by K R Usha
There was another game that the boys had played as long as they could remember, going round the house in a procession, singing a ditty to the accompaniment of a beat played out on an old tin. It was an old song and an old game but once again they had to abandon it.
The Mission in these parts was so well entrenched and its activities so much a part of the fabric of the place that its presence was scarcely noticed. In the villages of the district, on the days of the weekly shandy, sometimes a band of roving missionaries would organize a small show with songs and speeches, which soon came to be considered part of the entertainment of the bazaar. They also played a ‘film’ on a rudimentary bioscope, the sort that showed a series of stills when cranked and which had a keyhole on one end, from which one person at a time could watch the show. The ‘film’ usually included scenes from the Nativity, pictures of Queen Victoria, of shepherds with flocks of sheep or saintly men tending to the sick. The bioscope was very popular in the villages with people queuing up for their turn at the keyhole. A small band with a drum and a harmonium struck up a tune now and then. There was one rhyme that was the most often sung as it sat well to the beat of the drum. It told of a rat being chased by a cat.
There was a rat
That was chased
By a cat—
Dammar-dammaro-dum-
To save the rat—(the lead would take up)
Did your Rama come?
Dammar-dammaro-dum?
No, he didn’t, no he didn’t—(the chorus would reply)
Did your Krishna come?
Dammar-dammaro-dum?
No, he didn’t, no he didn’t—
Did your Allah come?
Dammar-dammaro-dum?
No, he didn’t, no he didn’t—
Did our Yesu come?
Dammar-dammaro-dum?
Yes he did, of course he did—
He killed the cat
And saved the rat
Dammar-dammaro-dum!
It was the beat of the drum and the gusto of the rhythm that made it popular. Every schoolboy sang it, without thinking of the words, though once, on reflection, Kaveri and Setu had wondered why Yesu had to kill the cat. Surely, the god of the Methodists, more so of Miss Butler, would think of a way of saving the cat and the rat.
But now, almost a hundred years later, the ditty had sparked off a riot in the Thursday shandy in one of the villages and the reserve police had to be called in. It was a reflection of the mood of the time, of the uncertainty and the volatility around, but it did its damage.
The Mission had to do something to pour oil on troubled waters. Moreover, the one hundredth year anniversary of the Mission was approaching and they had to think of ways of smoothing ruffled official feathers, saving face with the people at large and re-establishing things on even keel. Mylaraiah, as legal counsel to the Mission, had long discussions with Reverend Spencer and the others on the Mission Council about the programme. Against his advice, Reverend Spencer agreed to be part of an elephant parade, which was expected subliminally to re-instill some of the awe and respect that the people had felt for the Mission and overwrite any memory of the riot.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Mylaraiah remarked to Rukmini, ‘he’s such a sensible man. And now he insists on going more native than the native. I just can’t convince him how silly he’d look. Imagines he is a prince going on a festive procession or on a royal hunt, I suppose!’
The elephant parade started off in chaos and ended in tragedy. The reverend’s howdah got entangled in the celebratory arch put up to welcome him, he fell off and got underfoot the elephant. Amidst the noise of the drums and the conches and the crowd it took some time to attract the mahout’s attention and ask him to stop. But by then it was too late. It was an accident, but the timing seemed to turn it into an act of fate, something pre-destined.
The reverend was buried in the local churchyard and there was a large turnout at the funeral. But they could not persuade Mrs Spencer to stay on. The Mission is over a hundred years old here, you are as much part of this place as I am, Rukmini told her. I have to think of my children, Mrs Spencer replied. As soon as the war was over, she would leave. Rukmini dared not ask Dr King what she had decided for she was sure Dr King would leave too. She had remarked on her last visit that her brother in Calcutta was pressing her to wind up her affairs and join him as soon as she could.
Mylaraiah and Rukmini sat on the verandah in the mornings now, their coffee growing cold on the window sill as they watched the convoy of supply trucks on the road. One morning, an army truck hit a calf from the house that had wandered on to the highway. The calf tottered to the side of the road and collapsed. The trucks were stopped and people gathered round the calf but the police came quickly and dispersed the crowd. The authorities did not like crowds of any sort for there was no telling what incendiary purpose people gathered for these days. No, it was the events outside that were getting to her, Rukmini thought, her exhaustion was a reflection of the spirit of the times.
Eighteen
1941
‘A boy is coming to see you,’ Rukmini told Kaveri and waited for her reaction.
Kaveri said, ‘I won’t walk in with the coffee and I will not get my nose pierced.’
See, she’s not averse to the idea, Mylaraiah said to his wife.
‘You just have to serve the coffee, not make it,’ Shivaswamy teased. ‘By the way, can you make coffee? No? Rukmini, have you taught her how to cook? What? Sixteen and can’t even make coffee!’
It was Shivaswamy who drew their attention to how ill Rukmini was looking. Her drawn face and her lack of appetite could no longer be attributed to her grief over her mother’s death. After all, it was six years since Bhagiratamma died. Nor was it just the summer traffic of guests that was tiring her out. Why was she sleeping during the day, she who wouldn’t even sit down in the afternoons, except to drink her tea on the verandah? Mylaraiah was too preoccupied with his work, he implied, this travelling to Bangalore almost every other day was too much. And Kaveri was no longer a child, she had to be made aware of her responsibilities. Immediately remorseful, Mylaraiah set up a meeting with Dr King and Rukmini replied calmly that Dr King knew about it and had been giving her medicines all along, which had helped at first but now seemed to have stopped working.
Kaveri sat on the swing in the courtyard, her hair flying behind her, lost to the world with Shivarama Karanth’s Marali Mallige, hot off the press, on her lap. Mylaraiah watched her with the fond indulgence of a father who knows he is soon going to lose his daughter in the most appropriate way possible—to gain a son-in-law. Setu watched her, noting the disorder of her hair and the careless toss of her sari, with the confusion of an adolescent who is just discovering the potency of the feminine ankle and hence disapproves of it. Rukmini watched her daughter mooning away, losing time. It is not enough, she tried to tell her, to know what you do not want, you must know what you want. Most people discover what they want after they have already burnt their boats. You must not spend life regretting turns you did not take. Apply your mind to it, Kaveri.
It would be so easy to resolve the question by applying one’s mind to it, thought Kaveri. What did she really want? Life to lap by like this, the sun in her hair and the wind in her face as she read in the afternoon, dreaming, giving to Shyam some of Rama Aithala’s sensitivity, Sir Percy Blakeny’s chivalry and the curl of David Copperfield’s hair? Shyam had taken her out of her soft, literary ambit; he had made her think. For the first time she had seen herself in the context of larger things, a world beyond her home and her town and her books, beyond her father’s circumscribing if comforting vision and her mother’s, full of foggy longings. The newspaper had become more than the warm thing that smelt freshly of newsprint; it had become a gateway to the world. And he would not stop with opening her eyes and her mind, he would goad her into action if she let him. Once you find a purpose you have to act upon it, he said. But at the same time, knowing Shyam seemed to foreclose all othe
r possibilities, the excitement and the adventure promised by the photographs and horoscopes of the hordes of unknown men who waited for her. That she could do without either had not occurred to her and even if it did, she would have dismissed the possibility; the solitary life was for the likes of Kalyani, those whom fate had crossed. If anything Kaveri was flattered that so many men should seek her hand as she leafed idly through the horoscopes and photographs that Shivaswamy had collected—anyway, nothing would happen till she had finished her Intermediate, her father had promised and she still had a full year.
Reprieve came from yet another quarter, most unexpectedly. The first few proposals turned out to be duds. The most promising on Shivaswamy’s list was the Bangalore Boy. A letter was sent off to the Bangalore Boy’s parents. But the day they were to come and ‘see’ Kaveri, there was a freak storm of such intensity that it blew the tiles off the cowshed. The Bangalore Boy’s people had to return halfway, and this was considered an inauspicious omen. They called the whole thing off and everybody, including Mylaraiah, was relieved. Another promising horoscope arrived, accompanied by a photograph, but it was summarily rejected by Kaveri as Setu pointed out that the boy had an ‘overhanging lip’.
The next time round, the whole household talked of nothing but the Bayer and Company Boy from Calcutta. Kaveri liked the black silk top hat that he wore in the photograph, just like she imagined Professor Higgins would in Pygmalion. Mylaraiah met him in his parents’ home in Shimoga and pronounced him a ‘smart young lad’. The boy’s parents came down to see Kaveri, and Rukmini, applying her yardstick of ‘judge the son by the mother’ was impressed by the mother who was the leading light of the Mahila Mandali in Shimoga. Such a family would put their daughter-in-law through college themselves. It was decided that they would make a formal proposal and exchange letters and Setu had even begun teasing his sister in ‘Bengali’. On the day the letter making the formal proposal had to be sent, Achamma announced that the nanda deepa, the lamp under which the letter had been kept, had gone out. It was inexplicable. The lamp had been burning in one corner of the puja room where not the slightest breeze could reach it. It could only mean that the lamp had snuffed itself out. That very day, by coincidence, Rukmini’s cousin’s telegram arrived from Jamshedpur saying, ‘Bayer Company Boy Immoral Drunkard’. Later, the cousin revealed in a leisurely letter that when he had paid the boy a surprise visit he had found him sitting in a dirty dhoti, surrounded by bottles.
‘Finished, Kaveri,’ Setu said. ‘The only person left for you to marry is Rama Aithala from Marali Mannige.’
Over the year, Shivaswamy continued to bring news of ‘boys’ but few got beyond the horoscope-matching stage. In that the final year of college, Kaveri took to dropping in at Shanta’s place after college, though it meant a detour from her normal route back home. I have to pick up a book, she’d tell the scowling Timrayee who was a most conscientious escort, or that she wanted a drink of water. Timrayee was scared of her sharp tongue; if not he’d have asked her why she didn’t go straight home then.
Shyam was often away from home, on ‘important work’, Shanta would tell her. Kaveri waited for him to return with news of Bombay. One afternoon Shanta had a photograph and a new song for Kaveri. The rage right then in Bombay was actress Shanta Apte. Kaveri looked at the straight-featured, heroic profile, such a contrast to the masked Hunterwali, Fearless Nadia. She sang her own songs, just like K.L. Saigal, and so popular was she that when she ventured one night, late, to take a walk on the beach, she was mobbed. Shyam had attended one of her concerts when he was last in Bombay. She had sung Malkauns—‘the same as our Hindola’, and he had bought a 48 rpm record of it. They would borrow their neighbour’s turntable to listen to it.
Shyam wished they could have seen Shanta Apte’s film, Duniya na Mane. In fact, he would like the whole Samaja to see it. It was about an orphan girl who was forced to marry an old man, with children as old as herself, but who refused to accept him as her husband, encouraged by none other than the old man’s daughter. Finally, he commited suicide and set her free.
‘I feel sorry for the old man,’ Kaveri said immediately.
‘Trust you to take the most contrary position. The story doesn’t interest you …’ Shyam said.
Kaveri smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Marriage with an old man was the last thing on her mind. With widowhood, she was slightly acquainted, as her mother would keep giving her bulletins about Kalyani from time to time.
‘There is a song the heroine sings in the film, in English, based on a poem … in this world’s broad field of battle … be not like dumb driven cattle … be a hero in the strife …’ he sang in a high, quavering voice.
The students who had gathered in the verandah suppressed their smiles as best as they could while Kaveri and Shanta laughed outright.
However, Shyam found out the name of the poet and Kaveri located Longfellow’s Psalm of Life in the ever-dependable Palgrave. ‘Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but empty dream!’ his next article urged, in which an account of the film and an exhortation to act sat cheek-by-jowl. There was a short interview with the actress as well in which she had said that she would never countenance such a situation in real life. Why, she had horsewhipped a man who had written some rubbish about her. In such shackled times, we need heroines like this, Shyam had written. As the poet had said, lives of great men (and women too) all remind us, we can make our lives sublime.
‘I like her puff-sleeve blouse,’ Kaveri said, looking at the photograph. ‘Shanta, do you think our Sayaji tailor can copy this style?’
You are not serious, Shyam said. The cut of Shanta Apte’s clothes was the least important thing about her. What one must see is that she is a true heroine.
His heroes and heroines were impossible, Kaveri pointed out, piqued. A real-life Hunterwali. And Hitler. How could he admire Hitler?
Because he was their man of destiny. He would deliver the country from the British. Subhash Bose’s broadcasts from Berlin, which he had listened to in Bombay, said it was any time now.
As usual, the conversation returned to the war. When he was at home, there would be groups of students gathered in the already-cramped verandah, waiting for the war broadcasts and to listen to what Shyam had to say about them. He was vehemently against the maharaja’s support for the war—‘the Imperial Mysore Lancers, more fodder for the Germans!’ and lamented the capitulation of the Congress—‘if at all we had joined the war, it should have been to support the enemy’s enemy’.
He would walk up and down on the small verandah, taking narrow turns, ruminating over the way the war would go. ‘Let’s see now,’ he’d declaim to the gathering of students who had started speaking knowledgeably about German submarines and U boats. ‘Let’s see how far blood and sweat and toil and tears will take them, let’s see how far they will hold out!’ when the German planes blitzed London. ‘This is the time. The iron is hot. If Gandhi makes up his mind, we can smash the British!’ he’d bang his fist on the table and send the coffee in the cups eddying dangerously. ‘And all he can think of is writing pathetic letters to Hitler. As if it would make a difference to the Fuehrer!’ Shyam’s latest article had included a sarcastic rejoinder to the letter, which had caused Mylaraiah to call him a ‘truly intemperate young man’ and to wonder aloud how much longer he’d stay out of trouble. C.G.K. Sir had better get ready for another round of penal fines.
Kaveri could not but notice the different reactions the same radio broadcasts produced in the two sitting rooms. The Radio Berlin bulletins, which Mylaraiah dismissed as ‘German propaganda!’, were greeted as the authentic picture of the war by Shyam and his boys’ club.
It needled Kaveri into echoing her father’s views, his admiration of British valour and heroism. ‘Britain will last it out, Hitler will not win the war.’
‘That’s wishful thinking.’
‘How can you admire a man who has so little sympathy for us?’
‘So you did read Mein
Kampf?’
‘No,’ she blushed slightly, ‘but my mother read out bits to me. I believe he says that the British will not give up their Indian empire.’
‘Unless they are forced to by the sword …’
‘… and that he would rather the British ruled India. He has little faith in Indian uprisings.’
‘Nothing will ever be given to us, we must seize whatever we want.’
‘My father says there is nothing more destructive than effort without direction. It will lead to anarchy …’
‘Better our own anarchy than a foreign order and discipline. We will learn from our mistakes. It is touching, the implicit faith our people have in the goodness of the British, and so little in themselves …’ he said it gently, his smile taking the sting out of his words, and knowing his opinion of her father she knew that his restraint had been for her sake.
‘I only hope,’ he added ‘that you use my arguments as provocatively with your father …’ He smiled and held her eyes and there was an unmistakable appeal in them, suggesting that in the competition between the two, he hoped he had the advantage, for if he had it in second-hand argument with her father, he could count on it in her affections as well.