He lost sight of the problem. He felt suddenly that he was too tired and unhappy. He was hungry and homesick. He wanted to go back to his Kabir Street home, preferably with Bharati, and forget all this. The banana and soda-water were hardly adequate for the strain he was undergoing. He wished he could ask the man for more if he came back and opened the shop door. He was seized with such inertia that he watched without stirring the proceedings of the meeting ahead of him. His conscience pricked him all the time. Something told him: ‘You are here to counteract this meeting, but you are doing nothing about it.’ He merely told himself, ‘I can’t do anything. I want to suspend everything till I have guidance from my leader. There is no use rushing along without a point.’ He saw without emotion a set of people arrive in a jeep. A gramophone ground away, with amplifiers, producing some film songs to which the public marked time. And then someone came up with a harmonium, and accompanied it in a loud voice. Sriram shut his ears at the sound of the harmonium: ‘Damned instrument,’ he muttered to himself. His nerves were a jangle with its raucous cry. ‘I hope when Mahatma Gandhi becomes the Emperor of India, he will make it a penal offence to make or play this instrument. This too is a British gift, I suppose,’ he told himself.
After the music someone presented a scene from Ramayana, with music and narration. The public enjoyed the show. Right in the midst of it all, the two officers occupying the iron chairs suddenly got up and delivered a speech in very bad Tamil. They explained the importance of the war, how Britain was winning, how it was India’s duty to help, and how India should protect herself from enemies within and without. There were policemen in plain clothes, made less plain by their broad belts and khaki shirts, civil officers in tweed and bush coats, with sleek hair; somebody was distributing toffee out of a tin to all the children in the assembly. Sriram said to himself, ‘I’m here to stop it, but – but – let me first write to the Mahatma and get his advice – ‘He looked about him. He had an excuse to wait for the promised letter-paper. But he spotted the shopman in the crowd. ‘Oh, liar!’ Sriram commented: ‘He is probably going to pretend that he is a child, ask for toffee and sell it at black market rates tomorrow at his shop.’
As if in answer to his unwritten letter he received a communication from Mahatmaji. It was enclosed in a note to Bharati and said: ‘Your work should be a matter of inner faith. It cannot depend upon what you see or understand. Your conscience should be your guide in every action. Consult it and you won’t go wrong. Don’t guide yourself by what you see. You should do your duty because your inner voice drives you to do it. Look after Bharati as well as she looks after you, that’s all. God bless you both in your endeavours.’
The message had given Bharati an occasion to come up and see him. It was one of his off-days, a day of soldier’s leave, as he thought. He had sat at the portal of his ruined temple resigning himself to doing nothing for the day, going through an old issue of a paper he had picked up. It was full of dead news – of the Maginot Line and the like. But that was enough for him. The mail carrier had stepped off the boulder down below long ago on his return journey, and had gone back to the plains. The evening train had crawled in and out of the landscape. The sun stood poised over the western horizon.
Sriram brought out his rush mat, spread it out and threw himself on it, and was presently absorbed not only in reading all the stale news in the paper, but also in all those jokes, tit-bits, and syndicated cartoons which filled the bottom of its columns. He had picked up the paper on the highway, when returning from his expedition at Solur village. It had blown across the highway and hugged a tree-trunk. He unwound the sheet from the tree-trunk, flashed his torch on it and saw that it was an up-country paper which was well known for its reactionary views and carping references to Gandhiji, but still it contained some interesting Sunday reading. He felt irritated for a second at the thought that someone should have been scattering such an imperialistic paper in these parts, but he carefully folded it and put it into his bag. He had been the victim of certain moments of extreme boredom, when he felt that the huge teak trees and bamboo clumps and the estate trees covering slope upon slope would destroy his mind. They got on his nerves and made him want to shout aloud in protest. He once tried talking aloud to himself in order to get over the tedium. He asked himself, ‘Hallo, what are you doing here?’ and told himself, ‘I am fighting for my country.’
‘What sort of fighting is it? You look like a vagabond, with no uniform, no weapon, and no enemy in sight, what sort of fight is this? Are you joking?’ and he laughed aloud, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ He spoke at the top of his voice till the hills echoed with his voice, and one or two birds sitting on a tree nearby took off in fright. This exuberance had greatly relieved his mind. Now he hoped to be provided against boredom with this sheet of newspaper. Here at least was something to read instead of watching endlessly those tree-tops and valleys. It was his lot to be here. He could not kick against it.
He stretched himself on his mat. He had rolled a block of stone over to serve as a back-support for his couch. He had found it a couple of days before lying about in the grass and weeds, and had moved it up with difficulty. It had taken him nearly an hour. There were smoothed-out lettering and ornamental carvings on the stone. He had speculated what they might signify, they were circular letters which looked familiar but eluded study; probably a message carved thousands of years ago by some king or emperor or tyrant one found pictured in history books. History books were full of ruffianly-looking characters, according to Sriram. He had often wondered what good purpose could possibly be served in reading and allowing oneself to be questioned about side-whiskered goondas? Reclining against his tablet he thought that if he had at least passed his examinations normally, he needn’t have got into this present life. He might have settled as a good-natured clerk in an office, as his friend Prasanna had done. It was only yesterday he had been a champion street-footballer, but already he was in harness, slaving at the Treasury desk several hours a day.
Sriram reclined comfortably against the ancient tablet, and read a joke in which a ‘He’ and a ‘She’ indulged in a four-line dialogue. ‘When am I going to get my tie pressed?’ To which she gave the smart reply: ‘Exactly an hour after I get that gown.’ Sriram read it over again and again, and felt irritated. What was the joke? Where lay its humour? He looked it over and examined it minutely, but failed to spot any sense in it. It was accompanied by a grotesque-looking couple, fat about the waist. Sriram thought: ‘One can’t tell what humour Englishmen will enjoy!’ He put away the paper and its corners rustled in the wind. Now it was as if he heard the anklet-sound of his beloved, and there she was down below. Bharati was coming up the road half a mile away. She had never been more welcome. He got up and ran to her with a wild cry of joy. He saw her as an angel come to relieve him of his tedium. She carried a bag in her hand, as usual, and she strode on with such assurance and happiness. She was taken aback, when turning a bend, she was accosted by Sriram.
‘Hallo!’ he cried at the top of his voice: ‘Here is my Devata come!’
She slowed down her pace and said: ‘What has come over you? What will anyone seeing us think!’
‘Who is there to see and think?’ he asked haughtily. ‘As if a big crowd were milling about!’ he said, putting into his expression all the venom he felt at his lonely existence. She detected his tone of bitterness but preferred to overlook it.
‘What do you want? A big fair around you all the time?’ she asked light-heartedly, walking on.
He asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to meet you.’
‘Here I am!’
‘I won’t take official notice of your presence here, but if you want me to state my business, I will say it and go back. I have come to you with excellent news.’
‘What is it?’ he cried anxiously, following her.
She went on, saying, ‘Come and hear it at your own place.’
At his place, he ceremoniously showed her the mat, an
d begged her to recline with ease against the tablet. She obeyed him. She stretched her legs, leaned back on the tablet, and while her figure was rousing wild emotions in Sriram, she picked up the letter from her little bag and gave it to him. ‘Here is a letter from Bapu for you. How do you like it?’ He read it and remained thoughtful. Owls were hooting, the sky had darkened; crickets were making a noise in the dark bushes. He sat beside her on the mat. He could see her left breast moving under her white khadar sari. She seemed to be unaware of the feelings she was rousing in him.
She said, ‘Do you know what it means? Bapu wants you to stay on and do your work here. He feels your work here is worth while and that you will have to go on with it.’
‘How do you know he means that and not something else?’
‘I know it because I can read what he writes and understand it.’
‘I can also read what he writes,’ said Sriram with pointless haughtiness.
‘Did you write anything to him?’ she asked.
He didn’t like the cross-examination. ‘Perhaps or perhaps not,’ he said with anger in his voice.
‘Why should you be angry? I’ll write to Bapu next time that you are a very angry man.’
In answer he suddenly threw himself on her, muttering, ‘You will only write to him that we are married.’ It was an assault conducted without any premeditation, and it nearly overwhelmed her.
He gave her no opportunity to struggle or free herself. He held her in an iron embrace in his madness. He lost sight of her features. The hour was dark. He felt her breath against his face when she said, ‘No, this can’t be, Sriram.’
Sriram muttered, ‘Yes, this can be. No one can stop me and you from marrying now. This is how gods marry.’
Her braid laid its pleasant weight on his forearm. Her cheeks smelt of sandalwood soap. He kissed the pit of her throat. He revelled in the scent of sandalwood that her body exuded. ‘You are sweet-smelling,’ he said. ‘I will be your slave. I will do anything you ask me to do for you. I will buy you all the things in the world.’ He behaved like an idiot. She wriggled in his grasp for a moment and at the same time seemed to respond to his caresses. He rested his head on her bosom and remained silent. He felt that any speech at this moment would be a sacrilege. It was a night of absolute darkness. The trees rustled, crickets and night insects carried on their unremitting drone. He wanted to say something about the stars and moonlight, but he felt tongue-tied. The only thing that seemed to be of any consequence now was her warm breathing body close to his.
He murmured: ‘I always knew it. You are my wife.’
She gently released herself from his hold and said, ‘Not yet. I must wait for Bapu’s sanction.’
‘How will you get it?’
‘I shall write to him tomorrow.’
‘If he doesn’t sanction it?’
‘You will marry someone else.’
‘Don’t you like me? Tell me – tell me – ‘he said in a fevered manner.
She felt the trembling of his body, and said: ‘I shouldn’t be coming here or meeting you if I didn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t Mahatmaji have known?’
‘No. His mind is too pure to think anything wrong –’
‘What is wrong with what?’
‘This is very wrong – we – we should not have – I – I – she sobbed. ‘I don’t know what Bapu will think of me now. I – must – write to him what has happened.’
He had never seen her so girlish and weak. He felt a momentary satisfaction that he had quashed her pride, quelled her turbulence. He said aggressively: ‘Bapuji will say nothing. He will understand. He knows human feelings, and so don’t worry. There is nothing wrong in loving. You and I are married.’
‘When?’
‘On the very first day I saw you.’
‘That’s not enough. I can’t marry without Bapu’s sanction.’
He became positive and dynamic. He swore: ‘We shall marry this very moment.’ He dragged her by the hand into the inner sanctum. He ran hither and thither feverishly doing things. He lit the lamp and placed it before the image, whose nose and arms were broken, but whose eyes still shed grace. He ran out and came back with a few leaves and flowers, and placed them at the foot of the pedestal. He took out a thread from his spinning wheel saying, ‘You cannot have a thali more sacred than this, nor a priest more holy than this god.’ When he attempted to place the thread round her neck, she gently drew herself away from him.
A sudden firmness came in her voice, as she said: ‘Know this, Sriram. If I had not trusted you I’d not have come here again and again.’ He did not understand why she was saying it. He felt bewildered. Why was she talking like this? Perhaps she suddenly remembered that she ought to marry Gorpad or someone else. Yes, now it flashed across his mind there used to be some significant exchange of looks between her and Gorpad. What a fellow to marry, rough as emery paper! A stab of jealousy shook him for a moment and he said, ‘Will you swear before this god that you will marry only me.’
‘Yes, if I marry at all, and mark this, if Bapu agrees to it.’
‘Bapu! Bapu!’ It filled him with despair. He wailed: ‘He is too big to bother about us. Don’t trouble him with our affairs.’
She said, ‘I won’t marry if he doesn’t sanction it. I can’t do it.’
‘If he asks you to marry someone else,’ he asked pathetically, checking at the last second the name ‘Gorpad’.
‘Bapu has better things to do than finding a husband for me,’ she said clearly, unequivocally.
He blinked for a moment. The excitement made his throat parched. He wanted to ask something again. But even in his confused state, he was aware that he was saying the same thing over and over. He blinked pathetically. The broken-armed god looked on. Sriram had never bargained for such an inconclusive love-making. It had begun with such spirit that he had felt he would be shot into elysium next moment, but here he was, standing before a god immobilized and listening to an obscure speech. The girl would probably take him for a fool to leave so much space between them. He tried to remedy it by approaching her again and attempting to storm her as he did a moment ago. The first time he had the advantage of a sudden impulse. But now it didn’t work. She just beat down his outstretched arm: ‘No. You will not touch me again.’ She said it with such authority that he felt foolish.
‘I didn’t intend to if you don’t want it. I know you hate me,’ he said childishly.
She simply said, ‘Why should I hate you?’
‘Because I am bothering you.’
‘How?’ she asked.
‘By, by – asking you to marry me. It’s wrong, perhaps wrong.’
‘It wouldn’t be if Bapu agreed to it.’
He resigned himself. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘As you please –’
‘We shall marry,’ she said, ‘the very minute Bapu agrees.’ She was very considerate.
He felt it was time for him to ask again: ‘Do you – like me?’
‘Yes, when you don’t misbehave.’
Days of listlessness and suspense followed. Sriram lost sight of her for a considerable period. He thought he had lost her for ever. It made him so paralysed that all day he did nothing but lounge in front of his cottage going over in mind again and again all that had happened that night. He had suspended his usual round of lecturing, agitation, and demonstrations; he didn’t seem to think he owed any duty to the country. He ate and stayed in his den all day, he had read the joke about a ‘He’ and a ‘She’ two hundred times already. He saw the train arrive and depart. He saw the postman stop on the boulder and go away to the estates. He lounged against the corner tablet and brooded endlessly.
After all, one day she turned up. She came at noon. It seemed significant that she should avoid the dusk. The moment he sighted her on the bend, he gave a shout of joy and wanted to ask, ‘Are you coming now, because it is a safe hour?’ But he checked himself. He ran to meet her at the usual bend of the road. He asked: ‘What news?’ She didn
’t speak till they were back in their place. She sat down, leaned back on the tablet, took a letter out of her bag. Sriram snatched it hungrily and glanced through it:
‘Blessed one, not yet… I am going to ask all workers if they are underground to come out. I want you to give yourself up at the nearest police station. Take your disciple along too. God bless you both.’
Sriram felt stunned. He read the letter over and over, trying to make out its significance. He tried to interpret it. ‘“Not yet,” he says. What does he mean?’
‘He just means that and nothing more,’ she replied. ‘It is never hard to understand what Bapuji says.’
Sriram felt amazed at the hardihood and calmness of the girl. She didn’t seem to possess any feeling. She spoke of it with such indifference. He was appalled at her calmness. She was probably feeling relieved that Bapuji had vetoed their plans. It suited her very well – Gorpad. And of course, in his sick imagination he felt that probably Mahatmaji was also in favour of Gorpad, he’d naturally prefer to marry her to a grim and dry-as-dust worker like Gorpad. But why couldn’t she be plain with him?
‘Why can’t you be plain?’ he asked her all of a sudden.
‘What do you mean?’
He felt tongue-tied, and asked: ‘Why should Bapu not want us to marry?’
‘He doesn’t say so.’
He sighed: ‘I thought he would send us his blessing, but he has only turned down our programme.’ In his disappointment, he felt sore with the whole world, not excluding Bapu. He suddenly asked her: ‘Don’t you feel disappointed that we are not married?’
‘I have other things to think of,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ Sriram said significantly. ‘What may they be?’
‘I am going to gaol …’
The full significance of the whole thing dawned upon him now. He cried, ‘Bharati, you just can’t do that, what do you mean?’
She replied, ‘You will have to come too …’ She opened the letter and glanced through it again. ‘Bapu has also given instructions as to how I should occupy my time in gaol. “This is an opportunity for you to learn some new language. I wish you could read Tulasi Das Ramayana without any assistance; you speak Hindi well, but your literary equipment will also have to be equally good. You may ask the gaol superintendent to give you facilities if you are going to be classed as B to take your charka along. I would like to hear that you are spinning your quota in gaol. Don’t for a moment ever feel that you are wasting your time. Wherever you may be with a copy of Ramayana and Gita, and a spinning wheel, there you are rightly occupied. Anyway look after your health. Very mild exercise may be necessary, you may get it by walking around the compound if you are permitted … If you would rather not be in B class but would like to be an ordinary class prisoner like others, you will have to ask for it. All that I am saying to you applies to your disciple too.”’
Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma Page 58