A Girl & a River

by K R Usha

  ‘You said you were bringing me a hound!’ Setu said, looking at the scrawny creature, ribs showing, which struggled to stand on its feet.

  ‘And a hound it is. What you see before you is the rarest or rare hounds—the Mysore hound—directly descended from a two thousand year old greyhound.’

  For years, they knew, he had been trying to breed a local variety of the hound, and establish its pedigree with the Emperor’s Kennel Club in Bangalore, who laughed at his claims.

  Shivaswamy stood the puppy on the table, where it trembled pitifully, and pointed to its deep chest and arching stomach—all muscle and no flesh, a true yogi. He urged them to feel its legs, which looked like bent twigs, so powerful he claimed that when it ran it would look as if it were flying. In eight weeks’ time it would turn so fast and frisky that their back garden wouldn’t be enough to contain it. It had very little hair, so their mother would not object to having it indoors. Moreover, it was truly blue-blooded, mostly English greyhound with a bit of the African and the royal Egyptian thrown in. Legends of its bravery were legion. One of its kind was found mummified in King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Having come into their country with Alexander the Great, it had travelled south and a local variety, bred some place in Bombay presidency, was known to have attacked a tiger and killed it.

  Setu stared at the pup, which was now trying to crawl back into his uncle’s pocket, and tried to summon the kind of reverence he knew it deserved.

  ‘Well, a generous proportion of our local pie seems to have got mixed with the royal hound,’ Mylaraiah said smiling.

  ‘If Setu doesn’t want him, I’ll take him. He thinks it’s a scrap of a dog with a small head and a big body,’ Kaveri said saucily.

  ‘Of course not, he’s my dog,’ Setu said at once, sweeping the pup off the table and cradling him in his arms. ‘I’ll call him Pat.’

  Setu was not insensible to the honour that was being done to him—in fact he was surprised that Shivaswamy had tolerated their marked lack of enthusiasm for his precious Mysore hound. Man-and-dog legends about Shivaswamy abounded in the family circles.

  ‘When you go hunting Setu, you can take him with you,’ Shivaswamy said, apparently satisfied with Setu’s show of affection. ‘He’ll save you from tigers and lions. Off with both of you now. I have important things to say to your parents.’

  Once Bhagiratamma and the children had gone to bed, Shivaswamy settled down with his bucket of ice and bottle of rum for a long evening, hoping to provoke his cousin and her husband, especially her husband into a quarrel. That would happen when the conversation came round to what animated them the most—the state of the nation. When he was in a good mood, Shivaswamy could be quite entertaining for he was well travelled; he had met Gandhi and even heard Subhash Bose speak. But Mylaraiah found it difficult to keep his temper with his wife’s cousin. You mustn’t take Shivaswamy seriously, Rukmini would say, what matters to him is the serve and volley of dialogue, he revels in repartee. In which case his heart doesn’t lie in anything, Mylaraiah would retort, recognizing that he came out stodgy in comparison and resenting it.

  ‘So Rukmini, I believe you’re trying to ban the one pleasure in my life,’ Shivaswamy began that evening. ‘I hear Nani and his satyagrahis are picketing in earnest. I saw the mounted police charging away towards the market square today.’

  Rukmini smiled back, ready to cross swords with him. All the sins of the Congress were usually laid at her door, and despite her distant sympathies for the party she was often called upon to ‘explain’ their activities. But hers was more an attraction for the personalities involved and her cousin often teased her about the torch she carried for the leading Congressmen, both national and local. The diwan, Mirza Ismail, too, was a favourite with her, for his sense of beauty, for his insistence as much on the aesthetic appeal of public structures as their utility. Mylaraiah was usually cornered into playing the conservative while Shivaswamy’s own inclinations were fluid, depending upon the conversation. ‘The chameleon’, Mylaraiah had dubbed him. He was known to support the maharaja, Gandhi and the British vociferously—in the same breath.

  ‘And why not?’ Rukmini returned, ‘I can’t understand why men drink. What’s the use? It ruins them, not to speak of their families.’

  ‘Not just men, I’ve known some fine women who drink too. You should try it sometime. Then you’ll know.’

  For all your talk, Mylaraiah thought to himself, you wouldn’t let your wife, fine woman that she is, drink anything stronger than kashaya, and you wouldn’t even speak of such things in her presence. That he himself did not object to his wife sitting with the likes of Shivaswamy spoke a lot about his broad-mindedness, he felt. Only he wished Rukmini would appreciate it.

  ‘My sympathies are with Narayana Rao and his boys,’ Mylaraiah said, clearing his throat and preparing to get expansive, for this would be a long evening and he would have to defend his turf. ‘Though what they’re doing is not lawful, you know. There’s no law against selling liquor, and that shop is licensed.’

  ‘Ah Mylari, always the point of law with you …’

  ‘Well, you can’t deny it. Revenue from liquor has always been a major money earner for the state, we’ve fed fat on excise. And now it’s not just lucrative but even respectable … companies like Parry’s of Madras have invested in the business. Our Kanti’s brother, retired from the state service, was the architect of the liquor policy. Didn’t drink a drop himself but knew that manufacture and distribution had to be separated, and toddy shouldn’t be mixed up with arrack. And just as he estimated, now the middlemen are gone and all dues are coming directly into the treasury …’

  ‘So, just because it brings in money, is it fair to encourage people to drink poison?’ Rukmini protested. ‘Surely there are other …’

  ‘Well, it’s a business like any other. The government owns the groves on which dates for toddy are grown. There are farmers legitimately farming those lands. They earn their living by it …’ If the legitimate systems were in place, Mylaraiah believed, all was well. ‘And people like to drink, obviously,’ he threw up his hands dismissively with the assurance of one who would never be prey to the weakness, ‘I don’t see how Narayana Rao or even Gandhi can change things overnight, especially when the maharaja’s government doesn’t particularly want to discourage it.’

  ‘Yes, there’s no point trying to do things for people’s “own good”, they never appreciate it. For once I agree with Mylari completely,’ Shivaswamy said, pouring himself a generous measure out of his bottle. ‘What a wonderful invention the thermos flask is, keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.’

  ‘Picketing is very well, but it isn’t enough—we at the Samaja know it,’ Rukmini said triumphantly. ‘Narayana Rao and his volunteers are very courageous, but we’ve organized women and students groups to go from village to village as part of the temperance programme …’

  ‘Ah! Education and Idealism, the twin pillars that support our Rukmini!’

  ‘As long as they stick to social reform I have no quarrel with them …’ Mylaraiah cut in loudly, catching Rukmini’s eye.

  That Mylaraiah was uneasy about his wife’s friendships with ‘politically inclined’ women was obvious, though he just stopped short of forbidding them. Whenever Umadevi, the local women’s leader who was an active member of the Congress, and Rukmini would set off on a house-to-house ‘consciousness raising’ campaign or to collect money for a ‘worthy cause’, he would say nothing but pace up and down the garden till she returned. In fact, before Rukmini had agreed to become the secretary of the women’s wing of the Khadi Association, they had had an argument about the propriety of it, whether it constituted a ‘political’ act on the part of a leading advocate and municipal councillor’s wife to take up such a ‘sensitive’ position. Could it be construed as an anti-government act? It had taken all of Rukmini’s tact to convince her husband that she wasn’t breaking the law or jeopardizing his career by supporting khadi. Well, he had agre
ed, so long as she did not ask to join the Congress Party.

  It was the Congress forays into politics that Mylaraiah had no patience with. He was all for temperance, Harijan upliftment; even the coarse, home-spun khadi, though unviable could, as Gandhi said, be a symbol of identity, something to knit people together, though it may not be an effective way to counter the Manchester dhoti. ‘One paisa per day, that’s all it gets the spinners,’ he’d tell his wife and she’d retort, ‘It’s better than nothing, and incidentally, they make seven pice, not one.’ If anything sent a chill up his spine, it was the term ‘Swaraj’, especially the way it was thumped out at every meeting in the market square. Every shamster and crook slipped into the cloak of patriotism when it suited him. The crowds were made up of riff-raff anyway, and one of the men who made the most impassioned speeches, ‘a mere corner-shop grocer’ was a known profiteer, who had suddenly grown rich after the war.

  ‘And what do they expect to do after we drive the British out?’ he had asked, the last time Shivaswamy had been there, and the papers had been full of the Round Table Conference. He had glared at the photograph which showed Gandhi, Churchill’s seditious, half-naked fakir, flanked by the well-clad Indian delegation and ‘that infernal woman’ Sarojini Naidu, on the steps of St James’ Palace in London. ‘What a lot of noise they’re making. Do they expect anything to come out of this? Does Gandhi seriously think that the British will allow us to rule ourselves? And can we, even if they did? How will he accommodate the princely states in his grand scheme? Two of those princes cannot sit together over a cup of coffee and have a conversation—provided their dietary rules permit them to sit at the same table—unless the viceroy is present to mediate.’ We are twice insulated from self-rule, thank God, Mylaraiah would say—once by the British and once more by the maharaja.

  ‘I don’t understand you Mylari,’ Shivaswamy smiled at him. ‘On the one hand you tremble for the future, on the other you donate money to the Congresswallas … like the maharaja who goes out of his way to make Gandhi comfortable when he comes to Mysore, but arrests his followers when they burn foreign cloth and picket liquor shops. Hunting with the hounds and running with the hares …’

  ‘It’s one thing being hospitable and another doing the right thing when someone breaks the law. Gandhi is admirable … you can’t deny that … as I said if only the Congress would stick to their constructive work programme …’

  ‘Well Rukmini, the British have their own ways of cutting your Gandhi down to size. When he was in London for that fruitless Round Table Conference, they made him inspect their national Dairy Show and named the prize-winning goat “Mahatma Gandhi”!’ Shivaswamy slapped his knee and laughed uproariously.

  Finally, when the neck and shoulders of the dark, squat bottle were quite clear, Shivaswamy would come out with the most interesting bits of news and gossip.

  ‘There’s some talk of your hero—not your’s Mylari, your’s is right here in Bangalore we know, the good judge holding up the world, and I believe he’s singing your praises—but your’s Rukmini, is coming to our Mysore …’

  Mylaraiah felt the blood rush to his face. The ‘good judge’, his supposed ‘hero’ to whom Shivaswamy’s fruity, troublemaking tones were alluding was Darcy Riley, the chief justice of the high court, a Britisher. But he also knew the allusions his brother-in-law was making—to his complacent views, his refusal to look into the future, his need for a well-defined world preferably ruled by the British with the maharaja as their intermediary, his ‘connivance’ with the white man.

  ‘I’m happy to be a pillar in a system run by people like Judge Riley,’ Mylaraiah said stiffly, his lower lip jutting out, a sign Rukmini recognized, that he was hurt and would try to cover up by being ponderous. ‘And there’s no denying that whatever we have is thanks to them. Think of the chaos there’d be if we allowed our people to run things their way. Every man, right from the diwan to the petty clerk in the government office would be bringing his brother or his son in through the back door … We’d endlessly be salaaming worthless people even to get what was due to us.’

  ‘Well, your Judge Riley may praise your opening statements but he will not help you with the Chikmagalur planters cases and with your aspirations in Bangalore. For that you need one of your own kind. If I were you I’d speak to our Vishwananth Rao … he’s the district judge, tipped to be the next chief justice … could be of help. You can’t be principled and ambitious at the same time, Mylari. You’ll have to choose between the two.’

  ‘Why do you take this Shivaswamy to heart?’ Rukmini said hastily. ‘You know he’s only trying to provoke you.’

  ‘Now Rukmini, I have news for you. I believe you may actually get to see Gandhi in this town,’ Shivaswamy said turning to his cousin.

  ‘Well, he has to get out of Yervada jail first. He needs a rest after all his antics,’ Mylaraiah said testily, and was immediately annoyed with himself for taking out his anger on Gandhi.

  ‘I believe your Narayana Rao has a large hand in it. He’s doing his best to see that Gandhi makes a stopover here.’

  ‘Well, well, our Nani seems to have gone on to bigger things … no longer satisfied with organizing bonfires to burn the suits his father-in-law gifted him. He hasn’t shown his face in court in a long time. The Congress seems to be the last resort for every brief less lawyer.’ It was inexorable, the way Shivaswamy brought out the most uncharitable streak in him, making him take on all his wife’s heroes—major and minor.

  ‘Come, come Mylari,’ Shivaswamy cackled, ‘I myself don’t care much for these Congress types but you cannot deny that Narayana Rao has made sacrifices. He has given himself completely to the work of the Congress. He could have had a comfortable life … a cosy practice like yours … instead he’s taken on a thankless job. He has no future in the party—the Lingayats and the Gowdas would throw him out tomorrow if they could. His followers are so fickle, every time they have a difference of opinion, they walk out and start another Congress Party!’

  ‘Look, there couldn’t be a more sincere man, I agree,’ Mylaraiah said, struggling to keep his voice even. ‘If I give a generous donation to the Congress every year, it is because of Narayana Rao. The earlier committee head is still facing an enquiry for misappropriating funds. But I don’t see how it’s a sacrifice. Frankly, it’s a little juvenile the way he chases his enthusiasms. “Dandi Narayana Rao” he calls himself, after having marched with Gandhi to Dandi and made salt there. If you ask me, each man must follow his vocation, do what he is supposed to, and what he does best. If he wanted to serve the nation so much he should have stayed back in his village and tilled his father’s lands, there are drunkards to be reformed in the village too. He likes to do things with a flourish—the broad signature. And don’t think he doesn’t enjoy the power, the excitement, the accolades. I believe after ‘Gandhiji ki jai!’ the crowd chants, ‘Narayana Rao ki jai!’

  ‘He’s a good leader then, if people chant his name,’ Rukmini said, unable to restrain herself, ‘and I can’t see how it’s not a sacrifice. Not just for him, but for his wife and family as well. I hear he’s selling off his coconut groves to raise funds for his work.’

  ‘Which is inconsiderate of him,’ her husband snapped. ‘Is it fair to his son for him to sell off his family property like that, I ask you! Has he consulted his brothers?’

  ‘Which reminds me, I have to meet Narayana Rao before I go,’ Shivaswamy said, suddenly businesslike.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To buy those coconut groves, of course. They’re on the land adjoining ours in Kanakanhalli and I know that he’s in a hurry to sell.’

  ‘Hitting a man when he’s down?’

  ‘Business is business. Never let an opportunity get past. If not me, someone else will buy it from him and at less, probably. You yourself just said that he was ambitious. If he wants to sustain his ambition, he must do what is necessary. Just as you must approach Justice Vishwanath Rao … When can I see him? Does he come at
all to his chambers or will I have to go to his house?’

  Both Rukmini and Mylaraiah ignored him and Shivaswamy had to repeat his question.

  At that point a treble voice piped up from the hall. ‘You can’t meet him at all.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘What Setu, not asleep as yet?’

  ‘He’s too excited to sleep. You know how the children are when you come.’

  ‘Sitting up to listen to grown-up talk eh?’

  ‘What do you mean, can’t meet him?’

  ‘Well,’ Setu sat up, his excitement at being the bearer of such vital news far outweighing the wisdom of letting it be known that he knew, ‘he was taken away from the shendi shop today by the police. He’s gone to jail.’

  When Mylaraiah paused on the footpath to look up, he marvelled as much at the blue sky as the telegraph lines above with birds sitting on them like clothespins on a clothesline. That a device, which carried electrical impulses at sizzling speed, should be put to such benign incidental use amused him. The birds that perched on the lines would never know how they were being honoured or that, if it were not for the wonder of insulation, they were just a millimetre’s thinness away from being charred to death. He was not surprised that some people thought them the work of the devil—his servant Timrayee would not touch the telegrams that came for him from his village. Well, Narayana Rao and his ilk had their work cut out, trying to educate the masses out of their ignorance.

  Occasionally, when the blue sky and the crisp air beckoned, Mylaraiah dismissed his horse-drawn carriage and walked to work, his clerk trailing behind him with his files. On such mornings, he felt his blood was flowing more briskly, as if every keen impulse that had ever murmured in his veins had come to a head and was urging him along. This town was the world and this world was his home. But soon, his practical bent of mind insinuated itself, and then as a municipal councillor soon-to-be commissioner, he felt that it was his duty to survey the gutters, check the lamp posts, post boxes and other things. The orderliness of the networks pleased him—of roads and railways, dams and canals, munsiffs and amaldars, of courts and committees; he had an instinct for Cartesian control. Structures built with British technology and kept in order by the maharaja’s civil servants trained on the British model. What was more, being enterprising, he had bought himself a share in the system. He too had a head for business, could sense his advantage and strike, and not in an underhand way like Shivaswamy. One of the decisions he flattered himself on was subscribing to the railway line from his town to Mysore and beyond, the money for which had been raised almost entirely from the funds of merchants, farmers and landlords like himself, from the districts through which the railway line would run. He had been the one, as member of the committee, to suggest that they import the pine sleepers from Europe for the railway line, instead of depleting their forests. Now every time he travelled by train, he almost felt that the he owned the landscape. Narayana Rao could picket liquor shops and hope that eventually it would throw off the foreign yoke, but he knew clearly, where his loyalties lay.