Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma

by R. K. Narayan

  ‘That is a very clever interpretation,’ the old man said, and added a Sanskrit epigram to support the same idea.

  Srinivas found that his house consisted of a small hall, with two little rooms to serve for kitchen and store….

  ‘This is my best flat. I have refused it to a score of people. Such a clamour for it! Quite spacious, isn’t it?’ the old man asked, looking about. ‘How big is your family?’

  ‘We are three.’

  ‘Oh, you will be very comfortable, I’m sure. There was once a person who lived here with his eleven children.’

  He pointed out of the window. ‘You have a very fine view from here. See the plant outside?’ A half-withered citrus plant drooped in a yard-wide strip of garden outside. ‘You must see it when it is in bloom,’ he added, seeing that the plant didn’t make much of an impression on his prospective tenant. ‘You have a glorious view of the temple tower,’ he said, pointing far off, where the grey spire of Iswara temple rose above the huddling tenements, with its gold crest shining in the sun.

  ‘But – but,’ Srinivas fumbled. ‘What about water – a single tap?’

  ‘Oh, it is quite easy. Only a little adjustment. If you get up a little earlier than the rest. – All a matter of adjustment. Those others are savages –’

  On the very first day that he moved in with his trunk and roll of bedding a fellow tenant dropped in for a chat. He was a clerk in a bank, maintaining a family consisting of his father, mother and numerous little brothers and sisters, on a monthly income of about forty rupees. He paid a rent of two rupees for one room in which his entire family was cooped up. The children spent most of their time on the pyol of a house at the end of the street. Now, ever since Srinivas had come this man looked happy, as though Srinivas had settled there solely to provide him with a much-needed sitting-room. He spent most of his time sitting on Srinivas’s mat and watching him. He had been the very first tenant to befriend Srinivas. He said: ‘Do you know why the old devil agreed to give this to you for fifteen rupees?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because nobody would come here. It’s been unoccupied for two years now. A tenant who was here hanged himself in that room, a lonely bachelor. Nobody knows much about him. But one morning we found him swinging from the roof –’

  Srinivas felt disquieted by this information. ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘Some trouble or other, I suppose; a moody fellow, rather lonely. Every day the only question he used to ask was whether there were any letters for him. He died, the police took away his body, and we heard nothing further about it. One or two tenants who came after him cleared out rather abruptly, saying that his ghost was still here.’ Srinivas remained thoughtful. The other asked: ‘Why, are you afraid?’

  ‘Not afraid. I shall probably see it depart. And even if it stays on, I won’t mind. I don’t see much difference between a ghost and a living person. All of us are skin-covered ghosts, for that matter.’ Since his boyhood he had listened to dozens of ghost stories that their cook at home used to tell them. The cook dared Srinivas, once, to go and sleep under the tamarind tree in the school compound. He went there one evening, stayed till eight with a slightly palpitating heart, softly calling out to the ghost an appeal not to bother him in any way. ‘I think I shall be able to manage this ghost quite well,’ he said.

  ‘I think good people become good ghosts and bad fellows – I dread to contemplate what kind of ghost he will turn out to be when our general manager dies.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Edward Shilling – a huge fellow, made of beef and whisky. He keeps a bottle even in his office room. I am his personal clerk. God! What terror it strikes in me when the buzzer sounds. I fear some day he is going to strike me dead. He explodes “Damn”, “Damn” every few minutes. If there is the slightest mistake in taking dictation, he bangs the table, my heart flutters like a –’ He went on talking thus, and Srinivas learnt to leave him alone and go through his business uninterrupted. At first he sat listening sympathetically; but later found that this was unpractical. Though the man had numerous dependants, he had less to say about them than about his beefy master. His master seemed to possess his soul completely, so that the young man was incapable of thinking of anything else, night or day. He seemed to have grown emaciated and dazed through this spiritual oppression. Srinivas had learnt all that was to be learnt about him within the first two or three days of his talk with him. So, though he felt much sympathy for him, he felt it unnecessary to interrupt his normal occupation for the sake of hearing a variation of a single theme.

  He was setting up a new home and he had numerous things to do. He took the landlord’s advice and got up at five o’clock and bathed at the tap before the other tenants were up. He went out for a cup of coffee after that, while the town was still asleep. He discovered that in Market Road a hotel opened at that hour – a very tiny restaurant off the market fountain. It meant half a mile’s walk. He returned directly to his room after coffee. He prayed for a moment before a small image of Nataraja which his grandmother had given him when he was a boy. This was one of the possessions he had valued most for years. It seemed to be a refuge from the oppression of time. It was of sandalwood, which had deepened a darker shade with years, just four inches high. The carving represented Nataraja with one foot raised and one foot pressing down a demon, his four arms outstretched, with his hair flying, the eyes rapt in contemplation, an exquisitely poised figure. His grandmother had given it to him on his eighth birthday. She had got it from her father, who discovered it in a packet of saffron they had brought from the shop on a certain day. It had never left Srinivas since that birthday. It was on his own table at home, or in the hostel, wherever he might be. It had become a part of him, this little image. He often sat before it, contemplated its proportions, and addressed it thus: ‘Oh, God, you are trampling a demon under your foot, and you show us a rhythm, though you appear to be still. I grasp the symbol but vaguely. You hold a flare in your hand. May a ray of that light illumine my mind!’ He silently addressed it thus. It had been his first duty for decades now. He never started his day without spending a few minutes before this image.

  After this he took out his papers. He was about to usher his Banner into the world, and he had an immense amount of preparatory work to do. He had a thin exercise book and a copying pencil. He covered the pages of the exercise book with minute jottings connected with the journal. The problems connected with its birth seemed to be innumerable. He did not want to overlook even the slightest problem. He put down each problem with a number, and on an interleaf against it put down a possible solution. For instance, problem No. 20 in his notebook was: ‘Should the page be made up as three column with 8-point type or double column with 10-point? The latter will provide easier reading for the eye, but the former would be more true to its purpose, in that it will give more reading matter. Must consult the printer about it.’ He made the entry: ‘Problem 20: The answer has been unexpectedly simplified. The printer says he favours neither two columns nor three columns; in fact, he has no arrangement whatever for printing in columns. Nor has he anything but 12-point in English – a type that looks like the headings in a Government of India gazette. He insists upon saying that it is the best type in the whole country: no other press in the world has it. I fear that with this type and without the columns my paper is going to look like an auctioneer’s list. But that can’t be helped at this stage.’ On the day his printer delivered the first dummy copy, which had to go up before a magistrate, his heart sank. It was nowhere near what he had imagined. He had hoped that it would look like an auctioneer’s list, but now he found that it looked like a handbill of a wrestling tournament. One came across this kind of thing at week-ends, the thin transparent paper with the portraits of two muscular men on it, the print soaking through. It had always seemed to him the worst specimen of printing; but then the promoters of wrestling bouts could not be fastidious. But The Banner? He said timidly to his printer: ‘Don’t you think
we ought to –’

  The printer said with a smile: ‘No,’ even before he completed his sentence. ‘This is very good, you cannot get this finish in the whole of South India.’ He spoke so very persuasively that Srinivas himself began to feel that his own view might not be quite correct. The printer was a vociferous, effusive man. When he took a sheet from the press he handled it with such delicacy, carrying it on his palms, as if it were a new-born infant, saying: ‘See the finish?’ in such a tone that his customers were half hypnotized into agreeing with him. He never let anyone look through the curtain behind him. ‘I don’t like my staff to watch me talking to my customers,’ he often explained. He spoke of his staff with great pride and firmness, although Srinivas never got a precise idea of how many it included, nor what exactly lay beyond that printed curtain, on which was represented a purple lion attacking a spotted deer. Srinivas could only vaguely conjecture how many might be working there. All that he could hear was the sound of the treadle. Of even this he could not always be certain. Some days the printer appeared in khaki shorts, with grease spots on his hands, and explained: ‘The best dress for my type of work. I’m going on the machine today. You see, I solve the labour problem by not being a slave to my workmen. When it comes to a pinch, I can do every bit of work myself, including gumming and pasting –’

  His help was invaluable to Srinivas. He felt he was being more and more bound to him by ties of gratitude. The printer declared: ‘When a customer enters our premises he is, in our view, a guest of the Truth Printing Works. Well, you think, The Banner is yours. It isn’t. I view it as my own.’

  He acted up to this principle. In the weeks preceding the launching of The Banner he abandoned all his normal work: he set aside a co-operative society balance-sheet, four wedding invitations, and a small volume of verse, all of which were urgent, according to those who had ordered them. He dealt with all his customers amiably, but to no purpose. ‘You will get the proofs positively this evening, and tomorrow you may come for the finished copies. Sorry for the delay. My staff is somewhat overworked at the moment. They’ve instructions to give you the maximum co-operation.’ With all this suaveness he was not to be found in his place at the appointed hour. He threw a scarf around his throat, donned a fur cap, and was out on one or the other duties connected with The Banner. He arranged for the supply of paper, and he went round with Srinivas canvassing subscribers. The very first thing he did was to print a thousand handbills, setting forth the purpose and nature of The Banner. He had spent four nights and days devising the layout for it. Finally he decided upon a green paper and red lettering; when Srinivas saw it his heart sank within him. But the printer explained: ‘This is the best possible layout for it; it must catch people’s eye. I won’t bill you for it except some nominal charge for paper.’ He also printed a dozen tiny receipt books. He scattered the green-and-red notices widely all over the town, into every possible home; and then followed it up with a visit with the receipt book in hand. He worked out the annual subscription at about ten rupees, and managed to collect a thousand rupees even before the legal dummy was ready.

  Srinivas was convinced that he could never have got through the legal formalities but for his printer. He had always disliked courts and magistrates; and he was really fearful as to how he would get through it all. The dummy to be placed before the magistrate was ready. Srinivas implored him: ‘Please make another copy. Is this the paper we are going to use?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t like this paper! Norway bond – I’ve refused it to some of our oldest customers, you know – it is the strongest parchment in the market.’

  ‘But the ink comes through.’

  ‘Oh, we will check that. I have put a little extra ink on this because magistrates usually like the title to be very dark. They like to carry some printers’ ink on their thumbs, I suppose,’ he said. ‘You had better leave this magistrate business to me.’

  He walked into the hall of the court at Race-Course Road nonchalantly, adjusted his cap, stood before the court clerk, and handed up his application.

  ‘Can you swear that all your statements in this are true?’

  ‘Yes, I swear.’

  ‘You declare yourself the printer of The Banner?’

  ‘Yes, I’m the printer.’ The clerk scrutinized the paper once more. As he was standing there, the printer took out of his pocket a pod of fried groundnut, cracked its shell, and put the nut into his mouth. Srinivas was shocked. He feared he might be charged with contempt of court. The printer’s eye shone with satisfaction; he put his fingers into his pocket, took out another bit, and held it out for Srinivas under the table. Srinivas looked away, at which the printer cracked it gently and ate that also. All around there were people: lawyers sitting at a horseshoe table, poring over books and papers or wool-gathering; policemen in the doorway; prisoners waiting for a hearing at the dock. Srinivas felt that they were going to be thrown out – with that printer of his cracking nut-shells. They were standing immediately below the magistrate’s table. But the printer was deft and calm with his nuts, and it passed off unnoticed. The clerk fixed his gaze on Srinivas and asked: ‘Your name? You declare yourself the editor and publisher of The Banner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you speaking the whole truth?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ The clerk picked up the papers and handed them up to the magistrate, who seemed to be looking at nothing in particular. The magistrate’s lips moved, and the clerk asked: ‘Will you promise to avoid all sedition and libel?’

  The printer quickly answered: ‘On behalf of both of us, we promise.’ The magistrate’s lips moved again; the clerk asked: ‘Are you going to deal in politics?’

  Once again the printer answered swiftly: ‘No, it is a literary magazine.’ The magistrate slightly nodded his head and then the clerk pressed a couple of rubber stamps on the papers, and the magistrate signed on the dots indicated by him. It was over. The permission was secured.

  Before they crossed the court compound Srinivas protested: ‘Why did you say it was going to be literary? Far from it. I shall certainly not avoid politics; while I don’t set out to deal only in politics, I can’t bind myself –’

  ‘You go on with politics or revolution or whatever you like, but you can’t say so in a court; if you do, they may ask for deposits, and you will have all kinds of troubles and worries. You know, I have achieved an ambition in life: I’ve always wanted to crack nuts and eat them in a court – something to foil the terrible gloom of the place. I have done it today.’

  His brother’s letter reached him, addressed to the office. He had not written home ever since he came to Malgudi. His brother wrote:

  ‘I am very pleased to know your whereabouts through your paper, the first issue of which you have been good enough to send me. I have read the explanations you have given in your first editorial, but don’t you think that you have set yourself an all too ambitious task? Don’t you have to give some more reading for the four annas you are demanding? As it is, the magazine is over too quickly and we have to wait for a whole week again. And then, will you allow me this criticism? You are showing yourself to be a pugnacious fellow. Almost every line of your paper is an attack on something. You give a page for politics – and it is all abuse; you don’t seem to approve of any party or any leader. You give another page for local affairs, and it is nothing but abuse again. And then a column for cinema and arts – and even here you deal hard knocks. Current publications, the same thing what is the matter with you? Though different articles are appearing under different initials and pen-names, all of them seem to be written remarkably alike! However, be careful; that is all I wish to say. It wouldn’t at all do to get into libel suits with your very first effort.’

  Srinivas pondered over this letter, sitting in his office. He admired his brother for detecting the similarity in all the contributions: all of them were written by himself. Heaven knew what difficulties he went through, on one side, churning up the matter for the twelve pages, and on
the other keeping in check the printer, who threatened to overflow on to the editorial side. Not content with appointing himself the dictator in matters of format and business, he was trying to take a hand in the editorials also, but Srinivas dealt with him tactfully and nicely. He could not pass a copy downstairs without feeling like a schoolboy presenting a composition to his master. He waited with suspense as the printer scrutinized it before passing it on: ‘You wouldn’t like me to advise you here, I suppose?’

  ‘No,’ Srinivas said, meaning it but trying to make it sound humorous.

  ‘Well, all right. But you see, sir, that film was not produced at Bombay, but at a Calcutta studio.’

  ‘Oh! In that case –’ Srinivas hastily snatched it back and scrutinized it again. ‘Sorry for the blunder –’

  ‘It is quite all right – natural,’ replied the printer expansively, forgivingly, as if to suggest that anyone who was forced to write about so many things himself was bound to commit such foolish mistakes. Srinivas did not very much like the situation, but he had to accept it with resignation. It was true: he was putting his hand to too many departments. But there was no way of helping it. He could not afford to engage anyone to assist him. And his programme was more or less as follows: Monday, first page; Tuesday, second page; Wednesday, cinema and arts; Thursday, correspondence and main editorial; Friday, gleanings, comments and miscellaneous. This virtuous calendar was constantly getting upset, and all the items jammed into each other, and he found himself doing everything every day, and all things on Friday, the printer shouting from the bottom of the staircase for copy every five minutes. He flung the matter down the stairs as each page got ready, and the printer picked it up and ran in with it. Or if he had a doubt he shouted again from the bottom of the staircase. At four o’clock the last forme went down and then the major worries were over. The treadle was silenced at six, and peace descended suddenly on the community at Kabir Lane.