We sat down at my table to draw up the monthly budget and list of provisions. She tore off a sheet of notepaper, and wrote down a complete list – from rice down to mustard. ‘I have written down the precise quantity, don’t change anything as you did once.’ This was a reference to a slight change that I once attempted to make in her list. She had written down two seers of Bengal gram, but the National Provision Stores could not supply that quantity, and so the shopman suggested he would give half of it, and to make up the purchase, he doubled the quantity of jaggery. All done with my permission. But when I returned home with these, she saw the alterations and was completely upset. I found that there was an autocratic strain in her nature in these matters, and unsuspected depths of rage. ‘Why has he made this alteration?’ she had asked, her face going red. ‘He didn’t have enough of the other stuff,’ I replied, tired and fatigued by the shopping and on the point of irritability myself. ‘If he hasn’t got a simple thing like Bengal gram, what sort of a shop has he?’
‘Come and see it for yourself, if you like,’ I replied, going into my room. She muttered: ‘Why should it make you angry? I wonder!’ I lay down on my canvas chair, determined to ignore her, and took out a book. She came presently into my room with a paper screw full of sugar and said: ‘This man has given underweight of sugar. He has cheated you.’ I lowered the book, frowned at her and asked: ‘What do you mean?’
‘I fear to speak to you if you get angry,’ she said.
‘Who is angry?’ I asked. ‘What is the matter, tell me?’
‘I wrote for two measures of sugar, and see this; he has billed for two measures and has actually given a measure and a half. I have measured it just now.’ She looked at me victoriously, waiting to hear how I was going to answer this charge. I merely said: ‘He wouldn’t do such a thing. You must have some extraordinary measure with you at home.’
‘Nothing wrong with my measure. Even your mother measured everything with it and said it was correct.’ So this was a legacy from her mother-in-law. She had taught the girl even this. She had a bronze tumbler, which she always declared was a correct half measure, and she would never recognize other standards and measures. She insisted upon making all her purchases, ghee or oil or milk or salt, with the aid of this measure, and declared that all other measures, including the Government stamped ones, were incorrect, and were kept maliciously incorrect because some municipal members were business men! She used the same tumbler for weighing too, placing it for weight in the scale pan, declaring that the curious thing about the vessel was that by weight too it was exactly half seer, and she would challenge anyone to disprove it. All tradespeople somehow succumbed to this challenge and allowed her to have her own way. She carried this tumbler about wherever she went, and I now found that she had procured a similar one for her daughter-in-law, and had trained her in the use of it.
‘Throw away that tumbler and use an honest measure,’ I said. Susila merely looked at me and said: ‘Please don’t speak so loudly. The child is asleep,’ and tried to go out of the room. I called her back and said: ‘If you use an honest measure you will find that others have also done so.’
‘This National Provisions man is a thief,’ she cried, ‘the sooner you change the better.’ This annoyed me very much. I had known the N.P.S. man for years and liked him. I went all the way to South Extension to patronize his shop, and I liked the man because he was fat and talkative, and Sastri the logic man always said that it was the best shop in the town. I rather prided myself on going to the shop. I liked the fat, thoughtful proprietor. I said: ‘There is nothing wrong with him. He is the best shopman known. I won’t change him …’ ‘I don’t know why you should be so fond of him when he is giving undermeasure and rotten stuff …’ she replied. I was by this time very angry: ‘Yes, I am fond of him because he is my second cousin,’ I said with a venomous grin.
Her hatred of him was not mitigated. She said: ‘You would pay cart hire and go all the way to South Extension to be cheated by him rather than go to a nearer shop. And his rates!’ She finished the rest of her sentence with a shiver. ‘I don’t care if he overcharges – I won’t drop him,’ I declared. ‘Hush, remember the child is sleeping,’ she said and left the room. I lay in my chair fretting for fifteen minutes and then tried to resume my study, but could read only for five minutes. I got up and went over to the store-room as she was putting away the provisions and articles in their respective tin or glass containers. I stood at the doorway and watched her. I felt a great pity for her; the more because I had not shown very great patience. I asked: ‘I will return the jaggery if it is too much. Have you absolutely no use for it?’ In answer she pushed before me a glass goblet and said: ‘This can hold just half a viss of jaggery and not more; which is more than enough for our monthly use. If it is kept in any other place, ants swarm on it.’ I now saw the logic of her indignation, and by the time our next shopping was done, she had induced me to change over to the Co-operative Stores.
Since then every time the monthly list was drawn up she warned me: ‘Don’t alter anything in it.’ I followed her list with strict precision, always feeling that one could never be sure what mess any small change might entail. If there were alterations to be made, I rather erred on the side of omission and went again next day after taking her suggestion.
She was very proud of her list. It was precise. Every quantity was conceived with the correct idea as to how long it should last. There were over two dozen different articles to be indented and she listed them with foresight and calculation. She was immensely proud of this ability. She gave me twenty rupees or more for these purchases. I went out to the Co-operative Stores in the Market Road and returned home three hours later followed by a coolie carrying them all in paper bags and bundles, stuffed into a large basket. She always waited for them at the door with unconcealed enthusiasm. The moment I was at the gate she held out her hand for the bill, and hurriedly ran her eyes down the columns checking the figures and prices. ‘Oh! you have got all the things, and the cost didn’t go up above 22–8–0 total … slightly better than it was last month. Which item is cheaper this month?’ She was in raptures over it. I loved to see her so pleased, and handed her the change to the last pie. She paid the coolie three annas; she would never alter this figure whatever happened. If anyone had the hardihood to expect more she declared: ‘Don’t stand there and argue. Be off. Your master has offered you an anna more than you deserve. After all the market is only half a mile away!’ She carried the packages to the store-room, and put each in its container, neatly labelled and ranged along a rack. She always needed my assistance to deal with rice. It was the bulkiest bag. It was my set duty on these days to drag the gunny-sack along to the store, lift it and empty it into a zinc drum. I invited her displeasure if I didn’t do it carefully. If any rice scattered accidentally on the floor, she said: ‘I don’t know when you will learn economic ways. You are so wasteful. On the quantity you throw about another family could comfortably live.’
She watched these containers as a sort of barometer, the level of their contents indicating the progress of the month. Each had to be at a particular level on a particular date: and on the last date of the month – just enough for another day, when they would be replenished. She watched these with a keen eye like a technician watching an all-important meter at a power house.
All went very well as long as she was reigning supreme in the kitchen – till my mother sent an old lady from the village to cook for us and assist us.
One evening we were sitting as usual in the front veranda of the house when an old lady stood at our gate, with a small trunk under her arm, and asked: ‘Is this teacher Krishnan’s house?’
‘Yes, who are you, come in …’ I opened the gate for her. She looked at me, wrinkling her eyes and said, ‘Kittu … I have seen you as a baby and a boy. How big you have grown!’ She came up to the veranda, peered closely into my wife’s face and said: ‘You are our daughter-in-law. I am an old
friend of Kamu,’ she said, referring to my mother by her maiden name. By this time Leela, who had been playing near her box, came out on hearing a new voice. At the sight of her the old lady cried: ‘So this is Kamu’s grandchild!’ She picked her up in her arms and fondled her. Susila’s heart melted at the sight of it and she said: ‘Come into the house, won’t you?’ The old lady went in, sat under the lamp and took out of a corner of her sari a crumpled letter and gave it to me. It was from my mother: ‘I am sending this letter with an old friend of mine, who was assisting me in household work when you were a baby. She then went away to live with her son. He died last year, and she has absolutely no one to support her. She came to me a few weeks ago in search of work. But I have no need for assistance nowadays. Moreover your father grows rather irritable if he sees any extra person in the house. So I have given her her bus fare and sent her on to you. I have always felt that Susila needed an assistant in the house, the baby demanding all the attention she can give. My friend will cook and look after the child. And you can give her whatever salary you like.’
While the old lady kept fondling the child, sitting on the floor, I read the letter under the hall light and my wife read it over my shoulder. We looked at each other. There was consternation in her look. There were many questions which she was aching to ask me. I adjourned to my room and she followed me.
‘What shall we do?’ she asked, looking desperate.
‘Why do you look so panicky? We will send her back if you do not want her.’
‘No, no. How can that be? Your mother has sent her. We have got to have her.’
‘I think it will be good to have her. All your time is now spent in the kitchen when you are not tending the baby. I don’t like you to spend all your time cooking either tiffin or food.’
‘But I like it. What is wrong in it?’ she asked.
‘You must spend some more time reading or stitching or singing. Man or woman is not born merely to cook and eat,’ I said, and added: ‘You have neglected your books. Have you finished Ivanhoe?’ She had been trying to get through Ivanhoe for years now, and Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. But she never went beyond the fiftieth page. Her library also contained a book of hymns by a Tamil saint, a few select stanzas of Kamba Ramayana, Palgrave’s Golden Treasury and a leather-bound Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit. I knew how fond she was of books. She was always planning how she was going to devour all the books and become the member of some library. But it never became more than an ambition.
In the earlier years of our married life we often sat together with one or other of the books, in the single top-floor room in her father’s house, and tried to read. The first half an hour would be wasted because of an irresponsible mood coming over her, which made her laugh at everything: even the most solemn poem would provoke her, especially such poems as were addressed by a lover. ‘My true love hath my heart and I have his.’ She would laugh till she became red in the face. ‘Why can’t each keep his own or her own heart instead of this exchange?’ She then put out her hand and searched all my pockets saying: ‘In case you should take away mine!’
‘Hush, listen to the poem,’ I said, and she would listen to me with suppressed mirth and shake her head in disapproval. And then another line that amused her very much was ‘Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming?’ She would not allow me to progress a line beyond, saying: ‘I shall die of this poem some day. What is the matter with the woman loafing all over the place except where her husband is?’
However much she might understand or not understand, she derived a curious delight in turning over the pages of a book, and the great thing was that I should sit by her side and explain. While she read the Tamil classics and Sanskrit texts without my help, she liked English to be explained by me. If I showed the slightest hesitation, she would declare: ‘Perhaps you don’t care to explain English unless you are paid a hundred rupees a month for it?’
But all that stopped after the child was born. When the child left her alone, she had to be in the kitchen, and my argument now appealed to her. She said: ‘But that will mean an extra expense. What shall we pay her?’
‘About eight rupees, just what everyone pays, I think,’ I said.
‘Oh, too much,’ she said. ‘I’m sure she will waste another eight rupees’ worth of things. This is an unnecessary expense,’ she said. I explained: ‘Very necessary and we can afford it. In addition to the provident fund, why should we send thirty-five to the savings bank? I think about twenty-five rupees a month for the bank will be more than enough. Many of my friends do not save even five rupees.’
‘Why do you want to follow their example? We must live within our means, and save enough.’ She often declared: ‘When we are old we must never trouble others for help. And remember there is a daughter, for whose marriage we must save.’
‘When we bring forth some more daughters and sons …’ I began, and she covered my mouth with her fingers. ‘You men! what do you care! You would think differently if God somehow made you share the bothers of bringing forth! Where is your promise?’ I often reiterated and confirmed our solemn pact that Leela should be our only child. And anything I said otherwise, even in jest, worried her very much.
With the future so much in mind she planned all our finances. She kept a watch over every rupee as it arrived, and never let it depart lightly, and as far as possible tried to end its career in the savings bank.
But now our savings were affected to the extent of at least ten rupees – as she explained ‘Six rupees, old lady’s salary’ (Susila stubbornly refused more than that for a year) and ‘four rupees for all her waste, putting it at a minimum …’ She was disconsolate over it for a long time, till I appeased her by saying: ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. When I get some money from examination papers I will give you the whole of it for the savings bank.’
In course of time we found that we simply couldn’t do without the old lady. She cooked the food for us, tended the child, gave us the necessary courage when the child had fever or stomach-ache and we became distraught; she knew a lot of tricks about children’s health, she grew very fond of the child and took her out and kept her very happy. She established herself as a benign elder at home, and for us it meant a great deal. Her devotion to the child enabled me to take my wife twice or thrice a month to a picture, on a walk along the river, or out shopping. My wife grew very fond of her and called her ‘Granny’, so did Leela. But Susila had a price to pay for this pleasure. She lost her supremacy over the kitchen and the store. The levels in the containers at the store went down in other ways than my wife calculated. Susila protested and fought against it for some time, but the old lady had her own way of brushing aside our objections. And Susila adjusted her own outlook in the matter. ‘Didn’t I bargain for a waste of four rupees a month? Well, it is not so hard, because she wastes only three rupees …’ Our provision bill fluctuated by only three rupees, and it was a small price to pay for the great company and service of the old lady, who lived on one meal a day, just a handful of cooked rice and buttermilk. It was a wonder how she found the energy for so much activity. My wife often sat down with her in order to induce her to eat well, but it was of no avail.
I sat in my room, at the table. It was Thursday and it was a light day for me at college – only two hours of work in the afternoon, and not much preparation for that either. Pride and Prejudice for a senior class, non-detailed study, which meant just reading it to the boys. And a composition class. I sat at my table as usual after morning coffee looking over the books ranged on the table and casually turning over the pages of some exercise books. ‘Nothing to do. Why not write poetry? Ages since I wrote anything?’ My conscience had a habit of asserting itself once in six months and reminding me that I ought to write poetry. At such moments I opened the bottommost drawer of my table and pulled out a notebook of about five hundred pages, handsomely bound. I had spent nearly a week at a local press getting this done some years ago. Its smooth pages conta
ined my most cherished thoughts on life and nature and humanity. In addition to shorter fragments that I wrote at various times on a miscellany of topics, it contained a long unfinished poem on an epic scale to which I added a few dozen lines whenever my conscience stirred in me. I always fancied that I was born for a poetic career and some day I hoped to take the world by storm with the publication. Some of the pieces were written in English and some in Tamil. (I hadn’t yet made up my mind as to which language was to be enriched with my contributions to its literature, but the language was unimportant. The chief thing seemed to be the actual effort.) I turned over the pages looking at my previous writing. The last entry was several months ago, on nature. I felt satisfied with it but felt acute discomfort on realizing that I had hardly done anything more than that. Today I was going to make up for all lost time; I took out my pen, dipped it in ink, and sat hesitating. Everything was ready except a subject. What should I write about?
My wife had come in and was stealthily watching the pages over my shoulder. As I sat biting the end of my pen, she remarked from behind me: ‘Oh, the poetry book is out: why are you staring at a blank page?’ Her interruption was always welcome. I put away my book, and said: ‘Sit down,’ dragging a stool nearer. ‘No, I’m going away. Write your poetry. I won’t disturb you. You may forget what you wanted to write.’ ‘I have not even thought of what to write,’ I said. ‘Some day I want to fill all the pages of this book and then it will be published and read all over the world.’ At this she turned over the leaves of the notebook briskly and laughed: ‘There seem to be over a thousand pages, and you have hardly filled the first ten.’
The English Teacher Page 5