Chapter 22

Now he was alone and had nothing else to do after he had taken the bag from the railway station to the hospital in the civil lines except to eat his evening meal. He knew he could get that free at the shrine of Bhagat Har Das. According to this design and also wishing to become religious, he repaired to the temple of Vishnu, where he had only been once before, with Prabha on the day of his arrival. He entered it this time through the portals near the lofty houses of the rich merchants of the Antique bazaar. The milk white light of a fyll moon made the domed roof of the 163 tall phallic temple blossom out like a full blown lotus, and the cornice shone from the middle of the tank. A vast concourse of gaily dressed people were moving around it, gilded by the lamps that mocked at the silver moonshine. Munoo joined the throng and began to walk in the direction of the mausoleum of Bhagat Har Das, whose polished marble shone out, beyond the square of the tank, from a background of mouldering travertine. He wanted food more than the blessings of religion, and it was the hour when bread and lentils were distributed to the poor and holy at the kitchen of the shrine. It was this urge which had decided him not to buy flowers to offer at the temple. The vague desire to acquire holiness evaporated from his mind completely as he went along, noticing the vast shadows of the turreted and domed structure in the middle of the pond, playing with the reflection of the moon. The monumental structure inspired him with awe as if the spirit of God were terturing him with its magnificent, invisible presence. He began to walk hurriedly, his one desire being to get away from the oppressive spirit that brooded over the temple. The slew, tortoise speed of the crowd of devotees. was a hindrance, but Munoo had become a past master in the art of slipping by the irregular pedestrians of the city of Daulatpur. He passed through a tunnel leading into the yard of the shrine of Har Das. There was a stand where a devout Brahmin was distributing free water in flat brass cups, nominally free, but really to be paid for, as Munoo found that all those who quenched their thirst threw a copper at the feet of the holy man who had turned menial, but had not lost the pride of his ancestral power. Munoo's throat was parched. And he lifted a cup to his mouth. But he did not throw a copper when he pushed the soiled cup away. The Brahmin scowled at him and muttered the proverb: 'May the misers fade away.' Munoo did not mind being cured. He had long since got used to abuse and no longer believed in its magical effect. 164 164 He bolted under cover of the darkness to explore the possibilities of charity. He hoped people were not expected to pay for the free food too. 'Food from the kitchen of God!' shouted a man who held a pan by a string handle as he scurried to and fro accom-panied by an attendant with a basket. Mundo saw young mendicants and paupers running towards him, leaving the old ascetics hobbling along behind, and elbowing cach other in their onrush. This surely.was. the dispenser of the free food. In moment the crowd of beggars would be on the man. He ran and spread his hands before the dispenser of food. 'Where is your plate?" the man asked. 'I haven't got one, Maharaj, Munoo said with a tremor on his lips to convey an appeal for pity. The attendant had, however, already thrown hin two chapatis and the man with the pan had poured a huge spoonful of lentils on to the bread. They were surrounded by the pack of hungry hounds who whinnied abjectly for the food as they crowded panic-stricken round the dispenser of charity. Munoo almost dropped his food in his effort to get away from the crowd. But he scraped through by exer- cising a queer strength which the mere sight of food seemed put into him. He crossed the courtyard to the edge of a fountain play- ing before the summerhouse of a garden. From the garden came a mixed aroma of fresh chambeli, champak, and molsari flowers. He sat down and began to cat. He.. was absorbed in himself for a moment, relishing the taste of the lentils, crudely cooked as they were. But when the gnawing hunger in his belly was half-satisfied he looked round. The moon half veiled, half unveiled the superstructure of the summerhouse, and disclosed the form of a fat 'yogi' with shaven head, swathed in an orange-coloured robe, staring with unblinking eyes at the fountain. The 'yogi' had assumed the sacred posture of the lotus seat, with legs crossed and hands resting like newly opened flowers on his 165 knees. Before him crouched an old woman, dressed in a sombre grey apron and a pigeon coloured skirt, and a young woman clad in all the finery of her bridal dress. Both seemed to be waiting for the 'yogi's' trance to break. Munoo got up and tiptoed towards the divine. 'And what may be your business, oh brahmcharya, at the place where the "yogi" meditates on God? You should be playing with children of your age.' 'Yogiji,' answered Munoo, 'tell me why you sit here so still and without moving an eyelid.' 'Go away, go away, vay, you fool!' whispered the old woman. 'Shanti! Shanti!' the 'yogi' said, lifting his hand with a deliberate saintlines and spiritual grace that belied the smile on his curled lips. 'He is a good portent, mother. He is the image of the child that shall be born to your daughter- in-law. God has listened to my prayers and to yours. Never turn away the messenger of God.' 'I, too, seek God, yogiji,' said Munoo impetuously. "Teach me to seck God. I want to walk the path.' 'You are a child yet,' said the 'yogi.' 'But come, we will make you a disciple and you may rise to be a saint if you serve your Guru.' 'A teacher is what I want,' said Munoo, looking at th fruit offerings heaped up by the holy man. 'Come then, lift all the things that lie there and follow me,' the 'yogi' said. Then he leant forward to the old woman and whispered: "The full moon night is propitious for the sowing of the seed. Follow this youth with your daughter-in-law at come distance from me Come to woman and whispered: "The full moon night is propitious for the sowing of the seed. Follow this youth with your daughter-in-law at some distance from me. Come to my chubara beyond the hall of Har Das's shritić. Don't follow too close for the world is suspicious. A respectable distance, understand, mother.' Again he turned to Munoo and said 'Follow me at a dis- tance of a hundred yards and bring those ladies to the back stairs of my rooms. Keep within sight of me and don't lose your way, disciple.' Munoo did not know what the 'yogi' intended, but he 166 knew that he himself was out for adventure. And the fruit. he held smelt sweet and luscious. And his mouth watered at the sight of the grapes, pomegranates, copper-coloured bananas and ripe mangoes. He did exactly as the 'yogi' had directed. The cavalcade passed through the outskirts of the garden, still like the leaves of the dense foliage of the hedges that made an avenue to the marble hall of the garden door.. Munoo felt he had lost sight of the 'yogi' as he turned sharply by the shops of flower sellers at the gate and entered a dark gully. There he saw him beckoning from a window of the first storey of a house which looked down on to the cross roads. He waited for the women, who had lagged behind, and contemplated a tobacconist and betel leaf seller's shop, from which a huge mirror reflected the passing pageant of life at the meeting of the four roads. He would have liked to have bought a betel leaf to chew, a luxury in which he had never indulged, and to smoke a cigarette, also to buy some snuff. But the wornen came up. And Munoo led them down the gully. The 'yogi' had come downstairs to receive them with a hurricane lamp in his hand. He led the way up the dark, na.row.stairs and ushered them into what Munoo felt was a palace, with its white sheets and cow-tailed cushions and long-tubed hubble-bubbles. 'I will go now,' said the old woman, 'and come back early at dawn, Mahantji.' 'Yes, assented the 'yogi' excitedly. The woman went Munou stood looking round, embarrassed. 'My life, do at least lift the apron from off your eyes and say a word to me,' said the 'yogi' coming towards the young woman and embracing, her. Munoo stared at the man. The scales fell from his eyes and revealed the voluptuary where he had seen the saint. His heart beat with sharpe. 167 He slipped out of the door to go and catch the old woman to tell her what he had seen. He innocently believed that, like him, she too would be shocked. He did not know that she was a go-between who arranged for the births of 'sons of god' to the wives of the merchant class. Munoo slept the night on the boards of a closed shop in a street near 'Cat Killers Lane, not daring to go into Prabha's home for fear of meeting a ghost or being taken.. for a thief. And, in the morning, he went to the yard of the railway station, thinking that he would be able to earn enough money for the day by carrying a load from the station to the civil lines, as he had done yesterday. The morning was well advanced when he got there, and a slow train had just come in from Lahore with hundreds of passengers, rich men and women who hired phaetons and tongas, middle class men who bargained for seats in bamboo. carts with loud-mouthed drivers, and peasants who made up their minds to trudge the dusty roads to town with their belongings on their shoulders. Munoo looked round among the excited, cager crowd, hurrying to and fro. 'May I lift your weight, Lallaji?' 'May I lift your weight, Maiji?" He tried to work out a theory in his mind, that only a miser who did not want to pay for a seat in a carriage would engage him to bear his burden, or a person who had to go somewhere near the station in the Civil lines. But he knew that the hire of a seat in a cart was only an anna and came to the conclusion that even the most miserly of misers would ride, and if he did not ride he would walk and bear his own burden. 'Coolie! Cooliel' sorne blue unf formed porters were shouting in the hall. Munoo saw two men put trunks and beddings on their heads and walk away. He began to shout too: 'Coolie!/Coolie!' 'Come here!' a call came from the hall. 168 He ran eagerly towards the corner whence the order had seemed to come, his bare fect tingling with the heat of the sand in the station yard and his face covered in sweat. He faced a police constable in khaki uniform. 'Why, oh you illegaly begotten! Where is your licence?" the policeman hissed, catching hold of Munoo abruptly by the neck of his tunic. Munoo stood dumb before the constable, his heart beat- ing violently. 'Answer ine, you swine, where is your licence?" said the constable raising his voice from its first deliberation to a sudden hysterical pitch and waving his baton. 'Sarkar, Munoo ventured, with a fallen face, 'I.... You have no licence! You son of a pir! You were de- ceiving me!' roared the policeman. 'I have seen you lift bundles here for a month, you baschorn!' 'No, Huzoor, I have been here only once before,' Munoo ventured, afraid and making a face as if to cry, for the policeman held him hard by the wrist. 'You think I am lying then when I say I have seen you sneaking about here for well on a month,' said the police- man with mock humility. 'It must have been someone else, sir, Munoo replied. 'Someone like me. All we coolies look alike.' 'You scum of the earth!' the policeınan thundered, twist- ing the boy's arm. 'You swine, you trickster, I will put you in the lock up. Oh, no, sir, no, sir, Munoo cried at the word 'lock-up.' recalling to mind the Kotwali where Prabha was beaten. 'Get out of here!, the policeman said, hitting Munoo on the bottom with his baton. 'Get away from here, you lover of your sister! Government orders: no coolies are supposed to work here without a licence!' Munoo capered away as fast as his feet could carry him, only looking ing back once to sec that the policeman was smoothing down his uniform and stiffening before he began to strut around again. IHe began to move forward. 169 The currents of thought and emotion which had been washed over by the fear of the policeman slowly emerged from the mainsprings that were welling up in him in de- fiance of authority. 'Who is he that he should turn me out of the station yard?' he exclaimed to himself. The swine! He fancies himself to be a God because he is putting on a uniform. My uncle is also a servant of the angrozi sarkar. He is not the only one. I am not like Prabha, who let him- self be beaten. I shall die rather than let him beat me. I shall live up to the name of my race....' He instinctively turned round to measure the intensity of : his thoughts, as if the mere act of willed defiance on his part had crushed the policeman out of existence. But he caught sight of the constable strolling towards the opening of the yard. He ran till he had entered into the Mall Road, in the Civil lines, bordered on both sides by European shops.