Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (59 page)

He laughed in a kindly manner, and Sriram said, ‘Yes, Bapuji, I will be a different man.’

‘Why do you say “different”? You will be all right if you are fully yourself

‘I don’t think that is enough, Bapu,’ said Bharati. ‘He should change from being himself, if he is to come to any good. I think he is very lazy. He gets up at eight o’clock, and idles away the day.’

‘How do you know?’ Sriram asked indignantly.

‘It’s only a guess,’ said the girl. Sriram felt angry with her for her irresponsible talk. Everyone laughed.

The Mahatma said: ‘You must not say such things, Bharati, unless you mean to take charge of him and help him.’

During the last fifteen minutes of this walk the Mahatma said nothing; he walked in silence, looking at the ground before him. When the Mahatma was silent the others were even more so, the only movement they performed was putting one foot before another on the sand, keeping pace with him: some were panting hard and trying hard to suppress the sound. The Mahatma’s silence was heavy and pervasive, and Sriram was afraid even to gulp or cough, although he very much wanted to clear his throat, cough, sneeze, swing his arms about. The only sound at the moment was the flowing of the river and the twitter of birds. Somewhere a cow was mooing. Even Bharati, the embodiment of frivolity, seemed to have become sombre. The Mahatma pulled out his watch, looked at it briefly and said, ‘We will go back, that is all the walk I can afford today.’ Sriram wanted to ask, ‘Why?’ but he held his tongue. The Mahatma turned to him as they were walking back, ‘You have a grandmother, I hear, but no parents.’

‘Yes. My grandmother is very old.’

‘Yes, she must be, otherwise how can you call her a grandmother?’ People laughed, Sriram too joined in this laughter out of politeness.

‘Does she not miss you very much when you are away from her so long?’

‘Yes, very much. She gets very angry with me. I don’t know what to do about it,’ said Sriram courageously rushing ahead. He felt pleased at having said something of his own accord, but his only fear was that Bharati might step in and say something nasty and embarrassing, but he was happy to note that Bharati held her peace.

Mahatmaji said: ‘You must look after your granny too, she must have devoted herself to bringing you up.’

‘Yes, but when I am away like this she is very much upset.’

‘Is it necessary for you to be away from her so much?’

‘Yes, Bapu, otherwise how can I do anything in this world?’

‘What exactly do you want to do?’

It was now that Sriram became incoherent. He was seized with a rush of ideas and with all the confusion that too many ideas create. He said something, and the Mahatma watched him patiently, the others too held their breath and watched, and after a few moments of struggle for self-expression, Sriram was able to form a cogent sentence. It was the unrelenting pressure of his subconscious desires that jerked the sentence out of his lips, and he said, ‘I like to be where Bharati is.’ The Mahatma said, ‘Oh, is that so!’ He patted Bharati’s back and said, ‘What a fine friend you have! You must be pleased to have such a devoted friend. How long have you known him?’

Bharati said like a shot, ‘Since yesterday. I saw him for the first time sitting in your hut and I asked him who he was.’

Sriram interposed and added, ‘But I knew her before, although I spoke to her only yesterday.’

The Mahatma passed into his hut, and went on to attend to other things. Many people were waiting for him. Bharati disappeared into the Mahatma’s hut the moment they arrived. Sriram fell back and got mixed up with a crowd waiting outside. He felt jealous of Bharati’s position. She sought him out later and said, ‘You are probably unused to it, but in Bapu’s presence we speak only the absolute truth and nothing less than that, and nothing more than that either.’

He took her to task: ‘What will he think of me now when he knows that I have not known you long enough and yet –’

‘Well, what?’ she twitted him.

‘And yet I wish to be with you and so on.’

‘Why don’t you go in and tell him you have been speaking nonsense and that you were blurting out things without forethought or self-control? Why couldn’t you have told him that you want to serve the country, that you are a patriot, that you want to shed your blood in order to see that the British leave the country? That is what most people say when they come near the Mahatma. I have seen hundreds of people come to him, and say the same thing.’

‘And he believes all that?’ asked Sriram.

‘Perhaps not, but he thinks it is not right to disbelieve anyone.’

‘But you say we must only speak the truth in his presence.’

‘If you can, of course, but if you can’t, the best thing to do is to maintain silence.’

‘Why are you so angry with me, is it not a part of your duty not to be angry with others?’ asked Sriram pathetically.

‘I don’t care,’ said Bharati, ‘this is enough to irritate even the Mahatma. Now what will he think of me if he realizes I am encouraging a fellow like you to hang about the place, a fellow whom I have not known even for a full day yet!’

Sriram became reckless, and said breezily, ‘What does it matter how long I have known you? Did you think I was going to lie to him if you had not spoken before I spoke?’

These bickerings were brought to an end by someone calling ‘Bharati’ from another hut. Bharati abandoned him and disappeared from the spot.

Bharati’s words gave him an idea. He realized his own omission, and proposed to remedy it next time he walked with the Mahatma. Sriram’s anxiety lest he fall asleep when the Mahatma was up kept him awake the whole night. He shared the space on the floor with one of the men in the camp. It was a strange feeling to lie down in a hut, and he felt he was becoming a citizen of an entirely new world. He missed the cosy room of his house in Kabir Lane, he missed the two pillows and the soft mattress and the carpet under it; even the street noises of Kabir Street added much to the domestic quality of life, and he missed it badly now. He had to adopt an entirely new mode of life. He had to live, of his own choice, in a narrow hut, with thatch above, with a dingy, sooty smell hanging about everything. The floor had been swept with cowdung and covered with a thin layer of sand. He had to snuggle his head on the crook of his arm for a pillow. He had to share this place with another volunteer in the camp, a cadaverous serious young man wearing
khadi
shorts, a
khadi
vest, and a white cap on his closely shaved head. He had a fiery look and an unsmiling face. He was from North India, he could only speak broken English and he was totally ignorant of Tamil words. This man had already stretched himself on the floor with a small bag stuffed with clothes under his head.

Bharati had told Sriram, ‘You had better stick on here, around the camp, if you want to be with Mahatmaji. You won’t have any comforts here, remember. We are all trained to live like this.’

Sriram sniffed and said, ‘Oh, who wants any comforts? I don’t care for them myself. You think I am a fellow who cares for luxuries in life?’

There was a class of society where luxuries gave one a status, and now here was the opposite. The more one asserted one cared for no luxury, the more one showed an inclination for hardship and discomfort, the greater was one’s chance of being admitted into the fold. Sriram had understood it the moment he stepped into the camp. Here the currency was suffering and self-mortification. Everyone seemed to excel his neighbour in managing in uncomfortable situations, and Sriram caught the spirit, though it took him time to grasp the detail and get accustomed to it.

There had been a meeting in the evening and after that the Mahatma retired at his usual hour of seven-thirty, and it was a signal for the entire camp to retire. Bharati sought out Sriram and gave him a plateful of rice and buttermilk and an orange, and she also held out to him a small jasmine out of a bouquet which had earlier been presented to the Mahatma by some children’s deputation. He received the flower gratefully, smelt it, and asked, ‘How did you know I liked jasmine?’

‘It is not so difficult a thing to know,’ she said and dismissed the subject immediately.

She said, ‘I have found a place for you to sleep, with a volunteer named Gorpad.’

Gorpad had been half asleep when Sriram entered his hut. Bharati peeped and said,
‘Bhai
…’ and something in Hindi and turned and disappeared from the spot. The other lifted his head slightly and said, ‘You can come in and sleep.’

‘Only on the floor?’ Sriram asked.

‘Of course, of course,’ said the other.

‘Why?’ asked Sriram.

‘Why? Because Mahatmaji says so.’

‘Oh,’ said Sriram, feeling that he was treading on dangerous ground. ‘I see that otherwise there is no reason why we should sleep on the floor.’

‘What do you mean by otherwise?’ said the other argumentatively.

Sriram settled himself beside Gorpad, and said, ‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘Mean what?’ said the other. He seemed to be a pugnacious fellow. Sriram felt afraid of him. What did the girl mean by putting him in with this fighter? Could it be that she disliked him, and wanted him to be beaten? If she disliked him, she would not have given him a jasmine flower. It was well known that jasmine was exchanged only between persons who liked each other, and yet the girl gave him a jasmine with one hand and with the other led him into the company of this terrible man. The other might sit on his chest while he slept and try to choke him.

Gorpad said, ‘You are new, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Sriram. ‘I am new to this place. It is through Mahatmaji’s kindness I am now here, otherwise I should have gone home and slept.’

‘Yes,’ Gorpad said seeming to understand the situation in a fresh light. ‘You are welcome here. We are all persons who have to live like soldiers in a camp. We are indeed soldiers in our fight to eject the British from our land. We are all prepared to sacrifice our lives for the task. We sleep here on the bare floor because the major part of our lives we shall have to spend in gaol, where we won’t be given such a comfortable bed unless we are A or B class prisoners. We are not important enough to be classified as A or B, and you had better get used to it all; and we are always prepared to be beaten by the police,
lathi-charged
, dragged to the gaol, or even shot: my father died ten years ago facing a policeman’s gun.’

Sriram said, not to be outdone in the matter of political reminiscences, ‘I know Bharati’s father also died in the same way, when he was beaten by the police.’

‘That was during the first non-co-operation days in 1920; her father led the first batch of
Satyagrahis
who were going to take down the Union Jack from the Secretariat at Madras. He was beaten with a police
lathi
, and a blow fell on his chest and he dropped dead, but my father was shot. Do you know he was actually shot by a policeman’s rifle? I was also in the crowd
watching him. He was picketing a shop where they were selling toddy and other alcoholic drinks, and a police company came and asked him to go away, but he refused. A crowd gathered, and there was a lot of mess and in the end the police shot him point blank.’ He wiped away tears at the memory of it. ‘I will not rest till the British are sent out of India,’ his voice was thick with sorrow. ‘My brother became a terrorist and shot dead many English officials, nobody knows his whereabouts. I should also have joined him and shot many more Englishmen, but our Mahatma will not let me be violent even in thought,’ he said ruefully.

Sriram wishing to sound very sympathetic said, ‘All Englishmen deserve to be shot. They have been very cruel.’

‘You should not even think on those lines, if you are going to be a true
Satyagrahi,’
said the other.

‘No, no, I am not really thinking on those lines,’ Sriram amended immediately. ‘I was only feeling so sorry. Of course we should not talk of shooting anyone, and where is the gun? We have no guns. My grandmother used to say that there was a gun in our house belonging to my father. Do you know that he died in Mesopotamia? He was also shot point blank.’

‘He died in the war, the last war?’

‘Yes,’ said Sriram.

‘Then he must have been a soldier in the British Army,’ Gorpad said with a touch of contempt in his voice.

Sriram noted it, but accepted it with resignation. He added as a sort of compensation, ‘They say he was a great soldier.’

‘Possibly, possibly,’ said the other with patronage in his voice. Sriram bore it as a trial.

That night he picked up a great deal of political knowledge. Gorpad went on speaking till two a.m. and afterwards both of them left for the river, performed their ablutions there, and by the time the camp was awake Sriram had returned fresh and tidy, so that Bharati said, ‘You are coming through your first day with us quite well.’ Through diligently listening to Gorpad he had picked up many political idioms, and felt himself equipped to walk with the Mahatma without embarrassment.

He told the Mahatma, ‘It is my greatest desire in life to take a vow to oust the British from India.’

The Mahatma looked at him with a smile and asked, ‘How do you propose to do it?’

Sriram could not find a ready answer; it was one of the many occasions when he felt that he had spoken unnecessarily. He caught a glimpse of Bharati on the other side, her mischievous face sparkled with delight at his confusion. He felt piqued by her look. He said haughtily, ‘With your blessing, sir, I shall make myself good enough for the task. I shall be with you as long as possible, and if you will kindly guide me you can make me a soldier fit to take up the fight to make the British leave our country.’

The Mahatma took his resolve with every sign of pleasure. He remained silent for a while as their footsteps pit-patted on the sands, a sombre silence fell on the gathering. ‘Well, young friend, if God wills it, you will do great things, trust in him and you will be all right.’

To Sriram this seemed a rather tame preparation for a soldierly existence. If it had been possible, he would have strutted before Bharati in khaki and a decorated chest, though the world was having a surfeit of decorations just then.