Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (47 page)

‘Yes, that’s so,’ said the Inspector. ‘That’s the correct explanation.’

‘Oh, it never occurred to me. I can make myself seen. We often forget that we divine creatures are transparent, and that we cannot be seen.’

‘But it is easily remedied, if your holiness makes up his mind.’ The other shook his head in approval, then waved his arm, looked at Margayya, and asked: ‘Do you see me?’

The Inspector muttered: ‘Salute him.’

‘Yes,’ replied Margayya with a reverential salaam.

‘Now, what is your business, mortal?’

The Inspector said: ‘He has come after his son Balu, about whom a card has emanated from here.’ He held up the card and said, ‘He wants to know in which world to look for him.’

The other shook his head and said: ‘That I am not allowed to say. That only God can do. I am not God, but only God’s agent. He ordered, “Go and prepare the world for my coming.” That I am doing. I write every day to every King, Ruler, Viceroy, President and Minister in the world, that their boss is soon arriving, and let them get ready for it. Every day I write to President Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, particularly.’ He indicated a big file of letters waiting to be posted.

The Inspector said: ‘That’s fine – but we want to know the whereabouts of Balu. He is not a Maharaja or anything like that and it is enough for us to know in which world he is to be found. Will you please look up the necessary reference?’

‘Is this his earthly father?’

‘Yes,’ said the Inspector.

‘Does he believe in Death?’

‘He does not,’ replied the Inspector.

‘I am very pleased about it. It’s my mission in life to inform at least ten mortals about Death each day and educate them. People must learn to view Death calmly.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said the Inspector and added: ‘Please look into your file.’

The other took out a ponderous file, turned over its leaves, muttering ‘Balu … Balu … Son of… Malgudi …’ Margayya could hardly believe his ears. He cried involuntarily: ‘How did you get my address?’ The Inspector suppressed him with a gesture and said: ‘Where did you pick up this mortal’s address?’

‘How do I pick up George VI’s address or Mahatma Gandhi’s address?’ he answered back. ‘Whenever anyone comes to me for charity, I will not give them an anna unless they give me their true address. Whenever anyone comes to me for employment in any of my businesses, I won’t take him in unless he gives me his true address.’

‘How do you know it is his true address?’

‘By writing a card to that address,’ the other said triumphantly. ‘You must not forget that there is God above me.’

‘Did this boy come to you for employment?’

‘Didn’t he?’

‘Or for charity?’

‘I don’t believe in charity. Whenever anyone comes to me for charity, I give them employment.’

‘But when they come to you for employment –’

‘I give them charity,’ the other said.

‘Where is this Balu?’ persisted the Inspector.

‘You may persist for a million years, but you will not get a reply unless God sanctions an answer.’

‘Hasn’t he sanctioned it?’ asked the Inspector.

‘No,’ replied the madman.

‘In that case we are going,’ said the Inspector rising. The Inspector walked away unceremoniously. Margayya hesitated for a moment at the door, and then followed the Inspector out. ‘What are we to make of it?’ asked Margayya.

‘Don’t worry. Your son is living somewhere. We’ll have to find that out. We will do it. Don’t worry.’

‘How do you know that my son still lives?’

‘Because I know this man. Every day he writes ten death notices and sends them to the post. His servants usually do not post them, but your one card must have slipped through into the ordinary post.’

‘My misfortune is that he should have got at my address!’ Margayya wailed, suddenly realizing: ‘It’s three days since I went to my office. God knows what is happening to my business. Probably this is the beginning of the end – ‘he reflected ruefully.

The Inspector took Margayya to the Central Talkies that evening. The Manager rose in his seat when the Inspector entered his room. The police were a troublesome lot and it was best to keep on good terms with them. The Manager became elaborately fussy and cried: ‘What a pleasure! It’s ages since you came here, Mr Inspector. Shall I order coffee? The film is on now. Would you like to see it?’ He was as proud of the picture as if it were his own product. Margayya sat in a chair, idly gazing on the pictures of film stars hung on the walls in sepia print. A stale, surcharged tobacco smell pervaded the air and made Margayya more bilious than ever. The Manager said: ‘We are showing – – – on the 26th. You must definitely send your children.’

The Inspector waved off the invitation with a gentle indifference and said: ‘We saw your boss sometime ago –’

‘Oh! How is he?’

‘As usual, I suppose. How does he manage the business?’

‘His son-in-law looks after everything. What he does is – he comes round occasionally, sits through a show, notes down the names of all the people he meets and goes – that he does once in a while.’

‘Have you a new boy in your employment now?’

‘Yes … Yes … We got one a few weeks ago. He seems to be an educated boy.’

‘Is his name Balu?’

‘Yes. That’s it,’ said the Manager. ‘Why, anything wrong?’

‘Is he about eighteen?’ asked the Inspector, and gave a further description which the other accepted.

‘What does he do?’ asked Margayya interested.

‘Well, miscellaneous things. Just now he is out with the sandwich boys. They will all come back before the evening show.’

They had to wait there till the crowd for the evening show began to arrive at the ticket-window. A kettle-drum was heard approaching over the noise of the crowd. It came nearer and stopped, and now through the gate streamed in street-arabs wearing sandwich boards, on which colourful posters were stuck announcing:
‘Krishna Leela.’
The boys were ragged street-urchins with matted hair and sun-scorched complexions – covering their middles with loin-cloths and practically bearing on their bare bodies the sandwich frames. They put down their frames and gathered in front of the Manager’s room along with the drummers and pipers. Presently Balu arrived, saying: ‘Payment only for three, sir; the rest dozed off under the trees.’ At which the rest started arguing furiously. ‘What injustice to get work out of us and cheat us! Hey, you are no –’

Over all this Balu’s voice rose: ‘You won’t be paid for just loafing.’ His voice thrilled Margayya. But he checked himself. He feared that he might make a scene, or that his son might start to run away, out of sight once again, and then the Inspector and the others might blame him for spoiling the entire situation. So he edged away towards a corner of the room and turned his face towards the wall as Balu strode in. Balu came in saying: ‘Manager, sir, we went through the People’s Park, Rundall’s Road, and Elephant Gate, and returned this way – except for the three boys, the rest skulked away for a nap in Moore Market. You must teach them a lesson, sir.’

Margayya could hold himself in check no more. He turned and observed that the boy wore a dirty
dhoti
, his cheeks were sunken, he was dark with wandering in the sun, and his hair was uncut. As he later explained to his relations, the moment he saw
him he felt as if he had swallowed a live cinder. In this state he rushed forward with a loud cry, some indistinct words coming out in a rush in which the only clear words were: ‘Is this spectacle my fate? Is it for this I prayed for your birth as my son? What has come over you?’ His face was wet with tears. The boy was taken aback – so were the other two.

The Inspector had credited Margayya with greater self-possession. A crowd gathered at the door; the cinemagoers viewed this as a free show. The Inspector lost his temper at the sight of the crowd, and going up to the door, shouted: ‘Get out of this place.’ He stood at the doorway, and Balu felt that his retreat was cut off. He surrendered without a word.

The officer saw them off at the Egmore platform. Margayya gripped his arm and once again there were tears of gratitude in his eyes. He said: ‘You have been like a God to me. Tell me, if there is any way in which I can repay you, write to me. You know my address.’

‘Oh, yes. This is the first time I got at someone who was not a dacoit or a knave. I am glad to have done a good turn,’ said the Inspector. He told Balu: ‘Be a good son. Don’t be a bother to your parents again. I have told the railway police to keep an eye on you.’ It was this part that Balu did not like, and later commented after the Inspector went away.

‘What can the railway police do? I’m not a thief. If I want to give them the slip there are a dozen ways.’

The Inspector had got them comfortable seats in an end compartment which was not too crowded. All night Margayya plied his son with questions and tried to know what he had been doing with himself ever since his disappearance after the results, but the boy sullenly declared: ‘I won’t speak of anything. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I was quite happy there.’

‘But … but … have you no affection, don’t you want to see your mother, your – ?’

‘I don’t want to see anybody.’

‘But my dear boy, do you know what it will mean to them to see you back in the flesh? Your mother broke down completely –’

‘Why couldn’t you have given me up for dead? I was quite happy seeing pictures every day. I want to be in Madras. I like the
place,’ he said, already feeling dull at the prospect of living in Malgudi. ‘What are you going to do with me? Make me read for exams I suppose?’ he asked next.

‘You need not go near books: you can do just as you please,’ said Margayya indulgently. He was filled with love for his son. He felt an indescribable pity as he saw the dirty, greasy dress and the famished appearance the boy had acquired. He became absolutely blind to all the dozen persons packed into the compartment. He hugged his shoulders and whispered: ‘You eat, rest, and grow fat – that is all you are expected to do, and take as much money as you like.’

The boy seemed to accept this advice with a hundred per cent literalness. As one supposed to be returned from the grave, he was treated with extraordinary consideration. His mother, he found, seemed to have become an entirely new person. She looked more youthful. A new flush appeared on her sallow cheeks. Her eyes had become very bright and sparkling. She became loquacious and puckish in her comments. She took the trouble to comb her hair with care and stuck jasmine strings in it. She seemed to feel that she was born anew into the world. She spoke light-heartedly and with a trembling joy in her voice. This was a revelation to Balu. He had never thought they attached so much importance to his person. He enjoyed it very much. His mother plied him with delicacies all the time. He had only to take a deep breath and look for his mother, and she at once asked: ‘What do you want, my boy?’ Balu found that he had returned to a new home. Everything now was different. His father left him alone according to his promise. It was a very agreeable situation for all concerned – except Margayya’s brother and family.

The moment Balu was brought back home, their position as the helpers of the family disappeared. It was a relationship essentially thriving on a crisis. The moment that the crisis was over, the two families fell apart; and they were once again reduced to the position of speculating from the other side of the wall what might be happening next door. Margayya’s wife ceased to bother about them: Balu never knew that there had been a momentary friendliness during his absence. On the day he arrived with his
father, when he stepped in and saw his uncle and the family in their central hall, he was speechless.

His uncle demanded: ‘What have you been doing with yourself? What is all this – ?’

And his aunt and the children of the next house surrounded him and gaped at him. He felt abashed. He simply moved into the little room at the side and shut the door on the entire gathering. That was the signal; when he reopened the door, the house was cleared and the front door bolted. Margayya briefly announced to him: ‘They have all gone.’

‘Where?’ Balu asked with interest.

‘To their own house,’ Margayya said, and added: ‘What is their business here, anyway?’

His wife chimed in: ‘They probably wanted an excuse to plant themselves in here again!’

Margayya did not like to contradict her or say anything so utterly ungracious himself, although the moment he had secured his son, his first thought was to tell his brother’s family, as diplomatically as his nature would permit, that they might go back to their house and resume their avocations! This he said very gently when the occasion came. As Balu shut himself into the small room, his brother wanted anxiously to know what had happened.

He said: ‘Did I not tell you to go to Madras, and then it would turn out to be good for you?’

Here is this fellow, Margayya reflected, rubbing in his own wisdom and judgement as usual. He hated in his brother the ‘Didn’t I say so?’ tone that he constantly adopted. It seemed to him a very irritating and petty habit of mind, and so he retorted sharply: ‘That’s all right, nobody doubts your wisdom.’

His brother ignored this sting and asked: ‘Well, where did you find him? What was he doing? Who wrote that card?’

Margayya lowered his voice and said in a whisper: ‘I will tell you all that later, when the boy is out of hearing. Now I had better attend to his wants.’ He moved towards the street door.

His brother took the hint: he cast a glance at his wife, who got up, herded the children together and started out, telling Margayya’s wife: ‘I have so much to do at home – I think … Anyway,
let us thank God for this recovery,’ and marched out. The moment the door shut on them, Margayya’s brother’s wife ground her teeth and said: ‘Even if this house is on fire, let us not go near them again.’ It was a sentiment which was not approved by the last but one toddling beside her: ‘Why not, mother? It’s so nice being in that house!’

‘Now what has happened for you to make all this fuss?’ her husband asked. There were tears in her eyes when she went up the steps of her own house. She said: ‘I only want you to have self-respect, that’s all. After all that we have done for them these three days, baking and cooking for them night and day – five seers of rice gone for those ingrates –’