Malgudi Days Page 6

  The blind man was passing in front of the eastern gate. The dog was straining the lead. There was a piece of bone lying on the way and the dog was straining to pick it up. The lead became taut and hurt the blind man’s hand, and he tugged the string and kicked till the dog howled. It howled, but could not pass the bone lightly; it tried to make another dash for it. The blind man was heaping curses on it. The perfumer stepped up, applied the scissors and snipped the cord. The dog bounced off and picked up the bone. The blind man stopped dead where he stood, with the other half of the string dangling in his hand. ‘Tiger! Tiger! Where are you?’ he cried. The perfumer moved away quietly, muttering, ‘You heartless devil! You will never get at him again! He has his freedom!’ The dog went off at top speed. He nosed about the ditches happily, hurled himself on other dogs and ran round and round the fountain in the Market Square barking, his eyes sparkling with joy. He returned to his favourite haunts and hung about the butcher’s shop, the tea-stall and the bakery.

  The ribbon-vendor and his two friends stood at the Market Gate and enjoyed the sight immensely as the blind man struggled to find his way about. He stood rooted to the spot, waving his stick; he felt as if he were hanging in mid-air. He was wailing. ‘Oh, where is my dog? Where is my dog? Won’t someone give him back to me? I will murder it when I get at it again!’ He groped about, tried to cross the road, came near being run over by a dozen vehicles at different points, tumbled and struggled and gasped. ‘He’d deserve it if he was run over, this heartless blackguard—’ they said, observing him. However, the old man struggled through and with the help of someone found his way back to his corner in the choultry veranda and sank down on his gunnysack bed, half-faint with the strain of his journey.

  He was not seen for ten days, fifteen days and twenty days. Nor was the dog seen anywhere. They commented among themselves: ‘The dog must be loafing over the whole earth, free and happy. The beggar is perhaps gone for ever—’ Hardly was this sentence uttered when they heard the familiar tap-tap of the blind man’s staff. They saw him again coming up the pavement—led by the dog. ‘Look! Look!’ they cried. ‘He has again got at it and tied it up—’ The ribbon-seller could not contain himself. He ran up and said, ‘Where have you been all these days?’

  ‘Know what happened!’ cried the blind man. ‘This dog ran away. I should have died in a day or two, confined to my corner, no food, not an anna to earn—imprisoned in my corner. I should have perished if it continued for another day—But this thing returned—’

  ‘When? When?’

  ‘Last night. At midnight as I slept in bed, he came and licked my face. I felt like murdering him. I gave him a blow which he will never forget again,’ said the blind man. ‘I forgave him, after all a dog! He loafed as long as he could pick up some rubbish to eat on the road, but real hunger has driven him back to me, but he will not leave me again. See! I have got this—’ and he shook the lead: it was a steel chain this time.

  Once again there was the dead, despairing look in the dog’s eyes. ‘Go on, you fool,’ cried the blind man, shouting like an ox-driver. He tugged the chain, poked with the stick, and the dog moved away on slow steps. They stood listening to the tap-tap going away.

  ‘Death alone can help that dog,’ cried the ribbon-seller, looking after it with a sigh. ‘What can we do with a creature who returns to his doom with such a free heart?’

  FELLOW-FEELING

  The Madras-Bangalore Express was due to start in a few minutes. Trolleys and barrows piled with trunks and beds rattled their way through the bustle. Fruit-sellers and beedi-and-betel-sellers cried themselves hoarse. Latecomers pushed, shouted and perspired. The engine added to the general noise with the low monotonous hum of its boiler; the first bell rang, the guard looked at his watch. Mr Rajam Iyer arrived on the platform at a terrific pace, with a small roll of bedding under one arm and an absurd yellow trunk under the other. He ran to the first third-class compartment that caught his eye, peered in and, since the door could not be opened on account of the congestion inside, flung himself in through the window.

  Fifteen minutes later Madras flashed past the train in window-framed patches of sun-scorched roofs and fields. At the next halt, Mandhakam, most of the passengers got down. The compartment built to ‘seat 8 passengers; 4 British Troops, or 6 Indian Troops’ now carried only nine. Rajam Iyer found a seat and made himself comfortable opposite a sallow, meek passenger, who suddenly removed his coat, folded it and placed it under his head and lay down, shrinking himself to the area he had occupied while he was sitting. With his knees drawn up almost to his chin, he rolled himself into a ball. Rajam Iyer threw at him an indulgent, compassionate look. He then fumbled for his glasses and pulled out of his pocket a small book, which set forth in clear Tamil the significance of the obscure Sandhi rites that every Brahmin worth the name performs thrice daily.

  He was startled out of this pleasant languor by a series of growls coming from a passenger who had got in at Katpadi. The newcomer, looking for a seat, had been irritated by the spectacle of the meek passenger asleep and had enforced the law of the third-class. He then encroached on most of the meek passenger’s legitimate space and began to deliver home-truths which passed by easy stages from impudence to impertinence and finally to ribaldry.

  Rajam Iyer peered over his spectacles. There was a dangerous look in his eyes. He tried to return to the book, but could not. The bully’s speech was gathering momentum.

  ‘What is all this?’ Rajam Iyer asked suddenly, in a hard tone.

  ‘What is what?’ growled back the newcomer, turning sharply on Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Moderate your style a bit,’ Rajam Iyer said firmly.

  ‘You moderate yours first,’ replied the other.

  A pause.

  ‘My man,’ Rajam Iyer began endearingly, ‘this sort of thing will never do.’

  The newcomer received this in silence. Rajam Iyer felt encouraged and drove home his moral: ‘Just try and be more courteous, it is your duty.’

  ‘You mind your business,’ replied the newcomer.

  Rajam Iyer shook his head disapprovingly and drawled out a ‘No.’ The newcomer stood looking out for some time and, as if expressing a brilliant truth that had just dawned on him, said, ‘You are a Brahmin, I see. Learn, sir, that your days are over. Don’t think you can bully us as you have been bullying us all these years.’

  Rajam Iyer gave a short laugh and said, ‘What has it to do with your beastly conduct to this gentleman?’ The newcomer assumed a tone of mock humility and said, ‘Shall I take the dust from your feet, O Holy Brahmin? O Brahmin, Brahmin.’ He continued in a singsong fashion: ‘Your days are over, my dear sir, learn that. I should like to see you trying a bit of bossing on us.’

  ‘Whose master is who?’ asked Rajam Iyer philosophically.

  The newcomer went on with no obvious relevance: ‘The cost of mutton has gone up out of all proportion. It is nearly double what it used to be.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Yes, and why?’ continued the other. ‘Because Brahmins have begun to eat meat and they pay high prices to get it secretly.’ He then turned to the other passengers and added, ‘And we non-Brahmins have to pay the same price, though we don’t care for the secrecy.’

  Rajam Iyer leaned back in his seat, reminding himself of a proverb which said that if you threw a stone into a gutter it would only spurt filth in your face.

  ‘And,’ said the newcomer, ‘the price of meat used to be five annas per pound. I remember the days quite well. It is nearly twelve annas now. Why? Because the Brahmin is prepared to pay so much, if only he can have it in secret. I have with my own eyes seen Brahmins, pukkah Brahmins with sacred threads on their bodies, carrying fish under their arms, of course all wrapped up in a towel. Ask them what it is, and they will tell you that it is plantain. Plantain that has life, I suppose! I once tickled a fellow under the arm and out came the biggest fish in the market. Hey, Brahmin,’ he said, turning to Rajam Iyer, ‘what
did you have for your meal this morning?’ ‘Who? I?’ asked Rajam Iyer. ‘Why do you want to know?’ ‘Look, sirs,’ said the newcomer to the other passengers, ‘why is he afraid to tell us what he ate this morning?’ And turning to Rajam Iyer, ‘Mayn’t a man ask another what he had for his morning meal?’

  ‘Oh, by all means. I had rice, ghee, curds, brinjal soup, fried beans.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ asked the newcomer, with an innocent look.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, how many times do you want me to repeat it?’

  ‘No offence, no offence,’ replied the newcomer.

  ‘Do you mean to say I am lying?’ asked Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the other, ‘you have omitted from your list a few things. Didn’t I see you this morning going home from the market with a banana, a water banana, wrapped up in a towel, under your arm? Possibly it was somebody very much like you. Possibly I mistook the person. My wife prepares excellent soup with fish. You won’t be able to find the difference between dhall soup and fish soup. Send your wife, or the wife of the person that was exactly like you, to my wife to learn soup-making. Hundreds of Brahmins have smacked their lips over the dhall soup prepared in my house. I am a leper if there is a lie in anything I say.’

  ‘You are,’ replied Rajam Iyer, grinding his teeth. ‘You are a rabid leper.’

  ‘Whom do you call a leper!’

  ‘You!’

  ‘I? You call me a leper?’

  ‘No. I call you a rabid leper.’

  ‘You call me rabid?’ the newcomer asked, striking his chest to emphasize ‘me’.

  ‘You are a filthy brute,’ said Rajam Iyer. ‘You must be handed over to the police.’

  ‘Bah!’ exclaimed the newcomer. ‘As if I didn’t know what these police were.’

  ‘Yes, you must have had countless occasions to know the police. And you will see more of them yet in your miserable life, if you don’t get beaten to death like the street mongrel you are,’ said Rajam Iyer in great passion. ‘With your foul mouth you are bound to come to that end.’

  ‘What do you say?’ shouted the newcomer menacingly. ‘What do you say, you vile humbug?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Rajam Iyer cried.

  ‘You shut up.’

  ‘Do you know to whom you are talking?’

  ‘What do I care who the son of a mongrel is?’

  ‘I will thrash you with my slippers,’ said Rajam Iyer.

  ‘I will pulp you down with an old rotten sandal,’ came the reply.

  ‘I will kick you,’ said Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Will you?’ howled the newcomer.

  ‘Come on, let us see.’

  Both rose to their feet simultaneously.

  There they stood facing each other on the floor of the compartment. Rajam Iyer was seized by a sense of inferiority. The newcomer stood nine clean inches over him. He began to feel ridiculous, short and fat, wearing a loose dhoti and a green coat, while the newcomer towered above him in his grease-spotted khaki suit. Out of the corner of his eye he noted that the other passengers were waiting eagerly to see how the issue would be settled and were not in the least disposed to intervene.

  ‘Why do you stand as if your mouth was stopped with mud?’ asked the newcomer.

  ‘Shut up,’ Rajam Iyer snapped, trying not to be impressed by the size of the adversary.

  ‘Your honour said that you would kick me,’ said the newcomer, pretending to offer himself.

  ‘Won’t I kick you?’ asked Rajam Iyer.

  ‘Try.’

  ‘No,’ said Rajam Iyer, ‘I will do something worse.’

  ‘Do it,’ said the other, throwing forward his chest and pushing up the sleeves of his coat.

  Rajam Iyer removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He rubbed his hands and commanded suddenly, ‘Stand still!’ The newcomer was taken aback. He stood for a second baffled. Rajam Iyer gave him no time to think. With great force he swung his right arm and brought it near the other’s cheek, but stopped it short without hitting him.

  ‘Wait a minute, I think I had better give you a chance,’ said Rajam Iyer.

  ‘What chance?’ asked the newcomer.

  ‘It would be unfair if I did it without giving you a chance.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘You stand there and it will be over in a fraction of a second.’

  ‘Fraction of a second? What will you do?’

  ‘Oh, nothing very complicated,’ replied Rajam Iyer nonchalantly, ‘nothing very complicated. I will slap your right cheek and at the same time tug your left ear, and your mouth, which is now under your nose, will suddenly find itself under your left ear, and, what is more, stay there. I assure you, you won’t feel any pain.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘And it will all be over before you say “Sri Rama”.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said the newcomer.

  ‘Well and good. Don’t believe it,’ said Rajam Iyer carelessly. ‘I never do it except under extreme provocation.’

  ‘Do you think I am an infant?’

  ‘I implore you, my man, not to believe me. Have you heard of a thing called jujitsu? Well, this is a simple trick in jujitsu perhaps known to half a dozen persons in the whole of South India.’

  ‘You said you would kick me,’ said the newcomer.

  ‘Well, isn’t this worse?’ asked Rajam Iyer. He drew a line on the newcomer’s face between his left ear and mouth, muttering, ‘I must admit you have a tolerably good face and round figure. But imagine yourself going about the streets with your mouth under your left ear . . .’ He chuckled at the vision. ‘I expect at Jalarpet station there will be a huge crowd outside our compartment to see you.’ The newcomer stroked his chin thoughtfully. Rajam Iyer continued, ‘I felt it my duty to explain the whole thing to you beforehand. I am not as hot-headed as you are. I have some consideration for your wife and children. It will take some time for the kids to recognize Papa when he returns home with his mouth under . . . How many children have you?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘And then think of it,’ said Rajam Iyer. ‘You will have to take your food under your left ear, and you will need the assistance of your wife to drink water. She will have to pour it in.’

  ‘I will go to a doctor,’ said the newcomer.

  ‘Do go,’ replied Rajam Iyer, ‘and I will give you a thousand rupees if you find a doctor. You may try even European doctors.’

  The newcomer stood ruminating with knitted brow. ‘Now prepare,’ shouted Rajam Iyer, ‘one blow on the right cheek. I will jerk your left ear, and your mouth . . .’

  The newcomer suddenly ran to the window and leaned far out of it. Rajam decided to leave the compartment at Jalarpet.

  But the moment the train stopped at Jalarpet station, the newcomer grabbed his bag and jumped out. He moved away at a furious pace and almost knocked down a coconut-seller and a person carrying a trayload of coloured toys. Rajam Iyer felt it would not be necessary for him to get out now. He leaned through the window and cried, ‘Look here!’ The newcomer turned.

  ‘Shall I keep a seat for you?’ asked Rajam Iyer.

  ‘No, my ticket is for Jalarpet,’ the newcomer answered and quickened his pace.

  The train had left Jalarpet at least a mile behind. The meek passenger still sat shrunk in a corner of the seat. Rajam Iyer looked over his spectacles and said, ‘Lie down if you like.’

  The meek passenger proceeded to roll himself into a ball. Rajam Iyer added, ‘Did you hear that bully say that his ticket was for Jalarpet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ he lied, ‘he is in the fourth compartment from here. I saw him get into it just as the train started.’

  Though the meek passenger was too grateful to doubt this statement, one or two other passengers looked at Rajam Iyer sceptically.

  THE TIGER’S CLAW

  The man-eater’s dark career was ended. The men who had laid
it low were the heroes of the day. They were garlanded with chrysanthemum flowers and seated on the arch of the highest bullock cart and were paraded in the streets, immediately followed by another bullock-drawn open cart, on which their trophy lay with glazed eyes—overflowing the cart on every side, his tail trailing the dust. The village suspended all the normal activity for the day; men, women and children thronged the highways, pressing on with the procession, excitedly talking about the tiger. The tiger had held a reign of terror for nearly five years, in the villages that girt Mempi Forest.

  We watched this scene, fascinated, drifting along with the crowd—till the Talkative Man patted us from behind and cried, ‘Lost in wonder! If you’ve had your eyeful of that carcass, come aside and listen to me . . .’ After the crowd surged past us, he sat us on a rock mount, under a margosa tree, and began his tale: I was once camping in Koppal, the most obscure of all the villages that lie scattered about the Mempi region. You might wonder what I was doing in that desolate corner of the earth. I’ll tell you. You remember I’ve often spoken to you about my work as agent of a soil fertilizer company. It was the most miserable period of my life. Twenty-five days in the month, I had to be on the road, visiting nooks and corners of the country and popularizing the stuff . . . One such journey brought me to the village Koppal. It was not really a village but just a clearing with about forty houses and two streets, hemmed in by the jungle on all sides. The place was dingy and depressing. Why our company should have sought to reach a place like this for their stuff, I can’t understand. They would not have known of its existence but for the fact that it was on the railway. Yes, actually on the railway, some obscure branch-line passed through this village, though most trains did not stop there. Its centre of civilization was its railway station—presided over by a porter in blue and an old station-master, a wizened man wearing a green turban, and with red and green flags always tucked under his arms. Let me tell you about the station. It was not a building but an old railway carriage, which, having served its term of life, was deprived of its wheels and planted beside the railway lines. It had one or two windows through which the station-master issued tickets, and spoke to those occasional passengers who turned up in this wilderness. A convolvulus creeper was trained over its entrance: no better use could be found for an ex-carriage.