Malgudi Days by R. K. Narayan
‘He brings up . . .’
‘Wait, don’t tell me anything now.’ After this interlude he said to me, ‘I don’t generally charge for secondary visits—I mean a second call, which I can respond to on my way home. I charge only for visits which are urgent. In your case I’ve not noted the number of secondary visits.’
I was mystified and said, ‘You have yourself called me a healthy brute, so what’s it all about?’
‘Don’t you know? Has your mother never spoken to you?’
‘No, never, I never thought . . . Yes, she spoke about my marrying some girl, worried me no end about it,’ I said, and added, ‘Doctor, if you can think of some elixir which’ll reduce her fervour about my marriage . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I’m coming to it. It’s a thing that is weighing on her mind very much. She feels strongly that there must be a successor to her when she leaves.’ The doctor seemed to be talking in conundrums. The day seemed to have started strangely. ‘Has she not discussed her condition with you?’ Before I could answer him or grasp what he was saying, the man with the cough made his presence felt with a deafening series, attracting the doctor’s attention, and as the doctor rose, the woman lifted the child and began, ‘He doesn’t retain even a drop . . .’ The doctor said to me, ‘Don’t go away. I’ll dispose of these two first.’ He took the squealing baby and the cougher, one by one, behind the curtain, and came back to his table and wrote a voluminous prescription for each, and passed them on to Ramu through a little window. Presently he resumed his speech to me, but was interrupted by his patients, who wanted to know whether the mixture was to be drunk before or after a meal and what diet was to be taken. He gave some routine answer and muttered to me, ‘It’s the same question again and again, again and again—whether they could have buttermilk or rasam and rice or bread and coffee, and whether before or after—what does it matter? But they want an answer and I have to give it, because the medical profession has built up such rituals! Ha! ha!’
At this moment two others approached his desk, having waited on the bench passively all along. He gestured them to return to their seats, and rose saying, ‘Follow me, we will have no peace here . . .’ I followed him into his examination room, a small cabin with a high table, screened off and with a lot of calendar pictures plastered on the wall. He asked me to hoist myself on the examining table as if I were a patient, and said, ‘This is the only place where I can talk without being interrupted.’ I had been in suspense since his half-finished statements about my mother. He said, ‘Your mother is in a leave-taking mood . . .’ I was stunned to hear this. I could never imagine my mother in such a mood. No one seemed to have her feet more firmly planted on the earth, with her ceaseless activities around the house, and her strident voice ringing through the halls. The doctor had said ‘leave-taking’. How could she ever leave her universe? It was inconceivable. My throat went dry and my heart raced when I tried to elicit further clarification from him. I said weakly, ‘What sort of leave-taking? Thinking of retiring to Benares?’
‘No, farther than that,’ said the doctor, indicating heaven, after lighting a cigarette. The little cabin became misty and choking. I gently coughed out the smoke that had entered my lungs without my striking a match. The smoke stung my eyes and brought tears, observing which the doctor said sympathetically, ‘Don’t cry. Learn to take these situations calmly; you must think of the next step to take, practically and calmly.’ He preached to me the philosophy of detachment, puffing away at his cigarette, and not minding in the least the coughing, groaning and squealing emanating from the bench in the hall. I felt bad to be holding up the doctor in this manner. But I had to know what he was trying to say about my mother through his jerky half-statements. He asked suddenly, ‘Why hasn’t she been talking to you?’ I had to explain to him that I came home late and left early, and we met briefly each day. He made a deprecatory sound with his tongue and remarked, ‘You are an undutiful fellow. Where do you hide yourself all day?’
‘Oh, this and that,’ I said, feeling irritated. ‘I have to see people and do things. One has to live one’s own life, you know!’
‘What people and what life?’ pursued the doctor relentlessly. I couldn’t explain to him really how I spent the day. He’d have brushed aside anything I said. So I thought it best to avoid his question and turn his thoughts to my mother. Here he had created a hopeless suspense and tension in me, and was wandering in his talk, puffing out smoke and tipping the ash on the cement floor. What an untidy doctor—the litter and dust and ash alone was enough to breed disease and sickness—he was the most reckless doctor I’d ever come across. As more patients came into the other room, Ramu parted the curtain and peeped in to say, ‘They are waiting.’ This placed some urgency into the whole situation and the doctor hastily threw down the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe and said, ‘For four months I have been visiting your home off and on, some days several times—that little girl would come running and panting to say, “Come, Doctor, at once, Amma is very ill, at once.” When such a call is received I never ignore it. I drop whatever I may have on hand and run to the patient. Giving relief to the suffering is my first job . . . Sometimes the girl would come a second time, too.’
‘What was it?’ I asked, becoming impatient.
‘Well, that’s what one has to find out; I’m continuously watching and observing. It’s not in my nature to treat any complaint casually and take anything for granted . . .’ He was misleading himself, according to what I could observe of his handling of his patients. After a lot of rambling, he came to the point: ‘She is subject to some kind of fainting, which comes on suddenly. However, she is responding to treatment; I think it must be some kind of cardiac catch, if I may call it so, due to normal degenerative process. We can keep her going with medicines, but how long one cannot say . . .’
‘Does she know?’ I asked tremblingly.
‘Yes, I had to call to her about it in a way, and she has understood perfectly. She has a lot of philosophy, you know. Perhaps you don’t spend any time with her . . .’ I remained dumb. The doctor’s observations troubled my conscience. I had not paid any attention to my mother, to her needs or her wants or her condition, and had taken her to be made of some indestructible stuff. ‘The only thing that bothers her now is that you will be left alone; she told me that if only you could be induced to marry . . .’
So that was it! I understood it now. She must have been busy all afternoon sending the little girl to the post-office to buy postcards, and then writing to her relations in the village to find a bride for me, and she had finally succeeded in reviving old relationships and promises and getting the tufted man down with his proposals. What a strain it must have been to organize so much in her state of cardiac degeneration, performing her daily duties without the slightest slackening. In fact, she seemed to have been putting on an exaggerated show of vitality when I was at home, probably suffering acutely her spells of whatever it was while I sat listening or lecturing at the Boardless till midnight! I felt guilty and loathed myself and my self-centred existence. Before I left, the doctor uttered this formula: ‘Well, such is my finding. Take a second opinion if you like. I’d not at all mind it. Can you let me have your cheque tomorrow?’
When I emerged from the anteroom, the waiting patients looked relieved. Outside in the street I hesitated for a moment and turned my feet homeward instead of, as was my invariable custom, to the Boardless.
When I opened the door of my room and appeared before my mother, she was taken aback, having never seen me home at this hour. I was happy to find her as active as ever, impossible to connect it with the picture conjured by the doctor’s report, although I seemed to note some weak points in her carriage and under her eyes. I kept staring at her. She was puzzled. I wanted to burst out, ‘How do you feel this morning? All right? Possibility of falling into a faint?’ I swallowed my words. Why should I mention a point which she had kept from me? That might upset her, better not show cognizance of it. She wanted
She had cooked some special items for me as if I were a rare guest. The lunch was splendid. She had put out a banana leaf for me in the corridor and arranged a sitting plank for me beside the rosewood pillar in the half-covered open court. She explained, ‘It’s too stuffy with smoke in the kitchen. Your father did everything perfectly, but neglected the kitchen—never provided a chimney or window . . . if the firewood is not dry the smoke irritates my eyes till I think I’ll go blind. One’d almost lose one’s sight in the stinging smoke, but I’ve got used to it; even if I lose my sight it will not matter. But whoever comes after me . . .’ This was the nearest hint of both her health and the successor to the kitchen. I absorbed the hint but had no idea what I should say; I felt confused and embarrassed. ‘We shall have to do something about it,’ I said, gratefully eating the rare curry with five vegetables she had prepared for me. I was amazed at her efficiency. I was an unexpected guest, but within a couple of hours she had managed to get the food ready. She must have been driving the little girl with a whip to run up and buy all the needed stuff for this lunch, all done quietly without giving a clue to the guest of honour lounging in his room with a book in hand. She must have been several times on the point of asking why I was back home at this hour, and I was on the point of asking for details of her symptoms; but both of us talked of other things. After lunch I retired to my room. I couldn’t shut the door and rest. I frequently emerged from my shelter and paced the length of the house, up and down from the front door to the back yard, areas which I had not visited for months and months. I noticed without obviously watching how my mother was faring. She had eaten her lunch, and was chewing her betel nut and clove as had been her practice for years and years. That the shop was closed for the day was indicated by the faint aroma of cloves that hung about her presence, as I had noticed even as a child, when I trailed behind her at all hours, while my father sat counting cash in his room. She used to look like a goddess in her bright silk sari and straight figure, with diamonds sparkling in her ears.
She had unrolled a mat and was lying with her head resting on a plank in the corridor, which was her favourite spot. When she saw me pass, she sat up and asked, ‘Want anything?’
‘No, no, don’t disturb yourself. Just a glass of water, that’s all.’ I went into the kitchen and poured a tumbler of water out of the mud jug, took a draught of unwanted cold water and went back to my room. This was an unaccustomed hour at home and I could not overcome the feeling of strangeness. She seemed all right and I felt relieved. She produced a tumbler of coffee when I reappeared in her zone, after an afternoon nap. I began to feel bored and wanted to go out to my accustomed haunts, the public library, the town-hall, the riverside at Nallappa’s grove and finally the Boardless. Normally I’d start the day at the Boardless, finish my rounds and end up there again.
When I was satisfied she was normal, I had a wash at the well, dressed, and started out. I went to the back portion, where she was scrubbing the floor, to tell her I was going out, casually asking, ‘Where is that girl? Why are you doing it yourself?’
‘That girl wanted the day off. The floor is so slippery. Nothing like doing things yourself if your limbs are strong enough . . .’ she said.
I said very calmly and casually, ‘If you like, you may tell that man to come for a talk and arrange our visit to the village. You may write to him to come anytime,’ and without further talk, I briskly left.
All evening my mind was preoccupied. I was not the sort to explain my personal problems to anyone, and so when I sat beside Varma at the Boardless and he asked me, ‘Anything wrong? You have come so late,’ I gave some excuse and passed on to other subjects. The six o’clock group arrived—the journalist whom we called the universal correspondent, since he couldn’t name any paper as his, an accountant in some bank, a schoolmaster and a couple of others whose profession and background were vague—and assembled in its corner. The talk was all about Delhi politics as usual—for and against Indira Gandhi—with considerable heat but in hushed tones, because Varma threw a hint that walls have ears. I’d normally participate in this to the extent of contradicting everyone and quoting Plato or Toynbee. But today I just listened passively, and the journalist said, ‘Where is your sparkle gone?’ I said I had a sore throat and a cold coming.
After an hour I slipped out. I crossed Ellaman Street and plodded through the sands of Sarayu and walked down the bank listening to the rustling of leaves overhead and the sound of running water. I was deeply moved by the hour and its quality in spite of my worries. People sat here and there alone or in groups, children were gambolling on the sands. I said to myself, ‘Oh, the lovely things continue, in spite of the burdens on one’s soul. How I wish I could throw off the load and enjoy this hour absolutely. Most people here are happy, chatting and laughing because they are not bothered about a marriage or a mother . . . God! I wish I could see a way out.’ I sat on the river parapet and brooded hard and long. Marriage seemed to me most unnecessary, just to please a mother. Supposing the M.M.C. doctor had not spotted me in the morning, I’d have gone my way, leaving marriage and mother to take their own course, that tufted man to go to the devil. I could welcome neither marriage nor my mother’s death. They spoke of the horns of dilemma; I understood now what it meant. I felt hemmed in, with all exits blocked—like a rat cornered who must either walk into the trap or get bashed. I was getting more and more confused. No one told me that I should marry or otherwise I’d lose my mother. Mother’s health was not dependent on me: the degenerative process must have started very early. I had decided to marry only because it’d make her die peacefully, a purely voluntary decision—no dilemma in any sense of the term. After this elaborate analysis I felt a little lighter in mind. I abandoned myself to the sound of the river and leaves, of the birds chirping and crowing in the dark while settling on their perches for the night.
Two men sitting nearby got up, patting away the sand from their seats. They were engaged in a deep discussion, and as they passed me one was saying, ‘I’d not rely on any single opinion so fully and get nose-led; one must always get a second opinion before deciding the issue.’ They were old men, probably pensioners reminiscing on family affairs or official matters. The expression ‘second opinion’ was a godsend and suddenly opened a door for me. My doctor himself constantly recommended a ‘second opinion’. I’d not rely
I got up early next morning and met the M.M.C. doctor at his home. He hadn’t yet shaved or bathed; with his hair ruffled and standing up he looked more like a loader of rice bags in the market than a physician. ‘To think one hangs on this loader’s verdict on matters of life and death!’ I reflected, while he led me in and offered me a cup of coffee. His tone was full of sympathy as he presumed that something had gone wrong with my mother; he was saying, ‘Oh, don’t be anxious, I’ll come, she’ll be all right, must be another passing fit . . .’ I had to wake up from my reverie as he concluded, ‘I won’t take more than forty minutes to get ready, and the first call will be at your house, although a case of bronchitis at the Temple Street is in a critical stage.’ Never having practised the art of listening to others, he went on elaborating details of the bronchitis case. When he paused for breath, I butted in hastily to ask, ‘May I seek a second opinion in my mother’s case?’