SWAMI'S GRANDMOTHER

IN THE ill-ventilated dark passage between the front hall and the dining-room,
Swaminathan's grandmother lived with all her belongings, which consisted of an
elaborate bed made of five carpets, three bed sheets, and five pillows, a square
box made of jute fibre, and a small wooden box containing copper coins,
cardamoms, cloves, and areca-nut.
After the night meal, with his head on his granny's lap, nestling close to
her, Swaminathan felt very snug and safe in the faint atmosphere of cardamom
and cloves.
'Oh, granny!' he cried ecstatically, 'you don't know what a great fellow
Rajam is.' He told her the story of the first enmity between Rajam and Mani and the
subsequent friendship.
'You know, he has a real police dress,' said Swaminathan.
'Is it? What does he want a police dress for?' asked granny.
'His father is the Police Superintendent. He is the master of every
policeman here.' Granny was impressed. She said that it must be a tremendous
office indeed. She then recounted the days when her husband, Swaminathan's
grandfather, was a powerful Sub-Magistrate, in which office he made the police
force tremble before him, and the fiercest dacoits of the place flee. Swaminathan
waited impatiently for her to finish the story. But she went on, rambled, confused,
mixed up various incidents that took place at different times.
That will do, granny,' he said ungraciously. 'Let me tell you something
about Rajam. Do you know how many marks he gets in Arithmetic?'
'He gets all the marks, does he, child?' asked granny.'No, silly. He gets ninety marks out of one hundred.'
'Good. But you must also try and get marks like him. . . You know, Swami,
your grandfather used to frighten the examiners with his answers sometimes.
When he answered a question, he did it in a tenth of the time that others took to do
it. And then, his answers would be so powerful that his teachers would give him
two hundred marks sometimes. .. . When he passed his F. A. he got such a big
medal!
I wore it as a pendant for years till--When did I remove it? Yes, when your
aunt was born.... No, it wasn't your aunt.... It was when your father was born.... I
remember on the tenth day of confinement.... No, no. I was right.
It was when your aunt was born. Where is that medal now?
I gave it away to your aunt--and she melted it and made four bangles out of
it. The fool! And such flimsy bangles too! I have always maintained that she is the
worst fool in our family....'
'Oh, enough, granny! You go on bothering about old unnecessary stories.
Won't you listen to Rajam?'
'Yes, dear, yes.'
'Granny, when Rajam was a small boy, he killed a tiger.'
'Indeed! The brave little boy!'
You are saying it just to please me. You don't believe it.'
Swaminathan started the story enthusiastically: Rajam's father was
camping in a forest. He had his son with him. Two tigers came upon them
suddenly, one knocking down the father from behind. The other began chasing
Rajam, who took shelter behind a bush and shot. it dead with his gun. 'Granny, are
you asleep?' Swaminathan asked at the end of the story.
'No, dear, I am listening.'
'Let me see. How many tigers came upon how many?'
'About two tigers on Rajam,' said granny.Swaminathan became indignant at his grandmother's inaccuracy. 'Here I
am going hoarse telling you important things and you fall asleep and imagine all
sorts of nonsense.
I am not going to tell you anything more. I know why you are so indifferent.
You hate Rajam.'
'No, no, he is a lovely little boy,' granny said with conviction, though she
had never seen Rajam. Swaminathan was pleased. Next moment a new doubt
assailed him.
'Granny, probably you don't believe the tiger incident.'
'Oh, I believe every word of it,' granny said soothingly.
Swaminathan was pleased, but added as a warning: 'He would shoot
anyone that called him a liar.'
Granny expressed her approval of this attitude and then begged leave to
start the story of Harischandra, who, just to be true to his word, lost his throne,
wife, and child, and got them all back in the end. She was half-way through it when
Swaminathan's rhythmic snoring punctuated her narration, and she lay down to
sleep.
Saturday afternoon. Since Saturday and Sunday came so rarely, to
Swaminathan it seemed absurd to waste at home, gossiping with granny and
mother or doing sums. It was his father's definite orders that Swaminathan should
not start loafing in the afternoon and that he should stay at home and do school
work. But this order was seldom obeyed.
Swaminathan sat impatiently in his 'study', trying to wrest the meaning out
of a poem in his English Reader. His father stood before the mirror, winding a
turban round his head. He had put on his silk coat. Now only his spectacles
remained. Swaminathan watched his progress keenly.
Even the spectacles were on. All that now remained was the watch.
Swaminathan felt glad. This was the last item and after that father would leave for he Court. Mother came in with a tumbler of water in one hand and a plate of betel
leaves and nuts in the other. Frank drank the water and held out his hand. She
gave him a little areca-nut and half a dozen neatly rolled betel leaves. He put them
all into his mouth, chewing them with great contentment. Swaminathan read at the
top of his voice the poem about a woolly sheep. His father fussed about a little for
his tiny silver snuff-box and the spotted kerchief, which was the most unwashed
thing in that house. He hooked his umbrella on his arm. This was really the last
signal for starting. Swaminathan had almost closed the book and risen. His father
had almost gone out of the room. But--Swaminathan stamped his foot under the
table. Mother stopped father and said: 'By the way, I want some change. The tailor
is coming today. He has been pestering me for the last four days.'
'Ask him to come to-morrow,' father said. Mother was insistent. Father
returned to his bureau, searched for the keys, opened it, took out a purse, and
gave her the change.
'I don't know how I am going to manage things for the rest of the month,' he
said peering into the purse. He locked the bureau, and adjusted his turban before
the mirror. He took a heavy pinch of snuff, and wiping his nose with his kerchief,
walked out. Swaminathan heaved a sigh of relief.
'Bolt the door,' came father's voice from the street door.
Swaminathan heard the clicking of the bolts. He sat at the window,
watched his father turn the corner, and then left his post.
His mother was in the kitchen giving instructions to the cook about the
afternoon coffee. Granny was sitting up in her bed. 'Come here, boy,' she cried as
soon as she saw him.
'I can't. No time now.'
'Please. I will give you three pies,' she cried.
Swaminathan ignored the offer and dashed away.
'Where are you going?' mother asked.'I have got to go,' Swaminathan said with a serious face.
'Are you going to loaf about in the sun?'
'Certainly not,' he replied curtly.
'Wander about recklessly and catch fever?...'
'No, mother, I am not going to wander about.'
'Has your father not asked you to stay at home on holidays?'
'Yes, but my Drawing Master has asked me to see him. I suppose even
then I should not go.' He added bitterly: 'If I fail in the Drawing examination I think
you will be pleased.'
Swaminathan ran down Grove Street, turned to his right, threaded his way
through Abu Lane, stood before a low roofed, dingy house, and gave a low whistle.
He waited for a second and repeated it. The door chain clanked, the door opened a
little, and Mani's head appeared and said: 'Fool! My aunt is here, don't come in. Go
away and wait for me there.'
Swaminathan moved away and waited under a tree. The sun was beating
down fiercely. The street was almost deserted. A donkey was standing near a
gutter, patiently watching its sharp shadow. A cow was munching a broad, green,
plantain leaf. Presently Mani sneaked out of his house.
Rajam's father lived in Lawley Extension (named after the mighty engineer
Sir Frederick Lawley, who was at one time the Superintending Engineer for
Malgudi Circle), which consisted of about fifty neat bungalows, mostly occupied by
government officials. The Trunk Road to Trichinopoly passed a few yards in front of
these houses.
Swaminathan and Mani were nervously walking up the short drive leading
to Rajam's house. A policeman in uniform cried to them to stop and came running
towards them.
Swaminathan felt like turning and fleeing. He appealed to Mani to speak to
the policeman. The policeman asked what they were doing there. Mani said in a one in which overdone carelessness was a trifle obvious: 'If Rajam is in the house,
we are here to see him. He asked us to come.' The policeman at once became
astonishingly amiable and took them along to Rajam's room.
To Mani and Swaminathan the room looked large. There were chairs in it,
actually chairs, and a good big table with Rajam's books arranged neatly on it.
What impressed them most was a timepiece on the table. Such a young follow to
own a timepiece! His father seemed to be an extraordinary man.
Presently Rajam entered. He had known that his friends were waiting for
him, but he liked to keep them waiting for a few minutes, because he had seen his
father doing it. So he stood for a few minutes in the adjoining room, biting his nails.
When he could keep away no longer, he burst in upon his friends.
'Sit down, boys, sit down,' he cried when he saw them standing.
In a few minutes they were chatting about odds and ends, discussing their
teachers and school-mates, their parents, toys, and games.
Rajam took them to a cupboard and threw it open. They beheld astounding
things in it, miniature trains and motors, mechanical marvels, and a magic -lantern
with slides, a good many large picture-books, and a hundred other things.
What interested Mani most was a grim air-gun that stood in a corner.
Rajam gave them permission to handle anything they pleased. In a short while
Swaminathan was running an engine all over the room. Mani was shooting arrow
after arrow from a bow, at the opposite wall. When he tired of it, he took up the gun
and devastated the furniture around with lead balls.
'Are you fellows, any of you, hungry?' Rajam asked.
'No,' they said half-heartedly.
'Hey,' Rajam cried. A policeman entered.
'Go and ask the cook to bring some coffee and tiffin for three.' The ease
and authority with which he addressed the policeman filled his friends with wonder
and admiration.
The cook entered with a big plateful of eatables. He set down the plate on
the table. Rajam felt that he must display his authority.
'Remove it from the table, you--' he roared at the cook.
The cook removed it and placed it on a chair.
'You dirty ass, take it away, don't put it there.'
'Where am I to put it, Raju?' asked the cook.
Rajam burst out: 'You rascal, you scoundrel, you talk back to me?'
The cook made a wry face and muttered something.
'Put it on the table/ Rajam commanded. The cook obeyed, mumbling: 'If
you are rude, I am going to tell your mother.'
'Go and tell her, I don't care,' Rajam retorted.
He peered into a cup and cursed the cook for bringing it so dirty. The cook
looked up for a moment, quietly lifted the plate, and saying, 'Come and eat in the
kitchen if you want food,' went away with it.
This was a great disappointment to Swaminathan and Mani, who were
waiting with watering mouths. To Rajam it was a terrible moment. To be outdone
by his servant before his friends! He sat still for a few minutes and then said with a
forced laugh: 'The scoundrel, that cook is a buffoon.... Wait a minute.' He went out.
After a while he returned, carrying the plate himself. His friends were a bit
astonished at this sign of defeat. Obviously he could not subdue the cook.
Swaminathan puzzled his head to find out why Rajam did not shoot the cook dead,
and Mani wanted to ask if he could be allowed to have his own way with the cook
for a few minutes. But Rajam set their minds at rest by explaining to them: 'I had to
bring this myself. I went in and gave the cook such n. kick for his impertinence that
he is lying unconscious in the kitchen.'