The English Teacher

by R. K. Narayan

  The child sat very quietly watching me and derived a great deal of pleasure in arranging the empty tins side by side … There was still powder in one of the tins, three quarters full, bought a month before she fell ill. I opened the lid and smelt it. ‘You are once again shutting your eyes,’ remarked my daughter.

  At the next meeting, the moment my friend was ready with the pencil, she asked: ‘Do you know what a wonderful perfume I have put on! I wish you could smell it … On second thoughts I had better not mention it because you will want to smell it and feel disappointed. Perhaps it may look like selfishness for me to be so happy here when there you are so sorrow-filled and unhappy … It would hardly be right if I produced that impression. If I succeed in making you feel that I am quite happy over here and that you must not be sorry for me, I will be satisfied. Your sorrow hurts us. I hope our joy and happiness will please and soothe you …’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ I replied. ‘But what makes you mention the perfume?’ I asked.

  ‘Just to enable you to have the most complete idea of our state of existence, that is all. Moreover, did you not speculate somewhat on those lines a few days ago?’

  ‘How do you spend your time usually?’ I asked.

  ‘Time in your sense does not exist for us,’ she replied. ‘Our life is one of thought and experience. Thought is something which has solidity and power, and as in all existence ours is also a life of aspiration, striving, and joy. A considerable portion of our state is taken up in meditation, and our greatest ecstasy is in feeling the Divine Light flooding us … We’ve ample leisure. We are not constrained to spend it in any particular manner. We have no need for exercise as we have no physical bodies. Music is ever with us here, and it transports us to higher planes … Things here are far more intense than on earth; that means our efforts are far more efficient than yours. If by good fortune we are able to establish a contact with our dear ones who are receptive to our influence, then you say that that person is inspired. And a song or melody can establish a link between our minds, for instance, how sad that you should have neglected your veena. If you could take it up once again our minds could more easily join. Why don’t you try it?’

  It was years since I had put it away. I had a gift for it when I was young. ‘I don’t know scientific music. I have been after all a self-taught amateur …’

  ‘Do not worry what anyone will think of your veena. For me it will be the most welcome music. I promise that you will feel my presence as you have never felt it yet. It will surely make your heart easier.

  ‘You might have thought I did not very much care for music when on earth, but as a matter of fact I was really intensely interested in it …’ she said. I remembered how quietly she liked music. She never took great pains to learn it although she could sing well. She could never be persuaded to sing; but sometimes unaware of my watching, she would sing to herself while combing her hair or putting the child to sleep. If I showed any signs of listening she would stop. She always listened to music wherever it came from – a gramophone in a house on the way, or a beggar singing; she listened with a silent rapture.

  ‘You think I have become a very learned sort of person and all that kind of stuff?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. Ever since these communications began I felt, now and then, that she showed a greater wisdom than I had known her to possess. ‘You would much rather that I was the same prattling person I was on earth, but let me tell you that the change that takes place when one comes over here is so great and the vision is so cleared that even I, your wife, whose nonsense pleased you so much more, am changed. I’m essentially the same person as far as you and my dear ones are concerned, but the only difference is that I’m without the encumbrance of the physical body and everything is finer and quicker than on earth.

  ‘Between thought and fulfilment there is no interval. Thought is fulfilment, motion and everything. That is the main difference between our physical state and yours. In your state a thought to be realized must always be followed by effort directed towards conquering obstructions and inertia – that is the nature of the material world. But in our condition no such obstruction exists. When I think of you or you of me I am at your side. Music directly transports us. When I think of a garment, it is on me. In our world there is such a fine response for thought. When I come to you I prepare myself every time as befits the occasion. I come to meet my lord and I dress myself as befits the occasion. I think of the subtlest perfume and it already pervades my being; and I think of the garment that will most please you: the wedding sari, shimmering purple woven with gold, I have on me at this very moment. You think you saw it in that trunk, how can it be here? What you have seen is its counterpart, the real part of the thing is that which is in thought, and it can never be lost or destroyed or put away.’

  Thereafter she mentioned at the close of every evening her appearance. ‘Have no shadow of doubt that I’m here. I am wearing a pale orange dress with a clasp of brilliants to hold it in position.’

  ‘What a gorgeous dress!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘If only you saw the colour you would not say how gorgeous, you would be speechless. Not even the colours of sunset give you such tints as we have here; to call it pale orange is to give you an idea as inadequate as the idea which a child forms when …’

  I cast a look around. She at once said: ‘You look round. I can see you. What a pity you can’t see me! Some day let us hope you will see my form. I am at the moment sitting to your left on the floor with my arm resting on your lap, and directing your friend’s hand by my thought.’ I looked down at my lap. ‘No use yet, even if you open your eyes so wide. But by and by, you will hear my bangles clanking and feast your eyes on my dress and form.’

  ‘I think I look the same person as on earth. Only free from all ailments, ills, and cares. You remember I used to have a sort of pain at the waist, even that I do not have now.

  ‘My dress tonight is a shimmering blue interwoven with light and stars. I have done my hair parted on the left. (And what a load of jasmine and other rare flowers I’ve in my hair for your sake!) I wish a painter could sense me and do a picture for you …

  ‘Rest assured that I shall always sit in the same place whenever I am here; when you lift your arm you touch me. At the close of this evening when you go home, I will accompany you, stay up with you till you go to bed and fall asleep thinking of me …

  ‘If you want any evidence of my presence, pluck about ten jasmine buds and keep them near your pillow tonight. Before I go away I will take their scent with me: that I can do. You will see the difference when you smell the flowers in the morning.’

  On my way home, through the dark night, across Nallappa’s Grove my feet felt lighter, because I knew she was accompanying me. Her presence was unmistakably there. I could sense it. The darkness of the night was not felt by me. The distance and loneliness were nothing to me. She was with me. I quietly enjoyed the fact without stirring the slightest thought. Far off I saw the dark night lit with the fire of a cremation. But it did not disturb me! ‘I know more than this …’ I remarked.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sunday. I decided to spend the entire day in the company of the child. Of late my college work and the extra activities and the weekly visits to my friend took up so much of my time that I spent less than two hours a day with the child. It was a painful realization. ‘Oh, God,’ went up my prayer, ‘save me from becoming too absorbed in anything to look after the child properly.’ And I felt very sorry and guilty when I returned home at nights and found the child asleep.

  She had her own plans for the day. As soon as she got up and was ready for the road, she insisted upon being taken to the school. ‘This is Sunday, you don’t have to go,’ I pleaded.

  But it was no use. ‘You don’t know about our school. We have school.’ She put on her coat and stepped out. I went out with her. ‘Why do you follow me, father?’ she asked.

  ‘I too want to see you
r school today,’ I said.

  ‘But my friends are filled with fear if they see you. Don’t come with me, father,’ she pleaded.

  ‘No, I will take good care not to frighten them,’ I assured her. She stood for a moment undecided, looking at me and said to herself: ‘Poor father, let him come too,’ and smiled patronizingly.

  There was no sign at the school to show that it was a Sunday. It was alive with the shouts of children – about twenty of them had already gathered and were running about and playing: the swings and see-saw were all in full use. The headmaster was with them.

  ‘You don’t rest even on a Sunday?’ I asked the headmaster.

  ‘Rest? This is all right for a rest, what else should I do? They just come in, play, throw the sand about, and go away, and we also do it with them. It is quite good, you know. I feel quite happy. What else should I do on a Sunday?’

  ‘Something to differentiate it from other days.…’

  ‘Quite. We don’t do sums today. We just sing, hear stories, and play.…’ His eyes were red. He coughed. He did not look as if he had had sleep at night.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ I could not help asking.

  ‘I suffer from sleeplessness, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is some years since I had anything like sleep. I sleep about an hour. I used to make myself very miserable about it at first. But now I am used to it. I make up stories for children and I hardly feel the time passing. Come in and see.’ He took me into his room. It was thatch-roofed. Its floor was covered with clay, and the walls were of bamboo splinters filled in with mud. The floor was uneven and cool, and the whole place smelt of Mother Earth. It was a pleasing smell, and seemed to take us back to some primeval simplicity, intimately bound up with earth and mud and dust. Along the wall was a sort of running ledge covered with a crazy variety of objects: cardboard houses, paper flowers, clumsy drawings and bead work. ‘These are the work of children who have studied here, and some of them have a special significance: presented to me by the outgoing children or the very special effort of a child. They are the trophies of this school. I consider them a real source of joy. For instance, the very first work of a child has some peculiar value. I don’t know if others understand that there is anything in it at all … you will understand it better if I say look at that green paper boat. Can you guess who has made it? Your daughter on the very first day she came here, she finished it within an hour.’ I felt thrilled. Beside a parrot cut out of a cardboard picture and an inkpot made of paper, this green boat stood. I went over and picked it up. My little Leela in relation to an outside world, making her own mark on it: I was filled with pride and satisfaction. ‘It is a whaler with a knife-edge at the keel!’ I cried in joy. He jumped out of his seat: ‘That’s what I say. See how lovely it is!’ The sight of it filled him with a mystic ecstasy. ‘She is a grand child. So are the other children. The first work of almost every child is here and the other works go into the general hall.’ The walls were hung with different pictures, tigers and lions and trees drawn with childish hands. He swept his hands about and declared: ‘Every one of these is children’s work. They are the real gods on earth.’ He stopped before each picture and enjoyed the thrill of it anew. He had done away with table and chair. In a corner he had a seat for visitors. ‘This will do for a school. We are a poor country, and we can do without luxuries. Why do we want anything more than a shed and a few mats and open air? This is not a cold country for all the heavy furniture and elaborate buildings. This has cost me just fifty rupees, and I had three such built. But we have not much use for them, most of our time being spent outside, under the tree …’

  ‘Many people think,’ I said, ‘that you can’t have a school unless you have invested a few thousand in building and furniture.’

  ‘It is all mere copying,’ he replied. ‘Multiply your expenses, and look to the Government for support, and sell your soul to the Government for the grant. This is the history of our educational movement. And another thing. What a fuss they have learnt to make of sports! As if colleges and schools were gymnasia, the main business of which is to turn out sturdy idiots. When I think of all the pampering and sentimentality of sports and games!’ He shuddered. ‘The main business of an educational institution is to shape the mind and character and of course games have their value. Why worship sports, and the eleven stalwart idiots who bring in a shield or a cup? It is all a curse, copying, copying, copying. We could as well have been born monkeys to justify our powers of imitation.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In our college Brown forgoes even his club to see a match; loses himself in excitement, congratulates the team and shakes hands, and gives no end of liberties to the tournament players and even sends them on tour,’ I said, catching the infection of his mood.

  ‘And do you know, they not only get a lot more touring and tiffin than the others. They are even made to pass examinations! And this sort of thing is supposed to make our people modern and vigorous …’ He laughed, but the excitement was too much for him, and he subsided into a fit of coughing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sit down, sit down. I wanted to show you the stories I’ve made …’ He pulled out a box and brought out a big bundle of brown paper: huge pages covered with letters as well as figures cut out and pasted. ‘This is a new method which I find fascinating,’ he said. ‘I invent a story, write it down in words, and illustrate it with pictures cut out of illustrated books and papers and pasted at the appropriate places, for instance this,’ he threw down ten volumes, ‘is a pretty long story of a bison and a tiger in the forest … just glance through it.’ Every page had a figure or two; the illustrations ran along with the story.

  ‘They are almost real you know,’ he said as I gazed on the pictures. ‘Just watch, I’ll show you how it works.’ He stood in the doorway and announced: ‘Story! Story!’ The children who had been playing about, stopped, looked at him and came running in, uttering shrieks of joy.

  They sat around their master. When they subsided into silence he opened the large album and said looking at it: ‘This is the story of a tiger and his friend the jungle buffalo, called Bison. It happened in Mempi Forest. Who can tell me where Mempi Forest is?’ There followed a discussion among the children and one girl said pointing at the doorway: ‘There, near the mountains, am I right?’

  ‘Right, right,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of jungles there. See here.’ All the children leaned over each other’s shoulders and fixed their eyes on the top of the album where a perfect jungle had been made with the help of dry tinted grass pasted together. ‘These are all bamboo jungles, full of tigers, but we are only concerned with one tiger. His name is Raja. See this. There he is, a young cub.’

  ‘He is very young,’ said the children, looking at him. The album was passed round for the benefit of those sitting far off. ‘What a fearful fellow!’ commented a few. My daughter, sitting between two friends older than herself, refused to touch the album because of the tiger, but was quite prepared to see it if held by her neighbour. ‘This little tiger was quite lonely, you know, because her mother had been taken away by hunters – bad fellows.’ Thus the story of the tiger went on. The tiger came across a friend in the shape of a young bison, who protected him from a bear and other enemies. They both lived in a cave at the tail-end of Mempi Hills – great friends. The bison grew up into a thick rock-like animal, and the tiger also grew up and went out in search of prey at nights. One night a party of hunters shot at the bison and carried him off to the town. And the tiger missed his friend and his cry rang through the Mempi Forest the whole night. The tiger soon adjusted himself to a lonely existence.

  The children listened in dead silence and were greatly moved when this portion was read out. They all came over to have a look at the tiger in his loneliness, and our friend, rightly guessing that they would ask for it, had procured a picture. The tiger was standing forlorn before his cave. The children uttered many cries of regret and unhappiness. ‘Master,
how can he live without his friend any more? I hope he is not killed by the bear!’

  ‘No. No, that bear was disposed of by the friend before he was caught.’

  ‘Poor bear! Let me have a look at him,’ said a girl. The pages were turned back and there he was, dark and shaggy. ‘He could have fought with the bison. He looks so strong,’ said the girl. She was, somehow, unaccountably, on the side of the bear. ‘You should not like the bear,’ said another girl. ‘The teacher will be angry if you like the bear …’

  ‘No, no, I won’t be. You may like what you like,’ said the teacher. This was an inducement for another child to join the ranks of bear-lovers. She said: ‘I always like a bear. It has such a lot of hair. Who will comb her hair, teacher?’ ‘Of course, her mother,’ said another child.

  ‘Has she a mother? Poor thing, yet she was allowed to be killed by the bison. I don’t like bisons. They should have more hair!’

  ‘If you are so fond of bears, why do you listen to this story?’

  ‘Because it’s the story of a bear, of course,’ replied the child.

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘It is. You see the picture.’

  ‘Master, she is looking too long at the bear. I want to see the tiger.’ The teacher interfered at this stage and restored order. He whispered to me: ‘The most enchanting thing among children is their quarrels. How they carry it on for its own sake, without the slightest bitterness or any memory of it later. This is how we were once, God help us: this too is what we have turned out to be!’ He resumed the story. My daughter, who felt she had left me alone too long, came over and sat with her elbows resting on my lap. She whispered: ‘Father, I want a tiger.’