"I never said that," replied Gopalan, "but what I said is that I have made them over to other persons for a year."
"You want to bandy words with me, do you?" roared Panchu Menon, again rising and rushing on him. Gopalan thereupon took to his heels and ran into the courtyard, hotly pursued by the old man, who fell as he passed through the outer door of the yard and bruised his knees badly. Notwithstanding this, his rage was so great that when Sankara Menon raised him to his feet, he was bent on following up the chase, and Sankara Menon had to restrain him by force and pacify him as best he could.
"0 ye gods!" said Panchu Menon, "wonderful indeed are the times in which we live. Truly we are in the midst of a wicked age! See how my knees are bruised by my fall in running after that stupid fool of a boy! See all that has befallen me! After this I won’t give Kummini or her numskull children a pie, nor anything beyond the necessaries of life. Make them disgorge and account for everything at once, Sankaran. After this they shall have nothing but the plainest fare just like the menial servants."
Having thus expressed his feelings, Panchu Menon, who still fumed with anger, next decided to attack Madhavan’s father, and accordingly bent his way to Govinda Panikar’s house, when, encountering Sheenu Patter on the road, he stopped him with, "How now? What was it you said the day before yesterday when you were standing upstairs in my house?"
"I don’t remember," answered Sheenu Patter.
"Outcast that you are, don’t you remember?" retorted Panchu Menon.
"Why do you insult Brahmins like this for nothing?"
"Brahmin indeed! You’re no Brahmin," retorted Panchu Menon. "What was it you said?"
Sheenu Patter replied with some warmth, "It was when you told me to hang my son on the first gallows I came to, that I said that they don’t teach English on the gallows."
"Don’t you ever enter my house again," said Panchu Menon.
"With all my heart. I’ll never cross your threshold."
"And don’t you ever dare to enter our Brahmin mess house or temple," continued Panchu Menon.
"You have no power to forbid me; a Brahmin may go to any Brahmin mess house or temple."
"What? do you mean to say you will come into my mess house or temple without my leave? Just let me see you try."
"And what will you do?" asked Sheenu Patter. "If you try to prevent me, I’ll bring a suit against you."
"What is that you say, you outcast?" hissed Panchu Menon, going close up to the Patter. Then Sankara Menon, alarmed by the noise of this altercation, ran to the spot and, giving Sheenu Patter a hint to decamp as fast he could, tried to calm old man’s passion.
"Don’t let me ever see that Sheenu Patter here again," said Panchu Menon. "He talks of bringing a suit against me, does he, the miscreant, the villian, the sinner that he is! Why, the outcast was only a serving boy under my old uncle the Dewan, and I was a fool to raise him to a place in our family. He has only brought into being three or four worthless sons of he same stamp as himself, and it was all through them that I have just had occasion to quarrel with my nephew, my own boy Madhavan."
These words called forth the better feelings of his heart, and his voice was choked with sobs, until Sankara Menon observed, "Ah, Madhavan is not like them. He only spoke indiscreetly in a moment of vexation," and then the reference to Madhavan’s indiscretion again awakened Panchu Menon’s wrath.
"What an ass, what a miserable idiot you are!" he exclaimed, "Madhavan was indiscreet, was he? Very well, but let him look out for himself. I’ll be revenged on him for what he said to me. When he has suffered a little, he will come and throw himself at my feet. I don’t care a straw about his father’s wealth," and with these words Panchu Menon, thumping his stick on the ground, went on to Govinda Panikar’s house.
Sankara Menon, instead of following him, returned home because, being a man of some discernment, he felt assured that Govinda Panikar’s good sense and tact would prevent any chance of a quarrel.
Panchu Menon advanced with slow steps to the residence of Govinda Panikar, who conducted him to a chair with the greatest respect, and then seated himself. Panchu Menon opened the conversation by saying, "Well, well. see what a pretty pass Madhavan has come to ! You know all that has happened, I suppose."
"Madhavan seems to have forgotten himself a little in this matter," said Govinda Panikar. "In the first place youths are apt to have their heads turned by the study of English, and then perhaps his life in Madras while he was passing examinations is partly answerable for his indiscretion. I heard that he had defied you. I wholly disapproved of this, but I did not take him to task at all, because there would have been no use in doing so."
"If one does not take them to task, they go wrong altogether," replied Panchu Menon, " and if one does not pull them up sharp they become quite unmanageable."
"That is true, very true," replied Govinda Panikar. "There is no doubt of it, not the least doubt. If you abandon the young people to their own devices, they get completely out of hand."
"My dear Panikar," said Panchu Menon, "when I was the same age that Madhavan is now, I used to shake with fear when I entered my grand-uncle’s presence. Even if he asked me a question, I was afraid to answer and used to stand mute. I was as much afraid of meeting him as I would be of meeting a lion; and even now I feel nervous when I think of him."
"I will tell you a story of what happened to me once when he was alive. I was somewhat friendly with a Moplah lad named Kunhali Kutti, who lived in this neighbourhood. You never saw him, because he died long ago, but in those days he was about my own age. On one occasion, when he returned from some trading expedition he had made with his father, he brought me a pair of sandals as a present. I treasured them in secret, and when I went for a walk in the evening I used to start from Puvalli with them wrapped up in a cloth or something of the kind, and did not put them on until I had gone some distance from the house. Just in the same way I used to take them off when I was still some way from home and carry them back, tied up in a bundle so that no one might see them. One evening, as I was returning with my sandals wrapped up as usual in a cloth, I saw my granduncle standing in the upper verandah. By grand uncle, I mean my uncle, the late Dewan’s uncle and he was a fine old fellow if you like! Well, as soon as he saw me, he asked me what the bundle was that I had in my hand, but I was dumb with terror. So coming down into the court yard he grasped me tightly by the hand and told me to open the cloth. I did so, and when he saw the sandals he exclaimed, You rascal, you have got into the way of using sandals, have you?" and twisting his fingers in my hair dragged me up into the verandah and began to thrash me. Merciful heavens! I thought he was never going to stop. He cuffed and buffeted me with his hand at first, but this did not satisfy his rage, so going into the house he brought out a cane and set to work on me with that. Look here, this great scar on my leg is one of the marks that thrashing left on me. Of course I screamed and yelled, and as it happened to be the time when my uncle the Dewan was at home, he came running out of Puvarangu on hearing my cries, dragged my granduncle off me, and took me back with him to Puvarangu, where he had my cuts and bruises dressed. I lay there unable to rise from my bed for 15 or 20 days, and my sandals were burned to ashes by my uncle’s orders. Since then I have never worn sandals to this day, and even now if I see sandals anywhere, I get into a fright. But just look at the young people of the present day. Madhavan, if you please, always walks about in shoes, and I have actually seen him wear them inside the house. Why, even his granduncle the Dewan never did such a thing. If the present generation thinks such a lot of themselves and so little of their elders, what can we do? As far as having them taught English goes, it is a grave mistake and nothing else. See how much a better girl Indulekha would have been if she had not learned English. What is to be done? The evil stars bring on this train of evils. Those who don’t know English imitate the bad manners of those who do. That knave Gopalan, son of that outcast Sheenu, was abominably impudent to me just now at Puvarangu, and ge
tting angry, I wanted to give him a good beating, but I fell as I ran after him, and just see how my knees are bruised. Here is unmistakable proof of vicious age!"
"There is no doubt about it," replied Govinda Panikar. "The influence of this sinful age must be supreme, or such falls and bruises would be impossible. There is not the least doubt of it."
"I don’t know if you remember, my dear Govinda Panikar, how your patriarch - your uncle Narayana Panikar- what a fine old man he was ! -once gave you a sound thrashing, and how I came up and interceded for you. It was one day during the Onam festival when he saw you with some other boys playing prisoner’s base within the enclosure of the temple there, and he thrashed you from the enclosure up to this house. He went on thrashing you after he got here: he thrashed you most unmercifully. I heard your screams and begged you off, but did not join any more in the festivities and games that time. Do you remember?"
"It comes back to me like a dream, but I have not very distinct recollection of it."
"You were hardly fourteen years old at the time," said Panchu Menon. "But the reverence which we used to feel for our uncles in those days has completely disappeared in these degenerate times. Pride and conceit seem to take possession of the youngsters when they dabble in English, and they apparently think that we old people are ignorant dotards. We may, indeed, say that this is one of the effects of the depraved age. I lately found Indulekha reading an English book, and asked her what the story was. She gave me the purport of it in Malayalam, and I was dreadfully shocked."
"What was the story?" asked Govinda Panikar. "I don’t know it."
"I will tell you then," replied Panchu Menon. "She told me the story was only a made up thing; but all the same you should judge whether such books are not calculated to deprave young minds. I don’t remember the whole of the story, but it seems that some gentleman-I forget his name though she did tell me -had a daughter who had set her heart on marrying his nephew. But the gentleman in question was on bad terms with his nephew, and wouldn’t consent to the match. By some device or other he managed to induce his nephew to marry some other woman, and then surrounded his daughter with suitors whom he thought worthy of her, but she would not accept anyone of them, and stubbornly refused to many at all. At last she died of a broken heart, and then her father died through grief for her death. This is the plot of the story, and just consider the consequences, my dear Panikar, if girls are allowed to read such trash."
"It is a great shame that they should read it, a very great shame," said Govinda Panikar, "but what remedy is there? It is quite impossible to destroy their knowledge of English when they have once acquired it. When was it Indulekha told you this story ?"
"Only a few days ago," said Panchu Menon.
"Indeed! But what necessity is there for young people to read such things at all? Can’t they read stories from the Ramayana or Mahabharata ?"
"That is just what I say. There is plenty of our classic literature at Puvalli, but no one ever thinks of looking at it. The palm leaves on which it is written, are going to pieces, and I asked Madhavan to dust them and put them in order the other day, but he never did it."
"Why shouldn’t you get Indulekha to put them in order?"
"She too despises works written on palm leaves," replied Panchu Menon. "None of these young people will look at any works which are not written on paper. I can only set this down to the affectation of the wicked age."
"It is nothing else but the affectation of the wicked age," replied Govinda Panikar, "I can think of no other reason."
"But my fear is that these young people from constantly reading English will embrace Christianity," said Panchu Menon.
"I quite share in your fears on this point. And if these wicked youngsters go and embrace Christianity, what are we to do? As the Sovereign power is English, I fear no one will listen to our complaints on this score."
"You are right, quite right, my dear Govinda Panikar. What you say is full of good sense. But we must do our duty as best we can, and then whatever happens must happen. You ought to rate Madhavan soundly for quarrelling here as he did lately."
"I have determined to reprove him severely," replied Govinda Panikar. "You will see when he comes back from Madras."
"Yes, when he comes back, scold him well; you must scold him yourself, my dear Panikar.’
"I will scold him myself, don’t doubt it," replied Govinda Panikar.
"If you and I are both angry with him, he will soon submit" said Panchu Menon. "Don’t let him defy me like this any more. He must have thought that you would support him, but when he sees his mistake, he will be very humble."
"No doubt of it," said Govinda Panikar. "He will be very humble."
"There is another idea in my head which I must tell you, my dear Panikar, -I have such a high opinion of your good sense and judgment. Now you know that Madhavan wants to marry Indulekha, and it seems as if Indulekha is inclined to accept him. But in the first place they are not well matched in point of age, and it is not proper that, Madhavan should marry in his present circumstances. It would be far better for Indulekha to marry some one of wealth and position, and I have resolved to give her to a very great man. He is coming here almost immediately, and perhaps he will have some trouble in getting the girl to consent. You know she is as obstinate as she can be, and so I want your help in the matter, my dear Panikar. What do you say?"
"Oh, certainly," replied Govinda Panikar. "But I don’t know the name of this great man who is coming."
"He is Murkillatha Manakkal Nambudiripad. He is rolling in money, and possesses ever so much influence and dignity."
"By all means then let him come."
"Sheenu Patter boasted that he would supply money for Shinnan’s expenses," said Panchu Menon, suddenly changing the subject. "How on earth will he get any money? I won’t give him a single pie and I mean to deprive Kummini and her sons of all the property they hold. Then let us see how they will get Shinnan educated."
"Just so," answered Govinda Panikar. "Let us see."
"Of course you won’t help them by giving anything," enquired Panchu Menon.
"I?" said Govinda Panikar, "why should I give anything ?’’
"That’s exactly what I say," exclaimed Panchu Menon, and with these words he returned peaceably and amicably to his own house, while the result of his visit was that he had disclosed to Govinda Panikar his most secret designs.
In this course of two or three days his anger subsided in some degree, but nevertheless his wish to hurry on the union with the Nambudiripad grew into a conviction that it would be the best arrangement possible.
Chapter 6
Five or six evenings after Madhavan had gone to Madras, Panchu Menon was seated at supper in the southern hall of his house, and Kesavan Nambudiri, who had come to the house after finishing his own meal, was about to retire as usual, when Panchu Menon invited him to a seat. Kesavan Nambudiri accordingly sat down on the bench beside him, and Panchu Menon said, "Haven’t you sent any messenger yet? How is it we have had no answer?"
"It was only the other day we sent our messenger," replied Kesavan Nambudiri, " and he came back saying that the Nambudiripad was absent, but was expected home in four or five days. I sent a man early this morning with another letter, and if the Nambudiripad is at his house, I think he will be here to-morrow."
Panchu Menon immediately sent for Lakshmi Kutty Amma and asked if she had told lndulekha the news.
"What news?" said Lakshmi Kutty.
"Just listen to the impudence of this woman!" cried Panchu Menon. "Of course, you don’t know what the news is, don’t you! Why can’t you speak the truth, you minx ? You ought to have your head cut off. I should like to kick all these wretches out of the place,"
"What are you talking about, father?" said Lakshmi Kutty. "No one has told me anything. Why do you fly into a rage with me for nothing?"
"It is quite true," interposed Kesavan Nambudiri, "Lakshmi Kutty knows nothing of the affair, I have not said a
nything to her. You told me the other day to keep it a secret, and so I haven’t told any one."
"In that case it’s all right. I thought you had probably told her," said Panchu Menon and turning to Lakshmi Kutty he added, "That’s why I was angry with you, my dear. Never mind, and tell me what you think. I have determined to bring about a match between the Murkillatha Nambudiripad and Indulekha. Do you think Indulekha will consent?"
"How can I possibly say whether Indulekha will consent or not?’ said Lakshmi Kutty.
"That’s not what I mean, you jade", said Panchu Menon "Your reverence, just listen to her impudence."
"Why can’t you ask Indulekha herself; that would be the best way", said Kesavan Nambudiri.
"Your reverence is a fool," retorted Panchu Menon. "Pray who is to ask Indulekha? Probably if Lakshmi Kutty asked her, she would give a decisive answer. Lakshmi Kutty! Have you ever heard of this Nambudiripad?"
"No," replied Lakshmi Kutty.
"Your reverence, please give Lakshmi Kutty all information about him," said Panchu Menon.
"Very good" said Kesavan Nambudiri, and Panchu Menon, having finished his supper, rose and washed his hands. Just then a servant came to the door of the apartment and said he had a letter for Kesavan Nambudiri, who, jumping up hastily, took the letter near the lamp and read it. Panchu Menon said "Is that the answer?"
"Yes, Yes," replied Kesavan Nambudiri.
"Then read it aloud, but don’t raise your voice," said Panchu Menon.
Kesavan Nambudiri accordingly read the Nambudiripad’s letter, which ran as follows:
‘I was very glad to receive your letter. I shall arrive in time for my bath and Cherusheri also will come with me. I have heard from Podayaprom and others better and more detailed accounts than you give me and am very impatient for an interview. The rest when we meet.’
"Ah," exclaimed Panchu Menon. "Indulekha can’t have gone to sleep yet. Please come with me, your reverence, and we will go to her room; we must tell her something of this business and see how she takes it. Then we can find out her intentions."
Indulekha Page 8