marry. Of all girls, his uncle's! That protruding tooth alone would put off any man. It was 
incredible that he should be expected to marry that girl. He had always felt that when he 
married he would marry a girl like Rezia, whom he had seen in two or three Hindi films. Life was 
rusty and sterile, and Ramu lived in a stage of perpetual melancholia and depression; he loafed 
away his time, or slept, or read old newspapers in a free reading room . . . 

He now sat before his dining leaf and brooded. His mother watched him for a moment and said, 
'I hate your face. I hate anyone who sits before his leaf with that face. A woman only ten days 
old in widowhood would put on a more cheerful look.' 

'You are saying all sorts of things because I refuse to marry your brother's daughter,' he replied. 

'What do I care? She is a fortunate girl and will get a really decent husband.' Ramu's mother 
hated him for his sullenness. It was this gloomy look that she hated in people. It was 
unbearable. She spoke for a few minutes, and he asked, 'When are you going to shut up?' 

'My life is nearly over,' said the mother. 'You will see me shutting up once and for all very soon. 
Don't be impatient. You ask me to shut up! Has it come to this?' 

'Well, I only asked you to give me some time to eat.' 

'Oh, yes. You will have it soon, my boy. When I am gone you will have plenty of time, my boy.' 



Ramu did not reply. He ate his food in silence. 'I only want you to look a little more human 
when you eat,' she said. 

'How is it possible with this food?' asked Ramu. 

'What do you say?' screamed the mother. 'If you are so fastidious, work and earn like all men. 
Throw down the money and demand what you want. Don't command when you are a pauper.' 

When the meal was over, Ramu was seen putting on his sandals. 'Where are you going?' asked 
the mother. 

'Going out,' he curtly replied, and walked out, leaving the street door ajar. 

Her duties for the day were over. She had scrubbed the floor of the kitchen, washed the vessels 
and put them in a shining row on the wooden shelf, returned the short scrubbing broom to its 
corner and closed the kitchen window. 

Taking the lantern and closing the kitchen door, she came to the front room. The street door 
stood ajar. She became indignant at her son's carelessness. The boy was indifferent and 
irresponsible and didn't feel bound even to shut the street door. Here she was wearing out her 
palm scrubbing the floor night after night. Why should she slave if he was indifferent? He was 
old enough to realize his responsibilities in life. 

She took out her small wooden box and put into her mouth a clove, a cardamom and a piece of 
areca nut. Chewing these, she felt more at peace with life. She shut the door without bolting it 
and lay down to sleep. 

Where could Ramu have gone? She began to feel uneasy. She rolled her mat, went out, spread 
it on the pyol and lay down. She muttered to herself the holy name of Sri Rama in order to keep 
out disturbing thoughts. She went on whispering, 'Sita Rama Rama . . .' But she ceased 
unconsciously. Her thoughts returned to Ramu. What did he say before going out? 'I am just 
going out for a stroll. Mother. Don't worry. I shall be back soon.' No, it was not that. Not he. 
Why was the boy so secretive about his movements? That was impudent and exasperating. But, 
she told herself, she deserved no better treatment with that terrible temper and cutting tongue 
of hers. There was no doubt that she had conducted herself abominably during the meal. All 
her life this had been her worst failing: this tendency, while in a temper, to talk without 
restraint. She even felt that her husband would have lived for a few more years if she had 
spoken to him less . . . Ramu had said something about the food. She would include more 
vegetables and cook better from tomorrow. Poor boy . . . 

She fell asleep. Somewhere a gong sounded one, and she woke up. One o'clock? She called, 
'Ramu, Ramu.' 

She did not dare to contemplate what he might have done with himself. Gradually she came to 
believe that her words during the meal had driven him to suicide. She sat up and wept. She was 
working herself up to a hysterical pitch. When she closed her eyes to press out the gathering 
tears, the vision of her son's body floating in Kukanahalli Tank came before her. His striped shirt 
and mill dhoti were sodden and clung close to his body. His sandals were left on one of the tank 
steps. His face was bloated beyond all recognition. 

She screamed aloud and jumped down from the pyol. She ran along the whole length of Old 
Agrahar Street. It was deserted. Electric lights twinkled here and there. Far away a tonga was 
rattling on, the tonga-driver's song faintly disturbing the silence; the blast of a night constable's 



whistle came to her ears, and she stopped running. She realized that after all it might be only 
her imagination. He might have gone away to the drama, which didn't usually close before 
three in the morning. She rapidly uttered the holy name of Sri Rama in order to prevent the 
picture of Kukanahalli Tank coming before her mind. 

She had a restless night. Unknown to herself, she slept in snatches and woke up with a start 
every time the gong boomed. The gong struck six through the chill morning. 

Tears streaming down her face, she started for Kukanahalli Tank. Mysore was just waking to 
fresh life. Milkmen with slow cows passed along. Municipal sweepers were busy with their long 
brooms. One or two cycles passed her. 

She reached the tank, not daring even once to look at the water. She found him sleeping on one 
of the benches that lined the bund. For just a second she wondered if it might be his corpse. 
She shook him vigorously, crying 'Ramul' She heaved a tremendous sigh of relief when he 
stirred. 

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. 'Why are you here. Mother?' 

'What a place to sleep ini' 

'Oh, I just fell asleep,' he said. 

'Come home,' she said. She walked on and he followed her. She saw him going down the tank 
steps. 'Where are you going?' 

'Just for a wash,' Ramu explained. 

She clung to his arm and said vehemently, 'No, don't go near the water.' 

He obeyed her, though he was slightly baffled by her vehemence. 



NEW STORIES 



NAGA 


The boy took off the lid of the circular wicker basket and stood looking at the cobra coiled 
inside, and then said, 'Naga, I hope you are dead, so that I may sell your skin to the 
pursemakers; at least that way you may become useful.' He poked it with a finger. Naga raised 
its head and looked about with a dull wonder. 'You have become too lazy even to open your 
hood. You are no cobra. You are an earthworm. I am a snake charmer attempting to show you 
off and make a living. No wonder so often I have to stand at the bus stop pretending to be blind 
and beg. The trouble is, no one wants to see you, no one has any respect for you and no one is 
afraid of you, and do you know what that means? I starve, that is all.' 

Whenever the boy appeared at the street door, householders shooed him away. He had seen 
his father operate under similar conditions. His father would climb the steps of the house 
unmindful of the discouragement, settle down with his basket and go through his act heedless 
of what anyone said. He would pull out his gourd pipe from the bag and play the snake tune 
over and over, until its shrill, ear-piercing note induced a torpor and made people listen to his 
preamble: 'In my dream, God Shiva appeared and said, "Go forth and thrust your hand into that 
crevice in the floor of my sanctum." As you all know, Shiva is the Lord of Cobras, which he ties 
his braid with, and its hood canopies his head; the great God Vishnu rests in the coils of Adi- 
Shesha, the mightiest serpent, who also bears on his thousand heads this Universe. Think of the 
armlets on Goddess Parvathi! Again, elegant little snakes. How can we think that we are wiser 
than our gods? Snake is a part of a god's ornament, and not an ordinary creature. I obeyed 
Shiva's command—at midnight walked out and put my arm into the snake hole.' 

At this point his audience would shudder and someone would ask, 'Were you bitten?' 

'Of course I was bitten, but still you see me here, because the same god commanded, "Find 
that weed growing on the old fort wall." No, I am not going to mention its name, even if I am 
offered a handful of sovereigns.' 

'What did you do with the weed?' 

'I chewed it; thereafter no venom could enter my system. And the terrible fellow inside this 
basket plunged his fangs into my arm like a baby biting his mother's nipple, but I laughed and 
pulled him out, and knocked off with a piece of stone the fangs that made him so arrogant; and 
then he understood that I was only a friend and well-wisher, and no trouble after that. After all, 
what is a serpent? A great soul in a state of penance waiting to go back to its heavenly world. 
That is all, sirs.' 

After this speech, his father would flick open the basket lid and play the pipe again, whereupon 
the snake would dart up like spring-work, look about and sway a little; people would be 
terrified and repelled, but still enthralled. At the end of the performance, they gave him coins 
and rice, and sometimes an old shirt, too, and occasionally he wangled an egg if he observed a 
hen around; seizing Naga by the throat, he let the egg slide down its gullet, to the delight of the 
onlookers. He then packed up and repeated the performance at the next street or at the 
bazaar, and when he had collected sufficient food and cash he returned to his hut beside the 
park wall, in the shade of a big tamarind tree. He cooked the rice and fed his son, and they slept 
outside the hut, under the stars. 



The boy had followed his father ever since he could walk, and when he attained the age of ten 
his father let him handle Naga and harangue his audience in his own style. His father often said, 
'We must not fail to give Naga two eggs a week. When he grows old, he will grow shorter each 
day; someday he will grow wings and fly off, and do you know that at that time he will spit out 
the poison in his fangs in the form of a brilliant jewel, and if you possessed it you could become 
a king?' 


One day when the boy had stayed beside the hut out of laziness, he noticed a tiny monkey 
gambolling amidst the branches of the tamarind tree and watched it with open-mouthed 
wonder, not even noticing his father arrive home. 

'Boy, what are you looking at? Here, eat this,' said the father, handing him a packet of sweets. 
'They gave it to me at that big house, where some festival is going on. Naga danced to the pipe 
wonderfully today. He now understands all our speech. At the end of his dance, he stood six 
feet high on the tip of his tail, spread out his hood, hissed and sent a whole crowd scampering. 
Those people enjoyed it, though, and gave me money and sweets.' His father looked happy as 
he opened the lid of the basket. The cobra raised its head. His father held it up by the neck, and 
forced a bit of a sweet between its jaws, and watched it work its way down. 'He is now one of 
our family and should learn to eat what we eat,' he said. After struggling through the sweet, 
Naga coiled itself down, and the man clapped the lid back. 

The boy munched the sweet with his eyes still fixed on the monkey. 'Father, I wish I were a 
monkey. I'd never come down from the tree. See how he is nibbling all that tamarind fruit . . . 
Hey, monkey, get me a fruit!' he cried. 

The man was amused, and said, 'This is no way to befriend him. You should give him something 
to eat, not ask him to feed you.' 

At which the boy spat out his sweet, wiped it clean with his shirt, held it up and cried, 'Come 
on, monkey! Here!' 

His father said, 'If you call him "monkey", he will never like you. You must give him a nice 
name.' 

'What shall we call him?' 

'Rama, name of the master of Hanuman, the Divine Monkey. Monkeys adore that name.' 

The boy at once called, 'Rama, here, take this.' He flourished his arms, holding up the sweet, 
and the monkey did pause in its endless antics and notice him. The boy hugged the tree trunk, 
and heaved himself up, and carefully placed the sweet on the flat surface of a forking branch, 
and the monkey watched with round-eyed wonder. The boy slid back to the ground and eagerly 
waited for the monkey to come down and accept the gift. While he watched and the monkey 
was debating within himself, a crow appeared from somewhere and took away the sweet. The 
boy shrieked out a curse. 

His father cried, 'Hey, what? Where did you learn this foul word? No monkey will respect you if 
you utter bad words.' Ultimately, when the little monkey was tempted down with another 
piece of sweet, his father caught him deftly by the wrist, holding him off firmly by the scruff to 



prevent his biting. 


Fifteen days of starvation, bullying, cajoling and dangling of fruit before the monkey's eyes 
taught him what he was expected to do. First of all, he ceased trying to bite or scratch. And 
then he realized that his mission in life was to please his master by performing. At a command 
from his master, he could demonstrate how Flanuman, the Divine Monkey of the Ramayana, 
strode up and down with tail ablaze and set Ravana's capital on fire; how an oppressed village 
daughter-in-law would walk home carrying a pitcher of water on her head; how a newlywed 
would address his beloved (chatter, blink, raise the brow and grin); and, finally, what was 
natural to him—tumbling and acrobatics on top of a bamboo pole. When Rama was ready to 
appear in public, his master took him to a roadside-tailor friend of his and had him measured 
out for a frilled jacket, leaving the tail out, and a fool's cap held in position with a band under 
his small chin. Rama constantly tried to push his cap back and rip it off, but whenever he 
attempted it he was whacked with a switch, and he soon resigned himself to wearing his 
uniform until the end of the day. When his master stripped off Rama's clothes, the monkey 
performed spontaneous somersaults in sheer relief. 


Rama became popular. Schoolchildren screamed with joy at the sight of him. Flouseholders 
beckoned to him to step in and divert a crying child. Fie performed competently, earned money 
for his master and peanuts for himself. Discarded baby clothes were offered to him as gifts. The 
father-son team started out each day, the boy with the monkey riding on his shoulder and the 
cobra basket carried by his father at some distance away—for the monkey chattered and 
shrank, his face disfigured with fright, whenever the cobra hissed and reared itself up. While 
the young fellow managed to display the tricks of the monkey to a group, he could hear his 
father's pipe farther off. At the weekly market fairs in the villages around, they were a familiar 
pair, and they became prosperous enough to take a bus home at the end of the day. Sometimes 
as they started to get on, a timid passenger would ask, 'What's to happen if the cobra gets 
out?' 

'No danger. The lid is secured with a rope,' the father replied. 

There would always be someone among the passengers to remark, 'A snake minds its business 
until you step on its tail.' 

'But this monkey?' another passenger said. 'God knows what he will be up to!' 

'Fie is gentle and wise,' said the father, and offered a small tip to win the conductor's favour. 

They travelled widely, performing at all market fairs, and earned enough money to indulge in 
an occasional tiffin at a restaurant. The boy's father would part company from him in the 
evening, saying, 'Stay. I've a stomach ache; I'll get some medicine for it and come back,' and 
return tottering late at night. The boy felt frightened of his father at such moments, and, lying 
on his mat, with the monkey tethered to a stake nearby, pretended to be asleep. Father kicked 
him and said, 'Get up, lazy swine. Sleeping when your father slaving for you all day comes home 
for speech with you. You are not my son but a bastard.' But the boy would not stir. 


One night the boy really fell asleep, and woke up in the morning to find his father gone. The 



monkey was also missing. 'They must have gone off together!' he cried. He paced up and down 
and called, 'Father!' several times. He then peered into the hut and found the round basket 
intact in its corner. He noticed on the lid of the basket some coins, and felt rather pleased when 
he counted them and found eighty paise in small change. 'It must all be for me,' he said to 
himself. He felt promoted to adult-hood, handling so much cash. He felt rich but also puzzled at 
his father's tactics. Ever since he could remember, he had never woken up without finding his 
father at his side. He had a foreboding that he was not going to see his father any more. Father 
would never at any time go out without announcing his purpose—for a bath at the street tap, 
or to seek medicine for a 'stomach ache', or to do a little shopping. 

The boy lifted the lid of the basket to make sure that the snake at least was there. It popped up 
the moment the lid was taken off. He looked at it, and it looked at him for a moment. 'I'm your 
master now. Take care.' As if understanding the changed circumstances, the snake darted its 
forked tongue and half-opened its hood. He tapped it down with his finger, saying, 'Get back. 
Not yet.' Would it be any use waiting for his father to turn up? He felt hungry. Wondered if it'd 
be proper to buy his breakfast with the coins left on the basket lid. If his father should suddenly 
come back, he would slap him for taking the money. He put the lid back on the snake, put the 
coins back on the lid as he had found them and sat at the mouth of the hut, vacantly looking at 
the tamarind tree and sighing for his monkey, which would have displayed so many fresh and 
unexpected pranks early in the morning. He reached for a little cloth bag in which was stored a 
variety of nuts and fried pulses to feed the monkey. He opened the bag, examined the contents 
and put a handful into his mouth and chewed: 'Tastes so good. Too good for a monkey, but 
Father will . . .' His father always clouted his head when he caught him eating nuts meant for 
the monkey. Today he felt free to munch the nuts, although worried at the back of his mind lest 
his father should suddenly remember and come back for the monkey food. He found the gourd 
pipe in its usual place, stuck in the thatch. He snatched it up and blew through its reeds, feeling 
satisfied that he could play as well as his father and that the public would not know the 
difference; only it made him cough a little and gasp for breath. The shrill notes attracted the 
attention of people passing by the hut, mostly day labourers carrying spades and pickaxes and 
women carrying baskets, who nodded their heads approvingly and remarked, 'True son of the 
father.' Everyone had a word with him. All knew him in that colony of huts, which had cropped 
up around the water fountain. All the efforts of the municipality to dislodge these citizens had 
proved futile; the huts sprang up as often as they were destroyed, and when the municipal 
councillors realized the concentration of voting power in this colony, they let the squatters 
alone, except when some V.I.P. from Delhi passed that way, and then they were asked to stay 
out of sight, behind the park wall, till the eminent man had flashed past in his car. 

'Why are you not out yet?' asked a woman. 

'My father is not here,' the boy said pathetically. 'I do not know where he is gone.' He sobbed a 
little. 

The woman put down her basket, sat by his side and asked, 'Are you hungry?' 

'I have money,' he said. 

She gently patted his head and said, 'Ah, poor child! I knew your mother. She was a good girl. 
That she should have left you adrift like this and gone heavenward!' Although he had no 
memory of his mother, at the mention of her, tears rolled down his cheeks, and he licked them 
off with relish at the corner of his mouth. The woman suddenly said, 'What are you going to do 
now?' 



'I don't know/ he said. 'Wait till my father comes.' 

'Foolish and unfortunate child. Your father is gone.' 

'Where?' asked the boy. 

'Don't ask me/ the woman said. 'I talked to a man who saw him go. He saw him get into the 
early-morning bus, which goes up the mountains, and that strumpet in the blue sari was with 
him.' 

'What about the monkey?' the boy asked. 'Won't it come back?' 

She had no answer to this question. Meanwhile, a man hawking rice cakes on a wooden tray 
was crying his wares at the end of the lane. The woman hailed him in a shrill voice and ordered, 
'Sell this poor child two idlies. Give him freshly made ones, not yesterday's.' 

'Yesterday's stuff not available even for a gold piece/ said the man. 

'Give him the money,' she told the boy. The boy ran in and fetched some money. The woman 
pleaded with the hawker, 'Give him something extra for the money.' 

'What extra?' he snarled. 

'This is an unfortunate child.' 

'So are others. What can I do? Why don't you sell your earrings and help him? I shall go 
bankrupt if I listen to people like you and start giving more for less money.' He took the cash 
and went on. Before he reached the third hut, the boy had polished off the idlies —so soft and 
pungent, with green chutney spread on top. 

The boy felt more at peace with the world now, and able to face his problems. After satisfying 
herself that he had eaten well, the woman rose to go, muttering, 'Awful strumpet, to seduce a 
man from his child.' The boy sat and brooded over her words. Though he gave no outward sign 
of it, he knew who the strumpet in the blue sari was. She lived in one of those houses beyond 
the park wall and was always to be found standing at the door, and seemed to be a fixture 
there. At the sight of her, his father would slow down his pace and tell the boy, 'You keep 
going. I'll join you.' The first time it happened, after waiting at the street corner, the boy tied 
the monkey to a lamp-post and went back to the house. He did not find either his father or the 
woman where he had left them. The door of the house was shut. He raised his hand to pound 
on it, but restrained himself and sat down on the step, wondering. Presently the door opened 
and his father emerged, with the basket slung over his shoulder as usual; he appeared 
displeased at the sight of the boy and raised his hand to strike him, muttering, 'Didn't I say, 
"Keep going"?' The boy ducked and ran down the street, and heard the blue-sari woman 
remark, 'Bad, mischievous devil, full of evil curiosity!' Later, his father said, 'When I say go, you 
must obey.' 

'What did you do there?' asked the boy, trying to look and sound innocent, and the man said 
severely, 'You must not ask questions.' 

'Who is she? What is her name?' 


'Oh, she is a relative/ the man said. To further probing questions he said, 'I went in to drink tea. 
You'll be thrashed if you ask more questions, little devil.' 



The boy said, as an afterthought, 'I only came back thinking that you might want me to take the 
basket/ whereupon his father said sternly, 'No more talk. You must know, she is a good and 
lovely person.' The boy did not accept this description of her. She had called him names. He 
wanted to shout from rooftops, 'Bad, bad, and bad woman and not at all lovely!' but kept it to 
himself. Whenever they passed that way again, the boy quickened his pace, without looking left 
or right, and waited patiently for his father to join him at the street corner. Occasionally his 
father followed his example and passed on without glancing at the house if he noticed, in place 
of the woman, a hairy-chested man standing at the door, massaging his potbelly. 


The boy found that he could play the pipe, handle the snake and feed it also—all in the same 
manner as his father used to. Also, he could knock off the fangs whenever they started to grow. 
He earned enough each day, and as the weeks and months passed he grew taller, and the snake 
became progressively tardy and flabby and hardly stirred its coils. The boy never ceased to sigh 
for the monkey. The worst blow his father had dealt him was the kidnapping of his monkey. 


When a number of days passed without any earnings, he decided to rid himself of the snake, 
throw away the gourd pipe and do something else for a living. Perhaps catch another monkey 
and train it. He had watched his father and knew how to go about this. A monkey on his 
shoulder would gain him admission anywhere, even into a palace. Later on, he would just keep 
it as a pet and look for some other profession. Start as a porter at the railway station—so many 
trains to watch every hour—and maybe get into one someday and out into the wide world. But 
the first step would be to get rid of Naga. He couldn't afford to find eggs and milk for him. 


He carried the snake basket along to a lonely spot down the river course, away from human 
habitation, where a snake could move about in peace without getting killed at sight. In that 
lonely part of Nallappa's grove, there were many mounds, crevasses and anthills. 'You could 
make your home anywhere there, and your cousins will be happy to receive you back into their 
fold,' he said to the snake. 'You should learn to be happy in your own home. You must forget 
me. You have become useless, and we must part. I don't know where my father is gone. He'd 
have kept you until you grew wings and all that, but I don't care.' He opened the lid of the 
basket, lifted the snake and set it free. It lay inert for a while, then raised its head, looked at the 
outside world without interest, and started to move along tardily, without any aim. After a few 
yards of slow motion, it turned about, looking for its basket home. At once the boy snatched up 
the basket and flung it far out of the snake's range. 'You will not go anywhere else as long as I 
am nearby.' He turned the snake round, to face an anthill, prodded it on and then began to run 
at full speed in the opposite direction. He stopped at a distance, hid himself behind a tree and 
watched. The snake was approaching the slope of the anthill. The boy had no doubt now that 
Naga would find the hole on its top, slip itself in and vanish from his life forever. The snake 
crawled halfway up the hill, hesitated and then turned round and came along in his direction 
again. The boy swore, 'Oh, damned snake! Why don't you go back to your world and stay 
there? You won't find me again.' He ran through Nallappa's grove and stopped to regain his 
breath. From where he stood, he saw his Naga glide along majestically across the ground. 



shining like a silver ribbon under the bright sun. The boy paused to say 'Goodbye' before 
making his exit. But looking up he noticed a white-necked Brahmany kite sailing in the blue sky. 
'Garuda/ he said in awe. As was the custom, he made obeisance to it by touching his eyes with 
his fingertips. Garuda was the vehicle of God Vishnu and was sacred. He shut his eyes in a brief 
prayer to the bird. 'You are a god, but I know you eat snakes. Please leave Naga alone.' He 
opened his eyes and saw the kite skimming along a little nearer, its shadow almost trailing the 
course of the lethargic snake. 'Oh!' he screamed. 'I know your purpose.' Garuda would make a 
swoop and dive at the right moment and stab his claws into that foolish Naga, who had refused 
the shelter of the anthill, and carry him off for his dinner. The boy dashed back to the snake, 
retrieving his basket on the way. When he saw the basket, Naga slithered back into it, as if 
coming home after a strenuous public performance. 


Naga was eventually reinstated in his corner at the hut beside the park wall. The boy said to the 
snake, 'If you don't grow wings soon enough, I hope you will be hit on the head with a bamboo 
staff, as it normally happens to any cobra. Know this: I will not be guarding you forever. I'll be 
away at the railway station, and if you come out of the basket and adventure about, it will be 
your end. No one can blame me afterwards.' 



SELVI 


At the end of every concert, she was mobbed by autograph hunters. They would hem her in 
and not allow her to leave the dais. At that moment Mohan, slowly progressing towards the 
exit, would turn round and call across the hall, 'Selvi, hurry up. You want to miss the train?' 'Still 
a lot of time,' she could have said, but she was not in the habit of ever contradicting him; for 
Mohan this was a golden chance not to be missed, to order her in public and demonstrate his 
authority. He would then turn to a group of admirers waiting to escort him and Selvi, 
particularly Selvi, to the car, and remark in apparent jest, 'Left to herself, she'll sit there and fill 
all the autograph books in the world till doomsday, she has no sense of time.' 

The public viewed her as a rare, ethereal entity; but he alone knew her private face. 'Not bad- 
looking,' he commented within himself when he first saw her, 'but needs touching up.' Her 
eyebrows, which flourished wildly, were trimmed and arched. For her complexion, by no means 
fair, but just on the borderline, he discovered the correct skin cream and talcum which 
imparted to her brow and cheeks a shade confounding classification. Mohan did not want 
anyone to suspect that he encouraged the use of cosmetics. He had been a follower of 
Mahatma Gandhi and spent several years in prison, wore only cloth spun by hand and shunned 
all luxury; there could be no question of his seeking modern, artificial aids to enhance the 
personality of his wife. But he had discovered at some stage certain subtle cosmetics through a 
contact in Singapore, an adoring fan of Selvi's, who felt only too honoured to be asked to supply 
them regularly, and to keep it a secret. 

When Selvi came on the stage, she looked radiant, rather than dark, brown or fair, and it left 
the public guessing and debating, whenever the question came up, as to what colour her skin 
was. There was a tremendous amount of speculation on all aspects of her life and person 
wherever her admirers gathered, especially at a place like the Boardless where much town-talk 
was exchanged over coffee at the tables reserved for the habitues. Varma, the proprietor, loved 
to overhear such conversation from his pedestal at the cash counter, especially when the 
subject was Selvi. He was one of her worshippers, but from a distance, often feeling, 'Goddess 
Lakshmi has favoured me; I have nothing more to pray for in the line of wealth or prosperity, 
but I crave for the favour of the other goddess, that is Saraswathi, who is in our midst today as 
Selvi the divine singer; if only she will condescend to accept a cup of coffee or sweets from my 
hand, how grand it would be! But alas, whenever I bring a gift for her, he takes it and turns me 
back from the porch with a formal word of thanks.' Varma was only one among the thousands 
who had a longing to meet Selvi. But she was kept in a fortress of invisible walls. It was as if she 
was fated to spend her life either in solitary confinement or fettered to her gaoler in company. 
She was never left alone, even for a moment, with anyone. She had been wedded to Mohan for 
over two decades and had never spoken to anyone except in his presence. 

Visitors kept coming all day long for a darshcm from Selvi, but few ever reached her presence. 
Some were received on the ground floor, some were received on the lawns, some were 
encouraged to go up the staircase—but none could get a glimpse of her, only of Mohan's 
secretary or of the secretary's secretary. Select personalities, however, were received 
ceremoniously in the main hall upstairs and seated on sofas. Ordinary visitors would not be 
offered seats, but they could occupy any bench or chair found scattered here and there and 
wait as long as they pleased—and go back wherever they came from. 

Their home was a huge building of East India Company days, displaying arches, columns and 



gables, once the residence of Sir Frederick Lawley (whose statue stood in the town-square), 
who had kept a retinue of forty servants to sweep and dust the six oversized halls built on two 
floors, with tall doors and gothic windows and Venetian shutters, set on several acres of ground 
five miles away from the city on the road to Mempi Hills. The place was wooded with enormous 
trees; particularly important was an elm (or oak or beech, no one could say) at the gate, 
planted by Sir Frederick, who had brought the seedling from England, said to be the only one of 
its kind in India. No one would tenant the house, since Sir Frederick's spirit was said to hover 
about the place, and many weird tales were current in Malgudi at that time. The building had 
been abandoned since 1947, when Britain quit India. Mohan, who at some point made a bid for 
it, said, 'Let me try. Gandhiji's non-violence rid the country of the British rule. I was a humble 
disciple of Mahatmaji and I should be able to rid the place of a British ghost by the same 
technique!' He found money to buy the house when Selvi received a fee for lending her voice to 
a film-star, who just moved her lips, synchronizing with Selvi's singing, and attained much glory 
for her performance in a film. But thereafter Mohan definitely shut out all film offers. 'I'll 
establish Selvi as a unique phenomenon on her own, not as a voice for some fat cosmetic- 
dummy.' 

Bit by bit, by assiduous publicity and word-of-mouth recommendation, winning the favour of 
every journalist and music critic available, he had built up her image to its present stature. Hard 
work it was over the years. At the end, when it bore fruit, her name acquired a unique charm, 
her photograph began to appear in one publication or another every week. She was in demand 
everywhere. Mohan's office was besieged by the organizers of musical events from all over the 
country. 'Leave your proposal with my secretary, and we will inform you after finalizing our 
calendar for the quarter,' he would tell one. To another, he would say, 'My schedule is tight till 
1982—if there is any cancellation we'll see what can be done. Remind me in October of 1981, 
I'll give you a final answer.' He rejected several offers for no other reason than to preserve a 
rarity value for Selvi. When Mohan accepted an engagement, the applicant (more a supplicant) 
felt grateful, notwithstanding the exorbitant fee, of which half was to be paid immediately in 
cash without a receipt. He varied his tactics occasionally. He would specify that all the earnings 
of a certain concert should go to some fashionable social-service organization carrying well- 
known names on its list of patrons. He would accept no remuneration for the performance 
itself, but ask for expenses in cash, which would approximate his normal fee. He was a financial 
expert who knew how to conjure up money and at the same time keep Income Tax at arm's 
length. Pacing his lawns and corridors restlessly, his mind was always busy, planning how to 
organize and manoeuvre men and money. Suddenly he would pause, summon his stenographer 
and dictate, or pick up the phone and talk at length into it. 

In addition to the actual professional matters, he kept an eye on public relations, too; he 
attended select, exclusive parties, invited eminent men and women to dinner at Lawley 
Terrace; among the guests would often be found a sprinkling of international figures, too; on 
his walls hung group photographs of himself and Selvi in the company of the strangest 
assortment of personalities—Tito, Bulganin, Yehudi Menuhin, John Kennedy, the Nehru family, 
the Pope, Charlie Chaplin, yogis and sportsmen and political figures, taken under various 
circumstances and settings. 

At the Boardless there was constant speculation about Selvi's early life. Varma heard at the 
gossip table that Selvi had been brought up by her mother in a back row of Vinayak Mudali 
Street, in a small house with tiles falling off, with not enough cash at home to put the tiles back 
on the roof, and had learnt music from her, practising with her brother and sister 
accompanying her on their instruments. 



At this time Mohan had a photo studio on Market Road. Once Selvi's mother brought the girl to 
be photographed for a school magazine after she had won the first prize in a music 
competition. Thereafter Mohan visited them casually now and then, as a sort of well-wisher of 
the family, sat in the single chair their home provided, drank coffee and generally behaved as a 
benign god to that family by his advice and guidance. Sometimes he would request Selvi to sing, 
and then dramatically leave the chair and sit down on the floor crosslegged with his eyes shut, 
in an attitude of total absorption in her melody, to indicate that in the presence of such an 
inspired artist it would be blasphemous to sit high in a chair. 

Day after day, he performed little services for the family, and then gradually took over the 
management of their affairs. At the Boardless, no one could relate with certainty at what point 
exactly he began to refer to Selvi as his wife or where, when or how they were married. No one 
would dare investigate it too closely now. Mohan had lost no time in investing the money 
earned from the film in buying Lawley Terrace. After freshening up its walls with lime wash and 
paints, on an auspicious day he engaged Gaffur's taxi, and took Selvi and the family to the 
Terrace. 

While her mother, brother and sister grew excited at the dimension of the house as they 
passed through the six halls, looked up at the high ceilings and clicked their tongues, Selvi 
herself showed no reaction; she went through the house as if through the corridors of a 
museum. Mohan was a little disappointed and asked, 'How do you like this place?' At that all 
she could say in answer was, 'It looks big.' At the end of the guided tour, he launched on a 
description and history (avoiding the hauntings) of the house. She listened, without any show 
of interest. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere. They were all seated on the gigantic settees of 
the Company days, which had come with the property, left behind because they could not be 
moved. She didn't seem to notice even the immensity of the furniture on which she was 
seated. As a matter of fact, as he came to realize later, in the course of their hundreds of 
concert tours she was habitually oblivious of her surroundings. In any setting—mansion or Five 
Star Hotel with luxurious guest rooms and attendants, or a small-town or village home with no 
special facilities or privacy—she looked equally indifferent or contented; washed, dressed and 
was ready for the concert at the appointed time in the evening. Most days she never knew or 
questioned where she was to sing or what fee they were getting. Whenever he said, 'Pack and 
get ready,' she filled a trunk with her clothes, toiletry and tonic pills, and was ready, not even 
questioning where they were going. She sat in a reserved seat in the train when she was asked 
to do so, and was ready to leave when Mohan warned her they would have to get off at the 
next stop. She was undemanding, uninquiring, uncomplaining. She seemed to exist without 
noticing anything or anyone, rapt in some secret melody or thought of her own. 

In the course of a quarter-century, she had become a national figure; travelled widely in and 
out of the country. They named her the Goddess of Melody. When her name was announced, 
the hall, any hall, filled up to capacity and people fought for seats. When she appeared on the 
dais, the audience was thrilled as if vouchsafed a vision, and she was accorded a thundering 
ovation. When she settled down, gently cleared her throat and hummed softly to help the 
accompanists tune their instruments, a silence fell among the audience. Her voice possessed a 
versatility and reach which never failed to transport her audience. Her appeal was alike to the 
common, unsophisticated listener as to pandits, theorists and musicologists, and even those 
who didn't care for any sort of music liked to be seen at her concerts for prestige's sake. 

During a concert, wherever it might be—Madras, Delhi, London, New York or 
Singapore—Mohan occupied as a rule the centre seat in the first row of the auditorium and 
riveted his gaze on the singer, leaving people to wonder whether he was lost in her spell or 



whether he was inspiring her by thought-transference. Though his eyes were on her, his mind 
would be busy doing complicated arithmetic with reference to monetary problems, and he 
would also watch unobtrusively for any tape-recorder that might be smuggled into the hall (he 
never permitted recording), and note slyly the reactions of the V.I.P.s flanking him. 

He planned every concert in detail. He would sit up in the afternoon with Selvi and suggest 
gently but firmly, 'Wouldn't you like to start with the "Kalyani Varnam"—the minor one?' And 
she would say, 'Yes,' never having been able to utter any other word in her life. He would 
continue, 'The second item had better be Thiagaraja's composition in Begada, it'll be good to 
have a contrasting raga,' and then his list would go on to fill up about four hours. 'Don't bother 
to elaborate any Pallavi for this audience, but work out briefly a little detail in the Thodi 
composition. Afterwards you may add any item you like, light Bhajcms, Javalis or folk-songs,' 
offering her a freedom which was worthless since the programme as devised would be tight- 
fitting for the duration of the concert, which, according to his rule, should never exceed four 
hours. 'But for my planning and guidance, she'd make a mess, which none realizes,' he often 
reflected. 

Everyone curried Mohan's favour and goodwill in the hope that it would lead him to the 
proximity of the star. Mohan did encourage a particular class to call on him and received them 
in the Central Hall of Lawley Terrace; he would call aloud to Selvi when such a person arrived, 
'Here is So-and-so come.' It would be no ordinary name—only a minister or an inspector 
general of police or the managing director of a textile mill, or a newspaper editor, who in his 
turn would always be eager to do some favour for Mohan, hoping thereby to be recognized 
eventually by Selvi as a special friend of the family. Selvi would come out of her chamber ten 
minutes after being summoned and act her part with precision: a wonderful smile, and 
namaste, with her palms gently pressed together, which would send a thrill down the spine of 
the distinguished visitor, who would generally refer to her last concert and confess how deeply 
moving it had been, and how a particular raga kept ringing in his ears all that evening, long after 
the performance. Selvi had appropriate lines in reply to such praise: 'Of course, I feel honoured 
that my little effort has pleased a person of your calibre,' while Mohan would interpose with a 
joke or a personal remark. He didn't want any visitor, however important, to hold her attention, 
but would draw it to himself at the right moment. At the end Mohan would feel gratified that 
his tutored lines, gestures and expressions were perfectly delivered by Selvi. He would 
congratulate himself on shaping her so successfully into a celebrity. 'But for my effort, she'd still 
be another version of her mother and brother, typical Vinayak Mudali Street products, and 
nothing beyond that. I am glad I've been able to train her so well.' 

In order that she might quickly get out of the contamination of Vinayak Mudali Street, he 
gently, unobtrusively, began to isolate her from her mother, brother and sister. As time went 
on, she saw less and less of them. At the beginning a car would be sent to fetch them, once a 
week; but as Selvi's public engagements increased, her mother and others were gradually 
allowed to fade out of her life. Selvi tried once or twice to speak to Mohan about her mother, 
but he looked annoyed and said, 'They must be all right. I'll arrange to get them—but where is 
the time for it? When we are able to spend at least three days at home, we will get them here.' 
Such a break was rare—generally they came home by train or car and left again within twenty- 
four hours. On occasions when they did have the time, and if she timidly mentioned her 
mother, he would almost snap, 'I know, I know. I'll send Mani to Vinayak Street—but some 
other time. We have asked the Governor to lunch tomorrow and they will expect you to sing, 
informally of course, for just thirty minutes.' 'The day after that?' Selvi would put in hesitantly, 
and he would ignore her and move off to make a telephone call. Selvi understood, and resigned 



herself to it, and never again mentioned her mother. 'If my own mother can't see me!' she 
thought again and again, in secret anguish, having none to whom she could speak her feelings. 

Mohan, noticing that she didn't bother him about her mother any more, felt happy that she 
had got over the obsession. 'That's the right way. Only a baby would bother about its mother.' 
He congratulated himself again on the way he was handling her. 

Months and years passed thus. Selvi did not keep any reckoning of it, but went through her 
career like an automaton, switching on and off her music as ordered. 

They were in Calcutta for a series of concerts when news of her mother's death reached her. 
When she heard it, she refused to come out of her room in the hotel, and wanted all her 
engagements cancelled. Mohan, who went into her room to coax her, swiftly withdrew when 
he noticed her tear-drenched face and dishevelled hair. All through the train journey back, she 
kept looking out of the window and never spoke a word, although Mohan did his best to 
engage her in talk. He was puzzled by her mood. Although she was generally not talkative, she 
would at least listen to whatever was said to her and intersperse an occasional monosyllabic 
comment. Now for a stretch of a thirty-six-hour journey she never spoke a word or looked in his 
direction. When they reached home, he immediately arranged to take her down to Vinayak 
Mudali Street, and accompanied her himself to honour the dead officially, feeling certain that 
his gesture would be appreciated by Selvi. Both the big car and Mohan in his whitest handspun 
clothes seemed ill-fitting in those surroundings. His car blocked half the street in which Selvi's 
mother had lived. Selvi's sister, who had married and had children in Singapore, could not 
come, and her brother's whereabouts were unknown ... A neighbour dropped in to explain the 
circumstances of the old lady's death and how they had to take charge of the body and so 
forth. Mohan tried to cut short his narration and send him away, since it was unusual to let a 
nondescript talk to Selvi directly. But she said to Mohan, 'You may go back to the Terrace if you 
like. I'm staying here.' Mohan had not expected her to talk to him in that manner. He felt 
confused and muttered, 'By all means . .. I'll send back the car. . . When do you want it?' 

'Never. I'm staying here as I did before . . .' 

'How can you? In this street!' She ignored his objection and said, 'My mother was my guru; 
here she taught me music, lived and died . . . I'll also live and die here; what was good for her is 
good for me too . . .' 

He had never known her to be so truculent or voluble. She had been for years so mild and 
complaisant that he never thought she could act or speak beyond what she was taught. He 
lingered, waited for a while hoping for a change of mood. Meanwhile, the neighbour was going 
on with his narration, omitting no detail of the old lady's last moments and the problems that 
arose in connection with the performance of the final obsequies. 'I did not know where to 
reach you, but finally we carried her across the river and I lit the pyre with my own hands and 
dissolved the ashes in the Sarayu. After all. I'd known her as a boy, and you remember how I 
used to call her Auntie and sit up and listen when you were practising ... Oh! not these days of 
course, I can't afford to buy a ticket, or get anywhere near the hall where you sing.' 

Mohan watched in consternation. He had never known her to go beyond the script written by 
him. She had never spoken to anyone or stayed in a company after receiving his signal to 
terminate the interview and withdraw. Today it didn't work. She ignored his signal, and the 
man from Vinayak neighbourhood went on in a frenzy of reliving the funeral; he felt triumphant 
to have been of help on a unique occasion. 



After waiting impatiently, Mohan rose to go. 'Anything you want to be sent down?' 'Nothing/ 
she replied. He saw that she had worn an old sari, and had no makeup or jewellery, having left 
it all behind at the Terrace. 

'You mean to say, you'll need nothing?' 

'I need nothing . . .' 

'How will you manage?' She didn't answer. He asked weakly, 'You have the series at Bhopal, 
shall I tell them to change the dates?' For the first time he was consulting her on such 
problems. 

She simply said, 'Do what you like.' 

'What do you mean by that?' No answer. 

He stepped out and drove away; the car had attracted a crowd, which now turned its attention 
to Selvi. They came forward to stare at her—a rare luxury for most, the citadel having been 
impregnable all these years; she had been only a hearsay and a myth to most people. Someone 
said, 'Why did you not come to your mother's help? She was asking for you!' Selvi broke down 
and was convulsed with sobs. 

Three days later Mohan came again to announce, 'On the thirtieth you have to receive an 
honorary degree at the Delhi University . . .' She just shook her head negatively. 'The Prime 
Minister will be presiding over the function.' 

When pressed, she just said, 'Please leave me out of all this, leave me alone, I want to be alone 
hereafter. I can't bear the sight of anyone . . .' 

'Just this one engagement. Do what you like after that. Otherwise it will be most compromising. 
Only one day at Delhi, we will get back immediately—also you signed the gramophone contract 
for recording next month . . .' She didn't reply. Her look suggested that it was not her concern. 
'You'll be landing me in trouble; at least, the present commitments . . .' It was difficult to carry 
on negotiations with a crowd watching and following every word of their talk. He wished he 
could have some privacy with her, but this was a one-room house, where everybody came and 
stood about or sat down anywhere. If he could get her alone, he would either coax her or wring 
her neck. He felt helpless and desperate, and suddenly turned round and left. 

He came again a week later. But it proved no better. She neither welcomed him nor asked him 
to leave. He suggested to her to come to the car; this time he had brought his small car. She 
declined his invitation. 'After all, that woman was old enough to die,' he reflected. 'This fool is 
ruining her life . . .' 

He allowed four more weeks for the mourning period and visited her again, but found a big 
gathering in her house, overflowing into the street. She sat at the back of the little hall, holding 
up her thambura, and was singing to the audience as if it were an auditorium. A violinist and a 
drummer had volunteered to play the accompaniments. 'She is frittering away her art,' he 
thought. She said, 'Come, sit down.' He sat in a corner, listened for a while and slipped away 
unobtrusively . . . Again and again, he visited her and found, at all hours of the day, people 
around her, waiting for her music. News about her free music sessions spread, people thronged 
there in cars, bicycles and on foot. Varma of the Boardless brought a box of sweets wrapped in 
gilt paper, and handed it to Selvi silently and went away, having realized his ambition to 
approach his goddess with an offering. Selvi never spoke unnecessarily. She remained brooding 



and withdrawn all day, not noticing or minding anyone coming in or going out. 


Mohan thought he might be able to find her alone at least at night. At eleven o'clock one night 
he left his car in Market Road and walked to Vinayak Mudali Street. He called in softly through 
the door of Selvi's house, 'My dear, it's me, I have to talk to you urgently. Please open the door, 
please,' appealing desperately through the darkened house. Selvi opened a window shutter just 
a crack and said firmly, 'Go away, it's not proper to come here at this hour. . .' Mohan turned 
back with a lump in his throat, swearing half-aloud, 'Ungrateful wretch . . .' 



SECOND OPINION 


I stole in like a cat, unlocked my door, struck a match and lit a kerosene lantern. I had to make 
sure that I did not wake up my mother. Like a hunter stalking in a jungle, who is careful not to 
crackle the dry leaves underfoot, I took stealthy steps along the front passage to my room at 
the other end past a window in the hall. The moment I shut the door of my cubicle, I was lord of 
my own universe—which seemed to me boundless, although enclosing a space of only eight 
feet by ten. The sloping roof tiles harboured vermin of every type, cobwebs hung down like 
festoons, lizards ensconced behind ancient calendars on the walls darted up and down 
ambushing little creatures that crawled about, urging them on their evolutionary path. Every 
gnat at death was reborn a better creature, and ultimately, after a series of lives, became an 
ape and a human being, who merged ultimately in a supreme indivisible godhood. With such an 
outlook, a result of miscellaneous, half-understood reading, there could be no place for a spray 
or duster! I never allowed anyone to clean my room. 

I never touched the brass vessel left outside my door, containing my supper, unless I felt 
hungry. How could I ever feel hunger while all day I had been sipping coffee at the 
Boardless—although I didn't have to spend a paisa on it. It just flowed my way. Varma generally 
ordered a cup for himself every two hours to make sure that his restaurant's reputation was 
not being unmade in the kitchen. Invariably, he ordered for me, too, not only as an act of 
hospitality, but as a means of obtaining a 'second opinion', to quote my doctor. I'll deviate a 
little to describe Dr Kishen of the M.M.C. (Malgudi Medical Centre). Those days when I believed 
in being useful at home, I used to take my mother, off and on, to see the doctor. Whatever 
disadvantage we might have had in inheriting that rambling old house, its location was certainly 
an asset. Kabir Street, running parallel to Market Road, had numerous connecting lanes; and 
one could always step across to reach the doctor or the vegetable market. M.M.C. was centrally 
situated, as Dr Kishen never failed to mention while examining your tongue or chest, when you 
couldn't enter into an argument. 'Do you see why there is greater rush here than at other 
places?—it's because if you measure, you will find this is equidistant from anywhere in this city 


After his equidistant observation, he'd invariably conclude an examination with, '. . . such is my 
diagnosis, go for a second opinion if you like . . .' Varma was also likeminded, I suppose. He 
seemed to be very unsure of the quality of his own coffee even after tasting it, and always 
wanted my confirmation. And then in the course of the day others dropped in, the six o'clock 
group, which occupied a corner in the hall and over coffee exchanged all the town gossip, and 
always insisted that I join them, with the result that when I came home at night, I had no 
appetite for the contents of the brass tiffin-box. 

Early morning a young servant came to take away the vessel for washing. She was about ten 
years old, with sparkling eyes set in tan-coloured rotund cheeks, with whitest teeth, and a 
pigtail terminating in a red ribbon. I was fond of her, and wished I were a painter and could 
execute a world's masterpiece on canvas. She knew that she was my favourite and could 
approach my room with impunity. She would lift the vessel and cry out, 'Oh, untouched?' 

'Hush,' I'd say, 'not so loudly . . .' She would smile mischievously and say, 'Oh, oh!' and I knew 
the next minute it would become world news. In a short while my mother would appear at my 
door to demand an explanation, and to say, 'If this sort of thing goes on, I don't know where it 
is going to take us ... I sliced cucumber specially for you, and you don't hesitate to throw it 



away ... At least mention your likes and dislikes. You won't do even that, but just reject.' I 
didn't mind what she said as long as she remained on the threshold and did not step into my 
room. I sat on my mat, leaning back on the wall and listened impassively to whatever she said, 
reflecting how difficult it was to practise one's philosophy of detachment; Siddhartha did wisely 
in slipping away at midnight when others were asleep, to seek illumination. In my own way I, 
too, was seeking illumination, but continued to remain in bondage. The common roof, the 
married state (ultimately, of course), every kind of inheritance and every bit of possession 
acted as a deadly tentacle. Following this realization, the first thing I abandoned was furniture 
and, in a manner of speaking, also the common roof of the main house, since my cubicle was 
detached. It was not at all easy. 

Our father's house had many mansions and apparently was designed for a milling crowd. Our 
front door opened on Kabir Street and our back door on the river Sarayu, which flowed down 
rather tamely at some distance from our house although you could hear it roaring along wildly 
in spate when it rained on Mempi Hills. It was all right as a vision to open the little door at our 
back yard, and sit at the edge of the flowing river to listen to its music; but now the back door 
had practically sealed itself firmly along the grooves with the dust and rust of decades, and the 
river had become inaccessible, owing to thorns and wild vegetation choking the path. I have 
heard my mother describe how in her younger days they had treated the river as a part of the 
home, every house in Kabir Street having access to it through a back door, how they bathed 
and washed and took water in pots, and how the men sat on its sandbank at dusk and dawn for 
their prayers. That was before wells were dug in every house. 'The river used to be much 
nearer to us in those days,' she would assert; 'it's somehow moved away so far out. When wells 
were dug people became lazy and neglected the river; and no wonder she has drawn herself 
away; though in those days you could touch the water if you stretched your arm through the 
back door. But have you noticed how at Ellaman Street, even today, the river nestles closer to 
the houses, since they care for it and cherish it. They have built steps and treat her with 
respect. They never fail to light and float the lamps in Karthik month . . . Whereas in our street 
people are lazy and indifferent. In those days, I begged your father not to dig a well, which 
encouraged others also . . .' She could never forgive the well-diggers. 

'But, Mother, it's the same water of the river that we are getting in the well . . .' 

'What does that mean? How?' And then I had to explain to her the concept of the underground 
water table; carried away by its poetry and philosophy, I would conclude, 'You see, under the 
earth it's all one big sheet of water, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of cubic feet, all 
connected; a big connected water sheet, just as you say Brahman is all-pervading in this form 
and that in the universe—' She would cut me short with, 'I don't know what has come over you, 
I talk of a simple matter like water and you go on talking like a prophet. ..' 

In those days I spent a great deal of my time sitting in the back portion of our home, which had 
an open courtyard with a corridor running along the kitchen, store and dining room, where my 
mother spent most of her time. In those days I had nothing much to do except sit down, leaning 
on the pillar, and attempt to enlighten my mother's mind on modern ways. But she was 
impervious to my theories. We were poles apart. Not only on the river, but on every question, 
she held a view which, as a rational being, I could never accept. 

Sometimes I felt harassed. Mother would not leave me in peace. I had my little cubicle in the 
western wing of the house across the hall. At the other end used to be my father's room. He 
would sit there all day, as I thought, poring over books, of philosophy, one would suspect, 
considering the array of volumes on the shelves around him along the wall, in Sanskrit, Tamil 



and English; the Uponishods, with commentaries and interpretations by Shankara, Ramanuja 
and all the 'world teachers'. There were books on Christianity and Plato and Socrates in gilt- 
edged volumes. I had no means of verifying how much use he made of them. His room was out 
of bounds to me. He always sat crosslegged on the floor, before a sloping teakwood desk, 
turning over the leaves of an enormous tome; in my state of ignorance, I imagined that the 
treasury of philosophy at his elbow was being exploited. But it was only later in life that I learnt 
that the mighty tomes on his desk were ledgers and all his hours were spent in adding, 
subtracting and multiplying figures. He had multifarious accounts to keep—payments to men 
from the village cultivating our paddy fields; loans to others on promissory notes; trust funds of 
some temple or a minor. All kinds of persons sat patiently on the pyol of the house, and 
entered his room when summoned; there would follow much talking, signing of papers and 
counting of cash taken out of the squat wrought-iron safe with imposing handles and a tricky 
locking system. It stood there three-foot high, and seemed to have become a part of my 
father's personality. Out of it flowed cash and into it went documents. It was only after my 
father's death that I managed to open the safe, after a good deal of trial and error. While 
examining the papers I discovered that the library of philosophy had been hypothecated to him 
by some poor academic soul who could never redeem it. But father had never disturbed the 
loaded shelves, except for dusting the books, since he wanted them to be in good condition 
when redeemed by their hapless owner. However, it was a godsend for me. I always sneaked 
into his room to look at their titles when he was away at the well for his bath, which kept him 
off long enough for me to examine the books. For a long time he would not let me handle 
them. 'You wouldn't know what they say,' he said ... At a later stage he relented, and allowed 
me to take one book at a time, with warnings and admonitions. 'Don't fold the covers back, but 
only half-open them, so that their backs are not creased—the books have to be returned in 
good condition, remember.' 

I selected, as he ordered, one book at a time. I loved the weight, feel and scent of every 
volume—some of them in a uniform series called the 'Library of World Thought'. I sat up in my 
room leaning on a roll of bedding and pored over each volume. I cannot pretend that I 
understood everything I read. I had had no academic training or discipline, not having gone 
beyond Matriculation, which I never passed, even after three attempts. After Father's death, I 
gave up, realizing suddenly it was silly to want to pass an examination. Who were they to test 
and declare me fit or unfit—for what? When this thought dawned, I stopped in my tracks in my 
fourth effort. I bundled and threw up into the loft all my class notes and examination books. 

The loft was in the central hall, a wide wooden panel below the ceiling. From a proper distance, 
aimed correctly, you could fling anything into it, to oblivion. One had to go up a ladder to reach 
it, and then move around hunchback fashion to pick up something or for spring-cleaning. But 
for years no one had been up in the loft, even though it continued to get filled from time to 
time. In those days, my mother could always find some sturdylimbed helper ready to go up to 
sweep and dust or pick up a vessel (all the utensils of brass and bronze she had brought in as a 
young bride decades ago were stored in the loft). Besides these, there were ledgers, disused 
lamps, broken furniture pieces, clothes in a trunk, mats, mattresses, blankets and what not. I 
dreaded her cleaning-up moods, as she always expected my participation. For some time I 
cooperated with her, but gradually began to avoid the task. She would often complain within 
my hearing, 'When he was alive, how much service he could command within the twinkling of 
an eye ... I had to breathe ever so lightly what I needed and he would accomplish it.' When she 
stood there thus, with her arms akimbo and lecturing, I generally retreated. I shut the door of 
my room and held my breath until I could hear her footsteps die away. She was too restless to 
stay in one place, but moved about, peeping into various corners of the house. She would 



suddenly suspect that the servant girl might have fallen asleep somewhere in that vast acreage 
and go on a hunt for her. She was in a state of anxiety over one thing or another; if it was not 
the servant, it would be about the well in the back yard; she must run up to it and see if the 
rope over the pulley was properly drawn away and secured to the post, or whether it had 
slipped into the well through the girl's carelessness. 'If the rope falls into the well . . .' and she 
would go into a detailed account of the consequences; how there was no one around, as they 
had had in the old days, who would run up and get a new rope or fetch the diver with his hooks 
and harpoons to retrieve the rope. 

It was a sore trial for me each day. I could not stand her. Her voice got on my nerves while she 
harangued, reprimanded or bawled at the servant girl. I shut and bolted the door of my room. I 
wanted peace of mind to go through the book in hand. Life of Ramakrishna, passages from Max 
Muller, Plato's Republic —it was a privilege to be able to be a participant in their thoughts. I felt 
thrilled to be battling with their statements and wresting a meaning out of them. Whatever 
they might have meant, they all seemed to hold forth the glory of the soul, which made me 
survey myself top to toe and say, 'Sambu, who are you? You are not the creature with a prickly 
stubble on the chin, scar on the kneecap, with toenail splitting and turning blue . . . you are 
actually made of finer stuff.' I imagined myself able to steer my way through the traffic of 
constellations in the firmament, in the interstellar spaces, and along the Milky Way; it enabled 
me to overlook the drab walls around me and the uninspiring spectacles outside the window 
opening on Kabir Street. Into this, shattering my vision, would come hard knocks on my door. 
Mother would be standing there crying, 'Why do you have to close this door? Who is there in 
this house to disturb you or anyone? Not like those days . . . Whom are you trying to shut out?' 

I could only look on passively. I was aware that she was ready for a battle, but I had not based 
my life on a war-footing yet. She looked terrifying with her grey unkempt hair standing like a 
halo around her head, her eyes spitting fire. I felt nervous, the slightest wrong move could 
spark off a conflagration. 

I don't know what came over her six months after her husband's death. At the first shock of 
bereavement she remained subdued. For months and months she spoke little, spent much of 
her time in the puja room, meditating and chanting holy verse in an undertone. She went about 
the business of running the house without any fuss, never noticing anything too closely. She left 
me very much alone, though hinting from time to time that I should study and pass my B.A. In 
those days, some of the flotsam and jetsam who had been thriving indefinitely on my father's 
hospitality were still occupying various portions of my house. As long as they were all there. 
Mother kept herself in the background and behaved like a gentle person. Probably she had a 
code as to how she should behave in the presence of hangers-on. When I got the last of them 
out—that was the mad engineer, who had sought shelter from his brothers scheming to poison 
him and who finally had to be bundled off with the help of neighbours and the driver of the 
ambulance van—she began to breathe freely and probably felt that the stage had been cleared 
for her benefit. Following it, her first hostile act was to shut my father's room and put a lock on 
the door. I was aghast when I realized that access to the books was cut off. As she spent most 
of her time in the middle block of the house, I had to be running after her, begging for the key if 
I wished to see a book. At first, she would not yield. 'Read your school books first and pass your 
examination,' she said. 'Time enough for you to read those big books, after you get your 
degree. Anyway, you won't understand them. Do you know what your father used to say? He 
said that he could not make them out himself I What do you say to that?' 

'I don't doubt it. Did he at any time try? He always sat with his back to them.' She grew angry at 
this remark. 'Don't laugh at your elders, who have nurtured you,' she would say and move off 



dramatically to end the conversation. I had to follow her, begging, 'The key, please. Mother. . 

I was young enough in those days not to feel discouraged. Finally she would say, 'Don't mess up 
the books. You are so persistent—if you could have shown half this persistence in your studies!' 
I hated her at such moments. Why should she attach importance to examinations and degrees? 
Traditional and habitual manner of thought. Her sister's sons at Madras were all graduates, and 
she felt humiliated in family circles when they compared my performance. Before I finally gave 
up studies, whenever the Matriculation results were announced she would scream, 'You have 
failed again! You fool! You are a disgrace . . .' 

I would shout back, 'What can I do? You think marks are to be bought in the market?' 

After some more exchanges of the same kind, she would break down and have a quiet cry in a 
corner, abandoning for the day her normal activities, not even lighting the lamp in the puja 
room in the evening. A deadly gloom would descend on the house, everything still and silent, 
no life stirring even slightly. We would become petrified figures in that vast house. I would feel 
upset and oppressed in this atmosphere and leave without a word, to seek some bright spots 
such as the town library, the marketplace, the college sports ground, and, more than any other 
place, the Boardless Hotel, to pass the time in agreeable company. 


Instead of the dark house to which I usually sneaked back, today when I returned from the 
Boardless I found the light in the hall burning. I was puzzled. I went up a few steps in the 
direction of my room and stopped. I heard voices in the hall and a lot of conversation. My 
mother's voice was the loudest, sounded as spirited as in her younger days. She was saying, 'He 
is not a bad boy, but likes to sound so. If we talk to him seriously, he'll certainly obey me.' The 
other one was gruff-voiced and saying, 'You should not have let him go his way at all; after all, 
young persons do not know what is good for them, it is for the elders to give them the 
necessary guidance.' I was hesitating, wondering how to reach the door to my room, unlock it 
without being noticed. If they heard the click of the key, they were bound to turn their 
attention on me. My door was at the end of the veranda, and I could not possibly go past the 
window without being seen. I felt hunted. I could not go back to the Boardless. I quietly sat 
down on the pyol of the house, leaning against the pillar supporting the tiled roof, stretched my 
legs and resigned myself to staying there all night, since from the tenor of the dialogue going on 
there was no indication it would ever cease. The gruff voice was saying, 'What keeps him out so 
late?' My mother was saying, 'Oh, this and that. He spends a lot of time at the library, reads so 
much!' I appreciated my mother for saying this. I never suspected that she had such a good 
opinion of me. What secret admiration she must be having—never showing any sign of it 
outside. It was a revelation to me. I almost felt like popping up and shouting, 'Oh, Mother, how 
nice of you to think so well of me! Why could you not say so to me?' But I held myself back. 

He asked, 'What does he plan to do?' 

'OhI' she said, 'he has some big plans, which he won't talk about now. He is very deep and 
sensitive. His ambition is to be a man of learning. He spends much time with learned persons . . 


'My daughter, you know, is also very learned. She reads books all the time . . .' 

'Sambu has read through practically all the volumes that his father left for him in that room. 
Sometimes I just have to snatch the books from him and lock them away so that he may bathe 



and eat! I don't think even an M.A. has read so much!' 


'I really do not worry what he will do in life, though holding some position or an office is the 
distinguishing mark of a man.' He recited a Sanskrit line in support of this. 'Let him not strain in 
any manner except to be a good husband. My daughter's share of the property . . .' Here he 
lowered his voice and they continued to talk in whispers. 

At dawn my mother caught me asleep on the pyol when she came out to sweep the front steps 
and wash the threshold as others before her had been doing for one thousand years. She was 
aghast at seeing me stretched out there. At some part of the night I must have fallen asleep. I 
think they were passing on to some sort of reminiscences far into the night, and they were both 
convulsed with laughter at the memory of some ancient absurdity. I had never heard my 
mother laughing so much. She seemed to have preserved a hidden personality especially for 
the edification of her old relatives or associates, while she presented to me a grim, serious, 
director-general aspect. It was foolish and thoughtless of me to have lain there and get caught 
so easily. Luckily her guest had gone to the back yard for a bath and had not seen me. 
Otherwise he'd have suspected that I had come home drunk, and been abandoned by 
undesirable companions at our door. Ah, how I wish he had seen me in this condition, which 
would have been a corrective to all the bragging my mother had been indulging in about me. 
She hurriedly woke me up. 'Sleeping in the street! What'll people think! Why didn't you go into 
your room? Did you return so late? What were you doing all the time?' There was panic in her 
tone, packed with suspicion that I must have been drinking and debauching—the talk of the 
town was the opening of a nightclub called Kismet somewhere in the New Extension, where the 
youth of the city were being lured. Someone must have gossiped about it within her hearing. I 
was only half-awake when she shook me and whispered, 'Get into your room first—' 

'Why?' I asked, sitting up. 

'I do not want you to be seen here ...' 

'I found you talking to someone and so I . . .' I had no rational conclusion to my sentence. 

She gripped my arm and pulled me up, probably convinced that I needed assistance. I made a 
dash for my door, shut myself in and immediately resumed my sleep, a part of my mind 
wondering whether I should not have said, 'I was at Kismet . . .' I got up later than usual. There 
was no trace of the visitor of the night, which made me wonder if I had been having 
nightmares. 'He left early to catch the bus,' explained Mother when I was ready for coffee. I 
accepted her explanation in silence, refraining from asking further questions. I felt a 
premonition that some difficult time was ahead. We met at the middle courtyard as usual, 
where I accepted my coffee after a wash at the well. Normally we would exchange no words at 
this point; she would present a tumbler of coffee when I was seen at the kitchen door. There 
our contact would stop on most days, unless she had some special grievance to express, such as 
a demand for house-tax or failure on the part of the grocer or the milk-supplier. I'd generally 
listen passively, silently finish the coffee and pass on, bolt myself in, dress and make my exit by 
the veranda as unobtrusively as possible. But today, after coffee, she remarked, 'The servant 
girl hasn't come yet. Of late she is getting notions about herself.' I repressed my remarks, as my 
sympathies were all on the side of that cheerful little girl, who had to bear a lot of harsh 
treatment from her mistress. After this information Mother said, 'Don't disappear, stay in . . .' 
and she allowed herself a mild smile; she seemed unusually affable; this combined with all the 
good things she had been saying last night bewildered me. Some transformation seemed to be 
taking place in her; it didn't suit her at all to wear a smile; it looked artificial and waxwork-like 



and toothy. I wished I could fathom her mind; the grimness and frown and growl were more 
appropriate for her face. I said, 'I have some work to do and must go early.' 

'What work?' she asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. I felt scared. There were a 
dozen excuses I could give; should I tell her about Varma's treasure-hunt (on Mondays he 
brought a sheaf of planchette messages purporting to give directions for a buried treasure in 
the mountains and sought my interpretation of them), or the little note I had promised a 
college student on Jaina philosophy, or apt quotations for a municipal councillor's speech for 
some occasion. I was afraid my mother would pooh-pooh them, and so I just said, 'I have many 
things to do—you wouldn't understand.' Normally she would burst out, 'Understand! How do 
you know? Have you tried? Your father never kept anything from me.' But today she just said, 
'Very well, I don't want to bother you to tell me,' with a mock-sadness in her voice. It was clear 
that she was continuing the goodwill she had exhibited last night before the stranger. I felt 
uneasy. She was playacting, for what purpose I could not guess. 

Presently she followed me into my room and said, 'You may go after listening to me. Your 
business can wait for a while.' She sat down on my mat and invited me to sit beside her to 
listen attentively. I felt nervous. This was not her sitting hour; she'd be all over the place, 
sweeping, washing, cleaning and driving the girl about. But today what could be the important 
item of business, suspending all else? 

It was not long in coming. 'Do you know who has come?' I knew I was being pushed to the wall. 
Sitting so close to her made me uneasy. I felt embarrassed, especially when I noticed a strand of 
white beard on her chin. Was she aware of its existence? Ridiculous if she was going about, 
behaving as if it weren't there. 'Grey-beard loon . . .' A phrase emerged now out of the miasma 
of assorted reading of hypothecated property. I recollected her boasts before the visitor about 
my studious habits. After waiting for me to say something (luckily I was brooding over 
Shakespeare's line—or was it Coleridge's?—otherwise I would have promptly said, 'Some dark, 
hook-nosed fellow with a tuft—I couldn't care less who,' every word of which would have 
irritated her), she explained, 'The richest man in our village: a hundred acres of paddy, coconut 
garden—from the coconut garden alone his income would be a lakh of rupees, and from cattle . 
. . They are distantly related to us . . .' She went into genealogical details explaining the family 
alliances of several generations and dropping scores of names. She was thorough. I was amazed 
at the amount of information stored in her mind; she knew also where every character lived, 
scattered though they were between the Himalayas in the North and the tip of Cape Comorin in 
the South. I was fascinated by the way she was piling up facts in order to establish the identity 
of the man with the tuft. I felt like the Wedding-Guest in 'The Ancient Mariner'. I could not 
break away. Here was another line floating up from the literary scrap acquired from my 
hypothecated property: 'Hold off!' the Wedding-Guest wailed, 'unhand me,' but the Ancient 
Mariner gripped his wrist and said with a far-away look, 'With my crossbow I shot the 
Albatross.' While my head buzzed with these irrelevant odds and ends, my mother was 
concluding a sentence: 'The girl has studied up to B.A. and is to be married in June—he is keen 
that it should be gone through without any delay. She is his last issue and he is anxious to settle 
her future . . . and the settlement he has proposed is very liberal . . .' I remained silent. I could 
now understand the drift of her conversation. She mentioned, 'The horoscopes match very 
well. He came here only after the astrologers had approved.' 

'Where did he get my horoscope?' I asked. 

'They took it from your father many, many years ago; they were such good friends and 
neighbours in our village.' She added again, 'They were such good friends that they vowed on 



the day the girl was born to continue the friendship with this alliance. On the very day she was 
born, you were betrothed,' she said calmly, as if it were the normal thing. 

'What are you saying? Do you mean to say you betrothed to me a child only a few hours old?' 

'Yes,' she said calmly. 

'Why? why?' I asked, unable to comprehend her logic. 'Don't you see how absurd it is?' 

'No,' she said. 'They are a good family, known and attached to us for generations.' 

'It's idiotic,' I cried. 'How can you involve me in this manner? What was my age then?' 

'What does it matter?' she said. 'When I was married I was nine and your father thirteen, and 
didn't we lead a happy life?' 

'That's irrelevant, what you have done with your lives. How old was I?' 

'Old enough, about five or six, what does it matter?' 

'Betrothed? How? By what process?' 

'Don't question like that. You are not a lawyer in a court, she said, dropping her mask of 
friendliness. 

'I may not be a lawyer, but remember that I am not a convict either,' I said, secretly wondering 
if it was a relevant thing to say. 

'You think I am a prisoner?' she asked, matching my irrelevancy. 

I remained silent for a while and pleaded, 'Mother, listen to me. How can any marriage take 
place in this fashion? How can two living entities possessing intelligence and judgement ever be 
tied together for a lifetime?' 

'How else?' she said, and picking up my last word, 'What lifetime? Of course, every marriage is 
for a lifetime. No one marries anew every month.' 

I felt desperate and cried, 'Idiotic! Don't be absurd, try to understand what I am saying . . .' 

She began to wail loudly at this. 'Second time you are hurling an insulting word. Was it for this I 
have survived your father? How I wish I had mounted the funeral pyre as our ancients decreed 
for a widow; they knew what a widow would have to face in life, to stand abusive language 
from her own offspring.' She beat her forehead with such violence that I feared she might crack 
her skull. Face flushed and tears streaming down her cheeks, she glared at me; I quailed at her 
look and wished that I could get up and escape. At close quarters, unaccustomed as I was, it 
was most disturbing. While she went on in the same strain, my mind was planning how best to 
get away, but she had practically cornered me and was hissing and swaying as she spoke. I 
began to wonder if I had thoughtlessly used some bad word and was going over our 
conversation in a reverse order. My last word was 'idiotic', nothing foul and provocative in such 
a word. Most common usage. 'Idiot' would have been more offensive than 'idiotic'. 'Idiotic' 
could be exchanged between the best of friends under any circumstance of life and no one 
need flare up. Before this word she had said, 'No one marries anew every month.' I never said 
that they did. What a civilization, 'A Wounded Civilization', a writer had called it. I could not 
help laughing slightly at the thought of the absurdity of it all. It provoked her again. Wiping her 



eyes and face with the tip of her sari, she said, 'You are laughing at me! Yes, I've made a 
laughingstock of myself bringing you up, tending you, nursing you and feeding you, and keeping 
the house for you. You feel so superior and learned because of the books your father has 
collected laboriously in the other room . . .' 

'But they weren't his . . . only someone's property mortgaged for a loan . . .' I said, unable to 
suppress my remark. 

And she said, 'With all that reading you couldn't even get a B.A.! While every slip of a girl is a 
graduate today.' Her voice sounded thick and hoarse due to the shouting she had indulged in. 

I abruptly left, snatching my kurto and the upper cloth which were within reach, though I 
generally avoided this dress as it made one look like a political leader. I preferred always the 
blue bush-shirt and dhoti or pants, but they were hanging by a hook on the wall where Mother 
was leaning. As I dashed out I heard her conclude: '. . . any date we mention, that man will 
come and take us to see the girl and approve . . .' So, she was imagining herself packing up, 
climbing a bus for the village with me in tow, to be received at that end as honoured visitors 
and the girl to be paraded before us bedecked in gold and silk, waiting for a nod of approval 
from me. 'Idiotic,' I muttered again, walking down our street. 

Going down Market Road, I noticed Dr Kishen arrive on a scooter at M.M.C., already opened by 
his general assistant named Ramu, who fancied himself half a doctor and examined tongue and 
pulse and dispensed medicine when the doctor's back was turned. The doctor did not mind it, 
as Ramu was honest and rendered proper account of his own transactions. The doctor on 
noticing me said, 'Come in, come in.' A few early patients were waiting with their bottles. He 
was one who did not believe in tablets, but always wrote out a prescription for every patient, 
and Ramu concocted the mixture and filled the bottles. The doctor always said, 'Every 
prescription must be a special composition to suit the individual. How can mass-produced 
tablets help?' He wrote several lines on a sheet of paper and then turned the sheet of paper 
and wrote along the margin, too; he challenged anyone to prove that his prescriptions were not 
the longest: 'I'll give free medicine to anyone who can produce a longer prescription anywhere 
in this country!' And his patients, mostly from the surrounding villages, sniggered and 
murmured approval. When he hailed me I just slowed down my pace but did not stop. 'Good 
morning. Doctor. I'm all right . . .' He cut me short with, 'I know, I know, you are a healthy 
animal of no worth to the medical profession, still I want to speak to you . . . Come in, take that 
chair, that's for friends who are in good health; sick people sit there.' He flourished his arm in 
the direction of a teakwood bench along a wall and a couple of iron folding chairs. He went 
behind a curtain for a moment and came out donning his white apron and turned the hands of 
a sign on the wall which said DOCTOR IS IN, PLEASE BE SEATED. He briefly glanced through a 
pile of blotters and folders advertising new infallible drugs and swept them away to a corner of 
his desk. 'Of value only to the manufacturers, all those big companies and multinationals, not to 
the ailing population of our country. I never give these smart canvassing agents in shirt-sleeves 
and tie more than five minutes to have their say, and one minute to pick up their samples and 
literature and leave. While there are other M.D.s in town who eat out of their hands and have 
built up a vast practice with physician samples alone!' Ramu went round collecting the bottles 
from those occupying the bench. 'Why don't you give me a cheque?' asked the doctor. 

I thought he was joking and said, 'Yes, of course, why not?' to match what I supposed was his 
mood, and added, 'How much? Ten thousand?' 


'Not so much,' he said, 'Less than that . . .' He took out a small notebook from the drawer and 



kept turning its leaves. At this moment an old man made his entry, coughing stentoriously. The 
doctor looked up briefly and flourished his hand towards the bench. The old man didn't obey 
the direction but stood in the middle of the hall and began, 'All night . . .' The doctor said, 'All 
right, all right ... sit down and wait. I'll come and help you to sleep well tonight.' The man 
subsided on the bench, a sentence he had begun trailing away into a coughing fit. 

The doctor said, 'Two hundred and forty-five rupees up to last week . . . none this week.' I now 
realized that this was more than a joke. I was aghast at this demand. He thrust his notebook 
before me and said, 'Twenty visits at ten rupees a visit. I have charged nothing for secondary 
visits, and the balance for medicine . . .' The cough-stricken patient began to gurgle, cleared his 
throat and tried to have his say. The doctor silenced him with a gesture. A woman held up a 
bawling kid and said, 'Sir, he brings up every drop of milk . ..' The doctor glared at her and said, 
'Don't you see I'm busy? Am I the four-headed Brahma? One by one. You must wait.' 

'He brings up . . .' 

'Wait, don't tell me anything now.' After this interlude he said to me, 'I don't generally charge 
for secondary visits—I mean a second call, which I can respond to on my way home. I charge 
only for visits which are urgent. In your case I've not noted the number of secondary visits.' 

I was mystified and said, 'You have yourself called me a healthy brute, so what's it all about?' 

'Don't you know? Has your mother never spoken to you?' 

'No, never, I never thought. . . Yes, she spoke about my marrying some girl, worried me no end 
about it,' I said, and added, 'Doctor, if you can think of some elixir which'll reduce her fervour 
about my marriage .. .' 

'Yes, yes, I'm coming to it. It's a thing that is weighing on her mind very much. She feels strongly 
that there must be a successor to her when she leaves.' The doctor seemed to be talking in 
conundrums. The day seemed to have started strangely. 'Has she not discussed her condition 
with you?' Before I could answer him or grasp what he was saying, the man with the cough 
made his presence felt with a deafening series, attracting the doctor's attention, and as the 
doctor rose, the woman lifted the child and began, 'He doesn't retain even a drop . . .' The 
doctor said to me, 'Don't go away. I'll dispose of these two first.' He took the squealing baby 
and the cougher, one by one, behind the curtain, and came back to his table and wrote a 
voluminous prescription for each, and passed them on to Ramu through a little window. 
Presently he resumed his speech to me, but was interrupted by his patients, who wanted to 
know whether the mixture was to be drunk before or after a meal and what diet was to be 
taken. He gave some routine answer and muttered to me, 'It's the same question again and 
again, again and again—whether they could have buttermilk or rosom and rice or bread and 
coffee, and whether before or after—what does it matter? But they want an answer and I have 
to give it, because the medical profession has built up such rituals! Ha! ha!' 

At this moment two others approached his desk, having waited on the bench passively all 
along. He gestured them to return to their seats, and rose saying, 'Follow me, we will have no 
peace here . . .' I followed him into his examination room, a small cabin with a high table, 
screened off and with a lot of calendar pictures plastered on the wall. He asked me to hoist 
myself on the examining table as if I were a patient, and said, 'This is the only place where I can 
talk without being interrupted.' I had been in suspense since his half-finished statements about 
my mother. He said, 'Your mother is in a leave-taking mood . . .' I was stunned to hear this. I 
could never imagine my mother in such a mood. No one seemed to have her feet more firmly 



planted on the earth, with her ceaseless activities around the house, and her strident voice 
ringing through the halls. The doctor had said 'leave-taking'. How could she ever leave her 
universe? It was inconceivable. My throat went dry and my heart raced when I tried to elicit 
further clarification from him. I said weakly, 'What sort of leave-taking? Thinking of retiring to 
Benares?' 

'No, farther than that,' said the doctor, indicating heaven, after lighting a cigarette. The little 
cabin became misty and choking. I gently coughed out the smoke that had entered my lungs 
without my striking a match. The smoke stung my eyes and brought tears, observing which the 
doctor said sympathetically, 'Don't cry. Learn to take these situations calmly; you must think of 
the next step to take, practically and calmly.' He preached to me the philosophy of detachment, 
puffing away at his cigarette, and not minding in the least the coughing, groaning and squealing 
emanating from the bench in the hall. I felt bad to be holding up the doctor in this manner. But 
I had to know what he was trying to say about my mother through his jerky half-statements. He 
asked suddenly, 'Why hasn't she been talking to you?' I had to explain to him that I came home 
late and left early, and we met briefly each day. He made a deprecatory sound with his tongue 
and remarked, 'You are an undutiful fellow. Where do you hide yourself all day?' 

'Oh, this and that,' I said, feeling irritated. 'I have to see people and do things. One has to live 
one's own life, you know!' 

'What people and what life?' pursued the doctor relentlessly. I couldn't explain to him really 
how I spent the day. He'd have brushed aside anything I said. So I thought it best to avoid his 
question and turn his thoughts to my mother. Here he had created a hopeless suspense and 
tension in me, and was wandering in his talk, puffing out smoke and tipping the ash on the 
cement floor. What an untidy doctor—the litter and dust and ash alone was enough to breed 
disease and sickness—he was the most reckless doctor I'd ever come across. As more patients 
came into the other room, Ramu parted the curtain and peeped in to say, 'They are waiting.' 
This placed some urgency into the whole situation and the doctor hastily threw down the 
cigarette, crushed it under his shoe and said, 'For four months I have been visiting your home 
off and on, some days several times—that little girl would come running and panting to say, 
"Come, Doctor, at once, Amma is very ill, at once." When such a call is received I never ignore 
it. I drop whatever I may have on hand and run to the patient. Giving relief to the suffering is 
my first job . . . Sometimes the girl would come a second time, too.' 

'What was it?' I asked, becoming impatient. 

'Well, that's what one has to find out; I'm continuously watching and observing. It's not in my 
nature to treat any complaint casually and take anything for granted . . .' He was misleading 
himself, according to what I could observe of his handling of his patients. After a lot of 
rambling, he came to the point: 'She is subject to some kind of fainting, which comes on 
suddenly. However, she is responding to treatment; I think it must be some kind of cardiac 
catch, if I may call it so, due to normal degenerative process. We can keep her going with 
medicines, but how long one cannot say . . .' 

'Does she know?' I asked tremblingly. 

'Yes, I had to call to her about it in a way, and she has understood perfectly. She has a lot of 
philosophy, you know. Perhaps you don't spend any time with her . . .' I remained dumb. The 
doctor's observations troubled my conscience. I had not paid any attention to my mother, to 
her needs or her wants or her condition, and had taken her to be made of some indestructible 



stuff. 'The only thing that bothers her now is that you will be left alone; she told me that if only 
you could be induced to marry ...' 

So that was it! I understood it now. She must have been busy all afternoon sending the little girl 
to the post-office to buy postcards, and then writing to her relations in the village to find a 
bride for me, and she had finally succeeded in reviving old relationships and promises and 
getting the tufted man down with his proposals. What a strain it must have been to organize so 
much in her state of cardiac degeneration, performing her daily duties without the slightest 
slackening. In fact, she seemed to have been putting on an exaggerated show of vitality when I 
was at home, probably suffering acutely her spells of whatever it was while I sat listening or 
lecturing at the Boardless till midnight! I felt guilty and loathed myself and my self-centred 
existence. Before I left, the doctor uttered this formula: 'Well, such is my finding. Take a second 
opinion if you like. I'd not at all mind it. Can you let me have your cheque tomorrow?' 

When I emerged from the anteroom, the waiting patients looked relieved. Outside in the street 
I hesitated for a moment and turned my feet homeward instead of, as was my invariable 
custom, to the Boardless. 

When I opened the door of my room and appeared before my mother, she was taken aback, 
having never seen me home at this hour. I was happy to find her as active as ever, impossible to 
connect it with the picture conjured by the doctor's report, although I seemed to note some 
weak points in her carriage and under her eyes. I kept staring at her. She was puzzled. I wanted 
to burst out, 'How do you feel this morning? All right? Possibility of falling into a faint?' I 
swallowed my words. Why should I mention a point which she had kept from me? That might 
upset her, better not show cognizance of it. She wanted to ask, perhaps, 'Why are you at home 
now?' But she didn't. I felt grateful to her for her consideration. We looked at each other for 
some time, each suppressing the question uppermost in our minds. Only the little servant girl 
opened her eyes wide and cried, 'You never come at this time! Are you going to eat? Amma has 
not prepared any food as yet. . .' 'Hey, you keep quiet,' Mother ordered her; she turned to me. 
'I'm about to light the oven. This girl arrived so late today! Is there anything you'd like?' What a 
change was coming over us all of a sudden. I could hardly believe my ears or 
eyes—remembering the tenor of our morning conversation. I went back to my room, 
wondering what I should do if she had her attack while I was here. She seemed to be all right; 
still, I'd a feeling of anxiety about leaving her there and going away to my room. Somehow I had 
an irrational anxiety that if I lost her from view for a moment anything might happen. I settled 
down in my room, leaving the door ajar, and tried to read; while my eyes scanned the lines, my 
thoughts were elsewhere. Suppose she had a seizure and suddenly passed away, without ever 
knowing that I was desperate to please her by agreeing to this frightful marriage. I hated it, but 
I had to do a thing I hated to please a dying mother. It was pathetic, her attempt single-handed 
to find me a bride in her condition. One had to do unpleasant things for another person's sake. 
Did not Rama agree to exile himself for fourteen years to please Dasaratha? My own hardship 
would be nothing compared to what Rama underwent, living like a nomad in the forests for 
fourteen years. In my case, at worst I'd have to suffer being wedded to a girl I didn't care for, 
which was nothing if one got used to it, and it'd help an old woman die in peace. 

She had cooked some special items for me as if I were a rare guest. The lunch was splendid. She 
had put out a banana leaf for me in the corridor and arranged a sitting plank for me beside the 
rosewood pillar in the half-covered open court. She explained, 'It's too stuffy with smoke in the 
kitchen. Your father did everything perfectly, but neglected the kitchen—never provided a 
chimney or window ... if the firewood is not dry the smoke irritates my eyes till I think I'll go 
blind. One'd almost lose one's sight in the stinging smoke, but I've got used to it; even if I lose 



my sight it will not matter. But whoever comes after me . . This was the nearest hint of both 
her health and the successor to the kitchen. I absorbed the hint but had no idea what I should 
say; I felt confused and embarrassed. 'We shall have to do something about it/ I said, gratefully 
eating the rare curry with five vegetables she had prepared for me. I was amazed at her 
efficiency. I was an unexpected guest, but within a couple of hours she had managed to get the 
food ready. She must have been driving the little girl with a whip to run up and buy all the 
needed stuff for this lunch, all done quietly without giving a clue to the guest of honour 
lounging in his room with a book in hand. She must have been several times on the point of 
asking why I was back home at this hour, and I was on the point of asking for details of her 
symptoms; but both of us talked of other things. After lunch I retired to my room. I couldn't 
shut the door and rest. I frequently emerged from my shelter and paced the length of the 
house, up and down from the front door to the back yard, areas which I had not visited for 
months and months. I noticed without obviously watching how my mother was faring. She had 
eaten her lunch, and was chewing her betel nut and clove as had been her practice for years 
and years. That the shop was closed for the day was indicated by the faint aroma of cloves that 
hung about her presence, as I had noticed even as a child, when I trailed behind her at all hours, 
while my father sat counting cash in his room. She used to look like a goddess in her bright silk 
sari and straight figure, with diamonds sparkling in her ears. 

She had unrolled a mat and was lying with her head resting on a plank in the corridor, which 
was her favourite spot. When she saw me pass, she sat up and asked, 'Want anything?' 

'No, no, don't disturb yourself. Just a glass of water, that's all.' I went into the kitchen and 
poured a tumbler of water out of the mud jug, took a draught of unwanted cold water and 
went back to my room. This was an unaccustomed hour at home and I could not overcome the 
feeling of strangeness. She seemed all right and I felt relieved. She produced a tumbler of 
coffee when I reappeared in her zone, after an afternoon nap. I began to feel bored and wanted 
to go out to my accustomed haunts, the public library, the town-hall, the riverside at Nallappa's 
grove and finally the Boardless. Normally I'd start the day at the Boardless, finish my rounds 
and end up there again. 

When I was satisfied she was normal, I had a wash at the well, dressed, and started out. I went 
to the back portion, where she was scrubbing the floor, to tell her I was going out, casually 
asking, 'Where is that girl? Why are you doing it yourself?' 

'That girl wanted the day off. The floor is so slippery. Nothing like doing things yourself if your 
limbs are strong enough .. .' she said. 

I said very calmly and casually, 'If you like, you may tell that man to come for a talk and arrange 
our visit to the village. You may write to him to come anytime,' and without further talk, I 
briskly left. 

All evening my mind was preoccupied. I was not the sort to explain my personal problems to 
anyone, and so when I sat beside Varma at the Boardless and he asked me, 'Anything wrong? 
You have come so late,' I gave some excuse and passed on to other subjects. The six o'clock 
group arrived—the journalist whom we called the universal correspondent, since he couldn't 
name any paper as his, an accountant in some bank, a schoolmaster and a couple of others 
whose profession and background were vague—and assembled in its corner. The talk was all 
about Delhi politics as usual—for and against Indira Gandhi—with considerable heat but in 
hushed tones, because Varma threw a hint that walls have ears. I'd normally participate in this 
to the extent of contradicting everyone and quoting Plato or Toynbee. But today I just listened 



passively, and the journalist said, 'Where is your sparkle gone?' I said I had a sore throat and a 
cold coming. 

After an hour I slipped out. I crossed Ellaman Street and plodded through the sands of Sarayu 
and walked down the bank listening to the rustling of leaves overhead and the sound of 
running water. I was deeply moved by the hour and its quality in spite of my worries. People sat 
here and there alone or in groups, children were gambolling on the sands. I said to myself, 'Oh, 
the lovely things continue, in spite of the burdens on one's soul. How I wish I could throw off 
the load and enjoy this hour absolutely. Most people here are happy, chatting and laughing 
because they are not bothered about a marriage or a mother. . . God! I wish I could see a way 
out.' I sat on the river parapet and brooded hard and long. Marriage seemed to me most 
unnecessary, just to please a mother. Supposing the M.M.C. doctor had not spotted me in the 
morning, I'd have gone my way, leaving marriage and mother to take their own course, that 
tufted man to go to the devil. I could welcome neither marriage nor my mother's death. They 
spoke of the horns of dilemma; I understood now what it meant. I felt hemmed in, with all exits 
blocked—like a rat cornered who must either walk into the trap or get bashed. I was getting 
more and more confused. No one told me that I should marry or otherwise I'd lose my mother. 
Mother's health was not dependent on me: the degenerative process must have started very 
early. I had decided to marry only because it'd make her die peacefully, a purely voluntary 
decision—no dilemma in any sense of the term. After this elaborate analysis I felt a little lighter 
in mind. I abandoned myself to the sound of the river and leaves, of the birds chirping and 
crowing in the dark while settling on their perches for the night. 

Two men sitting nearby got up, patting away the sand from their seats. They were engaged in a 
deep discussion, and as they passed me one was saying, 'I'd not rely on any single opinion so 
fully and get nose-led; one must always get a second opinion before deciding the issue.' They 
were old men, probably pensioners reminiscing on family affairs or official matters. The 
expression 'second opinion' was a godsend and suddenly opened a door for me. My doctor 
himself constantly recommended a 'second opinion'. I'd not rely only on the M.M.C. I'd get my 
mother examined by Dr Natwar, who was a cardiologist and neurosurgeon, as he called himself, 
who had his establishment at New Extension. Everyone turned to that doctor at desperate 
moments. He had acquired many degrees from different continents, and sick persons 
converged there from all over the country. I was going to ask him point-blank if my mother was 
to live for some more years or not, and on his judgement was going to depend my marriage. I 
only prayed, as I trudged back home oblivious of the surroundings, that my mother had taken 
no action on my impulsive acceptance of the morning. I was confident that she couldn't have 
reached postal facilities so quickly. 

I got up early next morning and met the M.M.C. doctor at his home. He hadn't yet shaved or 
bathed; with his hair ruffled and standing up he looked more like a loader of rice bags in the 
market than a physician. 'To think one hangs on this loader's verdict on matters of life and 
death!' I reflected, while he led me in and offered me a cup of coffee. His tone was full of 
sympathy as he presumed that something had gone wrong with my mother; he was saying, 'Oh, 
don't be anxious. I'll come, she'll be all right, must be another passing fit . . .' I had to wake up 
from my reverie as he concluded, 'I won't take more than forty minutes to get ready, and the 
first call will be at your house, although a case of bronchitis at the Temple Street is in a critical 
stage.' Never having practised the art of listening to others, he went on elaborating details of 
the bronchitis case. When he paused for breath, I butted in hastily to ask, 'May I seek a second 
opinion in my mother's case?' 


'Why not? Just the right thing to do. I'm after all as human as yourself—not a Brahma. No one 



could be a Brahma . . . Just wait . . He gave me the morning paper and disappeared for forty 
minutes and reappeared completely transformed into the usual picture of the presiding deity of 
the M.M.C. He handed me a letter for Dr Natwar, saying, 'He is a good chap, though you may 
find him rather brusque. Take this letter and get an appointment for your mother and then see 
me.' 

I had to spend the whole morning at Dr Natwar's consulting room in New Extension. A servant 
took my letter in, and after I had glanced through all the old illustrated magazines heaped on a 
central table again and again, I sat back resigned to my fate. A half-door kept opening and 
shutting as sick persons with their escorts passed in and out. After nearly two hours the servant 
brought back my letter, marked, 'Tuesday, 11 A.M.' Tuesday was still five days away. Suppose 
the tufted man came before that? I asked the servant, 'Can't I see the doctor and ask for an 
earlier date?' He shook his head and left. This unseen healer was like God, not to be seen or 
heard except when he willed it. The demigods were equally difficult to reach. 

In her present mood it was not difficult to persuade my mother to submit herself to a second 
opinion, although I still had to pretend that I knew nothing of the test performed by Dr Kishen. I 
had to explain that one had to make sure, at her age, of being in sound condition and what a 
privilege it would be to be looked over by Dr Natwar. I didn't tell her that it cost me a hundred 
rupees for this consultation. Gaffur's taxi was available for fifteen rupees (the old Gaffur as well 
as the Chevrolet were no more, but his son now sat on the dry fountain, looking like him as I 
remembered him years ago, with an Ambassador car parked in the road) to take her over to Dr 
Natwar's clinic. 

Dr Natwar's electronic and other medical equipment was fitted up in different rooms. I caught a 
glimpse of my mother as she was being wheeled about from section to section. She looked 
pleased to be the centre of so much attention and to be put through so many gadgets. She 
looked gratefully at me every time she passed the hall, as if to say that she had never suspected 
that I was such a devoted son. The demigod who had taken my letter on the first day appeared 
and beckoned me to follow him. All the rest had vanished—the trolley, the attendants, as well 
as my mother—had vanished completely, as if they had been images on the screen of a magic- 
lantern show. I followed him, marvelling at the smooth manoeuvring of the puppets in this 
institution. On the doctor's word depended my future freedom. I was ushered into the 
presence of Dr Natwar, who seemed quite young for his reputation, a man of slight build and a 
serious face and small, tight lips which were hardly ever opened except to utter precise 
directions. His communication with his staff was managed with a minimum of speech—with a 
jerk of his head or the wave of a finger. 

'Mr Sambu, nothing wrong with your mother.' He pushed towards me a sheaf of documents 
and photographs and paper scrolls in a folder. 'Keep these for reference: absolutely nothing to 
warrant this check-up. Blood contents, urine and blood pressure, heart and lungs are normal. 
Fainting symptoms might have been due to fatigue and starvation over long periods. No 
medication indicated. She must eat at more frequent intervals, that's all.' Getting up, I 
muttered thanks, but hesitated. He was ready to press the bell for the next case. I shuffled my 
feet as if to move, but turned round to ask, 'How long will she live?' A wry smile came over his 
face as he rang the bell and said, 'Who can answer that question? . . .' As the next visitor was 
ushered in, he said simply, 'I'd not be surprised if she outlived you and me.' 

If she was going to outlive me and the doctor, I reflected on the way home, why could I not tell 
her straightaway that the time had come for us to dismiss her tufted cousin and his daughter 
from our thoughts. But I found her in such a happy mood as we travelled homeward, I didn't 



have the heart to spoil it. She had already begun to talk of the wedding preparations. 'The only 
thing that bothered me all along was that I might not have the strength to go through it all. 
Now I can; oh, so many things to do!' I looked away, pretending to watch the passing scenes, 
cattle grazing in the fields, bullock-cart caravans passing and so forth. What a monomania, this 
desire to see me wedded! She was saying, 'I must write to my brother and his wife to come 
ahead and help us: invitation letters to be printed and distributed, clothes and silver vessels . . . 
oh, so much to do ... I don't know, but my brother is a practical man . . .' She went on 
chattering all the way. I was indifferent. Time enough to throw the bomb-shell. The drive and 
the air blowing on her face seemed to have stimulated her. With her health assured, she was 
planning to plunge into matrimonial activities with zest. I couldn't understand what pleasure 
she derived from destroying my independence and emasculating me into a householder 
running up to buy vegetables at the bidding of the wife or changing baby's napkin. I shuddered 
at the prospect. 

The moment we got out of the taxi, the little girl came running, holding aloft a postcard. 'The 
postman brought this letter.' 

'Oh, the letter has come,' mother cried, thrilled, and read it standing on the house-steps and 
declared, 'He is coming by the bus at one o'clock—never thought he'd come so soon ...' 

'Who, the tuft?' I asked. 

She looked surprised at my levity. 'No, you must not be disrespectful. What if someone has a 
tuft? In those days everyone was tufted,' she said, suppressing her annoyance. She went up the 
steps into the house, while I paid off the taxi. When she heard the car move off, she came to 
the street and cried, 'Why have you sent the car away? I thought you should meet him at the 
bus-stand and bring him home, that would have been graceful. Anyhow, hurry up to the bus- 
stop; you must not keep him waiting, better if you are there earlier and wait for the bus—they 
are such big people, you have no notion how wealthy and influential they are, nothing that they 
cannot command; if you went there, they could command big cars for your use, you have no 
idea. They grow everything in their fields, from rice to mustard, all grains and vegetables, don't 
have to buy anything from a shop except kerosene. Before you go, cut some banana leaves, 
large ones from the back-yard garden.' I cut the banana leaves as she ordered, went up to the 
corner shop and bought the groceries she wanted for the feast. I put down the packages while 
she busied herself in the kitchen and was harrying the servant girl. She was in high spirits, very 
happy and active. I hated myself for dampening her spirits with what I was about to say. I stood 
at the kitchen door watching her, wondering how to soften the blow I was about to deliver. She 
turned from the oven to say, 'Now go, go, don't delay. If the bus happens to come before time, 
it'll be awkward to keep him waiting.' 

'Can't he find his way, as he did that night? No one went out to receive him then.' 

'Now this is a different occasion; he is in a different class now . . .' 

'No, I don't agree with you. He is no more than a country cousin of yours, and nothing more as 
far as I am concerned.' 

She dropped the vessel she had been holding in her hand, and came up, noticing the change in 
my tone. 'What has come over you?' 


'That tufted man is welcome to find his way here, eat the feast you provide and depart. He will 
not see me at the bus-stand or here.' 



'He is coming to invite you to meet his daughter. . .' 


'That doesn't concern me. I'm going out on my own business. Feed him well and send him back 
to the village well-fed, whenever you like; I'm off . . .' 

I went into my room to change and leave by the other door for the Boardless, haunted by the 
memory of pain on her face. I felt sorry for her and hated myself for what I was. As I crossed the 
pyol of the house and was about to reach the street, she opened the front door and dashed out 
to block my way, imploring tearfully, 'You need not marry the girl or look at her, only I beg you 
to go up and receive that man. After all, he is coming on my invitation, we owe him that as a 
family friend, otherwise it'll be an insult and they'll talk of it in our village for a hundred years. 
I'd sooner be dead than have them say that a wretched widow could not even receive a guest 
after inviting him. Don't ruin our family reputation.' 

'Well, he came by himself the other evening.' 

'Today we've asked him.' It was a strain for her to say all this in a soft voice, out of earshot of 
our neighbours. She looked desperate and kept wiping the tears with her sari and I suddenly 
felt the pathos of the whole situation and hated myself for it. After all, I had been responsible 
for the invitation. I wondered what I should do now. She begged, 'Meet him, bring him home, 
eat with him, talk to him and then leave if you like. I'll see that he doesn't mention his 
daughter, you don't have to bother about the marriage. Do what you like, become a sanyasi or 
a sinner, I won't interfere. This is the last time. I'll not try to advise you as long as I breathe; this 
is a vow, though let me confess my dream of seeing grandchildren in this house is—' She broke 
down before completing the sentence. I felt moved by her desperation and secret dreams, 
pushed her gently back into the house and said, 'Get in, get in before anyone sees us. I'll go to 
the bus-stand and bring him here. I couldn't see him clearly the other day, but I'm sure to 
recognize him by the tuft.' 



CAT WITHIN 


A passage led to the back yard, where a well and a lavatory under a large tamarind tree served 
the needs of the motley tenants of the ancient house in Vinayak Mudali Street; the owner of 
the property, by partitioning and fragmenting all the available space, had managed to create an 
illusion of shelter and privacy for his hapless tenants and squeezed the maximum rent out of 
everyone, himself occupying a narrow ledge abutting the street, where he had a shop selling, 
among other things, sweets, pencils and ribbons to children swarming from the municipal 
school across the street. When he locked up for the night, he slept across the doorway so that 
no intruder should pass without first stumbling on him; he also piled up cunningly four empty 
kerosene tins inside the dark shop so that at the slightest contact they should topple down with 
a clatter: for him a satisfactory burglar alarm. 


Once at midnight a cat stalking a mouse amidst the grain bags in the shop noticed a brass jug in 
its way and thrust its head in out of curiosity. The mouth of the jug was not narrow enough to 
choke the cat or wide enough to allow it to withdraw its head. Suddenly feeling the weight of a 
crown and a blinker over its eyes at the same time, the cat was at first puzzled and then 
became desperate. It began to jump and run around, hitting its head with a clang on every wall. 
The shopkeeper, who had been asleep at his usual place, was awakened by the noise in the 
shop. He peered through a chink into the dark interior, quickly withdrew his head and cried into 
the night, 'Thief! Thief! Help!' He also seized a bamboo staff and started tapping it challengingly 
on the ground. Every time the staff came down, the jar-crowned cat jumped high and about 
and banged its hooded head against every possible object, losing its sanity completely. The 
shopman's cry woke up his tenants and brought them crowding around him. They peered 
through the chink in the door and shuddered whenever they heard the metallic noise inside. 
They looked in again and again, trying vainly to make out in the darkness the shape of the 
phantom, and came to the conclusion, 'Oh, some devilish creature, impossible to describe it.' 
Someone ventured to suggest, 'Wake up the exorcist.' Among the motley crowd boxed in that 
tenement was also a professional exorcist. Now he was fast asleep, his living portion being at 
the farthest end. 


He earned fifty rupees a day without leaving his cubicle; a circle of clients always waited at his 
door. His clients were said to come from even distant Pondicherry and Ceylon and Singapore. 
Some days they would be all over the place, and in order not to frighten the other tenants, he 
was asked to meet his clients in the back yard, where you would find assembled any day a 
dozen hysterical women and demented men, with their relatives holding them down. The 
exorcist never emerged from his habitation without the appropriate makeup for his role—his 
hair matted and coiled up high, his untrimmed beard combed down to flutter in the wind, his 
forehead splashed with sacred ash, vermilion and sandal paste, and a rosary of rare, plum-sized 
beads from the Himalayan slopes around his throat. He possessed an ancient palm-leaf book in 
which everyone's life was supposed to be etched in mysterious couplets. After due 
ceremonials, he would sit on the ground in front of the clients with the book and open a 
particular page appropriate to each particular individual and read out in a singsong manner. No 



one except the exorcist could make out the meaning of the verse composed in antiquated Tamil 
of a thousand years ago. Presently he would explain: 'In your last life you did certain acts which 
are recoiling on you now. How could it be otherwise? It is karma. This seizure will leave you on 
the twenty-seventh day and tenth hour after the next full moon, this karma will end . . . Were 
you at any time . . . ?' He elicited much information from the parties themselves. 'Was there an 
old woman in your life who was not well-disposed to you? Be frank.' 'True, true,' some would 
say after thinking over it, and they would discuss it among themselves and say, 'Yes, yes, must 
be that woman Kamu . . .' The exorcist would then prescribe the course of action: 'She has cast 
a spell. Dig under the big tree in your village and bring any bone you may find there, and I'll 
throw it into the river. Then you will be safe for a while.' Then he would thrash the victim with a 
margosa twig, crying, 'Be gone at once, you evil spirit.' 


On this night the shopman in his desperation pushed his door, calling, 'Come out, I want your 
help . . . Strange things are going on; come on.' 

The exorcist hurriedly slipped on his rosary and, picking up his bag, came out. Arriving at the 
trouble-spot he asked, 'Now, tell me what is happening!' 

'A jug seems to have come to life and bobs up and down, hitting everything around it bang- 
bang.' 

'Oh, it's the jug-spirit, is it! It always enters and animates an empty jug. That's why our ancients 
have decreed that no empty vessel should be kept with its mouth open to the sky but always 
only upside down. These spirits try to panic you with frightening sounds. If you are afraid, it 
might hit your skull. But I can deal with it.' 

The shopman wailed, 'I have lived a clean and honest life, never harmed a soul, why should this 
happen to me?' 

'Very common, don't worry about it. It's karma, your past life ... In your past life you must 
have done something.' 

'What sort of thing?' asked the shopman with concern. 

The exorcist was not prepared to elaborate his thesis. He hated his landlord as all the other 
tenants did, but needed more time to frame a charge and go into details. Now he said gently, 
'This is just a mischievous spirit, nothing more, but weak-minded persons are prone to get 
scared and may even vomit blood.' All this conversation was carried on to the accompaniment 
of the clanging metal inside the shop. Someone in the crowd cried, 'This is why you must have 
electricity. Every corner of this town has electric lights. We alone have to suffer in darkness.' 

'Why don't you bring in a lantern?' 

'No kerosene for three days, and we have been eating by starlight.' 

'Be patient, be patient,' said the house-owner, 'I have applied for power. We will get it soon.' 

'If we had electric lights we could at least have switched them on and seen that creature, at 
least to know what it is.' 


'All in good time, all in good time, sir, this is no occasion for complaints.' He led the exorcist to 



the shop entrance. Someone flourished a flashlight, but its battery was weak and the bulb 
glowed like embers, revealing nothing. Meanwhile, the cat, sensing the presence of a crowd, 
paused, but soon revived its activity with redoubled vigour and went bouncing against every 
wall and window bar. Every time the clanging sound came the shopman trembled and let out a 
wail, and the onlookers jumped back nervously. The exorcist was also visibly shaken. He peered 
into the dark shop at the door and sprang back adroitly every time the metallic noise 
approached. He whispered, 'At least light a candle; what a man to have provided such darkness 
for yourself and your tenants, while the whole city is blazing with lights. What sort of a man are 
you!' 

Someone in the crowd added, 'Only a single well for twenty families, a single lavatory!' 

A wag added, 'When I lie in bed with my wife, the littlest whisper between us is heard on all 
sides.' 

Another retorted, 'But you are not married.' 

'What if? There are others with families.' 

'None of your business to become a champion for others. They can look after themselves.' 

Bang!Bang! 

'It's his sinfulness that has brought this haunting,' someone said, pointing at the shopman. 

'Why don't you all clear out if you are so unhappy?' said the shopman. There could be no 
answer to that, as the town like all towns in the world suffered from a shortage of housing. The 
exorcist now assumed command. He gestured to others to keep quiet. 'This is no time for 
complaints or demands. You must all go back to bed. This evil spirit inside has to be driven out. 
When it emerges there must be no one in its way, otherwise it'll get under your skin.' 

'Never mind, it won't be worse than our landlord. I'd love to take the devil under my skin if I 
can kick these walls and bring down this miserable ramshackle on the head of whoever owns it,' 
said the wag. The exorcist said, 'No, no, no harsh words, please ... I'm also a tenant and suffer 
like others, but I won't make my demands now. All in proper time. Get me a candle—' He 
turned to the shopman, 'Don't you sell candles? What sort of a shopman are you without 
candles in your shop!' No one lost his chance to crucify the shopman. 

He said, 'Candles are in a box on the right-hand side on a shelf as you step in—you can reach it 
if you just stretch your arm . . .' 

'You want me to go in and try? All right, but I charge a fee for approaching a spirit—otherwise I 
always work from a distance.' The shopman agreed to the special fee and the exorcist cleared 
his throat, adjusted his coiffure and stood before the door of the shop proclaiming loudly, 'Hey, 
spirit, I'm not afraid, I know your kind too well, you know me well, so . . .' He slid open the 
shutter, stepped in gingerly; when he had advanced a few steps, the jug hit the ventilator glass 
and shattered it, which aggravated the cat's panic, and it somersaulted in confusion and caused 
a variety of metallic pandemonium in the dark chamber; the exorcist's legs faltered, and he did 
not know for a moment what his next step should be or what he had come in for. In this state 
he bumped into the piled-up kerosene tins and sent them clattering down, which further 
aggravated the cat's hysteria. The exorcist rushed out unceremoniously. 'Oh, oh, this is no 
ordinary affair. It seizes me like a tornado . . . it'll tear down the walls soon.' 



'Aiyo!' wailed the shopman. 


'I have to have special protection ... I can't go in ... no candle, no light. We'll have to manage 
in the dark. If I hadn't been quick enough, you would not have seen me again.' 

'Aiyo! What's to happen to my shop and property?' 

'We'll see, we'll see, we will do something,' assured the other heroically; he himself looking 
eerie in the beam of light that fell on him from the street. The shopman was afraid to look at 
him, with his grisly face and rolling eyes, whose corners were touched with white sacred ash. 
He felt he had been caught between two devils—difficult to decide which one was going to 
prove more terrible, the one in the shop or the one outside. The exorcist sat upright in front of 
the closed door as if to emphasize, 'I'm not afraid to sit here,' and commanded, 'Get me a 
copper pot, a copper tumbler and a copper spoon. It's important.' 

'Why copper?' 

'Don't ask questions ... All right. I'll tell you: because copper is a good conductor. Have you 
noticed electric wires of copper overhead?' 

'What is it going to conduct now?' 

'Don't ask questions. All right. I'll tell you. I want a medium which will lead my mantras to that 
horrible thing inside.' 

Without further questioning, the shopman produced an aluminium pot from somewhere. 'I 
don't have copper, but only aluminium . . .' 

'In our country let him be the poorest man, but he'll own a copper pot . . . But here you are 
calling yourself a sowcor, you keep nothing; no candle, no light, no copper. . .' said the exorcist. 

'In my village home we have all the copper and silver. . .' 

'How does it help you now? It's not your village house that is now being haunted, though I 
won't guarantee this may not pass on there . . . Anyway, let me try.' He raised the aluminium 
pot and hit the ground; immediately from inside came the sound of the jug hitting something 
again and again, 'Don't break the vessel, ' cried the shopman. Ignoring his appeal the exorcist 
hit the ground again and again with the pot. 'That's a good sign. Now the spirits will speak. We 
have our own code.' He tapped the aluminium pot with his knuckles in a sort of Morse code. He 
said to the landlord, 'Don't breathe hard or speak loudly. I'm getting a message: I'm asked to 
say it's the spirit of someone who is seeking redress. Did you wrong anyone in your life?' 

'Oh, no, no,' said the shopman in panic. 'No, I've always been charitable . . .' 

The exorcist cut him short. 'Don't tell me anything, but talk to yourself and to that spirit inside. 
Did you at any time handle . . . wait a minute, I'm getting the message . . .' He held the pot's 
mouth to his ear. 'Did you at any time handle someone else's wife or money?' 

The shopman looked horrified, 'Oh, no, never.' 

'Then what is it I hear about your holding a trust for a widow . . . ?' 

He brooded while the cat inside was hitting the ventilator, trying to get out. The man was in a 
panic now. 'What trust? May I perish if I have done anything of that kind. God has given me 



enough to live on . . 

'I've told you not to talk unnecessarily. Did you ever molest any helpless woman or keep her at 
your mercy? If you have done a wrong in your childhood, you could expiate . . 

'How?' 


'That I'll explain, but first confess . . .' 

'Why?' 

'A true repentance on your part will emasculate the evil spirit.' The jug was hitting again, and 
the shopman became very nervous and said, 'Please stop that somehow, I can't bear it.' The 
exorcist lit a piece of camphor, his stock-in-trade, and circled the flame in all directions. 'To 
propitiate the benign spirits around so that they may come to our aid . . .' The shopman was 
equally scared of the benign spirits. He wished, at that pale starlit hour, that there were no 
spirits whatever, good or bad. Sitting on the pyol, and hearing the faint shrieking of a night bird 
flying across the sky and fading, he felt he had parted from the solid world of men and material 
and had drifted on to a world of unseen demons. 

The exorcist now said, 'Your conscience should be clear like the Manasaro Lake. So repeat after 
me whatever I say. If there is any cheating, your skull will burst. The spirit will not hesitate to 
dash your brains out.' 

'Alas, alas, what shall I do?' 

'Repeat after me these words: I have lived a good and honest life.' The shopman had no 
difficulty in repeating it, in a sort of low murmur in order that it might not be overheard by his 
tenants. The exorcist said, 'I have never cheated anyone.' 

'. . . cheated anyone,' repeated the shopman. 

'Never appropriated anyone's property . . .' 

The shopman began to repeat, but suddenly stopped short to ask, 'Which property do you 
mean?' 

'I don't know,' said the exorcist, applying the pot to his ear. 'I hear of some irregularity.' 

'Oh, it's not my mistake . . .' the shopman wailed. 'It was not my mistake. The property came 
into my hands, that's all . . .' 

'Whom did it belong to?' 

'Honappa, my friend and neighbour, I was close to his family. We cultivated adjoining fields. He 
wrote a will and was never seen again in the village.' 

'In your favour?' 

'I didn't ask for it; but he liked me ...' 

'Was the body found?' 

'How should I know?' 


'What about the widow?' 



'I protected her as long as she lived.' 

'Under the same roof?' 

'Not here, in the village . . .' 

'You were intimate?' 

The shopman remained silent. 'Well, she had to be protected . ..' 

'How did she die?' 

'I won't speak a word more—I've said everything possible; if you don't get that devil after all 
this, you'll share the other's fate . . .' He suddenly sprang on the exorcist, seized him by the 
throat and commanded, 'Get that spirit out after getting so much out of me, otherwise . . .' He 
dragged the exorcist and pushed him into the dark chamber of the shop. Thus suddenly 
overwhelmed, he went in howling with fright, his cry drowning the metallic clamour. As he 
fumbled in the dark with the shopman mounting guard at the door, the jug hit him between his 
legs and he let out a desperate cry, 'Ah! Alas! I'm finished,' and the cat, sensing the exit, dashed 
out with its metal hood on, jumped down onto the street and trotted away. The exorcist and 
the shopman watched in silence, staring after it. The shopman said, 'After all, it's a cat.' 

'Yes, it may appear to be a cat. How do you know what is inside the cat?' 

The shopman brooded and looked concerned. 'Will it visit us again?' 

'Can't say,' said the exorcist. 'Call me again if there is trouble,' and made for his cubicle, saying, 
'Don't worry about my dakshina now. I can take it in the morning.' 



THE EDGE 


When pressed to state his age, Ranga would generally reply, 'Fifty, sixty or eighty.' You might 
change your tactics and inquire, 'How long have you been at this job?' 

'Which job?' 


'Carrying that grinding wheel around and sharpening knives.' 

'Not only knives, but also scythes, clippers and every kind of peeler and cutter in your kitchen, 
also bread knives, even butcher's hatchets in those days when I carried the big grindstone; in 
those days I could even sharpen a maharaja's sword' (a favourite fantasy of his was that if 
armies employed swords he could become a millionaire). You might interrupt his 
loquaciousness and repeat your question: 'How long have you been a sharpener of knives and 
other things?' 'Ever since a line of moustache began to appear here,' he would say, drawing a 
finger over his lip. You would not get any further by studying his chin now overlaid with patchy 
tufts of discoloured hair. Apparently he never looked at a calendar, watch, almanac or even a 
mirror. In such a blissful state, clad in a dhoti, khaki shirt and turban, his was a familiar figure in 
the streets of Malgudi as he slowly passed in front of homes, offering his service in a high- 
pitched, sonorous cry, 'Knives and scissors sharpened.' 

He stuck his arm through the frame of a portable grinding apparatus; an uncomplicated 
contraption operated by an old cycle wheel connected to a foot-pedal. At the Market Road he 
dodged the traffic and paused in front of tailor's and barber's shops, offering his services. But 
those were an erratic and unreliable lot, encouraging him by word but always suggesting 
another time for business. If they were not busy cutting hair or clothes (tailors, particularly, 
never seemed to have a free moment, always stitching away on overdue orders), they locked 
up and sneaked away, and Ranga had to be watchful and adopt all kinds of strategies in order 
to catch them. Getting people to see the importance of keeping their edges sharp was indeed a 
tiresome mission. People's reluctance and lethargy had, initially, to be overcome. At first sight 
everyone dismissed him with, 'Go away, we have nothing to grind,' but if he persisted and 
dallied, some member of the family was bound to produce a rusty knife, and others would 
follow, vying with one another, presently, to ferret out long-forgotten junk and clamour for 
immediate attention. But it generally involved much canvassing, coaxing and even 
aggressiveness on Ranga's part; occasionally he would warn, 'If you do not sharpen your articles 
now, you may not have another chance, since I am going away on a pilgrimage.' 

'Makes no difference, we will call in the other fellow,' someone would say, referring to a 
competitor, a miserable fellow who operated a hand grinder, collected his cash and 
disappeared, never giving a second look to his handiwork. He was a fellow without a social 
standing, and no one knew his name, no spark ever came out of his wheel, while Ranga created 
a regular pyrotechnic display and passing children stood transfixed by the spectacle. 'All right,' 
Ranga would retort, 'I do not grudge the poor fellow his luck, but he will impart to your knife 
the sharpness of an egg; after that I won't be able to do anything for you. You must not think 
that anyone and everyone could handle steel. Most of these fellows don't know the difference 
between a knife blade and a hammerhead.' 

Ranga's customers loved his banter and appreciated his work, which he always guaranteed for 
sixty days. 'If it gets dull before then, you may call me son of a . . . Oh, forgive my letting slip 
such words . . .' If he were to be assailed for defective execution, he could always turn round 



and retort that so much depended upon the quality of metal, and the action of sun and rain, 
and above all the care in handling, but he never argued with his customers; he just resharpened 
the knives free of cost on his next round. Customers always liked to feel that they had won a 
point, and Ranga would say to himself, 'After all, it costs nothing, only a few more turns of the 
wheel and a couple of sparks off the stone to please the eye.' On such occasions he invariably 
asked for compensation in kind: a little rice and buttermilk or some snack—anything that could 
be found in the pantry (especially if they had children in the house)—not exactly to fill one's 
belly but just to mitigate the hunger of the moment and keep one on the move. Hunger was, 
after all, a passing phase which you got over if you ignored it. He saw no need to be 
preoccupied with food. The utmost that he was prepared to spend on food was perhaps one 
rupee a day. For a rupee he could get a heap of rice in an aluminium bowl, with unexpected 
delicacies thrown in, such as bits of cabbage or potato, pieces of chicken, meat, lime-pickle, or 
even sweet rasagulla if he was lucky. A man of his acquaintance had some arrangement with 
the nearby restaurants to collect remnants and leftovers in a bucket; he came over at about ten 
in the night, installed himself on a culvert and imperiously ladled out his hotchpotch—two 
liberal scoops for a rupee. Unless one looked sharp, one would miss it, for he was mobbed 
when the evening show ended at Pearl Cinema across the street. Ranga, however, was always 
ahead of others in the line. He swallowed his share, washed it down at the street tap and 
retired to his corner at Krishna Hall, an abandoned building (with no tangible owner) which had 
been tied up in civil litigations for over three generations, with no end in sight. Ranga 
discovered this hospitable retreat through sheer luck on the very first day he had arrived from 
his village in search of shelter. He occupied a cosy corner of the hall through the goodwill of the 
old man, its caretaker from time immemorial, who allotted living space to those whom he 
favoured. 

Ranga physically dwelt in the town no doubt, but his thoughts were always centred round his 
home in the village where his daughter was growing up under the care of his rather difficult 
wife. He managed to send home some money every month for their maintenance, particularly 
to meet the expenses of his daughter's schooling. He was proud that his daughter went to a 
school, the very first member of his family to take a step in that direction. His wife, however, 
did not favour the idea, being convinced that a girl was meant to make herself useful at home, 
marry and bear children. But Ranga rejected this philosophy outright, especially after the village 
schoolmaster, who gathered and taught the children on the pyol of his house, had told him 
once, 'Your child is very intelligent. You must see that she studies well, and send her later to the 
Mission School at Paamban' (a nearby town reached by bus). 

Originally Ranga had set up his grinding wheel as an adjunct to the village blacksmith under the 
big tamarind tree, where congregated at all hours of the day peasants from the surrounding 
country, bringing in their tools and implements for mending. One or the other in the crowd 
would get an idea to hone his scythe, shears or weeding blade when he noticed Ranga and his 
grinding wheel. But the blacksmith was avaricious, claimed twenty paise in every rupee Ranga 
earned, kept watch on the number of customers Ranga got each day, invariably quarrelled 
when the time came to settle accounts and frequently also demanded a drink at the tavern 
across the road; which meant that Ranga would have to drink, too, and face his wife's tantrums 
when he went home. She would shout, rave and refuse to serve him food. Ranga could never 
understand why she should behave so wildly—after all, a swill of toddy did no one any harm; on 
the contrary, it mitigated the weariness of the body at the end of a day's labour, but how could 
one educate a wife and improve her understanding? Once, on an inspiration, he took home a 
bottle for her and coaxed her to taste the drink, but she retched at the smell of it and knocked 
the bottle out of his hand, spilling its precious contents on the mud floor. Normally he would 



have accepted her action without any visible protest, but that day, having had company and 
drunk more than normal, he felt spirited enough to strike her, whereupon she brought out the 
broom from its corner and lashed him with it. She then pushed him out and shut the door on 
him. Even in that inebriate state he felt relieved that their child, fast asleep on her mat, was not 
watching. He picked himself up at dawn from the lawn and sat ruminating. His wife came over 
and asked, 'Have you come to your senses?' standing over him menacingly. 

After this crisis Ranga decided to avoid the blacksmith and try his luck as a peripatetic 
sharpener. Carrying his grinding gear, he left home early morning after swallowing a ball of ragi 
with a bite of raw onion and chillies. After he gave up his association with the blacksmith, he 
noticed an improvement in his wife's temper. She got up at dawn and set the ragi on the boil 
over their mud oven and stirred the gruel tirelessly till it hardened and could be rolled into a 
ball, and had it ready by the time Ranga had had his wash at the well. He started on his rounds, 
avoiding the blacksmith under the tamarind tree, criss-crossed the dozen streets of his village, 
pausing at every door to announce, 'Knives and cutters sharpened.' When he returned home at 
night and emptied his day's collection on his wife's lap, she would cry greedily, 'Only two 
rupees! Did you not visit the weekly market at. . . ?' 

'Yes, I did, but there were ten others before me!' 

His income proved inadequate, although eked out with the wages earned by his wife for 
performing odd jobs at the Big House of the village. Now she began to wear a perpetual look of 
anxiety. He sounded her once if he should not cultivate the blacksmith's company again, since 
those who had anything to do with iron gathered there. She snarled back, 'You are longing for 
that tipsy company again, I suppose!' She accused him of lack of push. 'I suppose you don't cry 
loud enough, you perhaps just saunter along the streets mumbling to yourself your greatness as 
a grinder!' At this Ranga felt upset and let out such a deafening yell that she jumped and cried, 
'Are you crazy? What has come over you?' He explained, 'Just to demonstrate how I call out to 
my patrons when I go on my rounds, a fellow told me that he could hear me beyond the 
slaughteryard ...' 

'Then I suppose people scamper away and hide their knives on hearing your voice!' And they 
both laughed at the grim joke. 


The daughter was now old enough to be sent to the Mission School at Paamban. Ranga had to 
find the money for her books, uniform, school fee and, above all, the daily busfare. His wife 
insisted that the girl's schooling be stopped, since she was old enough to work; the rich 
landlords needed hands at their farms, and it was time to train the girl to make herself useful all 
round. Ranga rejected her philosophy outright. However meek and obedient he might have 
proved in other matters, over the question of his daughter's education he stood firm. He was 
convinced that she should have a different life from theirs. What a rebel he was turning out to 
be, his wife thought, and remained speechless with amazement. To assuage her fears he asked, 
'You only want more money, don't you?' 

'Yes, let me see what black magic you will perform to produce more money.' 

'You leave the girl alone, and I will find a way . . .' 

'Between you two . . . well, you are bent upon making her a worthless flirt wearing ribbons in 



her hair, imitating the rich folk ... If she develops into a termagant, don't blame me, please. 
She is already self-willed and talks back.' 

Presently he undertook an exploratory trip to Malgudi, only twenty-five miles away. He came 
back to report: 'Oh, what a place, it is like the world of God Indra that our pundits describe. You 
find everything there. Thousands and thousands of people live in thousands of homes, and so 
many buses and motorcars in the streets, and so many barbers and tailors flourishing hundreds 
of scissors and razors night and day; in addition, countless numbers of peeling and slicing knives 
and other instruments in every home, enough work there for two hundred grinders like me; 
and the wages are liberal, they are noble and generous who live there, unlike the petty ones we 
have around us here.' 

'Ah, already you feel so superior and talk as if they have adopted you.' 

He ignored her cynicism and continued his dream. 'As soon as our schoolmaster finds me an 
auspicious date, I will leave for the town to try my luck; if it turns out well, I will find a home for 
us so that we may all move there; they have many schools and our child will easily find a place.' 
His wife cut short his plans with, 'You may go where you like, but we don't move out of here. I 
won't agree to lock up this house, which is our own; also, I won't allow a growing girl to pick up 
the style and fashions of the city. We are not coming. Do what you like with yourself, but don't 
try to drag us along.' Ranga was crestfallen and remained brooding for a little while, but 
realized: 'After all, it is a good thing that's happening to me. God is kind, and wants me to be 
free and independent in the town ... If she wants to be left behind, so much the better.' 

'What are you muttering to yourself?' she asked pugnaciously. 'Say it aloud.' 

'There is wisdom in what you say; you think ahead,' he replied, and she felt pleased at the 
compliment. 


In the course of time a system evolved whereby he came home to visit his family every other 
month for three or four days. Leaving his grinding apparatus carefully wrapped up in a piece of 
jute cloth at Krishna Hall, he would take the bus at the Market Gate. He always anticipated his 
homecoming with joy, although during his stay he would have to bear the barbed comments of 
his wife or assuage her fears and anxieties—she had a habit of hopping from one anxiety to 
another; if it was not money, it was health, hers or the daughter's, or some hostile acts of a 
neighbour, or the late hours his daughter kept at school. After three days, when she came to 
the point of remarking, 'How are we to face next month if you sit and enjoy life here?' he would 
leave, happy to go back to his independent life, but heavy at heart at parting from his daughter. 
For three days he would have derived the utmost enjoyment out of watching his daughter 
while she bustled about getting ready for school every morning in her uniform—green skirt and 
yellow jacket—and in the evening when she returned home full of reports of her doings at 
school. He would follow her about while she went to wash her uniform at the well and put it 
out to dry; she had two sets of school dress and took good care of them, so that she could leave 
for school each day spick-and-span, which annoyed her mother, who commented that the girl 
was self-centred, always fussing about her clothes or books. It saddened Ranga to hear such 
comments, but he felt reassured that the girl seemed capable of defending herself and putting 
her mother in her place. 


At the end of one of his visits to the family he stood, clutching his little bundle of clothes, on the 



highway beyond the coconut grove. If he watched and gesticulated, any lorry or bus would stop 
and carry him towards the city. He waited patiently under a tree. It might be hours but he did 
not mind, never having known the habit of counting time. A couple of lorries fully laden passed 
and then a bus driven so rashly that his attempt to stop it passed unnoticed. 

'Glad I didn't get into it. God has saved me, that bus will lift off the ground and fly to the moon 
before long,' he reflected as it churned up a cloud of sunlit dust and vanished beyond it. Some 
days, if the time was propitious, he would be picked up and deposited right at the door of 
Krishna Hall; some days he had to wait indefinitely. His daughter, he reflected with admiration, 
somehow caught a bus every day. 'Very clever for her age.' He prayed that his wife would leave 
her alone. 'But that girl is too smart,' he said to himself with a chuckle, 'and can put her mother 
in her place.' He brooded for a moment on this pleasant picture of the girl brushing off her 
mother, rudely sometimes, gently sometimes, but always with success, so that sometimes her 
mother herself admired the girl's independent spirit. That was the way to handle that woman. 
He wished he had learnt the technique, he had let her go on her own way too long. But God 
was kind and took him away to the retreat of Krishna Hall; but for the daughter he would not 
be visiting his home even once in three years. The girl must study and become a doctor—a lady 
doctor was like an empress, as he remembered the occasions when he had to visit a hospital for 
his wife's sake and wait in the corridor, and noticed how voices were hushed when the 'lady' 
strode down that way. 

He noticed a coming vehicle at the bend of the road. It was painted yellow, a peculiar-looking 
one, probably belonging to some big persons, and he did not dare to stop it. As it flashed past, 
he noticed that the car also had some picture painted on its side. But it stopped at a distance 
and went into reverse. He noticed now that the picture on the car was of a man and a woman 
and two ugly children with some message. Though he could not read, he knew that the 
message on it was TWO WILL DO, a propaganda for birth control. His friend the butcher at the 
Market Road read a newspaper every day and kept him well-informed. The man in the car, who 
was wearing a blue bush-shirt, put his head out to ask, 'Where are you going?' 

'Town,' Ranga said. 

The man opened the door and said, 'Get in, we will drop you there.' Seated, Ranga took out one 
rupee from his pocket, but the man said, 'Keep it.' They drove on. Ranga felt happy to be 
seated in the front; he always had to stand holding on to the rail or squat on the floor in the 
back row of a bus. Now he occupied a cushioned seat, and wished that his wife could see and 
realize how people respected him. He enjoyed the cool breeze blowing on his face as the car 
sped through an avenue of coconut trees and came to a halt at some kind of a camp consisting 
of little shacks built of bamboo and coconut thatch. It seemed to be far away from his route, on 
the outskirts of a cluster of hamlets. He asked his benefactor, 'Where are we?' 

The man replied breezily, 'You don't have to worry, you will be taken care of. Let us have 
coffee.' He got off and hailed someone inside a hut. Some appetizing eatable on a banana leaf 
and coffee in a little brass cup were brought out and served. Ranga felt revived, having had 
nothing to eat since his morning ragi. He inquired, 'Why all this, sir?' 

The man said benignly, 'Go on, you must be hungry, enjoy.' 

Ranga had never known such kindness from anyone. This man was conducting himself like a 
benign god. Ranga expected that after the repast they would resume their journey. But the 
benign god suddenly got up and said, 'Come with me.' He took him aside and said in a whisper. 



'Do not worry about anything. We will take care of you. Do you want to earn thirty rupees?' 

'Thirty rupees!' Ranga cried, 'What should I do for it? I have not brought my machine.' 

'You know me well enough now, trust me, do as I say. Don't question and you will get thirty 
rupees if you obey our instruction; we will give you any quantity of food, and I'll take you to the 
town . . . only you must stay here tonight. You can sleep here comfortably. I'll take you to the 
town tomorrow morning. Don't talk to others, or tell them anything. They will be jealous and 
spoil your chance of getting thirty rupees . . . You will also get a transistor radio. Do you like to 
have one?' 

'Oh, I don't know how to operate it. I'm not educated.' 

'It is simple, you just push a key and you will hear music.' 

He then took Ranga to a secluded part of the camp, spoke to him at length (though much of 
what he said was obscure) and went away. Ranga stretched himself on the ground under a tree, 
feeling comfortable, contented and well-fed. The prospect of getting thirty rupees was pleasant 
enough, though he felt slightly suspicious and confused. But he had to trust that man in the 
blue shirt. He seemed godlike. Thirty rupees! Wages for ten days' hard work. He could give the 
money to his daughter to keep or spend as she liked, without any interference from her 
mother. He could also give her the radio. She was educated and would know how to operate it. 
He wondered how to get the money through to her without her mother's knowledge. Perhaps 
send it to her school—the writer of petitions and addresses at the post office in the city would 
write down the money-order for him and charge only twenty-five paise for the labour. He was a 
good friend, who also wrote a postcard for him free of charge whenever he had to order a new 
grinding wheel from Bangalore. Ranga became wary when he saw people passing; he shut his 
eyes and fell into a drowse. 

The blue bush-shirt woke him up and took him along to another part of the camp, where inside 
a large tent a man was seated at a desk. 'He is our chief,' he whispered. 'Don't speak until he 
speaks to you. Answer when he questions. Be respectful. He is our officer.' After saying this, he 
edged away and was not to be seen again. 

Ranga felt overawed in the presence of the officer. That man had a sheet of paper in front of 
him and demanded, 'Your name?' He wrote it down. 'Your age?' 

Ranga took time to comprehend, and when he did he began to ramble in his usual manner, 
'Must be fifty or seventy, because I . . .' He mentioned inevitably how a thin line of moustache 
began to appear when he first sharpened a knife as a professional. The officer cut him short. 'I 
don't want all that! Shall I say you are fifty-five?' 'By all means, sir. You are learned and you 
know best.' 

Then the officer asked, 'Are you married?' 

Ranga attempted to explain his domestic complications: the temper of his present wife, who 
was actually his second one; how he had to marry this woman under pressure from his 
relatives. He explained, 'My uncle and other elders used to say, "Who will be there to bring you 
a sip of gruel or hot water when you are on your death bed?" It's all God's wish, sir. How can 
one know what He wills?' The officer was annoyed but tried to cover it up by going on to the 
next question: 'How many children?' 


'My first wife would have borne ten if God had given her long life, but she fell ill and the lady 



doctor said . . He went into details of her sickness and death. He then went on to some more 
personal tragedies and suddenly asked, 'Why do you want to know about all this sorrowful 
business, sir?' The officer waved away his query with a frown. Ranga recollected that he had 
been advised not to be talkative, not to ask, but only to answer questions. Probably all this 
formality was a prelude to their parting with cash and a radio. The officer repeated, 'How many 
children?' 

'Six died before they were a year old. Do you want their names? So long ago, I don't remember, 
but I can try if you want. Before the seventh I vowed to the Goddess on the hill to shave my 
head and roll bare-bodied around the temple corridor, and the seventh survived by the 
Goddess's grace and is the only one left, but my wife does not understand how precious this 
daughter is, does not like her to study but wants her to become a drudge like herself. But the 
girl is wonderful. She goes to a school every day and wants to be a lady doctor. She is a match 
for her mother.' 

The officer noted down against the number of children 'Seven' and then said commandingly, 
'You must have no more children. Is that understood?' Ranga looked abashed and grinned. The 
officer began a lecture on population, food production and so forth, and how the government 
had decreed that no one should have more than two children. He then thrust forward the sheet 
of paper and ordered, 'Sign here.' Ranga was nonplussed. 'Oh! if I had learnt to read and write . 
l' 


The officer said curtly, 'Hold up your left thumb' and smeared it on an inking pad and pressed it 
on the sheet of paper. After these exertions, Ranga continued to stand there, hoping that the 
stage had arrived to collect his reward and depart. He could cross the field, go up to the 
highway and pay for a bus ride, he would have money for it. But the officer merely handed him 
a slip of paper and cried, 'Next.' An orderly entered, pushing before him a middle-aged peasant, 
while another orderly propelled Ranga out of the presence of the officer to another part of the 
camp, snatched the slip of paper from his hand and went away, ignoring the several questions 
that Ranga had put to him. Presently Ranga found himself seized by the arm and led into a 
room where a doctor and his assistants were waiting at a table. On the table Ranga noticed a 
white tray with shining knives neatly arrayed. His professional eye noted how perfectly the 
instruments had been honed. The doctor asked, 'How many more?' Someone answered, 'Only 
four, sir.' Ranga felt scared when they said, 'Come here and lie down,' indicating a raised bed. 
They gently pushed him onto it. One man held his head down and two others held his feet. At 
some stage they had taken off his clothes and wrapped him in a white sheet. He felt ashamed 
to be stripped thus, but bore it as perhaps an inevitable stage in his progress towards affluence. 
The blue bush-shirt had advised him to be submissive. As he was lying on his back with the 
hospital staff standing guard over him, his understanding improved and his earlier suspicions 
began to crystallize. He recollected his butcher friend reading from a newspaper how the 
government was opening camps all over the country where men and women were gathered 
and operated upon so that they could have no children. So this was it! He was seized with panic 
at the prospect of being sliced up. 'Don't shake, be calm,' someone whispered softly, and he 
felt better, hoping that they would let him off at the last minute after looking him over 
thoroughly. The blue-shirt had assured him that they would never hurt or harm an old man like 
him. While these thoughts were flitting across his mind, he noticed a hand reaching for him 
with a swab of cotton. When the wrap around him was parted and fingers probed his genitals, 
he lost his head and screamed, 'Hands off! Leave me alone!' He shook himself free when they 
tried to hold him down, butted with his head the man nearest to him, rolled over, toppling the 
white tray with its knives. Drawing the hospital wrap around, he stormed out, driven by a 



desperate energy. He ran across the fields screaming, 'No, I won't be cut up . . which echoed 
far and wide, issuing from vocal cords cultivated over a lifetime to overwhelm other noises in a 
city street with the cry, 'Knives sharpened!' 



GOD AND THE COBBLER 


Nothing seemed to belong to him. He sat on a strip of no-man's-land between the outer wall of 
the temple and the street. The branch of a margosa tree peeping over the wall provided shade 
and shook down on his head tiny whitish-yellow flowers all day. 'Only the gods in heaven can 
enjoy the good fortune of a rain of flowers/ thought the hippie, observing him from the temple 
steps, where he had stationed himself since the previous evening. No need to explain who the 
hippie was, the whole basis of hippieness being the shedding of identity and all geographical 
associations. He might be from Berkeley or Outer Mongolia or anywhere. If you developed an 
intractable hirsute-ness, you acquired a successful mask; if you lived in the open, roasted by the 
sun all day, you attained a universal shade transcending classification or racial stamps and 
affording you unquestioned movement across all frontiers. In addition, if you draped yourself in 
a knee-length cotton dhoti and vest, and sat down with ease in the dust anywhere, your clothes 
acquired a spontaneous ochre tint worthy of a sanyasi. When you have acquired this degree of 
universality, it is not relevant to question who or what you are. You have to be taken as you 
are—a breathing entity, that's all. That was how the wayside cobbler viewed the hippie when 
he stepped up before him to get the straps of his sandals fixed. 

He glanced up and reflected, 'With those matted locks falling on his nape, looks like God Shiva, 
only the cobra coiling around his neck missing.' In order to be on the safe side of one who 
looked so holy, he made a deep obeisance. He thought, 'This man is tramping down from the 
Himalayas, the abode of Shiva, as his tough leather sandals, thick with patches, indicate.' The 
cobbler pulled them off the other's feet and scrutinized them. He spread out a sheet of paper, a 
portion of a poster torn off the wall behind him, and said, 'Please step on this, the ground is 
rather muddy.' He had a plentiful supply of posters. The wall behind him was a prominent one, 
being at a crossing of Ramnagar and Kalidess, leading off to the highway on the east. 
Continuous traffic passed this corner and poster-stickers raced to cover this space with their 
notices. They came at night, applied thick glue to a portion of the wall and stuck on posters 
announcing a new movie, a lecture at the park or a candidate for an election, with his portrait 
included. Rival claimants to the space on the wall, arriving late at night, pasted their messages 
over the earlier ones. Whatever the message, it was impartially disposed of by a donkey that 
stood by and from time to time went over, peeled off the notice with its teeth and chewed it, 
possibly relishing the tang of glue. The cobbler, arriving for work in the morning, tore off a 
couple of posters before settling down for the day, finding various uses for them. He used the 
paper for wrapping food when he got something from the corner food shop under the thatched 
roof; he spread it like a red carpet for his patrons while they waited to get a shoe repaired and 
he also slept on it when he felt the sun too hot. The hippie, having watched him, felt an 
admiration. 'He asks for nothing, but everything is available to him.' The hippie wished he could 
be composed and self-contained like the cobbler. 

The previous day he had sat with the mendicants holding out their hands for alms on the 
temple steps. Some of them able-bodied like himself, some maimed, blind or half-witted, but 
all of them, though looking hungry, had a nonchalant air which he envied. At the evening time, 
worshippers passing the portals of the temple flung coins into the alms bowls, and it was a 
matter of luck in whose bowl a particular coin fell. There was a general understanding among 
the mendicants to leave one another alone to face their respective luck, but to pick a coin up 
for the blind man if it fell off his bowl. The hippie, having perfected the art of merging with his 
surroundings, was unnoticed among them. The priest, being in a good mood on this particular 
evening, had distributed to the mendicants rice sweetened with jaggery, remnants of offerings 



to the gods. It was quite filling, and after a drink of water from the street tap, the hippie had 
slept at the portal of the temple. 

At dawn, he saw the cobbler arrive with a gunnysack over his shoulder and settle down under 
the branch of the margosa; he was struck by the composition of the green margosa bathed in 
sunlight looming over the grey temple wall. The hippie enjoyed the sense of peace pervading 
this spot. No one seemed to mind anything—the dust, the noise and the perils of chaotic traffic 
as cycles and pedestrians bumped and weaved their way through Moroccans, lorries and 
scooters, which madly careered along, churning up dust, wheels crunching and horns honking 
and screaming as if antediluvian monsters were in pursuit of one another. Occasionally a 
passer-by gurgled and spat out into the air or urinated onto a wall without anyone's noticing or 
protesting. The hippie was struck by the total acceptance here of life as it came. 

With his head bowed, the cobbler went on slicing off leather with an awl or stabbed his bodkin 
through and drew up a waxed thread, while stitches appeared at the joints as if by a miracle, 
pale strands flashing into view like miniature lightning. The cobbler had a tiny tin bowl of water 
in which he soaked any unruly piece of leather to soften it, and then hit it savagely with a cast- 
iron pestle to make it limp. When at rest, he sat back, watching the passing feet in the street, 
taking in at a glance the condition of every strap, thong and buckle on the footwear parading 
before his eyes. His fingers seemed to itch when they did not ply his tools, which he constantly 
honed on the kerbstone. Observing his self-absorption while his hands were busy, the hippie 
concluded that, apart from the income, the man derived a mystic joy in the very process of 
handling leather and attacking it with sharpened end. For him, even food seemed to be a 
secondary business. Beyond beckoning a young urchin at the corner food shop to fetch him a 
cup of tea or a bun, he never bothered about food. Sometimes, when he had no business for a 
long stretch, he sat back, looking at the tree-top ahead, his mind and attention switched off. He 
was quite content to accept that situation, too—there was neither longing nor regret in that 
face. He seldom solicited work vociferously or rejected it when it came. He never haggled when 
footwear was thrust up to him, but examined it, spread out the poster under the man's feet, 
attended to the loose strap or the worn-out heel and waited for his wages. He had to be 
patient; they always took time to open the purse and search for a coin. If the customer was too 
niggardly, the cobbler just looked up without closing his fingers on the coin, which sometimes 
induced the other to add a minute tip, or made him just turn and walk off without a word. 

While the cobbler was stitching his sandals, the hippie sat down on the sheet of paper provided 
for him. He was amused to notice that he had lowered himself onto the head of a colourful 
film-star. Not that he needed a paper to sit upon, but that seemed to be the proper thing to do 
here; otherwise, the cobbler was likely to feel hurt. The hippie was quite used to the bare 
ground; perhaps in due course he might qualify himself to sit on even a plank of nails with 
beatitude in his face. It was quite possible that his search for a guru might culminate in that and 
nothing more. In his wanderings he had seen in Benares yogis sitting on nails in deep 
meditation. He had seen at Gaya a penitent who had a long needle thrust through his 
cheeks—only it interfered with his tongue, which he didn't mind, since he was under a vow of 
silence. The hippie had watched at Allahabad during Kumbha Mela millions praying and dipping 
at the confluence of the rivers Jumna and Ganges. In their midst was a sadhu who had a full- 
grown tiger for company, claiming it to be his long-lost brother in a previous birth; men handled 
deadly cobras as if they were ropes. There were fire-eaters, swallowers of swords and chewers 
of glass and cactus. Or the yogis who sat in cremation grounds in a cataleptic state, night and 
day, without food or movement, unmindful of the corpses burning on the pyres around them. 
In Nepal, a person produced a silver figure out of thin air with a flourish of his hand and gave it 



to the hippie; he treasured it in his bag—a little image of a four-armed goddess. In every case, 
at first he was filled with wonder and he wanted to learn their secret, found the wonder¬ 
workers willing to impart their knowledge to him for no higher exchange than a pellet of opium; 
but eventually he began to ask himself, 'What am I to gain by this achievement? It seems to me 
no more than a moon walk. Only less expensive.' He found no answer that satisfied his inquiry. 
He noticed on the highway, in villages and rice fields, men and women going about their 
business with complete absorption—faces drawn and serious but never agitated. He felt that 
they might have a philosophy worth investigating. He travelled by train, trekked on foot, 
hitchhiked in lorries and bullock carts. Why? He himself could not be very clear about it. 

He wished to talk to the cobbler. He took out a beedi, the leaf-wrapped tobacco favoured by 
the masses. (The cigarette was a sophistication and created a distance, while a beedi, four for a 
paisa, established rapport with the masses.) The cobbler hesitated to accept it, but the hippie 
said, 'Go on, you will like it, it's good, the Parrot brand . . .' The hippie fished matches from his 
bag. Now they smoked for a while in silence, the leafy-smelling smoke curling up in the air. 
Auto-rickshaws and cycles swerved around the corner. An ice-cream-seller had pushed his 
barrow along and was squeaking his little rubber horn to attract customers, the children who 
would burst out of the school gate presently. By way of opening a conversation, the hippie said, 
'Flowers rain on you,' pointing to the little whitish-yellow flowers whirling down from the tree 
above. The cobbler looked and flicked them off his coat and then patted them off his turban, 
which, though faded, protected him from the sun and rain and added a majesty to his person. 
The hippie repeated, 'You must be blessed to have a rain of flowers all day.' 

The other looked up and retorted, 'Can I eat that flower? Can I take it home and give it to the 
woman to be put into the cooking pot? If the flowers fall on a well-fed stomach, it's 
different—gods in heaven can afford to have flowers on them, not one like me.' 

'Do you believe in God?' asked the hippie, a question that surprised the cobbler. How could a 
question of that nature ever arise? Probably he was being tested by this mysterious customer. 
Better be careful in answering him. The cobbler gestured towards the temple in front and 
threw up his arm in puzzlement. 'He just does not notice us sometimes. How could He? Must 
have so much to look after.' He brooded for a few minutes at a picture of God, whose attention 
was distracted hither and thither by a thousand clamouring petitioners praying in all directions. 
He added, 'Take the case of our big officer, our collector—can he be seen by everyone or will he 
be able to listen to everyone and answer their prayers? When a human officer is so difficult to 
reach, how much more a god? He has so much to think of . . .' He lifted his arms and swept 
them across the dome of heaven from horizon to horizon. It filled the hippie with a sense of 
immensity of God's programme and purpose, and the man added, 'And He can't sleep, either. 
Our pundit in this temple said in his lecture that gods do not wink their eyelids or sleep. How 
can they? In the winking of an eyelid, so many bad things might happen. The planets might 
leave their courses and bump into one another, the sky might pour down fire and brimstone or 
all the demons might be let loose and devour humanity. Oh, the cataclysm!' The hippie 
shuddered at the vision of disaster that'd overtake us within one eye-winking of God. The 
cobbler added, 'I ask God every day and keep asking every hour. But when He is a little free. He 
will hear me; till then, I have to bear it.' 

'What, bear what?' asked the hippie, unable to contain his curiosity. 

'This existence. I beg Him to take me away. But the time must come. It'll come.' 

'Why, aren't you happy to be alive?' asked the hippie. 



'I don't understand you/ the cobbler said, and at that moment, noticing a passing foot, he 
cried, 'Hi! That buckle is off. Come, come, stop,' to a young student. The feet halted for a 
second, paused but passed on. The cobbler made a gesture of contempt. 'See what is coming 
over these young fellows! They don't care. Wasteful habits, I tell you. That buckle will come off 
before he reaches his door; he will just kick the sandals off and buy new ones.' He added with a 
sigh, 'Strange are their ways nowadays. For five paise he could have worn it another year.' He 
pointed to a few pairs of sandals arrayed on his gunnysack and said, 'All these I picked up here 
and there, thrown away by youngsters like him. Some days the roadside is full of them near 
that school; the children have no patience to carry them home, or some of them feel it is a 
shame to be seen carrying a sandal in hand! Not all these here are of a pair or of the same 
colour, but I cut them and shape them and colour them into pairs.' He seemed very proud of his 
ability to match odd shoes. 'If I keep them long enough, God always sends me a customer, 
someone who will appreciate a bargain. Whatever price I can get is good enough.' 

'Who buys them?' 

'Oh, anybody, mostly if a building is going up; those who have to stand on cement and work 
prefer protection for their feet. Somehow I have to earn at least five rupees every day, enough 
to buy some corn or rice before going home. Two mouths waiting to be fed at home. What the 
days are coming to! Not enough for two meals. Even betel leaves are two for a paisa; they used 
to be twenty, and my wife must chew even if she has no food to eat. God punishes us in this 
life. In my last birth I must have been a moneylender squeezing the life out of the poor, or a 
shopkeeper cornering all the rice for profits—till I render all these accounts. God'll keep me 
here. I have only to be patient.' 

'What do you want to be in your next birth?' 

The cobbler got a sudden feeling again that he might be talking to a god or his agent. He 
brooded over the question for some time. 'I don't want birth in this world. Who knows, they 
may decide to send me to hell, but I don't want to go to hell.' He explained his vision of another 
world where a mighty accountant sat studying the debits and credits and drawing up a 
monumental balance sheet appropriate for each individual. 

'What have you done?' asked the hippie. 

A suspicion again in the cobbler's mind that he might be talking to a god. 'When you drink, you 
may not remember all that you do,' he said. 'Now my limbs are weak, but in one's younger 
years, one might even set fire to an enemy's hut at night while his children are asleep. A quarrel 
could lead to such things. That man took away my money, threatened to molest my wife, and 
she lost an eye in the scuffle when I beat her up on suspicion. We had more money, and a 
rupee could buy three bottles of toddy in those days. I had a son, but after his death, I changed. 
It's his child that we have at home now.' 

'I don't want to ask questions,' said the hippie, 'but I, too, set fire to villages and, flying over 
them, blasted people whom I didn't know or see.' 

The cobbler looked up in surprise. 'When, where, where?' 

The hippie said, 'In another incarnation; in another birth. Can you guess what may be in store 
for me next?' 

The cobbler said, 'If you can wait till the priest of the temple comes ... A wise man, he'll tell 



The hippie said, 'You were at least angry with the man whose hut you burned. I didn't even 
know whose huts I was destroying. I didn't even see them.' 

'Why, why, then?' Seeing that the other was unwilling to speak, the cobbler said, 'If it had been 
those days, we could have drunk and eaten together.' 

'Next time,' said the hippie, and rose to go. He slipped his feet into the sandals. I'll come again,' 
he said, though he was not certain where he was going or stopping next. He gave the cobbler 
twenty-five paise, as agreed. He then took the silver figure from his bag and held it out to the 
cobbler. 'Here is something for you . . .' 

The cobbler examined it and cried, 'Oh, this is Durga the goddess; she will protect you. Did you 
steal it?' 

The hippie appreciated the question as indicating perfectly how he had ceased to look 
respectable. He replied, 'Perhaps the man who gave it to me stole it.' 

'Keep it, it'll protect you,' said the cobbler, returning the silver figure. He reflected, after the 
hippie was gone, 'Even a god steals when he has a chance.' 



HUNGRY CHILD 


With thatched sheds constructed in rows, blindingly floodlit, an old football ground beyond the 
level crossing had been transformed into Expo '77-78 by an enterprising municipal committee. 
At the Expo, as they claimed, you could get anything from a pin to an automobile, although the 
only automobile in sight was a 1930 Ford displayed under a festoon of coloured bulbs and 
offered as a prize to anyone with a certain lucky number on his ticket. Special buses leaving the 
Market Road disgorged masses of humanity at the Expo archway all day. Loudspeakers 
mounted on poles every few yards saturated the air with an amalgam of commercial messages 
and film-songs, against the unceasing din of the crowd. The organizers had succeeded in 
creating an incredible world of noise, glare, dust and litter. 

Raman found the crowd tiresome and the assaults on his eardrums painful. He wished that 
nature had provided the human ear with a flap to shut off noise. 'Oh, then how blissfully I could 
move about, untouched by that incessant ranting about Tiger-brand underwear or that obscene 
film-song conveying the heartache of some damn fool . . .' He further reflected, 'I came here to 
escape boredom, but this is hell, a bedlam . . .' He regretted the trip he had undertaken from 
Ellaman Street, but he could not make up his mind to leave; the bustle and pandemonium 
seemed to take him out of himself, which relief he needed these days. He drifted along with the 
crowd, occasionally pausing to take a professional and critical look at a signboard or poster. The 
one that arrested his attention at the moment was a huge placard outside a stall, depicting a 
woman who had the body of a fish from the waist down. He speculated how he would have 
dealt with this fish-woman if he had had a chance to design this and other signboards. He 
would have imparted a touch of refinement to the Expo and also minted money if only he had 
cared to seek their patronage. But he was in the grip of a deadly apathy. He saw no point in any 
sort of activity. For months he had not gone near his workshed, which proved a blessing to his 
rival Jayaraj of the Market Gate. 'Let him prosper,' Raman reflected, 'although he has the 
artistic sense of a chimpanzee.' He stared at the picture of the fish-woman with a mixture of 
disgust and fascination, while the promoter of this show stood on a platform and appealed 
through a tin megaphone, 'Don't miss the chance to see this divine damsel, a celestial beauty 
living half-sunk in water; rare opportunity, talk to her, ask her questions and she will answer. . 


'What questions?' Raman asked himself. Could he ask how she managed not to catch a cold or 
what fabric was best suited to clothe her scaly body? While he was hesitating whether to go in 
or not, he heard over the babble the announcement 'Boy of five, calls himself Gopu, cries for 
his parents, come at once to the Central Office and take him . . .' For the fourth time this 
message was coming through the loudspeakers. He pulled himself out of the spell cast by the 
fish-woman, determined to go up and take a look at the lost child. 'Must know what sort of a 
child gets lost. What sort of parents are those that prove so careless, or have they wilfully 
abandoned the child? Perhaps a bastard or a delinquent to be got rid of . . .' He moved towards 
the Central Office, cleaving his way through a long queue of people outside a medical exhibition 
displaying human kidney, heart, lungs and foetus, in glass jars, along with an X-ray of a live 
person. 

On the way he noticed pink, gossamer-like candy spinning out of a rotating trough on wheels 
and bought one—it was very light but huge, and covered his face when he tried to bite it. 
'Rather absurd to be nibbling this in public,' he thought. He held it away as if bearing it for 
someone else, and discreetly bit off mouthfuls now and then with relish. 'Sweetest stuff on 



earth/ he reflected. Holding it like a bouquet in one hand, only a few wisps around his mouth 
to betray his weakness for it, he stepped into the Central Office, which was at the southern 
gateway of the Expo. A busy place with typists at work and a variety of persons rushing in and 
out. In their midst he noticed a boy sitting on a bench, vigorously swinging his legs and amusing 
himself by twisting and bending and noisily rocking the bench on its rickety, uneven legs, much 
to the annoyance of a clerk at a table who kept saying, 'Quiet, quiet, don't make all that noise/ 
at which the boy, who had rotund cheeks and a bulbous nose, grimaced with satisfaction, 
displaying a row of white teeth minus the two front ones. 'Must be seven, not five/ Raman 
thought on noticing it. Raman held up to him the half-eaten candy, at which the boy shot 
forward as if from a catapult, snatched it and buried his face in its pink mass. Raman 
appreciated his gusto and patted his head. The grumpy office clerk looked up to ask, 'Are you 
taking him away?' 

'Yes,' said Raman on a sudden impulse. The other thrust a register at him and said, 'Sign here.' 
Raman signed illegibly as 'Loch Ness Monster'. 

'Why don't you people keep an eye on your children? Don't lose him again . . . It's a bother to 
keep such a boy here . . . can't attend to any routine work. Now I'll have to stay here till 
midnight to clear my papers/ said the clerk. 

'You announced that he was crying?' 

'He is not the sort, but one has to say so, otherwise parents will never turn up until they are 
ready to go home, leaving it to us to keep watch over the little devils. It's a trick. Where is his 
mother?' 

'Over there, waiting outside/ said Raman, and extended a hand, which the boy readily clutched. 
They marched off and were soon lost in the crowd. While piloting the boy through, Raman kept 
turning over in his mind the word 'mother'. It was tantalizing. How he wished he had a wife 
waiting outside. The grumpy clerk had somehow assumed that he had one. 'Naturally,' Raman 
reflected, 'I look quite wife-worthy. Nothing wrong with me—an outstanding, original 
signboard painter with a satisfactory bank-balance, and an owner of property extending on the 
sands of Sarayu, with a workshed . . .' Apart from this adopted child, there was bound to be 
another, his own, inside Daisy. Who could say? Even at this moment, she might be wanting to 
send a desperate appeal, 'You have made me pregnant!' and that would serve her right for 
being such a bigoted birth-controller and busybody, as she fancied, always intruding into the 
privacy of every home in town or village, remonstrating with couples not to produce children. 
She had arrogated to herself too much, and what a fool he was to have trailed behind her! Not 
his fault, really! She had seduced him by asking him to blazon on every wall in the countryside 
her silly message NO MORE CHILDREN, and forced him to travel and live with her in all sorts of 
lonely places; and how could the vows of virginity ever survive under such conditions? It'd be 
the funniest irony of the century if, for all her precautions and theories, she became 
desperately, helplessly pregnant and sought his help! He felt tickled at the prospect and 
laughed to himself. The boy, clutching at his finger, now looked up and also grinned. Raman 
looked at his merry face and asked, 'Why do you laugh?' 'I do not know/ said the boy, and 
grinned again. 

It was difficult to progress through the crowd, especially with the boy's feet faltering and 
lagging at every eating-stall in his route. Expo 'll had provided snacks and drinks at every stop. 
Mounds of green chillies, cucumber and tomato, vegetable bajjis, wafer-like appalam sizzling in 
oil and expanding like the full moon before your eyes or fresh golden jilebis out of the frying 



pan, not to mention scores of other delicacies, enticing passers-by both by sight and smell. 


Raman felt a surge of compassion for the child, who had taken to him so spontaneously. 'Do 
you like to eat?' he asked. 

'Yes,' said the boy promptly, and pointed at a cotton-candy trolley. Raman was afraid to let go 
of the boy's finger for fear he might get lost again, and left him to use the other hand for 
gesticulating or eating. Soon the boy buried his face in the crimson floral mass and lost interest 
in the other sights of the exhibition. When it was finished Raman asked, 'Ice-cream?' The boy 
nodded appreciatively and Raman bought two cones of chocolate ice-cream and kept the boy 
company. Raman forgot for the moment his own travail, the gloom and boredom which had 
seized him, making existence a dreary cycle of morning, noon and night. He asked himself as he 
watched the boy, 'Why am I happy to find him happy? Who is he? Perhaps my child in our last 
incarnation.' He wondered in what other way he could make the child happy. 'Do you want to 
ride on that wheel?' he asked, pointing at the Giant Wheel, which groaned and whined and 
carried one sky-high. Of course, the boy welcomed the idea. Raman pushed the boy along 
towards the wheel, and took his seat in the cradle, holding the boy at his side. 'Good way to 
keep him from eating,' Raman thought. He was getting concerned with the boy's health. Should 
he complain of stomach ache, he would never forgive himself for overfeeding him. As he sat 
waiting to be whirled up on the Giant Wheel, he had enough time to reflect on the situation 
which was developing. This child didn't seem to bother about his parents. Perhaps an orphan 
who had strayed into the exhibition grounds? But how nice to think he was not going to be an 
orphan any more. He would train him to address him as 'Daddy' or 'Appa'. As the Giant Wheel 
went up gradually, his thoughts too soared. The boy clutched his arms tightly. Raman 
murmured, 'Don't be afraid, I'm here, enjoy yourself.' If people questioned him, 'Who is this 
child?' he would reply, 'My son . . . you remember Daisy? She had brought him up in a convent, 
one of her funny notions, but I took him away; you know a child must be raised in the 
atmosphere of a home.' 

'Where is his mother?' they might ask. 

'I don't know, she ran away with somebody,' he would say as a revenge for the anguish Daisy 
had caused him by letting him down, at the last moment, on the eve of their wedding, after 
having slept with him day after day. He suddenly glanced to his side and asked, 'What is your 
age?' The boy blinked and shook his head. Raman pronounced, 'You are not less than seven 
years,' and to the question as to how Daisy could have a seven-year-old son, since she had 
come down to this town only two or three years before, he replied aloud, 'I'll have to invent an 
answer, that's all.' At this the boy looked up bewildered and asked, 'When will this go up fast?' 
Raman felt he would be quite content to stay there and not go up higher, as he feared it might 
make him uncomfortable. But the boy was evidently becoming impatient. In order to divert his 
attention, he engaged him in conversation. 'Will you come with me to my house?' 

'I feel hungry,' said the boy. 'I want something to eat.' 

Marvelling at his appetite, Raman said, 'If you come to my house, you will have all the eating 
things.' 

The boy sat up attentively. 'Chocolates or ice-cream or bubble-gum? ' 

'Yes, everything, and also plenty of jilebi.. 

'I like jilebi —surely . . .' the boy said, happy at the thought, and inquired, 'Can I help myself or 



should I ask you each time?' 

'It will all be yours; you may take and eat as much as you like/ Raman said. 

The boy's mouth watered at this vision. 'My father says I'll be sick if I eat!' 

'Where is he?' The boy shook his head. 'Is he somewhere in this exhibition?' 

The boy somehow did not wish to pursue the subject. Evidently he was afraid that he might be 
handed over and thus lose access to all that store of chocolate and bubble-gum. Raman said, 
'Of course, you must not eat too much, you will have tummy-ache.' 

'No, I won't,' said the boy confidently. 'When my uncle came, you know how much I ate?' He 
spread out his arms to indicate a vast quantity. Raman felt happy to note the health of the boy; 
otherwise if he was sickly he might have to take him to Malgudi Medical Centre to be treated 
by Dr Krishna. Oh, he could not stand the anxiety if the child became sick, with no one to look 
after him at home. Of course, he'd have to give him a room. The room he had cleaned for Daisy 
in the hope she was going to occupy it next day was still there, but she had deserted him. The 
boy could make it his own room, keep his clothes, books and toys, and have his bed there. He 
hoped that he would sleep alone and not cry out at night. He must train the boy to sleep alone 
and look after his books and clothes; he could send him to Kala Primary School, not too good, 
but he knew the headmistress, having given her a signboard free for her school. Actually a two- 
by-six plank, and he had used plastic emulsion with a sprinkling of silver powder. The school 
was across the road near the temple, and the boy should be trained to go up and return home 
by himself. Unfortunately, he would have to come to an empty house after school. 

A pang shot through his heart, but for Daisy messing up his life his aunt would still be there, as 
she had been since his childhood. She would have lived there to her last hour. She had felt that 
she must clear the way for Daisy by banishing herself to distant Benares. Ah! when she 
managed the home, he did not have to bother about food—food and snacks she provided at all 
hours, always stayed at home and opened the door for him at any hour, day or night. 
Nowadays he mostly starved, too weary even to make coffee or go up to the Boardless Hotel, 
where the company bored him lately. He could not stand the repetitive talk and smugness. 
Could be that the mistake lay in him. He must have changed after Daisy's treacherous act, 
soured perhaps. Day after day of emptiness, nothing to plan, nothing to look forward to, life of 
frustration and boredom, opening his eyes every morning to a blank day, feeling on awakening, 
'Another damned day,' in a house totally deserted and empty, no life of any sort—even the 
house sparrows seemed to have fled, while there used to be hordes of them chirping and 
flitting about the storeroom filled with rice and grains; now there was nothing, only emptiness. 
Raman felt sometimes that he was witnessing a historical process, how a structure decayed and 
became an archaeological specimen. Now things will change with a child in the house, who 
would brighten up the surroundings. He must fix brighter lamps in all the rooms, most of the 
bulbs had fused out and not been replaced. He was going to throw himself zestfully into the 
role of a father and bring up the child so that he would grow into a worthy citizen, cultured and 
urbane. He had neglected his profession after Daisy's exit, he must set out and revisit the 
clients every morning and write signboards again, he would need all the money to bring up the 
boy, later to put him in Lovedale Boarding at Ooty. He said to the boy, 'You'll go to school, a 
nice place, where you'll get many friends . . .' The boy's face fell on hearing it and he said 
emphatically, 'I won't go to school. Don't like it. . .' 


'Why?' 



'Why! Because they'll beat me.' Raman tried to argue him out of his fear, but the boy was 
adamant and was in tears as he repeated, 'No school, no school . . .' 


'All right, you don't have to go to school, come with me and eat chocolates,' Raman said 
soothingly, making a mental note to stop by Chettiar Stores and buy sweets. 'It'll take time, I 
must not rush him,' he told himself. 'By easy stages. I'll persuade him. I remember how I hated 
school myself . . .' 

After the Giant Wheel, the boy wanted a ride in a toy-train circling the grounds. When it 
stopped after one round, the boy refused to leave his seat but demanded another round and 
another. He had had four excursions but would not get off the train. Raman, too, enjoyed the 
thrill of the ride and could forget Daisy for the time being. After the train ride and more eating, 
Raman realized, thanks to the boy, he'd also been gorging himself, though he had had nothing 
to eat since the morning. Now he felt cheerful. 'The boy's company has been a tonic to me, 
revived me,' he reflected. How much more it was going to mean when he came to live with 
him! Except for his working hours, Raman would devote all his time to keeping the boy 
company. He must buy some storybooks and read them to him regularly; tell him the story of 
Ramayana. When the boy halted his steps at a stand where some gigantic bondas were being 
lifted out of a deep frying pan, Raman said resolutely, 'No, my boy . . .' fearing that the boy 
might start vomiting if he sent anything more down his throat—he himself was beginning to 
feel an uncomfortable rumbling inside. Instead of buying bondas , he took him to watch some 
shows: a parrot performing miniature circus feats, a dog picking out playing cards, a 
motorcyclist's daredevil ride within a dome—the boy shrieked in excitement. 

The boy exhibited, when he had a chance, signs of mischief: he toppled flower pots, tore off 
posters, performed an occasional somersault wherever he found a little free space, splashed 
water from fountains, particularly on passing children; he also wrenched himself free and 
dashed forward to trip up any other boy of his age or tug at the pigtail of a girl; he picked up 
pebbles and aimed them at light-bulbs. Raman held him in check no doubt, but secretly enjoyed 
his antics. Raman felt nervous while standing in a queue with the boy since no one could 
foresee what he would do at the back of a person ahead. Raman admired the little fellow's 
devilry and versatility, but held him in check, more to prevent his being thrashed by others. He 
told himself, 'Normal high spirits, it'll be canalized when he is put in school. In our country we 
don't know how to handle children without impairing their development.' 

They were now near a merry-go-round. 'I want to ride that horse,' the boy declared as he 
noticed other children seated on caparisoned horses. Raman was wondering how safe it'd be to 
send him flying alone, since he did not wish to go on a ride. He said, 'You have been on that 
Giant Wheel, it is the same thing . . .' 

'No,' said the boy, stamping his foot, 'I want to ride that horse . . .' Raman did not know how to 
handle the situation. He tried to divert his attention by suggesting something to eat or drink, 
although he knew it would not be safe. The boy merely said, 'Yes, after the horse-ride.' 

'Ah, they are showing a movie there, let us see it,' Raman cried with sudden enthusiasm. The 
boy briefly turned in the direction indicated, seeing only a thick wall of backs hiding his view, 
and shook his head. Raman said, 'I'll lift you so high . . . you'll be able to see better than others . 


The boy persisted, 'I want to go on that horse.' Without a word Raman hoisted him on his 
shoulder and moved towards the screen, saying, 'Yes, yes, later, now a lot of tigers and 



monkeys in that movie. See them first or they'll be gone soon . . .' The boy was heavy and his 
muddy unshod feet were soiling Raman's clothes, and he was also kicking in protest, but Raman 
was determined to take him away from the merry-go-round and moved to a vantage position in 
the crowd watching the movie. He panted with the effort to move with that load on his 
shoulder. He himself could hardly see the screen except in patches between the shoulders in 
front. He couldn't guess what the movie was, but hoped there would be a tiger and monkey in 
it as promised by him. The child should not lose trust in him and think he was a liar. 'What do 
you see?' he asked the boy. From his eminence, he replied, 'No monkey, a man is kicking a 
ball—Get me a ball?' 

'Yes, I'll buy you one,' said Raman. 'We will buy it when we leave.' He had seen a shop choked 
with plastic goods and rubber balls, though he could not recollect exactly where. He would 
investigate and buy a couple of balls, one to be kept in reserve in case the other was lost. His 
whole frame vibrated as the boy, spotting someone from his height, suddenly let out a 
thundering shout: 'Amma!' He wriggled, freed himself and slid down from Raman's shoulder, 
shot along through the crowd and reached a group resting on a patch of grass beside the Life 
Insurance stall, the only quiet spot in the exhibition. Raman followed him. In the centre of the 
group was a man, tall and hefty, perhaps a peasant from a village, a middle-aged woman in a 
brown sari and two girls; packages and shopping-bags lying about on the ground indicated that 
they were on an excursion and would return to their village by bus at night. The boy flew like an 
arrow into their midst! They got up and surrounded him and fired questions at him over the 
general hubbub of the exhibition. Raman could hear the hefty man's voice booming, 'Where 
have you been, you rascal? We have missed the bus on account of you,' and then he saw him 
twist the boy's ear and slap him. 'OhI' groaned Raman, unable to stand the sight of it. 'Oh, 
don't,' he cried. Before the man could repeat the dose, the boy's mother, with shrill protests, 
drew him away and warded off the second blow the man was aiming. Raman realized that this 
was the end of a dream, sought the exit and the road back to his home on the sands of Sarayu. 



EMDEN 


When he came to be named the oldest man in town, Rao's age was estimated anywhere 
between ninety and one hundred and five. He had, however, lost count of time long ago and 
abominated birthdays; especially after his eightieth, when his kinsmen from everywhere came 
down in a swarm and involved him in elaborate rituals, and with blaring pipes and drums made 
a public show of his attaining eighty. The religious part of it was so strenuous that he was laid 
up for fifteen days thereafter with fever. During the ceremony they poured pots of cold water, 
supposedly fetched from sacred rivers, over his head, and forced him to undergo a fast, while 
they themselves feasted gluttonously. He was so fatigued at the end of the day that he could 
hardly pose for the group photo, but flopped down in his chair, much to the annoyance of the 
photographer, who constantly withdrew his head from under the black hood to plead, 'Steady, 
please.' Finally, he threatened to pack up and leave unless they propped up the old gentleman. 
There were seventy-five heads to be counted in the group—all Rao's descendants one way or 
another. The photographer insisted upon splitting the group, as otherwise the individuals 
would be microscopic and indistinguishable on a single plate. That meant that after a little rest 
Rao had to be propped up a second time in the honoured seat. When he protested against this 
entire ceremony, they explained, 'It's a propitiatory ceremony to give you health and longevity.' 

'Seems to me rather a device to pack off an old man quickly,' he said, at which his first 
daughter, herself past sixty, admonished him not to utter inauspicious remarks, when everyone 
was doing so much to help. 

By the time he recovered from his birthday celebrations and the group photo in two parts could 
be hung on the wall, the house had become quiet and returned to its normal strength, which 
was about twenty in all—three of his sons and their families, an assortment of their children, 
nephews and nieces. He had his room in the right wing of the house, which he had designed 
and built in the last century as it looked. He had been the very first to buy a piece of land 
beyond Vinayak Street; it was considered an act of great daring in those days, being a deserted 
stretch of land from which thieves could easily slip away into the woods beyond, even in 
daylight; the place, however, developed into a residential colony and was named Ratnapuri, 
which meant City of Gems. 

Rao's earlier years were spent in Kabir Street. When he came into his own and decided to live in 
style, he sold off their old house and moved to Ratnapuri. That was after his second wife had 
borne him four daughters, and the last of them was married off. He had moved along with his 
first wife's progeny, which numbered eight of varying ages. He seemed to be peculiarly ill-fated 
in matrimony—his uncle, who cast and read the stars for the whole family, used to say that Rao 
had Mars in the seventh house, with no other planet to checkmate its fury, and hence was 
bound to lose every wife. After the third marriage and more children, he was convinced of the 
malevolence of Mars. He didn't keep a record of the population at home—that was not his 
concern—his sons were capable of running the family and managing the crowd at home. He 
detached himself from all transactions and withdrew so completely that a couple of years past 
the grand ceremony of the eightieth birthday he could not remember the names of most of the 
children at home or who was who, or how many were living under his roof. 

The eightieth birthday had proved a definite landmark in his domestic career. Aided by the 
dimming of his faculties, he could isolate himself with no effort whatever. He was philosophical 
enough to accept nature's readjustments: 'If I see less or hear less, so much the better. Nothing 



lost. My legs are still strong enough to take me about, and I can bathe and wash without help .. 
. I enjoy my food and digest it.' Although they had a dining table, he refused to change his 
ancient habit of sitting on a rosewood plank on the floor and eating off a banana leaf in a 
corner of the dining hall. Everything for him went on automatically, and he didn't have to ask 
for anything, since his needs were anticipated; a daughter-in-law or niece or grand-daughter or 
a great-grand someone or other was always there to attend him unasked. He did not comment 
or question, particularly not question, as he feared they would bawl in his left ear and strain 
their vocal cords, though if they approached his right ear he could guess what they might be 
saying. But he didn't care either way. His retirement was complete. He had worked hard all his 
life to establish himself, and provide for his family, each figure in the two-part group 
photograph owing its existence to him directly or indirectly. Some of the grandchildren had 
been his favourites at one time or another, but they had all grown out of recognition, and their 
names—oh, names! they were the greatest impediments to speech—every name remains on 
the tip of one's tongue but is gone when you want to utter it. This trick of nature reduces one 
to a state of babbling and stammering without ever completing a sentence. Even such a 
situation was acceptable, as it seemed to be ordained by nature to keep the mind uncluttered 
in old age. 

He reflected and introspected with clarity in the afternoons—the best part of the day for him, 
when he had had his siesta; got up and had his large tumbler of coffee (brought to his room 
exactly at three by one of the ministering angels, and left on a little teapoy beside the door). 
After his coffee he felt revived, reclined in his easy-chair placed to catch the light at the 
northern window, and unfolded the morning paper, which, after everyone had read it, was 
brought and placed beside his afternoon coffee. Holding it close enough, he could read, if he 
wiped his glasses from time to time with a silk rag tied to the arm of his chair; thus comfortably 
settled, he half-read and half-ruminated. The words and acts of politicians or warmongers 
sounded stale—they spoke and acted in the same manner since the beginning of time; his eyes 
travelled down the columns—sometimes an advertisement caught his eye (nothing but an 
invitation to people to squander their money on all kinds of fanciful things), or reports of 
deaths (not one recognizable name among the dead). On the last page of the paper, however, 
half a column invariably gripped his attention—that was a daily report of a religious or 
philosophical discourse at some meeting at Madras; brief reports, but adequate for him to 
brush up his thoughts on God, on His incarnations and on definitions of Good and Evil. At this 
point, he would brood for a while and then fold and put away the paper exactly where he had 
found it, to be taken away later. 

When he heard the hall clock chime four, he stirred himself to go out on a walk. This part of the 
day's routine was anticipated by him with a great thrill. He washed and put on a long shirt 
which came down to his knees, changed to a white dhoti, wrapped around his shoulder an 
embroidered cotton shawl, seized his staff and an umbrella and sallied out. When he crossed 
the hall, someone or other always cautioned him by bellowing, 'Be careful. Have you got the 
torch? Usual round? Come back soon.' He would just nod and pass on. Once outside, he moved 
with caution, taking each step only after divining the nature of the ground with the tip of his 
staff. His whole aim in life was to avoid a fall. One false step and that would be the end. 
Longevity was guaranteed as long as he maintained his equilibrium and verticality. This 
restriction forced him to move at snail's pace, and along a well-defined orbit every evening. 

Leaving his gate, he kept himself to the extreme left of the street, along Vinayak Street, down 
Kabir Lane and into Market Road. He loved the bustle, traffic and crowds of Market 
Road—paused to gaze into shops and marvel at the crowd passing in and out perpetually. He 


shopped but rarely—the last thing he remembered buying was a crayon set and a drawing book 
for some child at home. For himself he needed to buy only a particular brand of toothpowder 
(most of his teeth were still intact), for which he occasionally stopped at Chettiar's at the far 
end of Market Road, where it branched off to Ellaman Street. When he passed in front of the 
shop, the shopman would always greet him from his seat, 'How are you, sir? Want something 
to take home today?' Rao would shake his head and cross over to the other side of the 
road—this was the spot where his orbit curved back, and took him homeward, the whole 
expedition taking him about two hours. Before 6:30, he would be back at his gate, never having 
to use his torch, which he carried in his shirt pocket only as a precaution against any sudden 
eclipse of the sun or an unexpected nightfall. 

The passage both ways would always be smooth and uneventful, although he would feel 
nervous while crossing the Market Gate, where Jayaraj the photo-framer always hailed him 
from his little shop, 'Grand Master, shall I help you across?' Rao would spurn that offer silently 
and pass on; one had to concentrate on one's steps to avoid bumping into the crowd at the 
Market Gate, and had no time for people like Jayaraj. After he had passed, Jayaraj, who enjoyed 
gossiping, would comment to his clients seated on a bench, 'At his age! Moves through the 
crowd as if he were in the prime of youth. Must be at least a hundred and ten! See his 
recklessness. It's not good to let him out like this. His people are indifferent. Not safe these 
days. With all these lorries, bicycles and auto-rickshaws, he'll come to grief someday, I'm sure .. 


'Who's he?' someone might ask, perhaps a newcomer to the town, waiting for his picture to be 
framed. 

'We used to call him Emden. 1 We were terrified of him when we were boys. He lived 
somewhere in Kabir Street. Huge, tall and imposing when he went down the road on his bicycle 
in his khaki uniform and a red turban and all kinds of badges. We took him to be a police 
inspector from his dress—not knowing that he wore the uniform of the Excise Department. He 
also behaved like the police—if he noticed anyone doing something he did not like, he'd go 
thundering at him, chase him down the street and lay the cane on his back. When we were 
boys, we used to loiter about the market in gangs, and if he saw us he'd scatter us and order us 
home. Once he caught us urinating against the school wall at Adam's Street, as we always did. 
He came down on us with a roar, seized four of us and shook us till our bones rattled, pushed 
us up before the headmaster and demanded, "What are you doing. Headmaster? Is this the 
way you train them? Or do you want them to turn out to be gutter-snipes? Why don't you keep 
an eye on them and provide a latrine in your school?" The headmaster rose in his seat, 
trembling and afraid to come too close to this terrible personality flourishing a cane. Oh, how 
many such things in his heyday! People were afraid of him. He might well have been a 
policeman for all his high-and-mighty style, but his business was only to check the taverns 
selling drinks—And you know how much he collected at the end of the day? Not less than five 
hundred rupees, that is, fifteen thousand a month, not even a governor could earn so much. No 
wonder he could build a fancy house at Ratnapuri and bring up his progeny in style. Oh, the airs 
that family give themselves! He narrowly escaped being prosecuted—if a national award were 
given for bribe-taking, it would go to him: when he was dismissed from service, he gave out 
that he had voluntarily retired! None the worse for it, has enough wealth to last ten 
generations. Emden! Indeed! He married several wives, seems to have worn them out one after 
another; that was in addition to countless sideshows, ha! ha! When we were boys, he was the 
talk of the town: some of us stealthily followed and spied on his movements in the dark lanes at 
night, and that provided us a lot of fun. He had great appetite for the unattached female tribe. 


such as nurses and schoolmistresses, and went after them like a bull! Emden, really! . . 
Jayaraj's tongue wagged while his hands were cutting, sawing and nailing a picture frame, and 
ceased the moment the work was finished, and he would end his narrations with: 'That'll be 
five rupees—special rate for you because you have brought the picture of Krishna, who is my 
family god. I've not charged for the extra rings for hanging . . .' 


Rao kept his important papers stacked in an olmiroh, which he kept locked, and the key hidden 
under a lining paper in another cupboard where he kept his clothes and a few odds and ends, 
and the key of this second cupboard also was hidden somewhere, so that no one could have 
access to the two cupboards, which contained virtually all the clues to his life. Occasionally on 
an afternoon, at his hour of clarity and energy, he'd leave his easy-chair, bolt the door and open 
the first cupboard, take out the key under the paper lining, and then open the other cupboard 
containing his documents—title-deeds, diaries, papers and a will. 

Today he finished reading the newspaper in ten minutes, and had reached his favourite column 
on the last page—the report of a discourse on reincarnations, to explain why one was born 
what he was and the working of the law of karma. Rao found it boring also: he was familiar 
with that kind of moralizing and philosophy. It was not four yet; the reading was over too soon. 
He found an unfilled half-hour between the newspaper reading and his usual time for the 
evening outing. He rose from the chair, neatly folded the newspaper and put it away on the 
little stool outside his door, and gently shut and bolted the door—noiselessly, because if they 
heard him shut the door, they would come up and caution him, 'Don't bolt,' out of fear that if 
he fell dead they might have to break the door open. Others were obsessed with the idea of his 
death as if they were all immortals! 

He unlocked the cupboard and stood for a moment gazing at the papers tied into neat 
bundles—all the records of his official career from the start to his 'voluntary retirement' were 
there on the top shelf, in dusty and yellowing paper: he had shut the cupboard doors tight, yet 
somehow fine dust seeped in and settled on everything. He dared not touch anything for fear 
of soiling his fingers and catching a cold. He must get someone to destroy them, best to put 
them in a fire; but whom could be trust? He hated the idea of anyone reading those memos 
from the government in the latter days of his service—he'd prefer people not to know the 
official mess and those threats of inquiries before he quit the service. The Secretary to the 
Government was a demon out to get his blood—inspired by anonymous letters and back-biters. 
Only one man had stood by him —his first assistant, wished he could remember his name or 
whereabouts—good fellow; if he were available he'd set him to clean and arrange his almirah 
and burn the papers: he'd be dependable, and would produce the ash if asked. But who was 
he? He patted his forehead as if to jerk the memory-machine into action . . . And then his eyes 
roved down to the next shelf; he ran his fingers over them lovingly—all documents relating to 
his property and their disposal after his death. No one in the house could have any idea of it or 
dare come near them. He must get the lawyer-man (what was his name again?) and closet 
himself with him someday. He was probably also dead. Not a soul seemed to be left in town . . . 
Anyway, must try to send someone to fetch him if he was alive, it was to be done secretly. 
How? Somehow. 

His eyes travelled to a shelf with an assortment of packets containing receipts, bills and several 
diaries. He had kept a diary regularly for several years, recording a bit of daily observation or 
event on each page. He always bought the same brand of diary, called 'Matchless'—of 



convenient size, ruled pages, with a flap that could be buttoned so that no one could casually 
open its pages and read its contents. The Matchless Stationery Mart off the main market 
manufactured it. On the last day of every December he would stop by for a copy costing four 
rupees—rather expensive but worth the price . . . more often than not the man would not take 
money for it, as he'd seek some official favour worth much more. Rao was not the sort to mind 
dispensing his official favours if it helped some poor soul. There was a stack of thirty old diaries 
in there (at some point in his life, he had abandoned the practice), which contained the gist of 
all his day-to-day life and thought: that again was something, an offering for the God of Fire 
before his death. He stood ruminating at the sight of the diaries. He pulled out one from the 
stack at random, wiped the thin layer of dust with a towel, went back to his chair and turned 
over the leaves casually. The diary was fifty-one years old. After glancing through some pages, 
he found it difficult to read his own close calligraphy in black ink and decided to put it back, as it 
was time to prepare for his walk. However, he said to himself, 'Just a minute. Let me see what I 
did on this date, on the same day, so long ago . . .' He looked at the calendar on the wall. The 
date was the twentieth of March. He opened the diary and leafed through the earlier pages, 
marvelling at the picture they presented of his early life: what a lot of activities morning till 
night, connected with the family, office and personal pursuits! His eyes smarted; he skipped 
longer passages and concentrated on the briefer ones. On the same day fifty-one years 
ago—the page contained only four lines, which read: 'Too lenient with S. She deserves to be 
taught a lesson . . .' This triggered a memory, and he could almost hear the echo of his own 
shouting at somebody, and the next few lines indicated the course of action: 'Thrashed her 
soundly for her own good and left. Will not see her again . . . How can I accept the 
responsibility? She must have had an affair—after all a D.G . 2 Wish I had locked her in before 
leaving.' He studied this entry dispassionately. He wondered who it was. The initial was not 
helpful. He had known no one with a name beginning with S. Among the ladies he had favoured 
in his days, it could be anyone . . . but names were elusive anyway. 

With great effort, he kept concentrating on this problem. His forehead throbbed with the strain 
of concentration. Of course, the name eluded him, but the geography was coming back to him 
in fragments. From Chettiar Stores . . . yes, he remembered going up Market Road . . . and 
noted the light burning at the shop facing him even at a late hour when returning home; that 
meant he had gone in that narrow street branching off from Market Road at that point, and 
that led to a parallel street . . . from there one went on and on and twisted and turned in a 
maze of by-lanes and reached that house—a few steps up before tapping gently on the 
rosewood door studded with brass stars, which would open at once as if she was waiting on the 
other side; he'd slip in and shut the door immediately, lest the neighbours be watching, and 
retrace his steps at midnight. But he went there only two days in the week, when he had free 
time . . . Her name, no, could not get it, but he could recollect her outline rather hazily—fair, 
plump and loving and jasmine-smelling; he was definite that the note referred to this woman, 
and not to another one, also plump and jasmine-smelling somewhere not so far away ... he 
remembered slapping a face and flouncing out in a rage. The young fellow was impetuous and 
hot-blooded . . . must have been someone else, not himself in any sense. He could not 
remember the house, but there used to be a coconut palm and a well in the street in front of 
the house ... it suddenly flashed across his mind that the name of the street was Gokulam. 

He rose and locked away the diary and secreted the key as usual, washed and dressed, and 
picked up his staff and umbrella and put on his sandals, with a quiet thrill. He had decided to 
venture beyond his orbit today, to go up and look for the ancient rosewood, brass-knobbed 
door, beside the coconut tree in that maze. From Chettiar Stores, his steps were bound to lead 
him on in the right direction, and if S. was there and happened to stand at the street door, he'd 


greet her ... he might not be able to climb the four steps, but he'd offer her a small gift and 
greeting from the street. She could come down and take it. He should not have slapped her 
face ... he had been impetuous and cruel. He should not have acted on jealousy ... he was 
filled with remorse. After all, she must have shown him a great deal of kindness and given him 
pleasure ungrudgingly—otherwise, why would one stay until midnight? 

While he tap-tapped his way out of his house now, someone in the hall inquired as usual, 'Got 
your torch? Rather late today. Take care of yourself.' He was excited. The shopman on the way, 
who habitually watched and commented, noted that the old man was moving rather jauntily 
today. 'Oh, Respected One, good day to you, sir,' said Mani from his cycle shop. 'In such a hurry 
today? Walk slowly, sir, road is dug up everywhere.' Rao looked up and permitted himself a 
gentle nod of recognition. He did not hear the message, but he could guess what Mani might be 
saying. He was fond of him—a great-grandson of that fellow who had studied with him at 
Albert Mission School. Name? As usual Mani's great-grandfather's name kept slipping away . . . 
he was some Ram or Shankar or something like that. Oh, what a teaser! He gave up and passed 
on. He kept himself to the edge as usual, slowed down his pace after Mani's advice; after all, his 
movement should not be noticeable, and it was not good to push oneself in that manner and 
pant with the effort. 

At Jagan's Sweets, he halted. Some unknown fellow at the street counter. Children were 
crowding in front of the stall holding forth money and asking for this and that. They were 
blocking the way. He waited impatiently and tapped his staff noisily on the ground till the man 
at the counter looked up and asked, 'Anything, master?' Rao waved away the children with a 
flourish of his stick and approached the counter and feasted his eyes on the heaped-up sweets 
in different colours and shapes, and wished for a moment he could eat recklessly as he used to. 
But perhaps that'd cost him his life today—the secret of his survival being the spartan life he 
led, rigorously suppressing the cravings of the palate. He asked, 'What's fresh today?' The man 
at the counter said, 'We prepare everything fresh every day. Nothing is yesterday's . . .' Rao 
could only partly guess what he was saying but, without betraying himself, said, 'Pack up jilebi 
for three rupees . . .' He counted out the cash carefully, received the packet of jilebi, held it 
near his nostrils (the smell of food would not hurt, and there was no medical advice against it), 
for a moment relishing its rose-scented flavour; and was on his way again. Arriving at the point 
of Chettiar Stores, he paused and looked up at his right—yes, that street was still there as he 
had known it. . . 

Noticing him hesitating there, the shopman hailed from his shop, 'Oh, Grand Master, you want 
anything?' He felt annoyed. Why couldn't they leave him alone? And then a young shop 
assistant came out to take his order. Rao looked down at him and asked, pointing at the cross 
street, 'Where does it lead?' 

'To the next street,' the boy said, and that somehow satisfied him. The boy asked, 'What can I 
get you?' 

'Oh, will no one leave me alone?' Rao thought with irritation. They seemed to assume that he 
needed something all the time. He hugged the packet of sweets close to his chest, along with 
the umbrella slung on the crook of his arm. The boy seemed to be bent on selling him 
something. And so he said, 'Have you sandalwood soap?' He remembered that S., or whoever it 
was, used to be fond of it. The boy got it for him with alacrity. Its fragrance brought back some 
old memories. He had thought there was a scent of jasmine about S., but he realized now that 
it must have been that of sandalwood. He smelt it nostalgically before thrusting it into his 
pocket. 'Anything else, sir?' asked the boy. 'No, you may go,' and he crossed Market Road over 



to the other side. 


Trusting his instinct to guide him, he proceeded along the cross street ahead of Chettiar Stores. 
It led to another street running parallel, where he took a turn to his left on an impulse, and 
then again to his right into a lane, and then left, and then about-turn—but there was no trace 
of Gokulam Street. As he tap-tapped along, he noticed a cobbler on the roadside, cleared his 
throat, struck his staff on the ground to attract attention and asked, 'Here, which way to 
Gokulam Street?' At first, the cobbler shook his head, then, to get rid of the inquirer, pointed 
vaguely in some direction and resumed his stitching. 'Is there a coconut tree in this street?' The 
other once again pointed along the road. Rao felt indignant. 'Haughty beggar,' he muttered. 'In 
those days I'd have . . .' He moved on, hoping he'd come across the landmark. He stopped a 
couple of others to ask the same question, and that did not help. No coconut tree anywhere. 
He was sure that it was somewhere here that he used to come, but everything was changed. All 
the generations of men and women who could have known Gokulam Street and the coconut 
tree were dead—new generations around here, totally oblivious of the past. He was a lone 
survivor. 

He moved cautiously now, as the sun was going down. He became rather nervous and jabbed 
his staff down at each step, afraid of stumbling into a hole. It was a strain moving in this 
fashion, so slow and careful, and he began to despair that he'd ever reach the Market Road 
again. He began to feel anxious, regretted this expedition. The family would blame him if he 
should have a mishap. Somehow he felt more disturbed at the thought of their resentment 
than of his own possible suffering. But he kept hobbling along steadily. Some passers-by paused 
to stare at him and comment on his perambulation. At some point, his staff seemed to stab 
through a soft surface; at the same moment a brown mongrel, which had lain curled up in dust, 
in perfect camouflage, sprang up with a piercing howl; Rao instinctively jumped, as he had not 
done for decades, luckily without falling down, but the packet of jilebi flew from his grip and 
landed in front of the mongrel, who picked it up and trotted away, wagging his tail in gratitude. 
Rao looked after the dog helplessly and resumed his journey homeward. Brooding over it, he 
commented to himself, 'Who knows, S. is perhaps in this incarnation now . . .' 



Glossary 


almirah: cupboard 

appalam: fried delicacy made of rice and other grains 

bajji: a sort of cutlet made with sliced vegetables 

beedi: leaf-wrapped tobacco 

bhairavi raga: a melodic classification 

Bhajan: a collective prayer, song 

bhang: narcotic made from hemp 

bonda: fried eatable made with flour 

brinjal: eggplant 

bund: elevated border of tank or river 
chappati: wheat-flour pancake 
choultry: rest-house for travellers 
circar: government 
dakshina: fee 

darshan: grace conferred on the beholder of a godly person 
dhall: lentil 

dhobi: laundry boy or washerman 

dhoti: sarong-like men's garment, tucked and knotted at the waist 
dosai: fried cake made of rice paste 
idli: steamed rice cake 

jaggery: product similar to brown sugar, made by boiling sugarcane juice 
Javali: a musical composition 
jilebi: a sweet 

jutka: two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage 

karma: Hindu theological idea meaning destiny, desert; the doctrine that one's present actions 
continue to have effects in another incarnation 

kurta: flowing shirt 


lakh: a hundred thousand 



lathi: heavy stick, often bamboo, bound with iron 
Muhurtam: auspicious moment 
namaste: greeting—'I bow before thee' 

Om: a mystical syllable 

paisa (pi. paise): the smallest coin; one hundred make one rupee 

Pallavi: special item in a musical concert 

pandal: special shed put up for an assembly 

payasam: sweet soup 

pie: the smallest coin in the old currency 

Pongal: harvest festival 

puja: worship, offering 

punnaga varali: a particular melody 

pyol: platform built along the house wall that faces the street 
ragi: millet 

rasagulla: sweet made from condensed milk 
rasam: lentil soup 
sadhu: hermit or recluse 

Sandhi: devotions at morning, noon, and evening 
sanyasi: an ascetic who has renounced the world 
shikari: professional hunter 
sowcar: businessman or financier 
Swarga Loka: heaven 
teapoy: small table 

thali: sacred marriage badge, symbol of wifehood 
thambura: stringed instrument used for accompaniment 



1 


A German warship that shelled Madras in 1916; ever since, the term indicates anyone who is 
formidable and ruthless. 

2 

Dancing Girl, a term denoting a public woman in those days.