by K R Usha
They hailed a tonga on the way back and Setu tried to unravel the complicated threads of the plot and explain the film to his father.
‘Through Santepete,’ Mylaraiah told the tonga man, ‘Anantharamaiah Shetty’s shop. We’ll stop a few minutes, his case is coming up soon.’
Anantharamiah Shetty’s shop in Santepete was well known for the variety it held in the deceptively few shelves; whatever you asked for, his assistant would bring out from secret recesses and his shop was the closest to a Bangalore equivalent. Even the English crowd came here for their broderie anglaise and their paisley prints.
At Anantharamu’s shop, they found the narrow entrance blocked by a group of boys. They were talking earnestly to the proprietor, who was trying to ignore them as best as he could, pinned to his seat by them.
‘Greetings to the honourable Anantharamiah Shetty!’ Mylaraiah said loudly and the boys turned round to look at him. ‘What’s happening?’
‘These are your Narayana Rao’s latest recruits,’ Anantharamiah Shetty said with heavy irony. ‘Want me to give up selling English cloth and sell only Indian made, preferably khadi.’
‘Stop this and go home!’ Mylaraiah said peremptorily to the boys. ‘You are making a nuisance of yourselves. Anantharamiah will be forced to call the police!’
For a few seconds the boys stared at him and the one right in front was about to retort when another boy, who had recognized Mylaraiah, spoke first. ‘Sir, we only want him to promise to stock khadi along with his other cloth and put part of the proceeds into a special Harijan Fund. It’s for a good cause. All the other merchants have agreed.’
‘You look familiar. Haven’t I seen you somewhere …’
The boy hesitated. ‘I have come to your office a few times … I’m advocate Kole’s nephew and I work for him …’ he admitted. ‘But, we are just trying to request Anantaramaiah Sir peacefully, to convince him …’
‘You can’t arrive in a group and surround him like this and claim you are trying to convince him peacefully,’ Mylaraiah snorted.
‘All the others hide their bales of khadi under the counter the minute the khadiwalas leave. There is a khadi bhandar for it. Why do they trouble us? This is something new that they have started after Gandhi Mahatma’s visit,’ Shetty said angrily. ‘All your Narayana Rao’s doing. He sets people up and then goes off and hides in jail … the government’s son-in-law. His Harijan Fund may be genuine but does he know how many people there are, going round, collecting money in the name of Harijans. This morning I had a couple of boys wanting a contribution for some other fund. It’s nothing but extortion I tell you. In fact, I hear things got so bad that Narayana Rao had to go round in a tonga one day, with a loudspeaker in hand, saying he had nothing to do with all the spurious mohalla committees raising money in his name.’
‘Look, you may think you’re doing something heroic, but you are breaking the law; he isn’t. If your leaders have put you up to this, they’re irresponsible, they’re letting you down. You look like students. Go back to your schools and colleges. Complete your studies and take up responsible jobs and do them well. You will serve your country better that way.’
The boys hesitated and Mylaraiah pressed his advantage home. ‘If you carry on like this, you’ll do worse and get into serious trouble. And if ever you stood before me in the dock and I were the judge, I’d sentence you without a qualm. No lawyer would choose to defend you. Go,’ he said, ‘go before you get into more trouble.’
‘Sir,’ the boy who had just identified himself as advocate Kole’s nephew said, ‘I would have no trouble standing up to any judge. I’ve stood up to lathi blows before. Do you see this scar on my forehead? But we’ll go because you have asked us to.’
The boys left and the small crowd that had gathered outside the shop dispersed. Setu, who had been lurking in embarrassed silence behind a pillar came charging out.
‘Do you know who that was? That was Shyam, C.G.K. Sir’s son, leader of the Youth Movement!’ He was fairly incoherent with excitement.
‘Hmmm …’ Mylaraiah said, ‘and the famous C.G.K. Sir is the one who writes articles on yellow sheets of paper … his son seems no less.’
‘They listened to you, Anna. You sent them away,’ Setu almost sang.
‘They were mere boys … untried,’ Mylaraiah said.
‘Could you have sent those boys to jail?’
‘Of course, if I wanted to.’
‘Then they would have gone with a bottle of water, a copy of their holy book and their takli to spin khadi. Nothing else. I believe that’s what Gandhi says. They told us at the Youth Movement.’
‘That’s a lot of things to take to jail … And what’s this Youth Movement about, let me hear.’
‘I don’t know, Anna. I’ve left the Youth Movement.’
‘Indeed! And why did you leave?’
‘I had a fight with Ramu. And I don’t like sitting in the mud and listening to people talk. Both Chapdi kal and I have left. But Ramu is still there.’
‘Setu, I want you to stay away from such “movements”. Promise me that.’
‘All right, Anna.’ Setu was only too willing to comply.
‘Until you fully understand what they mean. And for that you have to grow up.’
‘Anna, Ramu’s father has been to jail. Chapdi Kal says C.G.K. Sir too could go to jail. You say that criminals go to jail. But everybody says they are good men. Are they good men? And Gandhi?’ he added, now that he had his father’s attention, ‘And the maharaja?’
‘So many questions, all at once,’ Mylaraiah smiled. ‘They are all good men, no doubt, but each thinks differently and that’s where the trouble lies. Your Ramu’s father and even your C.G.K. Sir are not criminals in that they haven’t robbed or cheated anybody, but they spread the wrong ideas and they have broken the law, at least your Ramu’s father has. And if you break the law, you get punished for it.’
‘Why does Ramu’s father want those shops closed? He was beaten by the police, or rather he ducked the lathis and let Shyam get hit. Chapdi Kal says that’s cowardly …’
‘He is a brave man. Sometimes we do things without meaning to. We mean not to be cowardly but our minds and bodies defeat us.’
Setu’s fingers moved impatiently in Mylaraiah’s hand. So much generosity he had not bargained for. He was hoping his father would make the usual slightly-slighting remarks about Narayana Rao.
‘Ramu’s father and Gandhi want to close down shops that sell liquor—you know Shivaswamy mama’s bottle don’t you—because it is bad for health and many men, quite a few of them poor, drink it in large quantities and this makes them ill and their families suffer too. It’s true what they say, but you cannot go around forcibly closing shops which are running lawfully, you must let people decide for themselves what they want. If you want them to think differently you must educate them, teach them what is right and what is wrong, and then let them choose. So also people must be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to wear khadi or mill cloth. Your Ramu’s father and C.G.K. Sir and Gandhi want the British to leave the country and for us to rule ourselves, which they will, eventually. But before that we must learn how to rule ourselves. That’s what the maharaja is doing. Fruits have to ripen slowly on trees, it takes time.’
‘Listen Setu, Ramu’s father is a friend of mine and I know your C.G.K. Sir’s brother very well, he was my classmate. I admire their principles but not their actions. You cannot destroy the systems and the order that is there without replacing them with something better. There’s nothing I consider worse than that. Remember Setu, each of us is meant to do what we must. I must go to the courts and argue my cases well and you and Kaveri must go to school every day and your mother must take care of the house and of us all. And it is the maharaja’s business to govern his subjects. Once you grow up, your world will no longer be confined to your home and your school and your mother and me. Don’t look so frightened, it’s true, you will have to walk alone and then
you will have ideas and opinions about things. There is always the danger that you may not understand everything completely, for a little knowledge, which is what those boys in Anantharamu’s shop had, is a dangerous thing. If you remember then to do your duty by the rules, by the accepted ways, your confusion will be lessened. You will be pulled in different directions, but you must get your priorities right. And what does that mean? That means you must grade things in order of importance and give each of them the time and attention they deserve … We must think carefully before we act … not act on impulse …’
‘Are you angry with me, Anna?’
Mylaraiah laughed. ‘Of course not. So, do you still remember the story of that film? You had better recall it, to tell your sister and grandmother. Come now, don’t look so solemn.’
Setu came home grave-eyed and feeling a little uncertain. The fact that his father had spoken to him non-stop on the way home both pleased and unnerved him. It meant that he had something on his mind. And he hoped fervently that whatever he did he would not displease his father. He would quell the warm feeling that rose in his breast when he heard C.G.K. Sir speak. No more Ramu either. He would throw away the white uniform he had been given by the Youth Movement immediately and grind the white cap into the dust. His only regret was that the post-film events had so completely eclipsed the film in his mind, that he couldn’t recall a single anecdote, not even his favourite Dikki Madhav Rao ones, to relate to his grandmother and sister.
Nine
1934
Rukmini had followed the clamour the book had caused in the newspapers and had been curious about it. It was her cousin Shivaswamy who had brought the book for her from Calcutta, specially ordered, much before others even in Bangalore or Madras had read it or even heard of it. For days after that the handsome blue cloth-bound volume weighed Rukmini’s wrists down but hardly left her hands. She would dart in and out of the morning room, assailing her mother and her husband, lowering her voice when the children were around, reading out choice bits that she had underlined, with comments in the margin when she could not contain herself—‘Ha!’, ‘Indeed!’ and sometimes, quite plainly, ‘All lies!’ Dr King borrowed it and looked thoughtful as she handed it back. Umadevi returned it in two days, saying it was too heavy to hold and moreover, her English would not last four hundred pages.
‘What a title!’ Rukmini exclaimed, ‘so ironic—Mother India—so apt to rub our noses in with!’
Katherine Mayo, the author, it emerged, was an American journalist, by her own admission an ordinary American citizen, ‘ … an agent of the British government sent to demoralize us’, Rukmini said knocking her knuckles on the spine of the hardcover, as if it were Miss Mayo’s head, who had travelled throughout the country a few years ago to tell the truth about it and make it known to her countrymen and women. During her extensive travels she had spoken to several people—to princes, commoners and officials, gone wherever she wanted—to hospitals and schools, the courts and the legislative assembly, and all she had found were an ignorant, poverty stricken, unsanitary, grotesque, ungodly and salacious people. Too deep and nuanced and numerous were the flaws in their condition, their character and their spirit, for them to be redeemed.
‘Gandhi is right. It is a drain inspector’s report, a “shilling shocker”. But oh so clever, exactly as he says. Her facts may all be true but the whole is so untruthful.’
There was something in it for everybody—either to move them to fury or laughter. Rukmini would read out the right bits to the right people.
‘All our problems arise, it seems because of our obsession with you-know-what, the preference of our men for child brides and our preoccupation with child bearing, more so among the Hindus,’ she announced to the astonished Samaja women.
The ‘obscene’ nature of the linga and the mark of Vishnu on the forehead were the cause of much mirth.
‘I wonder if Keshav Murthy, the purohit, knows what the conical stones that he so devoutly anoints each Monday morning, really are, poor man …’ Rukmini giggled. ‘What if we were to tell Balarama in the office that the long red-and-white naama that he paints on his forehead each morning after his bath, with such devotion …’ here she paused for effect, ‘is actually “a sign of the function of generation”!’
This had taken some explanation, but the ladies had found it so funny that Achamma had come from the kitchen to find out what the matter was.
For her mother, Rukmini reserved Katherine Mayo’s account of Indian cruelty to their ‘holy and hungry’ cows and of the country being eaten by its own cattle. Like Indian men, Indian cows were thin and had low vitality, which gave them their hunted expression. The ignorant dairymen used the cruelest methods to increase the yield of milk.
‘She does praise the experts of your Imperial Dairy Farm for breeding cows that stand up well to our climate and produce a lot of milk but the next time you write to them, ask whether they really believe in disjointing the tails of their bullocks to make them go faster and whether they starve the bull calves to death,’ Rukmini told her mother.
‘Does she have nothing good to say at all, this woman?’ Bhagiratamma wanted to know.
‘Well she praises our state all right. She has a good word for the Wodeyars, of course, because they are guided by the British—we have electricity and parks and a Muslim diwan …’
The social aspect of Miss Mayo’s work was of little interest to Mylaraiah. In any case Rukmini was too embarrassed to discuss the matter of the impotence of the Indian man or his penchant for child brides with her husband.
‘Our greed for gold jewellery is what is draining our economy, she says, and as for the mills of Lancashire being run on Indian cotton, she says that’s a myth. Indian cotton is short stapled and of poor quality—fit only for lamp wicks and cleaning cloth.’
‘There’s no denying our women’s love of gold,’ Mylaraiah snorted, ‘but the whole world knows where our cotton is going. But Gandhi, what does she say about Gandhi, considering she met him?’ he asked.
‘Well, she says we have Gandhi; we also have tigers.’ Rukmini shrugged. ‘She sees him as an ineffectual man sitting at the spinning wheel. But despite herself she seems to respect him. Oh, and she thinks the British will never leave and even if they do, the Indian princes will keep their independence. And if the bedlam of our assembly sessions is anything to go by, we will never be fit for parliamentary debate. All that the opposition does is indulge in “sterile, obstructionist tactics”.’
But once their displeasure over the book had been thoroughly vented, they settled down to face the facts squarely.
‘Well Rukmini, there’s no denying the truth of much of it,’ Bhagiratamma said as Rukmini read out the introductory pages, describing Miss Mayo’s visit to the Kali temple in Calcutta. ‘Don’t you remember Shivaswamy telling us about the bodies floating in the Ganga at Kashi and the way goats are sacrificed at the Kali temple—their heads just cut off, the carcasses heaped to the side and the rivers of blood …’ Bhagiratamma shuddered.
A minor, but pleasing fallout of Katherine Mayo’s book was that it had led Dr King to talk about herself in more detail in a few hours than she had done in the twelve years that Rukmini had known her. She opened up a surprising seam, when she spoke of how her mother had got a taste of the contrasts as soon as she landed in Calcutta, back in the 1880s.
Her mother had been part of the ‘fishing fleet’—one among the women who sailed to India in the hope of finding a husband among the Englishmen posted in the country—the last of eight girls in a clergyman’s family. With not much of an education or a future she had decided, after losing many a night’s sleep over it, to marry her brother-in-law’s friend, a doctor in the Indian army, whom she had not seen but with whom she had been corresponding for some time—Assistant Apothecary in Her Majesty’s Eleventh Bengal Regiment.
Right from the beginning she had got into the spirit of the Indian adventure and when she had stepped off the P & O, she had the usual fir
st-time-outer’s souvenirs—a striped shawl from Simon Arzt’s in Port Said, where the ship had made a stopover, and a soup plate hat inverted over her head. She had worn her oldest underwear on the journey and duly disposed of it through the porthole before disembarking, just as ‘Going to India?’ had advised.
‘You cannot see Calcutta from the sea as soon as you land, as you can Bombay or Madras. You have to sail up a river from the sea. So she had to sail up the Hooghly, a hundred miles, to Calcutta where my father waited for her.’ (That she was disappointed to find that he looked at least twenty years older than he claimed to be was something she confided only to her diary.)
The Hooghly, as she was to note in her diary, was a lovely, placid river and she marvelled at the thicket of trees on either shore, with clearings in them that suddenly revealed mansions with graceful columned porticos and verandahs and high gateways, and their beautiful gardens rolling right down to the river. At a certain point, the river was crowded with masts of ships moored on either side, and she had particularly marked the Chinese merchant ships with arched masts and an eye painted on the side.
‘And just as she was admiring the scenery she happened to look down and saw a blackened human head with a bit of shoulder still attached to it, floating up at her. She got such a shock, she says she almost jumped overboard! It was only later that she understood it was a partly cremated body.’
There were other instances that Rukmini recalled, anecdotes Dr King had told her about her early touring days in the villages, before she had settled into the local general hospital. She once spoke of a particularly harrowing case which the local dai had messed up by ‘mucking around inside’. The baby had barely been delivered alive and Dr King had worked all night by the flickering light of a paraffin lamp, in a barn filled with sacks among which the rats roamed freely, their shadows cast in furry outlines on the wall. She had crouched on the floor on a piece of matting, which the cows had probably made free use of, and when she held out her hand for the knife to cut the umbilical cord, she had been handed a piece of broken glass. And when she was about to leave there had been a glass of sweet strong tea waiting, handed wordlessly to her by the same hand that had held out the bit of broken glass.