Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma (70 page)

Led by Kanni, who bore in his hand a pot of fire, a couple of neighbours, the manager of the Fund-Office, and two priests, Granny arrived on a bier made of bamboo, carried by four grim sub-human professional carriers. Sriram rushed to the small wooden doorway to meet the procession. Kanni was the first to step through. He held the pot of fire to Sriram saying, ‘Really it is your duty to carry it.’ Sriram took charge.

Granny’s face was uncovered and faced the sun. Sriram felt a pang of fresh sorrow at the sight. The bier was laid on the ground. ‘Sriram, bathe in the river and come back soon with wet clothes on you. She is at least entitled to so much consideration.’ The words came from the old family priest. Sriram realized that he was still in the garb of a wholesale rice merchant, and felt ridiculous. The old priest had officiated at festivals and domestic ceremonies ever since Sriram could remember, including the grand ceremony of his first birthday. The old man was several years Granny’s senior, but remarkably wiry and alert, with his greenish eyes and hook nose and greed for ceremonial fees.

He asked Sriram, ‘Have you two rupees in coins?’

While Sriram fumbled for an answer, the ever watchful Kanni descended on him wrathfully, ‘Why do you ask that? Haven’t we agreed on a lump sum for everything?’

The priest who was squatting beside the body turned and said, ‘Whoever said the lump sum included this? This can never go into that. This is a separate account. Our elders have decreed that the Dear Departed should have two silver coins on his or her chest from the hand of the nearest and dearest. It is said to smooth out the passage of the soul into further regions. I am only repeating what the
shastras
say. Our ancestors knew what was best for us, I am merely a mouthpiece.’

‘And what happens to the coins?’ asked the Fund-Office Manager. The priest pretended to ignore the question, but
Kanni said, ‘It goes the way of other coins, that is into a priest’s money-box.’

‘Yes, it does. Do you expect the soul to carry the silver with it? You must view it all in the proper light, you must take only its philosophical meaning. We carry nothing from this earth,’ said the priest and quoted a Sanskrit verse. He suddenly looked across at the other part of the ground where the rich men were conducting their ceremonies. ‘See there. They are devoted and very correct. They are not omitting a single rite.’

‘We are not omitting anything either,’ said Kanni angrily.

His tone cowed the priest, who mumbled, ‘Don’t think I am after money: I only do things in order to satisfy a great soul known to me for several decades now.’ He looked up at Sriram and said, ‘Now go and bathe quickly. Nothing can begin until after that.’ He paused and added, ‘You will find a barber there. You will have to shave off your moustache and the top of your head. Otherwise it would be very irregular. The
shastras
say …’

‘I will not shave my moustache nor my head,’ said Sriram emphatically.

‘All right,’ said the priest. ‘It is my duty to suggest what the
shastras
say, and it is left to you to follow it or modify it in any manner. Of course modern life makes it difficult to follow all the rules, and people have to adjust themselves. There are even people who like to perform their funerals with European hats on, nowadays. What can one do about them? “It is wisdom to accept what has come to pass,” say the
shastras
, and we bow our heads to that injunction.’

Sriram presently returned from his bathe in the river, dripping wet with his hair sticking on his head and his clothes stuck to his body. They had now laid the corpse on the pyre. The pyre beyond was already aflame and the party was leaving the ground. ‘They are very business-like,’ said the priest. He seemed to admire everything they did. Sriram felt piqued, and Kanni said, ‘Don’t go on talking unnecessarily.’

The rites before the lighting of the pyre started. The old lady lay stretched out on the cowdung fuel. The priest placed a small vessel in Sriram’s hand and asked him to pour the milk in it over the lips of the dead. Sriram poured the milk, chanted some
mantras
, and finally dropped the fire over Granny’s heart, which was actually below a layer of fuel. The fire smouldered and crackled. ‘Now it is all over with her,’ Sriram said.

The Fund-Office Manager suddenly cried, ‘See there, see there.’ He was excited. They looked where he pointed. The big toe on the left foot of the lady was seen to move. ‘Pull off the fire, pull off the fire …’ Someone thrust his hand in and snatched off the burning piece. The old lady’s
sari
was already burning at one end. Sriram flung a pail of water on it and put it out. Now with the fire out, they stood around and watched. The toe was wagging.

‘She is not dead, take her out,’ cried Sriram.

‘I’ve never heard of such a thing, you can’t do that,’ the priest cried. People seemed to have suddenly lost all common sense.

‘You want us to burn Granny alive, do you? Get out of our way, priest,’ cried Sriram. He kicked away the pile of fuel, lifted the body and placed it down again on the ground. ‘I knew something was wrong. I knew Granny wouldn’t die,’ said Sriram. He sprinkled water on her face, forced some milk down her throat, and fanned her face. The priest stood aside with a doleful expression. Kanni seemed too stunned to speak. The shop assistant was running in circles announcing the glad tidings and collecting a crowd.

The Fund-Office Manager cried, ‘Let us not waste time. I will fetch the doctor.’ He started running towards the city.

Kanni cried, ‘Oh, what doctors, these days! They don’t even know whether someone is alive or dead! If we had failed to notice in time … oh, what doctors.’

Under their nursing, the movement in the toe gradually spread. All the toes showed signs of revival, then her leg, then her arms. The old lady seemed to be coming back to life, inch by inch. Her eyes were still shut. Sriram murmured, ‘Granny, Granny, open your eyes. I am here.’ At this moment all politics were forgotten, all disputes and wars, Britain, even Bharati. ‘Get up Granny, you are all right.’ Now her heart began to throb, her breathing returned, ever so faintly. Sriram let out a cry of tremendous relief. He called the shop assistant, ‘My granny will not die, she is not dead. God bless her.’ He dragged Kanni by his
hand and said, ‘Kanni, Granny is alive.’ He nursed his granny with one hand and put the other around Kanni’s shoulder and sobbed. His face was wet with tears.

Kanni patted his back and said, ‘Don’t, don’t. Be brave. You must not break down. She may open her eyes and she must see a happy face.’

The rattle of an old car was heard far off. Everyone cried, ‘Doctor’s car.’ Presently a little car with a flapping hood was struggling over the sand and pebbles at the Nallappa’s Grove crossing, and on through the rough sandy track leading to the southern door of the crematorium. The doctor was a puny man wearing an enormous white overall, with a straggling crop of hair resembling Einstein’s; a small man above whom everyone seemed to tower. He jumped out of his car, followed by the Fund-Office Manager. ‘Is this true, is this true?’ cried the doctor running forward. He stopped suddenly and said, ‘Someone go and fetch that bag from the car.’ Presently he knelt above the old lady, took her wrist in his hand, pulled out his watch, held his fingers under her nostrils, and smiled at Kanni. ‘Yes, she is not dead.’

‘Oh, Doctor, can’t you even say whether a person is dead or alive?’ asked Kanni.

‘Why go into all that now? Let us be happy that she is back from the other world.’ The doctor brooded. This was the first situation of the kind in his experience. Previously he had known only one-way traffic. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘How is she, Doctor?’ asked Kanni.

‘Her pulse is good. She is all right. She will need some rest and recuperation.’ He took several things out of his bag. He sterilized a syringe needle, picked up a phial, and injected Granny’s forearm. She twitched at the touch of the needle and groaned slightly. The doctor looked at her with approbation. ‘Well, freaks like this just happen. We can’t say why or how. Last night she was practically dead. I don’t know. This is enough to make one believe in the soul,
Karma
, and all that.’ He stood looking at her and biting his lips. ‘I read about a similar thing in a medical journal years ago but never thought it would come within my view.’

Granny was reviving little by little. Her breathing was becoming normal. The doctor said, ‘It is not right to keep her here when she becomes fully conscious. She must be moved. Why not take her back home? Take her in my car.’

The priest interrupted, ‘How can you suggest such a thing? No one who has been carried here can ever step into the town bounds again. Don’t you know that it will … it will …’

‘What will happen?’

‘Happen! The whole town will be wiped out by fire or plague. It is very inauspicious. Do anything you like, but she can’t come back into the town.’

This point of view gathered a lot of support. The news spread to the town. People began to throng into the cremation ground. Everyone who came said, ‘This is a big problem. What are you going to do with her?’

In deference to this view she had to be carried to one of the small abandoned buildings on the river-bank, which had once been used as a toll-gate station, and since the river was between her and the town, she was out of bounds. She was kept at the Toll Office, and nursed by the doctor. Her world hummed round her, Kanni, the Fund-Office Manager, Sriram, the old hook-nosed priest, and the two mournful women who had kept vigil. They nursed and fed the old lady as she lay on a bed in the old building. The doctor’s little car drove up half a dozen times a day and Kanni practically abandoned his shop in order to conduct the operations. A vast concourse began to arrive in order to witness the miracle. Some close relatives of Granny who had not seen her for years came and cried, ‘Oh, sister, how good to see you. No one sent word to us that you were dead.’

‘Word was not sent because there was nothing to send.’

‘But when a close relation is dead, is it not …?’

‘But she was not dead, so why send word?’

‘How did you know that she was not dead?’ asked the relatives, and the conversation flowed on in rather bewildering channels. Sriram feared all along that this crowd and publicity would ultimately lead to trouble. He tried to keep himself aloof. When too many people arrived he went away to the back of the
building, while Kanni and the others managed the visitors. He overheard people ask, ‘Where is that grandson of hers?’

‘Oh, that ne’er-do-well adventurer is probably in Burma,’ said Kanni.

But none of this helped. A police inspector in plain clothes and two constables arrived on the third afternoon as Sriram, having fed his granny and eaten a meal brought in a vessel by the Fund-Office Manager, was enjoying a siesta in the shade of a tree behind the toll-gate building. Granny and her attendants were peacefully sleeping. The inspector looked down at Sriram and said, ‘Get up.’

‘Why?’ asked Sriram, rising. ‘What do you want?’

‘You are under arrest,’ said the inspector. ‘We have been looking for you for a long time now.’

‘Who gets the reward?’ asked Sriram with heavy cynicism.

The inspector did not reply. He said, ‘We know the special occasion which has brought you here, and we don’t want to make any fuss, provided you make none. That is why we have stationed our jeep over there. I have some more men in it. You may come with us as soon as you are ready. Don’t be too long.’

Sriram said, ‘Yes, give me a little time.’

‘I am armed and will shoot if you try to escape,’ the inspector said.

Sriram went to take a look at Granny. He found her sitting up and conversing with the two people near her. The moment she saw Sriram she cried, ‘Oh, boy, when did you come back? They told me that you were here, but with a moustache. Whatever made you grow one, my boy? Take it off, don’t come before me with that, whatever else you may do.’

‘Yes, Granny,’ he said obediently. He was so happy to find her old spirit revived. One could not doubt that it was Granny speaking. There was the genuine ring in her tone. Her personality seemed to have returned from the other world unscathed by the contacts there. He sat down on the edge of her bed, took her arm into his hands, and stroked it. She looked at him closely and said, ‘You are down and out, no doubt about it.’ She shook her head dolefully. ‘Whatever induced you to get mixed up with all
those people, I can’t say. I tried to bring you up as a respectable citizen. If you didn’t go up for your B.A., it wasn’t my fault. No one can blame me for it. But is it all true, all the things people say about you?’

Sriram thought and replied slowly, ‘Don’t believe a word of anything you hear. People talk falsehoods, remember.’

Granny’s face puckered in a happy smile. ‘Vile-tongued folk,’ she cried. ‘May all those that talk ill, think ill, slander you, or mislead you, or tempt you out of your way …’

At this point Sriram had a slight misgiving that the old lady might mean Bharati. He tried to divert her attention. ‘Don’t exert yourself, Granny, lie down.’

‘Why should I? There is nothing wrong with me. You believe that doctor! Let him come before me. I will tell him what I think of him. He would have burnt me alive if he had had his way!’ She laughed grimly. Presently she recollected the interrupted curse she had intended to hurl on someone. ‘Whoever has been responsible for taking you away, whether it be man, woman, or whatever, may they perish and suffer in the worst hell!’ After uttering her imprecation she felt both relieved and happy. Sriram thought of the police waiting outside, and said, ‘Don’t exert yourself, Granny, you must not talk too much.’

‘Why not? And who says that?’ she asked. ‘I will speak as much as I like and no one shall stop me.’

At this point one of the policemen peeped in at the doorway and Granny asked, ‘Who are you?’ so authoritatively that he withdrew his head immediately.

‘Who is he?’ asked Granny.

‘Someone to see me,’ said Sriram.

He went on stroking her arm so soothingly that she presently felt drowsy. He gave her a few ounces of milk. She said, ‘I am glad to see you. Good boy, don’t let people tempt you out of your way. Be with me. Don’t leave me again.’ Sriram helped her to stretch herself on her bed, and she was soon asleep. He walked over to the police officer and said, ‘Let us go.’ Kanni followed him to the jeep. Sriram said, ‘Kanni, look after Granny till I am back. I don’t know how long they will keep me. Try to see me and tell me how she is. I think the Collector will let you see us in
gaol. I don’t know what you are going to do about her.’ He stood with bowed head for a moment, and then as though the problem was beyond any solution, he stepped into the jeep.