Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K. Narayan
Sriram pleaded, ‘Don’t. Please tell Bapu …’
Bharati looked at him with wonder. ‘After all these months of association and work, how can you speak like this? How can we do anything other than what Bapuji asks us to do?’
Sriram had no cogent answer to give. He hung down his head. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten that he was a soldier in the struggle for freedom.
She said resolutely, ‘I ought to be there already. I am reporting to the police station at …’
‘How long will they keep you in gaol?’ he asked pathetically.
‘How can I say?’ she replied. ‘Are you coming too?’
He said, ‘Not now. I want to think it over. But I will readily come if they will keep me in the same prison, preferably in the same cell.’
‘It won’t be possible, the government won’t keep us together,’ she said.
This enraged Sriram. The whole universe seemed to be organized to defeat his purpose, even the government which differed from the Mahatma on most matters seemed to be in accord with him where it concerned him and Bharati. The worst of it was that Bharati herself seemed to rejoice in the arrangement. He became wild at the thought and said, ‘Why is everyone opposed to my loving you?’
She took pity on him and said tenderly, ‘Poor fool. You have lost your wits completely.’
‘How dare you say that?’ he shouted.
‘There is no point in your shouting,’ she said. ‘Don’t let us quarrel. I will be gone in a moment … I want to report myself before it strikes four. If they want to send me to the Central or some other gaol they must have time to catch the evening train.’
‘What shall I do without you?’ he wailed.
‘That is why Bapu has asked you to report too.’
He shook his head. ‘I have a lot of things to do outside … Bapu has given everyone freedom to carry on the Satyagraha in his own manner. He doesn’t really mean me,’ he said dolefully.
In answer Bharati seized the letter and held it open under his nose. ‘“This applies to your disciple also,” he says.’
‘But that doesn’t mean me. It may mean anyone,’ said Sriram.
‘I thought he always understood whom he meant by “disciple”,’ she said grimly. ‘Anyway the choice is yours. You may do what you think best. I am doing what seems to me the right thing to do.’
‘How do you know it is the right thing to do?’
‘I need not answer that question,’ she said irritated. ‘If I had known that you would treat Bapuji’s word so lightly –’
Sriram felt crushed by her tone. ‘Oh, Bharati, don’t add to my troubles by mistaking me so completely. I revere the Mahatma, you know I do. Why do you suspect me? Have I not followed every word of what he has been saying? … Otherwise I should not have been here. I should not have left the comfort of my house. All that I want is some more time to think it over. I am …’ he brought out his masterpiece on an inspiration. ‘I am only thinking of my grandmother. I want to see her before I am finally gaoled. That is why I asked you how long we should be in prison. She is very old, you know. I will surrender myself after I have seen her once. I must manage to see her.’
This idea seemed to soften the girl. She thought it over, leaning back on the tablet. She seemed to appreciate his tender feelings for his grandmother.
‘That is all right, Sriram. I am sorry I mistook you.’ He wanted to touch her arm, but he felt afraid to do so. She would surely say, ‘Keep off, not until,’ and that would irritate him again and make him speak nonsense.
She got up. He asked, ‘Must you go?’
‘Yes, it is late for me.’
He followed her sheepishly, ‘When we meet again after the gaol, and wherever we may meet … will you not forget me?’
‘I will not forget you,’ she said, catching her breath ever so lightly.
He loved her as she drew herself up, more than at any other time in his life, but he also felt afraid of her more than at any other time. He simply said, ‘If you will not be angry with me, Bharati, I wish to ask one thing.’
‘Yes?’ she said, stopping and looking at him. He noticed beads of perspiration on her upper lip and wanted to wipe them off with his fingers. He was seized with desolation at the thought that he would not see her any more coming round the bend of the road. He wanted to seize her in his arms and take a stormy leave of her, but he had to content himself with asking, ‘Will you marry me after we are out of all this, will you promise, if Bapuji permits?’
‘Yes, I promise …’ she said and hurried off before he could talk to her or follow her. He stood where he was and saw her raising her hands to her eyes once or twice in order to wipe off the tears gathering there.
PART THREE
A person called Jagadish dropped in one day very casually and introduced himself as a national worker. He said he was a photographer in Malgudi by profession, and claimed he had a formula for paralysing Britain in India. His studio in Malgudi with its dark interior served as a meeting ground for a group who were bent upon achieving immediate independence for the country. Jagadish came because he was in need of an out-of-town lair for his activities, and he was looking for a place where he could instal a small radio set which could also transmit code messages.
He came trudging uphill while Sriram was reclining against his stone tablet. He came with a haversack on his back and wore a khadi dress. Sriram had been reading his old newspaper. Bharati’s exit from his life had created a vacuum, which he found it hard to fill. He felt somewhat confused as to what he should do with himself now.
Jagadish set down his haversack, sat beside Sriram and asked, ‘You are Sriram?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am Jagadish. I used to know Bharati also. We are all doing more or less the same work.’
This was enough to stir Sriram out of his lethargy. He sat up and welcomed the other profusely with a great deal of warmth and asked, ‘Where, where is she?’
‘In detention … We don’t know where, but one of our boys met her just before she surrendered herself to the police.’
Sriram asked, ‘Where is this man?’
‘He too has surrendered to the police; before that he came and saw me.’
‘Are you going to court imprisonment?’
‘No, I have other things to do. That is why I have come here.’
Sriram was happy to find a kindred soul and at once poured into his ears his own feelings. ‘I told Bharati not to be a fool …’
‘Don’t say that. In this matter we all judge and act individually. Those who cannot follow Mahatmaji’s orders are free to act as they think best.’
‘How right you are,’ Sriram cried, feeling he had blundered into the right set.
The other said, ‘This is a war in which we are engaged, we are passing through abnormal times, and we do what we think best.’
He began to unpack his haversack. Sriram, always hungry and rather tired of the monotonous food he was eating, hoped childishly that something nice to eat would come out of it. He hoped it would be chocolate or fruit or biscuits. Oh, how long it was since he had eaten anything like idli, those white sensitive things made by his granny on most Sundays. Why Sunday and not on any other day, he had often asked. Now Jagadish took from his bag a small box, unwrapped the paper around it and brought out a tiny radio set.
‘You will have to keep this,’ he said. ‘It can transmit as well as receive. I had it in my studio all these days … but the police have become very watchful nowadays.’ He installed it behind the god’s image, and camouflaged it with some bamboo leaves.
From then on the god with the eyeless sockets saw a great deal of Jagadish. He was of short stature with a brown wrap around his shoulders. He had a shaggy crop of minute, springy curls, which spread out parallel to the earth, projecting several inches beyond his ears. He parted his shaggy crop in the middle and applied a vast quantity of oil over his curls so that the top of his skull was always resplendent, and often Sriram saw th
A stab of jealousy passed through him. Could it be that she had ever toyed with the notion of marrying him? God knew what he did with himself when he was out of sight. How did he make a living out of photography? Sometimes he didn’t appear for days, and when he turned up he explained, ‘The wedding season, you know. More fools getting married, and they drop in to get themselves photographed. I can’t afford to waive all the business.’ Or he explained, ‘The jasmine season, and this is a heavy time for a photographer. What a lot of young girls come with jasmine buds knitted in their braids – the problem for the photographer is to photograph a girl’s face and the back of her jasmine-covered head simultaneously, which is what they demand. Poor things, they sit up all night when they have the jasmine in their hair, for fear of crushing it on the pillows. They arrive at the rate of two a minute. When they are in the darkness of the studio, I try to find out their politics and give them our cyclostyled circulars and the latest news. The studio is a help for us in this job. When anyone comes there he is more responsive than he is anywhere else. People generally come to a studio with a cheerful mind, ready to oblige the photographer by being agreeable and responsive, and by listening to all he has to say, the same as being with a barber. They have a feeling that they are obliged to the photographer in some vague way and readily listen to his talk, and I make use of this for our national cause. That’s why I keep the studio going, although it’s so difficult, without a proper supply of materials. When our country gets independence, if I have anything to do with things, you will see what I shall do to the beggars who are black-marketing spools now!’ He ground his teeth at the thought of them.
He was soon converting the temple into a fortress. He explained: ‘The advantage of this place, do you know what it is? Except for a few antiquarians, no one knows of its existence. And it is not visible from outside. I’ve observed it from various points. It cannot be seen from the road down below. I wonder why anyone built a temple here at all. I believe it must have been used as a place for conspirators a thousand years ago,’ and he laughed grimly. Sriram laughed. He began to like him.
‘Don’t think this is always going to be safe,’ said the other. ‘Sooner or later they will find it.’
‘There is an underground chamber,’ began Sriram.
‘Yes, where I know aged cobras live, if you prefer them to the police. But we have to manage somehow between the cobras and the police.’
‘Yes, yes, with so much to do –’
Jagadish handed him a small axe and told him to cut the bamboo foliage, large branches of it, and drag them up. Sriram went at it till the skin on his palm smarted and peeled off. Jagadish induced Sriram to climb the rampart of the old temple and stick the foliage here and there according to his directions. He was shouting energetically. Standing in the sun all day, his face shone like mahogany with sweat. He said, ‘I can screen this whole mountain if it comes to that.’ Sriram felt tired and indignant. He wondered, ‘Why should I let this fellow order me about, when he does nothing but stand around and instruct?’ Probably it would have been more pleasant to have gone to gaol. But Jagadish never gave him much opportunity to dwell on such thoughts. He said: ‘We are waging a war, remember. Mahatmaji in his own way and we in our own. All our aims are the same.’
‘But I thought we were all working out the Mahatma’s orders.’
‘We are, we are,’ he said vaguely. ‘I used to be a devoted follower too. I’m still one, but he is no longer there to guide us. What can we do? He permits us all to carry on our work to the best of our abilities.’
‘But strictly non-violently,’ said Sriram.
‘Of course, this camouflaging is not violence. It doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s done only that we may be left alone to work out our plans without interference. I don’t want even that postman to see too much of this place. After all, he is a member of the Imperial Government.’
Sriram’s next assignment was more complicated. He found he had become a blind slave of Jagadish, and a word of encouragement from him pleased him to the depths of his soul. He felt proud of his position. He thought that perhaps the other associates hardly ever got a good word from him. All day long, he sat up with the radio behind the god, with a writing-pad on his lap, and a pencil between his fingers, taking down the news and messages coming from Rangoon, Singapore and Germany, which purported to give the hour-to-hour progress of the war in Europe and the Far East. Sriram worked far into the night. His pencil wore out every three days. He had never worked so hard in his life. The only reward he got was Jagadish’s ‘Very good! Excellent job. More of our troops have joined the Indian National Army, they will soon be marching into India.’ He sat by the lamp and went over the reports with concentration as Sriram sat chasing out the gnats and beetles that were trooping in towards the light. Jagadish made several markings on the messages, and carried them off to be cyclostyled and distributed from his studio at Malgudi.
The radio said: ‘This is Tokyo calling. Here is Subhas Chandra Bose, your own leader at the mike, addressing you on a special occasion.’ A few seconds later the message said, ‘This is Subhas Chandra Bose speaking.’ Sriram sat up respectfully. ‘What good fortune that I should hear his voice!’ At the sound of it, Sriram felt reverence for this man who had abandoned his home, comfort, and security, and was going from country to country, seeking some means of liberating his Motherland. With what skill he had managed to slip away from his home in Calcutta in spite of police vigilance, disguising himself as a Sadhu! Sriram felt he was peculiarly fortunate to be hearing the hero’s voice.
Subhas Chandra Bose’s voice said, ‘Men of the Indian Army, be patriots. Help us free our dear Motherland. Many of your friends are here, having joined the Indian National Army which is poised for attack on your borders. We are ready. We shall soon be across, and then you can join the fight on our side. Till then don’t aim your guns at us, but only at the heart of our enemy.’ And then followed a ten-point programme of National Service that the men of the Indian Army should undertake. Sriram wrote at breakneck speed. He felt as if the commanding presence of Subhas Chandra Bose itself was at his elbow dictating. He filled up several sheets of the pad in respectful silence. He was overawed by the look of the radio now as its lamps burned red. Outside crickets chirped, a train rattled away somewhere, and the bamboo clumps rustled. The radio went on and on. Its red eyes glowed, and threw a red glare on the ankle of the god on the pedestal. Sriram lost count of time. He had never written so much in his life. That the broadcast came through in English was a great trial, for his spelling was none too good.
Subhas Chandra Bose was saying: ‘And now stand by for a most important message. Be attentive.’ Sriram wanted to catch it without fail, without any possibility of a mistake, but just at that moment a contrary noise began to emanate from the radio. It was as if a bee had started buzzing in time with the Great Message. Sriram felt distressed. If the thing went on undisturbed for a few seconds more, the message would be over. He strained his ears, but the other noise was becoming too loud. He ground his teeth. His left hand strayed towards the knob of the radio, and turned it. It only seemed to irritate the radio further. He lifted his eyes from the paper and glared at the radio. He saw on the dial on the outside of the glass sheet, illuminated by a small light inside, a very small cockroach, its pale body quivered with the battery of noise from the radio. Sriram felt revulsion at the sight of its white belly pressed against the glass dial. He could see but not reach it. He felt sick and angry. He cried, ‘You cursed creature, how dare you come and interfere with this most important message! Get away.’ He tapped the glass with his finger. He felt indignant. ‘Am I here to wear out my pencil, taking down your stupi
This note of self-reproach was fully endorsed when Jagadish turned up at two a.m. After putting the radio out of commission, Sriram sat for a while wondering what to do, blew out the lamp, kicked open his mat and lay down on it. When Jagadish arrived and struck a match to look for the lamp, Sriram woke up and cried excitedly, ‘Who are you?’ A sleepy vision of the very dark man illumined by a match-flare was unnerving.