Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (32 page)

‘What is the matter with you? What has come over you?’ asked the wife.

‘I’m all right,’ Margayya replied proudly. ‘You’ll see what I’ll do to that little monkey, that devil you have begotten.’ His wife gave some appropriate reply, and tried to help in the chase. She pretended to look away and suddenly darted across to seize the boy. He was too swift even for her calculations. She only collided against her husband, which irritated him more; and it allowed the child to dash into the street with his prize, with his father at his heels. He cried impatiently to his wife, ‘Get out of the way – you –’ at which she turned and went back to the kitchen murmuring: ‘What do I care? I only let the rice overboil watching this tomfoolery.’ The boy dashed down the front steps, with his father following him. Margayya was blind to all his surroundings – all he could see was the little boy with his curly hair, and the small red-bound book which was in his hand. Some passers-by in Vinayak Mudali Street stopped to watch the scene. Margayya cried shamelessly: ‘Hold him! Hold him!’ At which they tried to encircle the boy. It was evident that by now he had become completely intoxicated with the chase. Presently he found that he was being outnumbered and cornered. As a circle of hunters hemmed in, he did an entirely unexpected thing – he turned back as if coming into his father’s arms, and as he was just about to grasp him, darted sideways to the edge of the gutter and flung the red book into it. The gutter ran in front of the houses; roaring waters went down the drain God knew where. It was well known that any object that fell into it was lost for ever, it sank and went out of sight, sank deeper and deeper into a black mass, and was hopelessly gone. The gutter was wide as a channel. Once in a while, especially before the elections, the Municipal officials came down and walked along the edge peering into its dark current and saying something among themselves as to its being a problem and so on. But there they left it until the next
election. It was a stock cynicism for people to say when they saw anyone inspecting the drains: ‘They are only looking for the election votes there!’ At other times the gutter continued its existence unhampered, providing the cloud of mosquitoes and the stench that characterized existence in Vinayak Mudali Street.

Presently a big crowd stood on the edge of the drain looking at its inky, swirling waters. People sympathized with Margayya. Wild, inaccurate reports of what had fallen into it were circulated. Margayya heard people tell each other: ‘A box was dropped into it.’ ‘That child threw away a gold chain into it.’ Everyone looked at Balu with interest. He seemed to have become a hero for the moment. He felt abashed at this prominence and hung his head. The sun was shining on them fiercely, though it was just nine-thirty in the morning. Margayya looked red with anger and exertion. His son’s face was also flushed. The little boy crossed his arms behind him and stood on the edge of the gutter watching it with fascination. There was no trace of the book left anywhere. Margayya’s blood boiled as he watched the unconcern of the boy, who, true to the type in that street, wore only a shirt which covered only the upper half of his body. Two pedlars carrying green vegetables, a cyclist who jumped off on seeing the crowd, a few school children, a curd-seller, and a few others formed the group which now watched the gutter with varying comments passing between them. A man was saying: ‘Some people are so fond that they give their children everything they ask for.’ On hearing this Margayya felt so enraged that he lifted the edge of the shirt the little boy was wearing and slapped him fiercely across his uncovered seat. The boy cried aloud: ‘Oh!’ and turned round on his father. It started a fresh scene. Someone dragged away the child crying: ‘Save the child from this ruffian.’ Another said: ‘He would have pushed the child into the gutter.’ A woman with a basket came forward to ask: ‘Are you a heartless demon? How can you beat such a small child?’ She flung down her basket and picked up the child on her arm. Balu copiously sobbed on her shoulder. Another woman tried to take him from her, commenting: ‘Only those who bear the child for ten months in the womb know how precious it
is. Men are always like this.’ Someone objected to this statement; it turned out to be the man holding the cycle, who retorted with great warmth: ‘Boys must be chastized; otherwise do you want them to grow up into devils?’ Margayya looked at him gratefully. Here at last was a friend in this absolutely hostile world. He swept his arms to address all the women and the gathering: ‘It’s all very well for you to talk…. But he has thrown in there an important account-book. What am I to do without it?’

‘How can a baby know anything about account-books and such things? God gives children to those who don’t deserve them.’

‘You should not have kept it within his reach. You must always be prepared for such things where there are children.’

A washerwoman, who had come forward, said: ‘You were childless for twelve years, and prayed to all the Gods and went to Thirupathi: was it only for this?’

‘What have I done?’ Margayya asked pathetically. He was beginning to feel very foolish. Society was pressing in upon him from all sides – the latest in the shape of this woman who had on her back a bundle of unwashed linen. Vegetable-sellers, oilmongers, passers-by, cartmen, students – everyone seemed to have a right to talk to him as they pleased. Society seemed to overwhelm him on all sides. The lone cyclist was hardly an adequate support on which to lean. Margayya turned and looked for him. He too was gone. He saw his son clinging fast to the waist of the cucumber-seller, sobbing and sobbing, and gaining more sympathizers. Margayya knew that the little boy would not let his sympathizers go until they took him to the shop across the road and bought him peppermints.

The crowd turned away and was now following Balu, and Margayya felt relieved that they were leaving him alone. He broke a twig off an avenue tree, and vaguely poked it into the gutter and ran the stick from end to end. He only succeeded in raising a stench. A school-master who passed that way advised: ‘Call a scavenger and ask him to look for it. He’ll have the proper thing with him for poking here. Don’t try to do everything yourself Margayya obediently dropped the stick into the drain,
reflecting, ‘No one will let me do what I like.’ He turned to go back into his house. He climbed his steps with bowed head, because his brother’s entire family was ranged along the wall on the other side. He quickly passed in. When he was gone they commented: ‘Something is always agitating that household and creating a row.’ Margayya went straight into the kitchen, where his wife was cooking, ignorant of all that had happened, and told her: ‘The folk in the next house seem to have no better business than to hang about to see what is going on here … Do they ever find the time to cook, eat or sleep?’ This was a routine question needing no reply from his wife. She merely asked: ‘Where is the child?’ ‘Probably rolling in the gutter,’ he answered wearily. ‘What has come over you?’ she asked. ‘You don’t seem to be in your senses since last night.’

‘I’m not. And if you try to imply that I have been drinking or spending the night in a brothel, I leave you free to think so –’

The loss of the little book produced endless complications for Margayya. He could hardly transact any business without it, he had to conceal the loss from his customers, who he feared might take advantage of it. He had to keep out of the tree shade, remain standing or moving about, and give out figures from his head – it was all most irksome. It was an important day; he had to collect money from three or four men to whom he had advanced cash.

‘Where is the book, master?’ asked Kali, one of his old customers. Margayya said: ‘I’m rebinding it. You know it must look tidy. But it is really not necessary for me. I have everything I want here,’ he added, tapping his forehead. Kali had not been here for some weeks now and so looked with suspicion at this man standing beyond the gate, without his box, without his book. ‘Perhaps,’ thought Margayya, ‘Ami Doss has been speaking to him.’ Kali was like a tiger which suddenly meets the ring-master, without the ring, or the whip in his hand.

‘Why are you not in your place?’ he asked.

‘Oh! I’m tired of sitting and sitting – some sort of lumbago here,’ Margayya said. He sat down on the short compound wall. A country cart passed along, and it threw up dust. Margayya sneezed. ‘You see, you should not sit there,’ moralized the other.
‘I should not, that’s why I’m looking for an office hereabouts with chairs and tables. When eminent people like you arrive, you will be seated in chairs,’ he said. ‘I must also look to your convenience, don’t you see?’

‘Of course,’ said the other. ‘But that banyan shade was quite good, sir. So much fresh air. I always like it.’

‘I don’t,’ replied Margayya. ‘It’s all very well for a man like you, who comes out to lounge and have a nap in the afternoon. But for a business man it is not good. The uproar those birds make! I can hardly hear my own voice! And then their droppings! And those ants down below. I used to suffer agony when I was sitting there.’

‘Where is your box, sir?’ asked Kali, noticing its absence.

‘Sent it for repainting: it’s a lucky box, my dear fellow. I don’t like to throw it away … It’s not looking quite tidy. I’ve sent it for painting. I have it more as a keepsake.’

‘Yes, whatever article has grown up with us must be kept all our life … In our village there was a fellow who had a hoe with a broken handle –’

‘I know all that,’ Margayya cut in, snubbing him just for the sake of effect. ‘When he changed the handle, his harvest suffered, didn’t it?’

‘How do you know, sir?’ asked Kali, overawed.

‘I know everything that goes on in people’s minds; otherwise, I should not have taken to this banking business … Now I know what is going on in your mind. You have got in your purse, which you have tucked at the waist, money drawn from the bank.’

‘No, no, sir,’ he protested. ‘Is it so easy to get money out of them?’

‘Listen! Your loan application was considered and passed on Monday last. You must have in your purse now two hundred and seventy-nine rupees and four annas; that is, you have given eight annas to the clerk, and four annas as a tip to Arul Doss. Is it, or is it not a fact?’ He cast a searching look at Kali, who had wrapped himself in a large sheet. There were a hundred corners over his person where he might tuck a whole treasure. Kali met his gaze, and turned to go. It was the dull hour of the afternoon when his
other clients had gone into the bank or were dozing in the shade. They would all come a little later. Margayya was glad it was so, because he wanted to tackle this difficult man alone. Others would not be able to take a lesson from him. Kali was attempting to retreat. He looked up at the sky and said: ‘Looks like three o’clock. They have asked me to call in at three again. You know how it is, if we go in even a minute late. They make it an excuse –’ Margayya looked at him. If he let him go out of sight, he would pass into the bank and then out of it by the back door.

He said firmly: ‘You give me the fifty rupees I advanced, with interest.’ The other looked puzzled.

‘Fifty! With interest! What is it you are talking about, Margayya?’ At other times, if anyone said such a thing, Margayya would open the pages of his red-bound book and flourish it. He thought of his son. Why did the boy do such a thing? He had left the book alone all these days! Kali stopped, looked at him haughtily and said: ‘I never like to be called a liar! You may settle my account tomorrow, the first thing… Let me see what it is, and I will settle it the first thing tomorrow, to the last pie.’ He moved away. Margayya stood helplessly. He watched him with sorrow. He could not even throw after him any curse and threats (brilliant ones that occurred to him, as usual, a little too late). ‘Margayya, you have been made a fool of. They have made a frightful fool of you.’ ‘They haven’t … I should have told him … You son of a guttersnipe … Don’t I know what your father was! He went to gaol for snatching a chain from a child’s neck! You come of a family which would steal a matchstick rather than ask for it … I shouldn’t have associated with you, but I’ll get at you one day, don’t worry. I can –’ But it was no use arguing with himself in this manner. The man was gone, while Margayya stood watching him dumbly. He recollected that he had helped him get loans four times – when his life and honour, as he said, were at stake. ‘And this is what I get.’ He was filled with self-pity. He thought of the account-book. Suppose he announced a reward to any scavenger who might salvage it? Even if it was salvaged what was the use? How was it to be touched again and read!

He had to wait at the gate, away from the line of vision of the secretary’s room, sitting on the short parapet, and keep an eye on
all his old customers who might go in and come out of the building. Without giving himself too much away, he was able to tackle a few of his old customers, and they didn’t prove as tricky as Kali. He was able to salvage the bulk of his investments within the next fifteen days, which amounted to just two hundred rupees.

Margayya stepped into the temple, driven there by a vague sense of desperation. He told himself several times over that he was going to see the God and not the priest. But he did not believe it himself – nor did the priest let him view only the God and go away. As soon as he entered the portals of the temple the priest’s voice came to him from an unknown, unobserved place, behind the image in the dark inner sanctum. ‘Oh, Margayya, welcome to this God’s home.’ Margayya was startled as if a voice from Heaven had suddenly assailed him. He trembled. The last worshipper had prostrated before the image and was leaving. Margayya prostrated on the ground before the inner sanctuary. A couple of feeble oil-lamps were alight; a mixed smell of burning oil, flowers, and incense hung in the air. That was a combination of scent which always gave Margayya a feeling of elation. He shut his eyes. For a moment he felt that he was in a world free from all worrying problems. It was in many ways a noble world, where everything ran smoothly – no Arul Doss or Co-operative Society Secretary, no villagers with their complex finances, no son to snatch away an account-book and drop it in a gutter. Life was a terrible affair. The faint, acrid smell of oil seemed to detach him from all worries for a moment. He shut his eyes and let himself float in that luxurious sensation, with the tip of his nose pressed against the flagstones of the corridor. It was still warm with the heat of the day’s sun. Its smell of dust was overpowering – the dust carried by the feet of hundreds of devotees and worshippers or blown in by the wind from Vinayak Mudali Street. When Margayya withdrew from the feeling of ecstasy and lifted his head, he saw the feet of the priest near his face. He looked up. The priest said: ‘Margayya’s mind is deeply engrossed in God … if a man’s piety is to be measured by the length of time he lies prostrate before God. Get up Margayya. God
has seen your heart already.’ Margayya got to his feet. He smiled at him and felt some explanation was due. He began awkwardly: ‘You see, you see … I felt I should visit God at least once a week –’