We noticed much activity in the field in front of our house. A set of men arrived from the town every morning and were busy in the field all day. We learned that they were building a railway track. They came to my father’s shop for refreshments. My father inquired anxiously, “When shall we have the trains coming in here?”
If they were in a good mood, they answered, “About six or eight months, who can say?” Or if they were in a black mood, “Don’t ask us. Next you will tell us to drive a locomotive to your shop!” and they laughed grimly.
Work was going on briskly. I lost to some extent my freedom under the tamarind tree, because trucks were parked there. I climbed into them and played. No one minded me. All day I was climbing in and out of the trucks, and my clothes became red with mud. Most of the trucks brought red earth, which was banked up on the field. In a short while a small mountain was raised in front of our house. It was enchanting. When I stood on the top of this mound I could see far-off places, the hazy outlines of Mempi Hills. I became as busy as the men. I spent all my time in the company of those working on the track, listening to their talk and sharing their jokes. More trucks came, bringing timber and iron. A variety of goods was piling up on every side. Presently I began to collect sawn-off metal bits, nuts, and bolts, and I treasured them in my mother’s big trunk, where a space was allotted to me amidst her ancient silk saris, which she never wore.
A boy grazing his cows approached the spot just below the mound on which I was playing a game by myself. His cows were munching the grass right below the mound, on which the men were working, and the little fellow had dared to step on the slope where I played. I was beginning to have a sense of ownership of the railway, and I didn’t want trespassers there. I frowned at the boy and barked, “Get out.”
“Why?” he asked.
“My cows are here, I’m watching them.”
“Begone with your cows,” I said. “Otherwise they will be run over by the train, which will be here shortly.”
“Let them be. What do you care?” he said, which irritated me so much that I let out a yell and pounced on him with “You son of a . . .” and a variety of other expressions recently picked up. The boy, instead of knocking me down, ran screaming to my father. “Your son is using bad language.”
My father sprang up on hearing this. Just my misfortune. He came rushing toward me as I was resuming my game and asked, “What did you call this boy?” I had the good sense not to repeat it. I blinked, wordlessly, at which the boy repeated exactly what I had said. This produced an unexpectedly violent effect on my father. He grabbed my neck within the hollow of his hand, and asked, “Where did you pick that up?” I pointed at the men working on the track. He looked up, remained silent for a second, and said, “Oh, that is so, is it? You will not idle about picking up bad words any more. I will see to it. You will go to a school tomorrow and every day.”
“Father!” I cried. He was passing a harsh sentence on me. To be removed from a place I loved to a place I loathed!
A tremendous fuss was made before I started for my school each day. My mother fed me early and filled up a little aluminum vessel with refreshment for the afternoon. She carefully put my books and slate into a bag and slung it across my shoulder. I was dressed in clean shorts and shirt; my hair was combed back from the forehead, with all the curls falling on my nape. For the first few days I enjoyed all this attention, but soon developed a normal aversion; I preferred to be neglected and stay at home to being fussed over and sent to a school. But my father was a stern disciplinarian; perhaps he was a snob who wanted to brag before others that his son was going to a school. He kept an eye on my movements till I was safely on the road each morning. He sat in his shop and kept calling every few minutes, “Boy, have you left?”
I walked endlessly to reach my school. No other boy went in my direction. I talked to myself on the way, paused to observe the passers-by or a country cart lumbering along, or a grasshopper going under a culvert. My progress was so halting and slow that when I turned into the Market Street I could hear my class-mates shouting their lessons in unison, for the old man, our master, who taught us, believed in getting the maximum noise out of his pupils.
I don’t know on whose advice my father chose to send me here for my education, while the fashionable Albert Mission School was quite close by. I’d have felt proud to call myself an Albert Mission boy. But I often heard my father declare, “I don’t want to send my boy there; it seems they try to convert our boys into Christians and are all the time insulting our gods.” I don’t know how he got the notion; anyway, he was firmly convinced that the school where I was sent was the best under the sun. He was known to boast, “Many students who have passed through the hands of this ancient master are now big officials at Madras, collectors and men like that. . . .” It was purely his own imagining or the invention of the old man who taught me. No one could dream that this was in any sense a school, let alone an outstanding school. It was what was called a pyol school, because the classes were held on the pyol of the gentleman’s house. He lived in Kabir Lane, in a narrow old house with a cement pyol in front, with the street drain running right below it. He gathered a score of young boys of my age every morning on the pyol, reclined on a cushion in a corner, and shouted at the little fellows, flourishing a rattan cane all the time. All the classes were held there at the same time, and he bestowed attention on each group in turn. I belonged to the youngest and most elementary set, just learning the alphabet and numbers. He made us read aloud from our books and copy down the letters on our slates, and looked through each and gave corrections and flicks from the cane for those who repeated their follies. He was a very abusive man. My father, who wanted to save me from the language of the railway trackmen, had certainly not made a safer choice in sending me to this old man, who habitually addressed his pupils as donkeys and traced their genealogies on either side with thoroughness.
The thing that irritated him was not merely the mistakes that we made but our very presence. Seeing us, such short, clumsy youngsters, always fumbling and shuffling, I think got on his nerves. Of course, we made a lot of noise on his pyol. When he went into his house for a moment’s nap or for his food or for any of a dozen domestic calls, we rolled over each other, fought, scratched, bleated, and yelled. Or we tried to invade his privacy and peep in. Once we slipped in and passed from room to room until we came to the kitchen and saw him sitting before the oven, baking something. We stood at the doorway and said, “Oh, master, you know how to cook also!” and giggled, and a lady who was standing nearby also giggled at our remark.
He turned on us fiercely and ordered, “Get out, boys; don’t come here; this is not your classroom,” and we scampered back to our place, where he found us later and twisted our ears until we screamed. He said, “I am admitting you devils here because I want you to become civilized, but what you do is . . .” and he catalogued our sins and misdeeds.
We were contrite, and he softened and said, “Hereafter let me not catch you anywhere beyond that threshold. I will hand you over to the police if you come in.” That settled it. We never peeped in again, but when his back was turned confined our attention to the drain that flowed beneath the pyol. We tore off loose leaves from our notebooks, made boats, and floated them down the drain, and in a short while it became an established practice, and a kind of boat-racing developed out of it; we lay on our bellies and watched the boats float away on the drainwater. He warned us, “If you fall off into the gutter, you will find yourselves in the Sarayu River, remember, and I shall have to tell your father to go out and look for you there, I suppose!” and he laughed at the grim prospect.
His interest in us was one rupee a month and anything else in kind we cared to carry. My father sent him every month two cubes of jaggery, others brought in rice and vegetables and anything else he might demand from time to time. Whenever his store at home ran out, he called one or another to his side and said, “Now if you are a good boy, you will run to your house and fetch me just a little, only so much, mind you, of sugar. Come, let me see if you are smart!” He adopted a kindly, canvassing tone on such occasions, and we felt honored to be able to serve him, and pestered our parents to give us the gifts and fought for the honor of serving him. Our parents showed an excessive readiness to oblige this master, grateful probably because he kept us in his charge for the major part of the day, from morning till four in the afternoon, when he dismissed us and we sprinted homeward.
In spite of all the apparent violence and purposelessness, I suppose we did make good under our master, for within a year I proved good enough for the first standard in Board High School; I could read heavier books, and do multiplication up to twenty in my head. The old master himself escorted me to the Board School, which had just established itself, and admitted me there; he saw me off in my new class, seated me and two others, and blessed us before taking leave of us. It was a pleasant surprise for us that he could be so kind.
Velan was bursting with news of a miracle. He stood before Raju with folded hands, and said, “Sir, things have turned out well.”
“I’m so happy—how?”
“My sister came before our family gathering and admitted her follies. She has agreed . . .” He went on to explain. The girl had all of a sudden appeared before the assembled family that morning. She faced everyone straight and said, “I have behaved foolishly all these days. I will do what my brother and the other elders at home tell me to do. They know what is best for us.”
“I could hardly believe my ears,” explained Velan. “I pinched myself to see whether I was dreaming or awake. This girl’s affair had cast a gloom on our home. If you left out our partition suit and all the complications arising from it, we had no worry to equal this. You see, we are fond of the girl, and it pained us to watch her sulk in a dark room, without minding her appearance or dress or caring for food. We did our best to make her cheerful and then had to leave her alone. We had all been very miserable on account of her, and so we were surprised this morning when she came before us with her hair oiled and braided, with flowers in it. Looking bright, she said, ‘I have been a bother to you all these days. Forgive me, all of you. I shall do whatever my elders order me to do.’ Naturally, after we got over the surprise, we asked, ‘Are you prepared to marry your cousin?’ She did not answer at once, but stood with bowed head. My wife took her aside and asked whether we might send word to the other family, and she agreed. We have sent the happy message around, and there will soon be a marriage in our house. I have money, jewelry, and everything ready. I will call the pipers and drummers tomorrow morning and get through it all quickly. I have consulted the astrologer already, and he says that this is an auspicious time. I do not want to delay even for a second the happy event.”
“For fear that she may change her mind once again?” Raju asked. He knew why Velan was rushing it through at this pace. It was easy to guess why. But the remark threw the other into a fit of admiration, and he asked, “How did you know what I had in mind, sir?”
Raju remained silent. He could not open his lips without provoking admiration. This was a dangerous state of affairs. He was in a mood to debunk himself a little. He told Velan sharply, “There is nothing extraordinary in my guess,” and promptly came the reply, “Not for you to say that, sir. Things may look easy enough for a giant, but ordinary poor mortals like us can never know what goes on in other people’s minds.”
To divert his attention, Raju simply asked, “Have you any idea of the views of the bridegroom? Is he ready for you? What does he think of her refusal?”
“After the girl came round, I sent our priest to discuss it with him, and he has come back to say that the boy is willing. He prefers not to think of what is gone. What is gone is gone.”
“True, true,” Raju said, having nothing else to say and not wishing to utter anything that might seem too brilliant. He was beginning to dread his own smartness nowadays. He was afraid to open his lips. A vow of silence was indicated, but there was greater danger in silence.
All this prudence did not save him. Velan’s affairs were satisfactorily ended. One day he came to invite Raju to his sister’s marriage, and Raju had to plead long and hard before he could make him leave him alone. However, Velan brought him fruit on huge trays covered with silk cloth, the sort of offering which Raju would conjure up for the edification of his tourists when he took them through an ancient palace or hall. He accepted the gift gracefully.
He avoided the girl’s marriage. He did not want to be seen in a crowd, and he did not want to gather a crowd around him as a man who had worked a change in an obstinate girl. But his aloofness did not save him. If he would not go to the wedding, the wedding was bound to come to him. At the earliest possible moment Velan brought the girl and her husband and a huge concourse of relatives to the temple. The girl herself seemed to have spoken of Raju as her savior. She had told everyone, “He doesn’t speak to anyone, but if he looks at you, you are changed.”
His circle was gradually widening. Velan, at the end of his day’s agricultural toil, came and sat on the lower step. If Raju spoke, he listened; otherwise he accepted the silence with equal gratitude, got up without a word when darkness fell, and moved away. Gradually, unnoticed, a few others began to arrive very regularly. Raju could not very well question who they were: the river bank was a public place, and he himself was an intruder. They just sat there on the lower step and looked at Raju and kept looking at him. He didn’t have to say a word to anyone: he just sat there at the same place, looking away at the river, at the other bank, and tried hard to think where he should go next and what to do. They did not so much as whisper a word for fear that it might disturb him. Raju was beginning to feel uncomfortable on these occasions, and wondered if he could devise some means of escape from their company. Throughout the day he was practically left alone, but late in the evening, after doing their day’s work, the villagers would come.
One evening before the company arrived he moved himself to the backyard of the temple and hid himself behind a gigantic hibiscus bush full of red flowers. He heard them arrive, heard their voices on the river step. They were talking in low, hushed voices. They went round the building and passed by the hibiscus bush. Raju’s heart palpitated as he crouched there like an animal at bay. He held his breath and waited. He was already planning to offer an explanation if they should discover his presence there. He would say that he was in deep thought and that the hibiscus shade was congenial for such contemplation. But fortunately they did not look for him there. They stood near the bush talking in a hushed, awed whisper. Said one, “Where could he have gone?”
“He is a big man, he may go anywhere; he may have a thousand things to do.”
“Oh, you don’t know. He has renounced the world; he does nothing but meditate. What a pity he is not here today!”
“Just sitting there for a few minutes with him—ah, what a change it has brought about in our household! Do you know, that cousin of mine came round last night and gave me back the promissory note. As long as he held it, I felt as if I had put a knife in his hand for stabbing us.”
“We won’t have to fear anything more; it is our good fortune that this great soul should have come to live in our midst.”
“But he has disappeared today. Wonder if he has left us for good.”
“It would be our misfortune if he went away.”
“His clothes are still all there in the hall.”
“He has no fears.” “The food I brought yesterday has been eaten.”
“Leave there what you have brought now; he is sure to come back from his outing and feel hungry.” Raju felt grateful to this man for his sentiment.
“Do you know sometimes these Yogis can travel to the Himalayas just by a thought?”
“I don’t think he is that kind of Yogi,” said another.
“Who can say? Appearances are sometimes misleading,” said someone. They then moved off to their usual seat and sat there. For a long time Raju could hear them talking among themselves. After a while they left. Raju could hear them splashing the water with their feet. “Let us go before it gets too dark. They say that there is an old crocodile in this part of the river.”
“A boy known to me was held up by his ankle once, at this very spot.”
“What happened, then?” “He was dragged down, next day. . . .”
Raju could hear their voices far off. He cautiously peeped out of his hiding. He could see their shadowy figures on the other bank. He waited till they vanished altogether from sight. He went in and lit a lamp. He was hungry. They had left his food wrapped in a banana leaf on the pedestal of the old stone image. Raju was filled with gratitude and prayed that Velan might never come to the stage of thinking that he was too good for food and that he subsisted on atoms from the air.
Next morning he rose early and went through his ablutions, washed his clothes in the river, lit the stove, made himself coffee, and felt completely at ease with the world. He had to decide on his future today. He should either go back to the town of his birth, bear the giggles and stares for a few days, or go somewhere else. Where could he go? He had not trained himself to make a living out of hard work. Food was coming to him unasked now. If he went away somewhere else certainly nobody was going to take the trouble to bring him food in return for just waiting for it. The only other place where it could happen was the prison. Where could he go now? Nowhere. Cows grazing on the slopes far off gave the place an air of sublime stillness. He realized that he had no alternative: he must play the role that Velan had given him. With his mind made up he prepared himself to meet Velan and his friends in the evening.
He sat as usual on the stone slab with beatitude and calm in his face. The thing that had really bothered him was that he might sound too brilliant in everything he said. He had observed silence as a precaution. But that fear was now gone. He decided to look as brilliant as he could manage, let drop gems of thought from his lips, assume all the radiance available, and afford them all the guidance they required without stint. He decided to arrange the stage for the display with more thoroughness. With this view he transferred his seat to the inner hall of the temple. It gave one a better background. He sat there at about the time he expected Velan and others to arrive. He anticipated their arrival with a certain excitement. He composed his features and pose to receive them.
The sun was setting. Its tint touched the wall with pink. The tops of the coconut trees around were aflame. The bird-cries went up in a crescendo before dying down for the night. Darkness fell. Still there was no sign of Velan or anyone. They did not come that night. He was left foodless; that was not the main worry, he still had a few bananas. Suppose they never came again? What was to happen? He became panicky. All night he lay worrying. All his old fears returned. If he returned to the town he would have to get his house back from the man to whom he had mortgaged it. He would have to fight for a living space in his own home or find the cash to redeem it.
He debated whether to step across the river, walk into the village, and search for Velan. It didn’t seem a dignified thing to do. It might make him look cheap, and they might ignore him altogether.
He saw a boy grazing his sheep on the opposite bank. He clapped his hands and cried, “Come here.” He went down the steps and cried across the water, “I am the new priest of this temple, boy, come here. I have a plantain for you. Come and take it.” He flourished it, feeling that this was perhaps a gamble; it was the last piece of fruit in his store and might presently be gone, as might the boy, and Velan might never know how badly he was wanted, while he, Raju, lay starving there until they found his bleached bones in the temple and added them to the ruins around. With these thoughts he flourished the banana. The boy was attracted by it and soon came across the water. He was short and was wet up to his ears. Raju said, “Take off your turban and dry yourself, boy.”
“I am not afraid of water,” he said.
“You should not be so wet.”
The boy held out his hand for the plantain and said, “I can swim. I always swim.”
“But I have never seen you here before,” Raju said.
“I don’t come here. I go farther down and swim.”
“Why don’t you come here?”
“This is a crocodile place,” he said.
“But I have never seen any crocodile.”
“You will sometime,” the boy said. “My sheep generally graze over there. I came to see if a man was here.”
“Why?”
“My uncle asked me to watch. He said, ‘Drive your sheep before that temple and see if a man is there.’ That is why I came here today.”
Raju gave the boy the banana and said, “Tell your uncle that the man is back here and tell him to come here this evening.”
He did not wait to ask who the uncle was. Whoever he might be, he was welcome. The boy peeled the plantain, swallowed it whole, and started munching the peel also.
“Why do you eat the peel? It will make you sick,” Raju said.
“No, it won’t,” the boy replied. He seemed to be a resolute boy who knew his mind. Raju vaguely advised, “You must be a good boy. Now be off. Tell your uncle—”
The boy was off, after cautioning him, “Keep an eye on those till I get back.” He indicated his flock on the opposite slope.
