The English Teacher

by R. K. Narayan

  ‘This is not what I want to say,’ I muttered to myself and tore up the letter and stuffed it into the wastepaper basket. ‘There is something far deeper that I wish to say.’

  I took out a small sheet of paper and wrote: ‘Dear Sir, I beg to tender my resignation for personal reasons. I request you to relieve me immediately …’ I put it in an envelope.

  I walked into Brown’s room that afternoon with this envelope in my hand. He was in a leisurely mood sitting back in his swivel chair, reading a book. I placed the envelope before him.

  ‘What is this? Applying for leave?’ he said, a smile spreading on his aged handsome face … ‘Be seated …’ He read the letter. His face turned slightly red. He looked at me and said: ‘What is the matter?’ He lit a cigarette, blew out a ring of smoke and waited for my answer, looking at me with his greenish eyes. I merely replied: ‘I can’t go on with this work any longer, sir …’

  ‘Any special reason?’ I remained silent. I didn’t know what to say. I replied: ‘I am taking up work in a children’s school.’ ‘Oh!’ he said …‘But I didn’t know you had primary school training …’ he replied. I looked at him in despair; his Western mind, classifying, labelling, departmentalizing … I merely replied: ‘I am beginning a new experiment in education, with another friend.’ ‘Oh, that is interesting,’ he replied. ‘But look here, must you resign? Couldn’t you keep it on as an extra interest … We do want a lot of experimenting in education, but you could always …’ He went on suggesting it as a hobby. I replied: ‘Sir, what I am doing in the college hardly seems to me work. I mug up and repeat and they mug up and repeat in examinations … This hardly seems to me work, Mr Brown. It is a fraud I am practising for a consideration of a hundred rupees a month … It doesn’t please my innermost self …’ Thus I rambled on.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said scratching his head. ‘It seems to me unfortunate. However, I wouldn’t make up my mind in a hurry if I were you …’

  ‘I have thought it over deeply, sir,’ I replied. ‘My mind is made up.’

  He asked: ‘What does it mean to you financially?’

  ‘About twenty-fives rupees a month …’ I replied.

  ‘That means a cutting down …’

  ‘That is so. I have no use for money. I have no family. My child is being looked after by others and they have provided for her future too. I have a few savings. I have no use for a hundred rupees a month …’ Brown looked quite baffled. I added: ‘Of all persons on earth, I can afford to do what seems to me work, something which satisfies my innermost aspiration. I will write poetry and live and work with children and watch their minds unfold …’

  ‘Quite,’ he replied. ‘A man like you ought to derive equal delight in teaching literature. You have done admirably as a teacher of literature …’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t feel I have done anything of the kind …’

  ‘Do you mean to say that all those poets and dramatists have meant nothing to you?’

  I was in danger of repeating the letter I had torn up. ‘It is not that. I revere them. And I hope to give them to these children for their delight and enlightenment, but in a different measure and in a different manner.’ I rambled on thus. I could not speak clearly. Brown bore with me patiently. Our interview lasted an hour. At the end of it he said: ‘Take another week, if you like, to consider. I do wish you wouldn’t leave us.’ He held out his hand. I gripped his large warm palm, and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  They arranged a grand send-off for me. The function was timed to begin at six. I arrived five minutes earlier and was at once seized on by Sastri and Rangappa, the moving spirits of the occasion. They waited at the porch and the moment they sighted me, they dashed forward, and gripped my hand and dragged me on to the quadrangle, where they had made spectacular arrangements. The hotel man had risen to the occasion; he had tied up coloured buntings and streamers, spread his embroidered tablecloth on a dozen tables, and placed his usual gold mohur bunches on nickel vases. Porcelain cups and plates clanked somewhere. White-shirted serving boys stood respectfully on the edge of the scene. They looked at me with respectful interest. In fact everyone looked on me as a sort of awe-inspiring personality. What was there in this to make a sudden hero of me? It was very embarrassing. On the air was borne a gentle suggestion of jasmine and rose. I knew a garland was waiting for me somewhere.

  I was pressed into a high-backed chair. Next to mine was another chair for Brown. On my left sat Gajapathy. All around were gathered a miscellaneous crowd of teachers and boys. Everybody kept staring at me. I felt very unhappy. I had never felt more selfconscious in all my life. Gajapathy was highly nervous and excited, and wriggled in his chair. He kept muttering, ‘Why is not Brown here yet?’ And constantly looked at his watch.

  There was the sound of a car stopping outside. ‘The Principal,’ everyone muttered. The creaking of fast footsteps and Brown arrived in an evening suit. ‘Even he is dressed for the occasion,’ I said to myself. ‘Why, why all this ceremony?’ Gajapathy shot up in his seat. Sastri and Rangappa went forward to receive him.

  Now we were all ready. Brown bent over to me and whispered: ‘I was afraid the weather wouldn’t let us see the quadrangle today.’ I looked at the sky and mumbled something about the weather. Gajapathy, uninvited, joined us in the conversation. ‘Rain is very unusual at this season, but strangely enough we have had it for the past two days. But today our luck is good …’

  ‘Yes,’ Brown echoed, ‘rather unusual …’ Perspiring and puffing, Rangappa moved about, and passed a signal on to the servers. There were nearly ten courses. Brown lightly touched each one of them; withdrew with quick caution from items which were over-spiced (experience born of thirty years’ stay in India), put small bits of sweets into his mouth and sent them on without moving his lips. Gajapathy sat back with his fingers locked into each other, sadly looking at the plates. The other guests were talking among themselves, a merry hum pervaded the place. I asked Gajapathy: ‘Why?’ He shook his head sadly: ‘I am a sick man, can’t afford these luxuries …’ Brown looked at him without comment. He wanted to change the subject from personal ailments. He held up between his thumb and forefinger a gold-coloured sweet and said: ‘This is also a variant of jilebi, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, sir,’ replied Gajapathy. ‘I think it is the stuff made of American flour, while the real jilebi …’

  ‘Ah, I’m right. I know my jilebi when I see it.’ A smile spread round his eyes. We laughed. Rangappa, who had been observing us from his chair far off, looked at us enquiringly, and also smiled out of politeness …

  When coffee was served, Brown clutched his cup and stood up. A silence fell on the gathering: ‘To the health of our guest of this evening,’ he said in his deep sonorous voice. ‘I don’t know if it would be right to toast with coffee but we won’t bother about these proprieties now …’ On behalf of the assembly he wished me all prosperity and happiness. He continued, ‘I have known him, I have lost count now how many years. I remember the day he came to my room with an application for a seat in English Honours. I’ve seen him grow under my eyes; he has shown himself an able teacher. The boys have loved him. And I’m sure they have had reason to dread him very much as an examiner.’ Some boys looked at me with a grin. ‘Everywhere, under every condition, he has proved himself to be an uncompromising idealist. His constant anxiety has been to find the world good enough for his own principles of life and letters. Few men would have the courage to throw up a lucrative income and adopt one very much lower. But he has done it. Success must be measured by its profitlessness, said a French philosopher. Our college can look upon this idealist with justifiable pride. And …’ looking at me he said: ‘when your institution has developed and made a mark in the world, I do hope you will allow us a small share of the gratification that you yourself feel … Gentlemen, I’m sure you will all join me in wishing our friend all success.’ He raised his cup
.

  I felt too disturbed to look up. My hands trembled. I sat looking down. Brown sat down. I was too moved: ‘Many thanks,’ I murmured. Three more speeches followed: one by Rangappa who traced our friendship to the hostel days, one by Sastri and one by an Honours boy. ‘Our country needs more men like our beloved teacher who is going out today,’ he said in his high-pitched tender voice. ‘The national regeneration is in his hands …’ Goodwill and adulation enveloped me like thick mist. In the end I got up and said: ‘Gentlemen, permit me to thank you all for your kind words. Let me assure you I’m retiring, not with a feeling of sacrifice for a national cause, but with a very selfish purpose. I’m seeking a great inner peace. I find I can’t attain it unless I withdraw from the adult world and adult work into the world of children. And there, let me assure you, is a vast storehouse of peace and harmony. I have not had in mind anything more than that, and I hope you will correct your estimates accordingly. I am deeply grateful to you and to our chief for your great kindness …’ I sat down because I found my voice quivering.

  Rangappa brought a heavy rose and jasmine garland and slipped it over my neck. He brought another and put it on the Principal. Applause. ‘Three cheers for our guest of the evening,’ somebody screamed. ‘Hip! Hip …’ burst like an explosion. And then ‘Three cheers for our Principal …’ On this thunderous note our evening concluded.

  I was walking down our lone street late at night, enveloped in the fragrance of the jasmine and rose garland, slung on my arm. ‘For whom am I carrying this jasmine home?’ I asked myself. Susila would treasure a garland for two whole days, cutting up and sticking masses of it in her hair morning and evening. ‘Carrying a garland to a lonely house – a dreadful job,’ I told myself.

  I fumbled with the key in the dark, opened the door and switched on the light. I hung up the garland on a nail and kicked up the roll of bedding. The fragrance permeated the whole house. I sprinkled a little water on the flowers to keep them fresh, put out the light and lay down to sleep.

  The garland hung by the nail right over my head. The few drops of water which I sprinkled on the flowers seemed to have quickened in them a new life. Their essences came forth into the dark night as I lay in bed, bringing a new vigour with them. The atmosphere became surcharged with strange spiritual forces. Their delicate aroma filled every particle of the air, and as I let my mind float in the ecstasy, gradually perceptions and senses deepened. Oblivion crept over me like a cloud. The past, present and the future welded into one.

  I had been thinking of the day’s activities and meetings and associations. But they seemed to have no place now. I checked my mind. Bits of memory came floating – a gesture of Brown’s, the toy house in the dentist’s front room, Rangappa with a garland, and the ring of many speeches and voices – all this was gently overwhelmed and swept aside, till one’s mind became clean and bare and a mere chamber of fragrance. It was a superb, noble intoxication. And I had no choice but to let my mind and memories drown in it. I softly called, ‘Susila! Susila, my wife …’ with all my being. It sounded as if it were a hypnotic melody. ‘My wife … my wife, my wife …’ My mind trembled with this rhythm, I forgot myself and my own existence. I fell into a drowse, whispering, ‘My wife, wife.’ How long? How could I say? When I opened my eyes again she was sitting on my bed looking at me with an extraordinary smile in her eyes.

  ‘Susila! Susila!’ I cried. ‘You here!’ ‘Yes, I’m here, have always been here.’ I sat up leaning on my pillow. ‘Why do you disturb yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘I am making a place for you,’ I said, edging away a little. I looked her up and down and said: ‘How well you look!’ Her complexion had a golden glow, her eyes sparkled with a new light, her sari shimmered with blue interwoven with ‘light’ as she had termed it …‘How beautiful!’ I said looking at it. ‘Yes, I always wear this when I come to you. I know you like it very much,’ she said. I gazed on her face. There was an overwhelming fragrance of jasmine surrounding her. ‘Still jasmine-scented!’ I commented.

  ‘Oh wait,’ I said and got up. I picked up the garland from the nail and returned to bed. I held it to her. ‘For you as ever. I somehow feared you wouldn’t take it …’ She received it with a smile, cut off a piece of it and stuck it in a curve on the back of her head. She turned her head and asked: ‘Is this all right?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said, smelling it.

  A cock crew. The first purple of the dawn came through our window, and faintly touched the walls of our room. ‘Dawn!’ she whispered and rose to her feet.

  We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy – a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death.

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