Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma

by R. K. Narayan

  ‘At four-thirty,’ she replied curtly.

  ‘Come and sit down here,’ he said, moving away a little to make space for her. She looked at him briefly and obeyed. Her anger left her. Her face relaxed. She sat beside him; he took her hand in his. She was transformed. She sat leaning on him. He put his arm around her and pressed his face against her black sari. A faint aroma of kitchen smoke and damp was about her. He told her softly: ‘I’m taking up a new work today.’ He explained to her and concluded: ‘Do you realize how much we can do now? I can write about our country’s past and present. A story about Gandhiji’s non-violence, our politics, all kinds of things.’ He chattered away about his plans.

  ‘This seems so much better than that paper!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘I’m sure more people will like this – that Banner was so dull! You will not revive it?’

  ‘Can’t say. When Sampath gets a new machine with the money he is going to make –

  ‘Why should you bother about it?’ she asked. ‘Will this bring you a lot of money?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘We must have a lot more money to spend,’ she said. ‘We must go and live in a better house,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ he said, looking about helplessly. ‘I don’t know if I would care to live elsewhere. I like this place.’ And he smiled weakly, realizing at once what a hopeless confusion his whole outlook was. He could not define what he wanted. They went on talking till the boy knocked on the door and cried at the top of his voice: ‘Mother! Mother! Why have you bolted the door?’ ‘Oh, he has come,’ she cried, and ran up and opened the door. The boy burst in with a dozen inquiries. He flung his cap and books away and let out a shout of joy on seeing his father, and threw himself on him. His mother attempted to take him in and give him his milk and tiffin, but he resisted it and announced: ‘In our school there was a snake today –’

  ‘Oh, really!’

  ‘But it didn’t bite the masters,’ he added.

  ‘Then what else did it do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see it. A friend of mine told me about it.’ His mother took him by his hand and dragged him into the kitchen. Srinivas shut his eyes tight with almost a sense of duty. But his wife presently came out of the kitchen and said: ‘Take me out this evening. Let us go to the market.’

  ‘Oh, but –’ Srinivas began. The boy became irrepressible. ‘Oh, don’t say but, Father, let us go, let us go, ask him, Mother. Don’t let him say “but”, Mother. Let us go to a cinema.’ His mother said: ‘Yes, why not? I will finish the cooking in a moment and be ready.’

  ‘All right,’ Srinivas said, unable to refuse this duty.

  All night his head seethed with ideas and would not let him snatch even a wink. Haifa dozen times he interrupted a possible coming sleep to get up, switch on the light, and jot down notes. He got up late next day and rushed to his office. He knew no peace till he was back at his untidy table. He seized his rose-coloured penholder, dipped it in the inkpot, and kept dipping it there, as if excavating something out of its bed. The sheets before him filled up, and he became unconscious of the passing of time, till he heard a car stop and the shout from below: ‘Editor!’ He concluded a sentence he had begun, and put away his pen as footsteps approached.

  Somu and Sampath sat in their chairs. ‘We have just come from the studio – took a few test shots with the camera.’ Sampath pointed at Somu and said: ‘They have taken five hundred feet of our friend entering the studio. He makes such a fine screen personality, you know.’ Somu tried to blush and remarked: ‘It’s a good camera, sir, it has cost us forty thousand.’

  ‘Forty thousand!’ Srinivas exclaimed. The scales of value in this world amazed him. All calculations were in terms of thousands. ‘Where do they find all this money?’ he wondered.

  ‘Everything is ready,’ Sampath said. ‘Camera at forty thousand; De Mello costing a thousand rupees a month, and other executives spending ten thousand in all – all waiting; but where is the story?’ Srinivas felt that he was somehow responsible for keeping the great engines of production waiting. Sampath added: ‘If we have a story ready –’

  ‘We can go into production next month.’ Somu confessed: ‘I have tried to jot down a few ideas for a story. I don’t know if it will look all right.’ He fumbled in his pocket, but Sampath, stretching out his arm, prevented the other from bringing out his paper, saying at the same time: ‘Well, Editor, we rely upon you to give us something today.’

  Srinivas cleared his throat and said: ‘Here is an outline. See if you can use it.’ He read on. The others listened in stony silence. The hero of the story was one Ram Gopal, who had devoted his life to the abolition of the caste system and other evils of society. His ultimate ambition in life was to see his motherland freed from foreign domination. He was a disciple of Gandhi’s philosophy, practising ahimsa (non-violence) in thought, word and deed, and his philosophy was constantly being put to the test till in the end a dilemma occurred when through circumstances a single knife lay between him and a would-be assailant; it was within the reach of both; it was a question of killing or getting killed …

  Srinivas had not decided how to end his story. The other two listened in grim silence. Somu looked visibly distressed. He looked at Sampath as if for help in expressing an opinion. ‘It is a beautiful story, Editor. I wish I had the press so that we might print and broadcast it.’

  ‘You see,’ Srinivas explained. ‘This is the greatest message we can convey, the message of Gandhiji in terms of an experience. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sampath replied a little uncomfortably. Somu fidgeted in his seat. There was an uncomfortable pause, and Sampath said: ‘But we need something different for films.’

  ‘Do you mean to say that this cannot be done in a film?’ Srinivas asked as calmly as he could. He felt slightly irritated by this cold reception, but told himself: ‘Take care not to be violent in discussing a story of non-violence. They are entitled to their view.’ Somu cleared his voice and ventured to mutter within his throat: ‘You see, we must have romance in the story.’

  ‘Romance!’ Srinivas gasped. ‘What sort of romance?’

  ‘You see, we are bound to engage a leading lady who will cost us at least two thousand a month, and we have got to give her a suitable role.’

  Sampath said: ‘Of course, the type of subject you think of needs much skill and experience in making. Only Russians or Americans would be able to tackle it. I have just been glancing through a book by Pudovkin. De Mello lent me his copy. There is a great deal in it for us to learn, but it will take time. You see, our public –’

  ‘Don’t abuse the public, please,’ said Srinivas.

  ‘We have got to be practical in this business …’

  Srinivas was amazed at the speed with which they seemed to imbibe ready-made notions (including Pudovkin, whom everyone in the studio mentioned at least once a day: it was a sort of trade-mark).

  ‘I would like to see that book myself,’ Srinivas said. ‘Yes, I will bring it down tomorrow,’ Sampath said. ‘You will see what our difficulties are. After all, we are making a start. After we have made three or four films we shall perhaps gain confidence enough to take up a subject like yours, but now we have to move on safe ground.’ Somu kept up an accompanying murmur, stamping his approval on all that Sampath was saying. Srinivas saw their point, their limitations and their exigencies. He merely said: ‘Well, I was viewing it differently. Let us consider the question afresh.’ Somu sat up, his face beamed with relief. He quickly plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out a roll of paper and his spectacle case. He put his glasses on and read too quickly for Sampath to check him: ‘Krishna Leela – the boyhood of Krishna and his friends, up to his killing of the demon Kamsa –’ He looked up to add: ‘I was talking to my grand-aunt, you know how our people are a treasure-house of stories, and she mentioned these stories one by one. You see, we can do wonderful camera tricks, and Krishn
a will always be popular with our audience. Or if you don’t like it’ – he went on to the next –‘the burning of Lankha by the Monkey-god Hanuman; the disrobing of Draupadi by the villainous gambler Duryodhana; the battle of Kurukshetra, and teaching of Bhagavad Gita; the pricking of the vanity of Garuda – the Divine Eagle, who served as God’s couch …’ And so he continued for over twenty subjects, all from the epics and mythology. The grand-aunt, like all grand-aunts, was really a treasure-house, and Somu did not hesitate to draw on it to its fullest capacity.

  Sampath briefly dismissed each one of them with: ‘This subject is not new. Already been done by others; this story has been produced three times over …’

  ‘What if it has? We shall do it again,’ said Mr Somu.

  ‘The public will run away on hearing the name of the story.’

  ‘Oh, what about this then? Has this been done by anyone before? The Burning to Ashes of Kama – God of Love.’

  Sampath said: ‘No one has attempted this subject, I’m sure of it. Let us hear the story.’ Mr Somu narrated the story, humming and hawing and clearing his throat. ‘You see, sir,’ he began, and looked about in a terrified way, like a man who cannot swim when he gets into water.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ said Sampath encouragingly.

  ‘You see, you know Shiva –’

  ‘Which Shiva? The God?’ said Sampath, unable to resist a piece of impishness. Yes, we all happen to know him fairly well.’

  Mr Somu was saying: You see …!’ He was still fumbling with You sees!’ and Srinivas felt that the time had come to succour him. He said in a quiet way: ‘I happen to know the story. Shiva is in a rigorous meditation, when his future bride, Parvathi, is ministering to his needs as a devotee and an absolute stranger. One day, opening his eyes, he realizes that passion is stirring within him, and looking about for the cause he sees Kama, the Lord of Love, aiming his shaft at him. At this, enraged, he opens his third eye in the forehead and reduces Kama to ashes …’ Srinivas’s imagination was stirred as he narrated the story. He saw every part of it clearly: the God of Love with his five arrows (five senses); his bow was made of sugar cane, his bowstring was of murmuring honey-bees, and his chariot was the light summer breeze. When he attempted to try his strength on the rigorous Shiva himself, he was condemned to an invisible existence. Srinivas read a symbolic meaning in this representation of the power of love, its equipment, its limitation, and saw in the burning of Kama an act of sublimation.

  ‘You are perfectly right, Somu!’ he cried, almost reaching out his hand across the table and patting Somu on the shoulders. Somu’s face beamed with satisfaction; he looked like a child rewarded with a peppermint for a piece of good behaviour.

  Sampath declared with great relief: ‘I’m glad, Editor, you like the subject. Now you will have to go on with the treatment. We will fix up other things.’

  ‘The advantage in this is,’ Somu put in, ‘there is any amount of love in the story, and people will like it. Personally, also, I never like to read any story if it has no love in it.’

  Three days later the front page of most papers announced: ‘Sunrise Pictures invite applications from attractive young men and women for acting in their forthcoming production, “The Burning of Kama”. Apply with photographs.’

  Day after day Srinivas sat working on his script. He now seemed to be camping in Kailas, the ice-capped home of Lord Shiva and his followers. Srinivas could almost feel the coolness of the place and its iridescent surroundings. He saw, as in a vision, before his eyes Shiva, that mendicant-looking god, his frame ash-smeared, his loin girt with tiger hide, his trident in his hand; he was an austere god; he was the god of destruction. His dance was in the burial-ground, his swaying footsteps produced a deluge. As Srinivas described it, his mind often went back to the little image of Nataraja that he had in a niche at home, before which his wife lit a small oil-lamp every day.

  He was sketching out the scenes, and felt it a peculiar good fortune to have been allowed to do this work. He never bothered about anything else. His wife understood his mood and listened attentively to all that he said about it at home. She, too, knew the story, and the talk at home was all about Kama and his fate. Srinivas constantly explained the subtle underlying sense of the whole episode. His son, too, listened with great interest and boasted before his friends that his father knew all about Shiva’s burning of the Love God.

  At his office, sheet after sheet filled up. Srinivas read and reread the dialogues and descriptions he had written. His mind had become a veritable stage for divine beings to move and act, and he had little interest in anything else. Coffee came to him from time to time, sent up by Sampath. He now left Srinivas alone for a great part of the day so as to enable him to produce the story with the least delay, while he tackled the vast volume of correspondence that resulted from their advertisements in the papers.

  Into this delicately arranged world Ravi walked one day. Srinivas’s mind noted the creaking on the staircase. Srinivas put away his pen and paper and received him warmly. ‘Seems years since you visited us. Any progress with any picture?’ he asked. Ravi shook his head. ‘What has happened that I should draw now?’ Srinivas took out of his table-drawer the little sketch Ravi had drawn. Ravi looked at it and said: ‘I can make a full-length portrait in oils, the like of which no one else will have done in India. Give me another glimpse of my subject, and the picture is yours.’

  Srinivas said: ‘Like Shiva, open your third eye and burn up Love, so that all its grossness and contrary elements are cleared away and only its essence remains: that is the way to attain peace, my boy. I don’t know how long you are going to suffer in this manner; you have to pull yourself together.’

  ‘Oh, shut up … You don’t know what you are talking about. All that I’m asking is another glimpse of my subject, that is all, and nothing more, and you go on talking as if I were asking someone to go to bed with me. Before I am able to open my third eye and burn up love I am myself likely to be reduced to ashes; that is the position, sir; and you want me to draw my pictures with a firm hand!’ He laughed grimly and leaned back in his chair. Srinivas looked at him in despair. ‘Something is seriously wrong with him,’ he reflected. ‘He won’t be sane unless he paints and he can’t paint unless he is sane; he can’t be sane unless he finds that girl; and he cannot find that girl unless he can – Heaven alone knows how many more “cans” and “ifs” are going to play havoc with his life.’ He looked at him despairingly. Ravi remained silent for a moment and suddenly said with tears in his voice: ‘I have lost my job today.’

  ‘Lost it? What do you mean?’ Srinivas cried.

  ‘It is all so hopeless,’ Ravi said. ‘It is all over … I don’t know … I don’t know,’ he sighed, thinking of all his dependants. ‘I think it is finished. I have three months’ arrears of rent to pay and the school fees of the children, and then and then –’

  ‘Don’t worry about all that now,’ Srinivas said. ‘Don’t lose heart. We will do something. Tell me, what has happened?’

  ‘The clerical staff of our office decided to present a memorial to our general manager, asking for promotions. We were all drafting it in our office when the manager called me in urgently. You know him – that compound of beef and whisky. He had found fault in the spelling of some word in a letter he had previously dictated; some mistake in a proper name; those wonderful names of English people. “Chumley”, it seems, must be spelt “Cholmondeley”. Who can understand all this devilry of their language! And he thundered and banged the table and flung the letter at me and asked me to take the dictation again. At this moment the others were coming towards our room to present the memorial. They were nearly thirty, and we could hear them coming. “What the hell is that noise?” he remarked, and went on with his dictation. Very soon we could hear them outside the door: a scurrying of feet and restless movement outside. I hoped that they would open the door and walk in in a body. We could see their feet below the half-door. We could see them moving up and dow
n and shifting but not coming in. On the other hand, we presently saw them pressing their noses against the frosted glass pane of a window, trying to look in and see if the boss was in a good mood. It was of frosted glass, and though they could not see us we could see them on the other side.

  ‘“What is all this tomfoolery? What are they up to? Go and find out. Is this a peep-show?” I went out and told them: “Why do you shuffle and hesitate? Come in and speak to him boldly.” They looked at each other nervously, and before they could decide, the boss sounded the buzzer again and called me in. “What is it?”