‘Hey, Mani!’ he called, and the waiter turned. ‘Come here,’ he commanded.
The other came up. He recognized Sriram, and cried, ‘Why, it’s you! Where have you been all these years, sir? It’s a long time since we saw you.’
‘I was away on business. Give me something good to eat.’
At the word ‘good’ the boy puckered his face in worry.
‘There is nothing very good now, sir, what with the present difficulty of getting rice and any pure food. Our government do not do anything about it yet. Do you know how hard it is to get any frying oil? Most of it’s adulterated stuff, I tell you.’ He started on a long narrative about the situation in the country, the food shortage, the post-war confusion, and the various difficulties and hardships that people experienced. All this was a revelation: it was the first report that Sriram was getting of the contemporary world. But he had no patience to listen to much of it.
‘What have you?’
The boy cast a brief look at the shelf on which trays of edibles were on display and started, ‘Kara sev, vadai, and potato bonda …’
Sriram said sharply, ‘I can see all that from here. I want to know if you have anything fresh inside, on the oven, something more solid.’ The thought idli, soft and light, and of dosai, was alluring. It seemed as if he had tasted them in a previous birth. While he spoke he was racked with the thought that he had probably lost the necessary idiom to get on with ordinary folk. Perhaps he only had the ability to talk to gaolmates. He said, ‘Something very g – ‘he avoided the word ‘good’ lest it should start the other off again analysing the world situation. He said, ‘I want something heavy, just made, I am very hungry.’
‘There’s nothing inside, sir. This is closing hour, and the kitchen department is the first to shut up. While our proprietor wants us to work till ten, those who sit at the fireside –’
Sriram lost his patience. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening listening to shop-talk. He said sharply, ‘All right, all right, get me something, anything to eat, now run and get me coffee, good coffee,’ and he felt sorry that he had again blundered into the word, for the boy began to say something about the difficulties of making good coffee: milk-supply difficulties, the sugar racket, and the general avarice of black marketeers of various kinds. Sriram didn’t know what to do. He lost his patience completely, ‘Why do you tell me all that?’
‘Because it is so.’
‘All right,’ he said callously, ‘I’m hungry. If you are going to give me anything look sharp. If you stand here and talk, I shall get up and go away.’
‘What shall I give you, sir?’ the boy asked officially, for the first time giving an impression that he was on duty.
‘Two sweets, one savoury and a large quantity of hot coffee,’ commanded Sriram. This was the first time in many months he was able to order anyone about. He was surprised at his own voice, almost fearing that someone would say that he was to be put in solitary confinement. But it worked. The boy ran off with alacrity and interest.
He felt elated after his tiffin, and after chewing a betel leaf and nut he felt as if he were back in the times when there was no war, no political struggle of any kind. He was himself, grandson of a grand old lady, with no worries in life, shuttling between a free reading-room, the market place and Kanni’s shop, living in a world with well-defined boundaries, with set activities, no surprises or worries, everything calculable and capable of anticipation.
He hurried on to Kabir Street. It was a fine home-coming. It was seven o’clock, but as usual children were playing in the streets, and the space in front of every house was washed and decorated with white flour. Why could he not have lived like these folk without worries of any kind or any extra adventures; there seemed to be a quiet charm in a life verging on stagnation and no change of any kind. The lights were on in most of the houses. He ran down the street with his eyes wide open. He stopped in front of his house. He looked through the doorway. Some strangers were moving about. He felt angry and cheated. What right had they to usurp his place? Some unknown children were chasing each other in the front hall under the lamp – that old lamp where Granny had taught him so many things in life! He wanted to run up the steps and tell the children: ‘You can’t run around here, I can stop you if I want to.’ They were probably knocking holes in the wall, banging the doors and shutters, only leaving wreckage behind for him to occupy when the time came.
He turned round to see Kanni and talk to him. But the shop had gone: the portrait of Maria Theresa was no longer there to brighten up the surroundings. In Kanni’s place, a new cement structure rose without windows, probably a godown. He felt pained and cheated again. He walked up and down the road. None of his neighbours noticed him. He saw a few of them in their houses, sitting by the window reading an evening paper – comfortable folk. He felt like going up and talking to them, but they’d probably reprimand him for various lapses and he felt diffident about his ability to talk to anyone! He was obsessed with the thought that he had lost the idiom of communication with these people. The street remained very much unchanged since he saw it last – only Kanni’s shop was gone, and there was no one of whom he could enquire.
Suddenly he felt that he had nowhere to go that night. In the prison at least, one had been assured of a place of retirement for the night.
The photographer’s establishment was brightly lit, and threw its illumination on the road. It was a low-roofed shop with the usual glass front displaying a variety of enlarged portraits of children, pretty girls, and important men.
There was no one in the front parlour with its coir carpet and a small stool with a decorative potted plant on it. There was no sign of anyone living there. Sriram stepped into the next room, which was also empty. He cleared his throat and made sounds with his feet in order to indicate his presence.
‘Who is there?’ came the call. It was the photographer’s voice.
Sriram replied: ‘A gaol-bird.’
He felt happy that after all there was someone he knew to meet him in this world. The other came out of the innermost chamber and advanced, trying to find out the identity of the visitor. He had evidently been working close to a light and could not see clearly. When he came near enough, he cried, ‘You! When were you released? What a pity I didn’t know. I was wondering what you had done with yourself. Where were you? They would not tell us where you were. If I had known you were coming out today, I’d have arranged a grand reception for you at the gaol gate with flowers and garlands. The trouble is that things are still disorganized. But I blame no one. Ours is an infant state, still a baby, many things have still to be done, we must be happy that we are our own rulers and no foreign nation rules over us. We must be happy that things are being done and not spend the time finding fault with anyone.’
‘We ought to rejoice that it’s our own people that are blundering, isn’t that so?’ Sriram asked, some of his irresponsible spirit returning.
‘Fancy Nehru and Patel and the rest sitting there where there were haughty Viceroys before. Didn’t Churchill call Mahatmaji “The Naked Fakir”? The “Naked Fakir” is everything now, think of it …’ He was excited. ‘There are bound to be mistakes, bound to be blunders everywhere, but we must not make much of them.’ He was wildly incoherent and happy. ‘If you had been out of gaol, you would have been garlanded and carried in a procession on Independence Day. What a pity you missed it. It was a grand affair.’
Jagadish seated Sriram on a large sofa, put a great album on his lap, took a seat by his side and turned its leaves. He remarked, ‘As a photographer, I am proud of this. Future generations can never blame me for being neglectful. I have done my best. Here is a complete history of our struggle and the final Independence Day Celebration.’ He had put various pictures of himself into the album, subscribing himself as a humble soldier. There were even photographs of the ruined temple, where Sriram had lived and worked. The photographer had entitled it: ‘One of the secret headquarters of the Indepen
dence Army.’ Sriram looked through the album which in effect was a documentary of the independence movement.
Jagadish had even stuck in photographs of gaols and their exteriors. He had pictures of barbed-wire entanglements. It was a completely romantic picture. Nor could he be said to suffer from modesty in any way. He was the chief architect of Independent India, the chief operator in ejecting the British. He had included several pictures of Malgudi street scenes. Flags flew from every doorway and shop, crowds were moving in procession with people singing and playing musical instruments. Flowers everywhere. Great masses of men moving down the roads. Jagadish looked at the scenes with great pride. He felt he had striven to give people a good time and had succeeded. He said, ‘After all, what do I get for all the trouble I took and the risks I ran? Are they going to make me the Minister of this and that? Not a chance, sir, there are others waiting for the privilege. Even if I stand for election, who will know who I am? Will the parliamentary board choose me as their candidate? Not a chance, sir, that is the reason why I have held fast to my camera and studio all through my various activities. Nobody can take it away.’ There was a tone of regret in his voice which Sriram did not understand.
‘After all, as you said now, we are an infant nation.’ The word was very convincing, it had a homely and agreeable sound, nobody need worry what it meant or why it was mentioned.
‘True, true,’ said the photographer, ‘I’m not complaining or grumbling. What I have done, I have done with the utmost satisfaction. I am not worried about it at all. What I say is I have got these photographs to record all that we have done, that’s all.’
There were hundreds of pictures to wade through. Sriram began to turn the leaves fast. He felt bored. They were monotonous to see. More and more processions. More and more people. Flags. Pictures carried in the procession of national leaders and others, and more and more people. There was a sameness about the whole thing; he simply could not stand any more. He briskly turned the leaves of the album and came to the last page of the sequence in which Jagadish was seen hoisting the flag at some public gathering. Sriram put away the album and asked, ‘How did you manage to photograph yourself?’
‘Ah, a pertinent question, who could photograph the photographer? Guess how it was done. Do you imagine I attached a camera to my back to follow me and take the pictures?’
‘Possibly, possibly,’ said Sriram, losing interest in the whole question. He didn’t want to look at any more pictures or hear about them. The sight of the Independence Day Celebrations irritated him. He almost said, ‘If only I had known that people would reduce it all to this. I didn’t go about inscribing “Quit” and overturning trains just to provide a photographer with material for his album.’ He decided that he wouldn’t look at any more pictures.
The photographer said, ‘I have three more albums. They present another phase of our struggle.’ He attempted to reach them down from a shelf.
Sriram held his hand, saying, ‘No, not now. I have a headache. I won’t look at any more pictures.’ He was terrified at the prospect of having to look through more crowds, flags, and assemblies.
The photographer said: ‘Good photographs are a sure remedy for headache. That’s what an American scientist has recently found out.’
Sriram said defensively, ‘I will examine them again tomorrow.’
‘Very well. You know what my greatest regret is?’ He paused to give him time to guess, and added, ‘That I haven’t a cine camera. If only I had had one I’d have shown you all the scenes you have missed as if you were seeing them before your eyes. That’s the stuff. If I had charged as much as other photographers, I’d have had the biggest movie camera there is. But oh, this troublesome conscience with which some of us are burdened!’
Sriram felt disappointed with the man: he had looked so imposing as an underground worker: so precise and clear-headed and purposeful. Now he seemed woolly-headed and vague. The atmosphere of peace did not suit his nature. Sriram wondered for a moment why he had ever carried out his orders at all. He was disappointed that the other showed so little interest in his own gaol existence. Sriram asked, ‘Did the police get you?’
‘Me! Oh, no! How could they? They didn’t know my whereabouts. It was possible for me to evade them completely. I lived in that temple after you left; didn’t you see it in the first picture? Didn’t you notice how I labelled it?’ He again tried to reach out for the album.
Sriram said hastily, ‘Yes, yes, quite right. It was very apt,’ although he could not clearly recollect what it was.
‘Moreover,’ concluded the photographer, ‘there was no occasion for the police to get me. My grandmother did not start dying at a wrong moment. If it hadn’t been for your grandmother, you would not have gone to gaol at all.’
Sriram said nothing in reply. This was a subject which he did not wish to brood over. He had a hope they might have something to talk about in common, some diversion from the photographs. He asked point blank, ‘Where is Bharati? Did she come out of gaol?’
‘Oh, yes, I was wondering why you hadn’t asked anything about her. I thought perhaps you had forgotten her!’
‘No, never! Not even for a moment!’ cried Sriram passionately. ‘Have you seen her?’
‘Of course,’ said the photographer in a tone which made Sriram anxious and jealous. While he had been having social intercourse with homicides, she seemed to have come out of prison, been received and garlanded by the photographer and his friends, and probably they had all had a good time. She must have wondered why he was not there! He hoped that the others had had at least the goodness to remind her that he was still in gaol.
‘Did you receive her at the prison?’ he asked suddenly.
‘We should have, but it was impossible to meet her. She was in one of the earliest batches to be released and she immediately took the train that very evening for Noakhali.’
‘Noakhali; what is her business there? Where is it?’ His geography was poor.
The photographer ignored the geographical question and said, ‘Are you aware of what has been going on in East Bengal? Hindus versus Muslims. They are killing each other. Are you not aware of anything?’
‘No. How could I be?’ said Sriram. ‘I was not kept in a municipal reading-room or the public library. I’m not aware of anything or of what you are talking about.’
‘Whole villages have been burnt in inter-communal fights. Thousands of people have been killed, bereaved, dispossessed, demented, crushed.’
‘Who is doing what and why?’
‘Don’t ask all that. I am a man without any communal notions and I don’t like to talk about it. Somebody is killing somebody else. That is all I care to know. Life is at a standstill and Mahatmaji is there on a mission of peace. He is walking through villages, telling people not to run away, to be brave, to do this and that. He is actually making the lion and the lamb eat off the same plate. And Bharati seems to have had a call.’
Sriram was seized with cold fear. This was a new turn of events for which he had not bargained at all. Noakhali, Calcutta, Bengal, what was the meaning of it? What did she mean by going so far away from him? Did she do it by design? Did she try to make good her escape before he could come out of prison?
‘What did she mean by going away?’
The photographer simply laughed at the question.
‘Couldn’t she have come and seen me in prison? She must have known I was in prison?’
‘How?’ asked the photographer.
‘By enquiring, that is all, it is simple,’ said Sriram with feeling. He said, ‘Probably she has no thought of me. Perhaps she has forgotten me completely!’
Jagadish became serious on seeing his gloom. ‘Don’t let all that disturb you so much. Did you think of her often?’
Sriram began to say something in reply, but could not find the words, spluttered, remained silent and began to sob. The photographer patted his back and said, ‘What has happened now that you feel so bad about it?’ Sriram had not
hing much to say in reply. He merely kept on sobbing. The photographer said, ‘You are a fool! What have you done to keep in touch with her?’
‘What do you mean? What could I do, chained and caged?’
‘Now, I mean. What are you going to do about it now? Now you are not chained or caged. What are you going to do about it?’
‘She is so far away, thousands of miles from me,’ Sriram wailed. The thought of Noakhali was very disturbing.
‘But there is such a thing as a postal service. You don’t have to employ a special runner to carry your mails. Why don’t you write to her?’
‘Will you see the letter addressed and despatched properly?’
‘I promise. Give it to me. I will send it off.’
This brought a ray of hope to Sriram. He suddenly asked, ‘What shall I write to her?’
‘H’m, that is a thing I can’t tell you. Each man has his own style in these matters.’
It was clear that his mind was in a complete fog. To think or plan clearly was beyond him. Prison life showed its damage only now.
The photographer took pity on him. He said, ‘Please rest a while. Close your eyes and relax.’ He went to a small table and took out a pen and a sheet of paper, and started writing. The traffic on the road outside had ceased.
‘Don’t you wish to close your shop?’ Sriram asked.
‘Don’t let that bother you. I can look after myself. I’m not much good at writing this sort of stuff. Anyway, I will try. Meanwhile, shut your eyes and switch off your thoughts, if you can.’
He sat and faithfully wrote a long letter which began:
Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma Page 66