Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (41 page)

Margayya felt it was time for him to interrupt this peroration. ‘The same with me. I like to go a step further. Not only lack of profit: I like to feel that I have done something with a little sacrifice for another person’s sake. It is not often one gets a chance to do such a thing, but when one does, one is able to sleep with the utmost peace that night.’

With their mouths stuffed with sweets and other edibles they spoke for about ten minutes more on sacrifices and the good life. When they came to the coffee there was a lull and Margayya said casually, ‘Here is the proposal about
Domestic Harmony
. I don’t like you to bear the burden any more since you say that you have had a loss. Why don’t you let me take it over completely?’

‘Why? How can that be? There is our partnership deed … My lawyer …’

‘Oh, let your lawyer alone. We don’t need lawyers. Why do you bring in a lawyer when we are discussing something as friends? Is this all the regard you have for our friendship? I am very much hurt, Lai. I wish you had not mentioned a lawyer.’ He sat looking very sad and broken-hearted at this turn of events.

Lai remained quiet for a few moments. He took a cup of tea and gulped it down. He said: ‘Why should you feel so much upset at the thought of lawyers? They are not demons. Somehow I don’t like to do anything without telling my lawyer about it.’

‘As for me,’ said Margayya, ‘you need not imagine that I have no use for lawyers. I consult not one but two or three at a time in business matters. I never take a step unless I have had a long and complete consultation with my lawyer … But now there is nothing to warrant the calling of a lawyer or the police,’ he added laughing.

The other could not view the matter with the same ease and still looked very serious.

Margayya said: ‘I am not calling you here to give you trouble, Lai. I am only informally trying to talk over a matter with you, that is all, but if you are going to be so suspicious I had better not speak of it. You see, I am not a person who cares much for advantages; what seems to me the most important thing in human life is good relationships among all human beings.’

This maudlin statement had the desired effect and Lai softened a little, and asked, ‘What is it that you are trying to say?’

‘Merely that you should let me buy up the partnership for
Domestic Harmony
.’

‘It is impossible,’ he cried. ‘I can prove that I have observed all
the clauses faithfully. How can we cancel it, mister? What is it that you are suggesting?’

‘It is only a suggestion,’ Margayya said. ‘Just to save you the bother, that’s all; there’s nothing more in it, especially since I thought you could employ your time and energies more profitably –’

‘Impossible!’ Lai cried. ‘I will not listen to it.’

‘Oh,’ Margayya said, and remained thoughtful. Then he added, ‘Well then, I will make a sporting offer.’ He tapped his chest dramatically, ‘Just to prove that all is well here I make this sporting offer to you. Take it if you can. You will then know that I am not trying to gain a mean advantage over you.’

‘What are you saying, mister?’

‘It is this … I will speak if you promise you will not call your lawyer or the police after me!’

‘Oh, you are a very sensitive man,’ Lai said. ‘I meant no offence.’

‘You might not, but it is very depressing … You are a business man and I am a business man. Let us talk like two business men. Either we agree or we don’t agree … Either give the
Domestic Harmony
solely –’

‘Impossible,’ cried Lai once again. ‘There is our partnership deed.’

‘What is the deed worth? Tear it up, I say, and take over the book yourself. I do not want any interest in it. I am prepared to give it to you this very moment, although in a couple of months the marriage season will be on and the demand for the book will go up. I am prepared to surrender it. Are you prepared to accept it?’

‘No,’ said Lai promptly. ‘I do not like to take advantage of anyone’s generosity.’

It needed, however, two more days of such talk, rambling, challenging, and bordering on the philosophical, before they could evolve an equitable give-and-take scheme; a scheme which each secretly thought gave him a seventy-five per cent advantage. By it Margayya abandoned for ever his interest in
Domestic Harmony
for a lump sum payment, and he tore up his document dramatically and put it into the wastepaper basket
under Lai’s table, at which Lai seemed to be much moved. He extended his hand and said: ‘Among business men once a friend always a friend. Our friendship must always grow. If you have any printing of forms or anything remember us; we are always at your service. This is your press.’

He saw Margayya off at the door and Margayya walked down the Market Road with a satisfactory cheque in his pocket.

Margayya went straight to the Town Bank. He refused to transact his business at the counter; he had to do it sitting in a chair in the Manager’s room. But he found someone talking to the Manager and he had to wait outside for a moment. It was a crowded hour. Margayya never liked to do his transactions through the counter window. He despised the clerks. It was a sign of prestige for a business man to get things done in a bank without standing at the little window. That was for the little fellows who had no current account but only a savings bank book. He had the greatest contempt for savings bank operations: putting in money as if into a child’s money box and withdrawing no more than fifty rupees a week or some miserable amount, not through cheques but by writing on those pitiful withdrawal forms … Having a current account seemed to him a stamp of superiority, and a man who had two accounts, account number one and account number two, was a person of eminence. He saw waiting at the counters petty merchants, office messengers, and a couple of students of the Albert College attempting to cash cheques from their parents.

Hearing their inquiries, Margayya felt: ‘Why do their parents send these boys cheques which they won’t know how to cash?’ He thought: ‘What do these people know of cheques? What do they know of money? They are ignorant folk who do not know the worth of money, and think that it is just something to pass into a shop. Fools!’ He pitied them. He felt that he must do something to enlighten their minds. He would not be a banker to them, but a helper, a sort of money doctor who would help people to use their money properly with the respect due to it. He would educate society anew in all these matters. He hoped he would be able to draw away all these people into his own establishment when the time came. The reason why people
came here was that they were attracted by the burnished counters, the heavy ledgers, the clerks sitting on high stools and so on, and, of course, the calling bells and pin-cushions. Once again show, mere show. Showiness was becoming the real curse of all business these days, he thought. It was not necessary to have anything more than a box for carrying on any business soundly; not necessary to have too many persons or tables or leather-bound ledgers; all that was required was just one head and a small notebook in which to note down figures if they became too complicated, and above all a scheme. He knew that he had a scheme somewhere at the back of his mind, a scheme which would place him among the elect in society, which would make people flock to him and look to him for guidance, advice and management. He could not yet say what the scheme would be, but he sensed its presence, being a financial mystic. Whatever it was, it was going to revolutionize his life and the life of his fellow men. He felt he ought to wait on that inspiration with reverence and watchfulness.

A peon came up to say, ‘The Manager is free.’

‘All right, I’ll be coming,’ said Margayya. He liked to give an impression that he was in no hurry to run into the Manager’s room at his call. He looked through some papers in his pocket, folded and put them back, and sauntered into the Manager’s room.

The Manager was a very curt, business-like gentleman who had recently been transferred to this branch. ‘Sit down, please, what can I do for you?’ he asked. He was a man soured by constant contact with people who came to ask for overdrafts or loans on insufficient security. The moment he heard a footstep approaching, he first prepared himself to repel any demand. So, according to his custom, he put himself behind a forbidding exterior for a moment, and assumed a monosyllabic attitude.

‘I wish to open an account,’ said Margayya. The Manager could not take it in easily at first. He still had his suspicions. This man might be anybody; might have come to open an account or to open the safe … This hostility affected Margayya too. He said at once, ‘You don’t seem to want a new client … If that is so …’ He pretended to rise.

‘Sit down please,’ said the other. ‘We have instructions not to admit too many new accounts, but I should like to know –’

‘You would like to know whether I am a bankrupt or what. All right, I am not anxious to have an account here. I want it here because it is quite near to my own business place.’

‘Where is it?’

‘You will know it presently.’

‘Really? What business?’

Margayya would not answer this question. The more the other pressed for an answer, the more he resisted. ‘Let me tell you this: it is a very specialized business: my clients are chiefly peasants from the villages. I have a great deal to do with their harvests and advances and so forth.’ To further inquiries by the Manager Margayya refused to give an answer: ‘I cannot give any details of my business at the moment to you or to anyone. No one will be able to get these things out of me. But let me tell you: I have come here only to deposit my money and use it, not to take money out of you … I can quite see what is at the back of y our mind. Now tell me whether you would care to have my account here or not …’ Now he was taking out his trump, namely, the cheque given to him by Lai. ‘If you don’t want me here, give me cash for it; but if you think I am good enough for you, start an account with this.’

‘Have you an account anywhere else?’

‘I don’t answer that question,’ said Margayya out of sheer financial pugnacity; he could have told him that he had quite a sizeable account in Commerce Bank in Race Course Road.

The Bank Manager felt that here was a man who knew his mind and felt a regard for him. ‘Of course I will open your account here,’ he said with sudden warmth. ‘What does a bank exist for unless to serve its clients?’

‘Quite right,’ Margayya said. ‘I quite appreciate,’ he said patronizingly, ‘your precaution as a banker. Only a business man can appreciate it in another business man.’

He had a feeling that he had after all found the right place for himself in life – the right destination, the right destination being IO Market Road. It was a block of four shops, each about twelve feet square, with a narrow corridor running in front which was
thrown in as a sort of grace to the tenants. The other three were taken by a tailor whose single machine went on rattling all day and night over the din of clients who came to demand their overdue clothes, and next to it was a board announcing itself as the Tourist Bureau, having a number of small chairs and a few benches, and a fourth shop was a doctor’s, who claimed to have practised under a great seer in the Himalayas and to be able to cure any disease with rare herbs. Margayya was pleased with this spot. It was a combination which seemed to him ideal. On the very first day he came there he felt that these were just the men with whom he could live: ‘They are not people who are likely to interfere with my work. Moreover, it is likely that people who come to the tailor or the doctor or the tourist bureau are just the people who have some surplus cash and who are likely to be interested in my business too.’

It was Dr Pal who put him into this setting. Dr Pal sought him out one day at his house just as he was bullying his son over his lessons. He walked in saying, ‘I didn’t know your house exactly, but just took a chance and came over. I was just sauntering down the road wondering whom to ask when I heard your voice.’

Margayya had a slate in his hand and there was a frown on his face and tears in his son’s eyes. He got over his confusion and affected a smile: ‘Oh, Doctor, Doctor, what have you been doing with yourself?’

The doctor looked at Balu and said, ‘You have evidently been trying to teach this young man. Don’t you know that for parents to teach their off-spring is prohibited in all civilized countries?’ He then said to the boy, as if taking charge of him immediately, ‘Now run off, little man.’ He turned ceremoniously to Margayya and added, ‘Of course with your permission.’ Balu did not wait for any further concession; he swept aside his books and ran out of sight as if a bear were behind him.

Margayya’s mind had still not come to rest. He kept looking after his son and mumbled, ‘You have no idea how indifferent and dull present-day boys are.’

‘Oh, no, don’t tell me that … Remember correctly: do you think you gave an easy time to your father or the teachers? Just think over it honestly.’

It was not a line which Margayya was prepared to pursue. He brushed aside the topic, remembering suddenly that he had not been sufficiently hospitable. He burst into sudden activity, and began to fuss elaborately over his visitor. He jumped to his feet, clutched the other’s hand, and said, ‘Oh, oh, Doctor, what a pleasure to meet you after all these years! Where have you been all the time? What have you been doing with yourself? What is the meaning of cutting off old friends as you did?’ He unrolled a new mat, and apologized, ‘You know I have no sofa or chair to offer –’

‘Well, I didn’t come to be put on to a sofa.’

‘That is right. I don’t like furniture, the type of furniture which does not suit us; we are made to sit erect with our feet dangling –’

‘I wonder,’ said Dr Pal, ‘if the prevalence of nervous disorders in the present day might be due to the furniture which has become popular. In ancient days our ancestors squatted on the floor, stretched themselves as much as they liked and lived to be wise old men.’

Margayya could not understand whether the man was joking with him or was in earnest. He called his wife and said, ‘Get two cups of coffee ready immediately. My old friend has come.’ While waiting for coffee he said, ‘Now tell me what you have been doing with yourself, Doctor. Where have you been hiding all these days?’

The doctor said, ‘I had gone for a little training in Tourism.’

Margayya was bewildered. This man was specializing in obscure and rare activities. ‘What is Tourism?’ he asked.

‘It is a branch of social activity,’ the doctor said. ‘The basic idea is that all people on earth should be familiar with all parts of the earth.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘It is not, and that is why there must be a specialist in Tourism in every town and city.’

‘What is Tourism?’ Margayya asked innocently once again.

The doctor viewed him with pity and said, ‘I will explain to you all about it by and by one day when we meet in my office … Now tell me about yourself.

‘No, you tell me about yourself first,’ Margayya said, with a vague desire to avoid the theme of himself for the moment. There was at the back of his mind a faint fear lest the doctor should ask him to render the accounts of
Domestic Harmony
. He wondered if the man had hunted him down for this and he wished to be on his guard. He had hardly made up his mind as to what he should say if he broached the subject, when, as if reading his thoughts, Pal said, ‘I came here some time ago, but didn’t like to meet you lest you should think I had come after my book.’

Margayya sniggered and said somewhat pointlessly, ‘Oh, isn’t it quite a long time since we met?’

‘Yes, ages since. I have been away for a long time. You know I am no longer on that paper. I gave it up. It did not seem to me serious enough work. I always feel that we must do something that contributes to the sum and substance of human experience. Otherwise all our jobs seem to be just futile.’

‘I also am about to start a new business.’

‘Yes, I heard about it from the town bank manager,’ said Pal.

The man seemed to know everything that was going on everywhere, thought Margayya with a certain amount of admiration. Margayya’s wife brought two tumblers of coffee to the door of the kitchen and made some noise with the vessels in order to attract Margayya’s attention. Margayya said from where he sat, ‘You can come in, it is my friend Dr Pal. I have spoken to you about him.’

She was at once seized with fear whether the man was there in order to discuss another book on the same lines as the previous one. She withdrew a little, and Margayya went over and took the coffee from her hands and carried it to the front room.

The conversation languished while Dr Pal was relishing the coffee, and then he said, ‘I heard from the bank manager that you are starting a new business. I just came to tell you that if you want a nice place on Market Road, there is one vacant in our block. There is some demand for it.’

They went to 10 Market Road. Margayya liked the building when he saw it. A man who made a lot of money selling blankets had bought up the vacant site next to the Municipal Dispensary and built these rooms. At the moment, the house was of one storey. Eventually he proposed to add a first floor and a second
floor. The man himself had his own shop in one of the back lanes of the Market, a very small shop stacked with rough blankets. He was a strong dark man with a circular sandal paste mark on his forehead. He sat there all day chasing the flies. ‘Flies come here, God knows why,’ Margayya reflected when he went to meet him with Dr Pal. They had to stand outside the shop and talk to him as he peeped out of his blanket stacks. At the sight of Pal the other man brought his palms together and saluted. He had evidently great reverence for learned people.

‘How are you, sir?’ Dr Pal inquired genially. ‘This is one of my greatest friends,’ he told Margayya in an aside, and added, ‘You cannot imagine how much he has helped me in my most difficult times.’

‘Tut, tut,’ said the other from the depth of his woollen stacks. ‘This is not the place for you to start all that … Don’t. Now who is this person you have brought with you?’

‘He is a friend of mine who wants to be your tenant. He is opening his business in a couple of days. Am I right?’ he asked, turning to Margayya. With a sheet of paper Margayya fanned off the flies that were alighting on his nose. The man in the shop announced apologetically, ‘Oh, too many flies here –’

‘What have flies to do here?’ Margayya asked, unable to restrain his question any more.

The other replied, ‘They have nothing to interest them here, but behind this shop there is a jaggery godown. There is a gap in the roof through which flies pass up and down. It is a great nuisance, and I have written to the municipality to get the jaggery shop moved somewhere else … but you know what our municipalities are!’

‘He is himself a municipal councillor for this ward,’ Dr Pal added, ‘and yet he finds so much difficulty in getting anything done. He had such trouble to get that vacant plot for himself –’