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

by R. K. Narayan

  His clients were somewhat surprised to see him in his new dress. He didn’t squat under the tree, but remained standing.

  ‘Why are you standing, Margayya?’

  ‘Because I am not sitting,’ Margayya replied.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I like to stand – that’s all,’ he replied.

  He handed a filled-up application to someone and said: ‘Give it in there, and come away.’ He told another: ‘Well, you will get your money today. Give me back my advance.’ He carried on his business without sitting down. One of the men looked up and down and asked: ‘Going to a marriage party?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Margayya. ‘Every day is a day of marriage for me. Do you think I like a change of wife each day?’ He cracked his usual jokes. He placed his paper on the ledge of a wall and wrote. He had brought with him, hidden in his pocket, the little ink-bottle wrapped in paper, and his pen. As he bowed his head and wrote he muttered: ‘I just want to help people to get over their money troubles. I do it as a sort of service, but let no one imagine I have no better business.’

  ‘What else do you do, sir?’ asked a very innocent man.

  ‘Well, I have to do the same service for myself too, you see. I have to do something to earn money.’

  ‘You get interest on all the amounts you give us.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but that’s hardly enough to pay for my snuff,’ he said grandly, taking out a small box and inhaling a pinch. It sent a stinging sensation up his nostrils into his brain, and he felt his forehead throbbing with excitement. It made him feel so energetic that he felt like thumping a table and arguing. He said aggressively: ‘I want to do so much for you fellows, do you know why?’ They shook their heads bewildered. ‘Not because of the petty interest you give me – that’s nothing for me. It is because I want you all to get over your money worries and improve your lives. You must all adopt civilized ways. That’s why I am trying to help you to get money from that bastard office.’ He pointed at the Co-operative Bank. They all turned and looked at it. Ami Doss was seen approaching. ‘He is coming,’ they all said in one voice. Arul Doss approached them somewhat diffidently. His gait was halting and slow. He stopped quite far away, and pretended to look for a carriage or something on the road. Margayya thrust himself forward and watched him aggressively. Arul Doss stole a glance now and then at Margayya. Margayya felt annoyed. The sting of the snuff was still fresh. He cried out: ‘Arul Doss, what are you looking for? If it is for me, come along, because I am here.’ Arul Doss seemed happy to seize this opportunity to approach. Margayya said: ‘Mark my words, this is god-given shade under the tree; if you or your secretary is up to any mischief, I will make you feel sorry for your –’ The villagers were overawed by Margayya’s manner of handling Arul Doss. Arul Doss had no doubt come spying but now he felt uncomfortable at Margayya’s sallies. If Margayya had been squatting under the tree with his box, he might have had a tale to bear, but now he saw nothing wrong. He had only one worry – that of being called an earth-worm again before so many people. He tried to turn and go, saying, ‘I just came to see if the Secretary’s car had come.’

  ‘Has your secretary a car?’ Margayya asked patronizingly.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed that big red one?’

  Margayya snapped his fingers and said: ‘As if I had no better things to observe. Tell your secretary –’ He checked himself, not being sure what his tongue might utter. ‘Arul Doss, if you are in need of an old dhoti or shirt, go and ask my wife. She will give it to you.’ Arul Doss’s face beamed with happiness.

  ‘Oh, surely, surely,’ he said. He approached nearer to Margayya and whispered. Margayya raised his hand to his face and put his head back. The other’s breath smelt of onion. Margayya asked: ‘Do you nibble raw onion in the morning?’ Arul Doss ignored the question and whispered: ‘You must not think that I myself tried to bother you yesterday. It’s all that fellow’s orders.’ He pointed towards his office. ‘He is a vicious creature! You won’t think that I … You can carry on here as you like, sir. Don’t worry about anything.’ He turned and abruptly walked back. Margayya looked after him and commented to his circle: ‘That’s the worst blackguard under the sun – both of them are. This fellow carries tales to him and then he comes and behaves like a great governor here. What do I care? If a man thinks that he is governor let him show off at home, not here, for I don’t care for governors.’

  As he went through the town that day he was obsessed with thoughts of money. His mind rang with the words he had said to the villagers: ‘I’m only trying to help you to get out of your money worries.’ He began to believe it himself. He viewed himself as a saviour of mankind. ‘If I hadn’t secured three hundred rupees for – – –, he would be rotting in the street at this moment. So and so married off his daughter, educated his son, retained his house.’

  His mind began to catalogue all the good things money had done as far as he could remember. He shuddered to think how people could ever do without it. If money was absent men came near being beasts. He saw at the Market Fountain a white sheet covering some object stretched on the pavement. It was about six in the evening, and the street was lit up with a blaze of sunlight from the west. Pedestrians, donkeys and jutkas were transformed with the gold of the setting sun. Margayya stood dazzled by the sight. A ragged fellow with matted hair thrust before him a mud tray and said, pointing at the sheet-covered object on the ground, ‘An orphan’s body, sir. Have pity, help us to bury him.’ Margayya threw a look at the covered body, shuddered and parted with a copper, as so many others had done. There was a good collection on the tray. Margayya averted his face and tried to pass quickly. Farther on yet another man came up with a mud tray whining: ‘Orphan body –’

  ‘Get off, already given,’ said Margayya sternly, and passed on. There was money on this tray too. Margayya was filled with disgust. He knew what it meant. A group of people seized upon an unclaimed dead body, undertook to give it a burial and collected a lot of money for it. He knew that they celebrated it as a festive occasion. When they saw a destitute dying on the roadside they cried to themselves: ‘Aha! A fine day ahead.’ They left their occupations, seized the body, carried it to a public place, put it down on the pavement, placed a few flowers on it, bought a few mud trays from the potter, and assailed the passers-by. They collected enough money at the end of the day to give a gorgeous funeral to the body. They even haggled with the grave-digger and were left with so much money at the end of it all that they drank and made merry for three or four days and gave up temporarily their normal jobs, such as scavenging, load-carrying, and stone-quarrying. It made Margayya reflective. People did anything for money. Money was men’s greatest need, like air or food. People went to horrifying lengths for its sake, like collecting rent on a dead body: yet this didn’t strike Margayya in his present mood as so horrible as something to be marvelled at. It left him admiring the power and dynamism of money, its capacity to make people do strange deeds. He saw a toddy tapper going a hundred feet up a coconut tree and he reflected: ‘Morning to night he wears a loin-cloth and goes up tree after tree for fifty years or more just for the eight annas he gets per tree.’ He saw offices and shops opened and people sweating and fatiguing themselves, all for money. Margayya concluded that they wanted money because they wanted fellows like the Secretary of the Cooperative Bank to bow to them, or to have a fellow like Arul Doss speak to them with courtesy, or so that they might wear unpatched dhotis and be treated seriously. Margayya sat down for a moment on a park bench. The Municipality had made a very tiny park at the angle where the Market Road branched off to Lawley Extension. They had put up a cement bench and grown a clump of strong ferns, fencing them off with a railing. He passed through the stile and sat down on the bench. Cars were being driven towards Lawley Extension. Huge cars. He watched them greedily. ‘Must have a car as soon as possible,’ he said to himself. ‘Nothing is impossible in this world.’ A cool breeze was blowing. The sun had set. Lights were lit up here and ther
e. ‘If I have money, I need not dodge that spectacle dealer. I need not cringe before that stores man. I could give those medicines to my wife. The doctor would look at her with more interest, and she might look like other women. That son of mine, that Balu – I could give him everything.’ His mind gloated over visions of his son. He would grow into an aristocrat. He would study, not in a Corporation School, but in the convent, and hobnob with the sons of the District Collector or the Superintendent of Police or Mangal Seth, the biggest mill-owner in the town. He would promise him a car all for himself when he came to the College. He could go to America and obtain degrees, and then marry perhaps a judge’s daughter. His own wife might demand all the dowry she wanted. He would not interfere, leaving it for the women to manage as they liked. He would buy another bungalow in Lawley Road for his son, and then his vision went on to the next generation of aristocrats.

  At this moment he saw a man coming from Lawley Extension: a cadaverous man, burnt by the sun, wrapped in a long piece of white cloth, his forehead painted with red marks and his head clean shaved, with a tuft of hair on top. A tall, gaunt man, he was the priest of the temple in their street. An idea struck Margayya at the sight of him. He was a wise man, well versed in ancient studies, and he might be able to give advice. Margayya clapped his hands till the gaunt man turned and advanced towards him.

  ‘Ah! Margayya! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just came for a little fresh air. The air is so cool here, unlike our Vinayak Street.’

  ‘Oh, these are all aristocratic parts, with gardens, and fresh air. Our Vinayak Mudali Street! It’s like an oven in summer.’

  ‘And what a lot of mosquitoes!’ Margayya added.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep the whole night,’ the priest said.

  ‘Why should they make such a row in our ears? Let them suck the blood if they want, but it’s their humming that is so unwelcome,’ said Margayya.

  They spoke of weather and mosquitoes and fresh air and the diseases prevalent in the town for about half an hour. The priest lived in a sort of timelessness and seemed to be in no hurry. The stars were shining in the sky. Margayya asked: ‘How was it you were coming this way?’

  ‘I had gone to perform a Pooja in a house in Lawley Extension. You know that Municipal Chairman’s house: they are very particular that I alone should perform these things. They won’t tolerate anyone else. So every evening I do it there and then rush back to our temple, where the devotees will be waiting. A man can’t be in two places at the same time.’

  ‘Truly said. I will walk back with you to the temple, if you are going there.’

  ‘I have to go to another place on the way and then on to the temple. Just a minute’s delay there, that’s all. Do come with me. There’s nothing so good as company on the road. I’ve to walk miles and miles from morning to night.’

  They walked back towards the Market Road. The priest led him into some unnamed lanes behind the Market. He stopped in front of a house and said: ‘If you will wait here, I will be back in a moment.’ He went in. Margayya sat up on the pyol. There was a gutter below him. ‘This is worse than our Vinayak Street,’ Margayya reflected. The place was occupied by a class of hand-loom weavers. All along the lane they had set up weaving frames with yarns dyed in blue and hung out to dry on frames. Somebody came out of the house and said to Margayya: ‘Won’t you come in?’ Margayya felt pleased at this attention and followed him in. There was a very small front hall in the house piled up with weaving frames, stacks of woven saris in different colours, and several rolls of bedding belonging to the members of the household. At one corner they had put up a small wooden pedestal on which a couple of figures of Gods and one or two framed pictures were hanging. An incense stick was burning. His friend the priest sat up before the pedestal, with his eyes shut, muttering something. The master of the house with his wife and children stood devoutly at a distance. There were four children. One or the other of them was being constantly told: ‘Don’t bite your nails before God.’ And they were so much overwhelmed by the general atmosphere that they constantly put their finger tips to their lips and withdrew them quickly as if they had touched a frying-pan. Margayya was very much impressed with their seriousness, and wondered at the same time what his Balu would have done under these circumstances. ‘He’d have insisted upon doing what he pleased – and not only bitten his own nails but other people’s as well. He would have upset all this holy water and camphor flame,’ Margayya reflected, with gratification. It seemed to him a most enchanting self-assertiveness on the part of his child. It gave him a touch of superiority to all these children, who wouldn’t bite their nails when ordered not to. He felt a desire to go home and spoil his son. ‘I left so early in the day,’ he reflected. He suddenly asked himself, ‘Why am I knocking around with this priest instead of going home?’ An old lady, probably the grandmother of the house, sat before the God with a small child on her lap. Only the child’s eyes were visible, gleaming in the sacred lamps. It was entirely wrapped in a blanket. Margayya guessed that it must be very sick. They were all fussing over it. ‘How old is that child?’ Margayya wondered, unable to get a full glimpse of it. Somehow this worried him. ‘If Balu were in his position would he have consented to be chained up like this? Some children are too dull –’

  It was nearly nine o’clock when they came out. Margayya followed the priest mutely through the streets. The town had almost gone to sleep. The streets were silent.

  ‘It’s so late!’ he murmured.

  ‘What is late?’ asked the priest.

  ‘We are so late.’

  ‘Late for what?’

  Margayya fumbled for a reply. He said clumsily: ‘You said you’d be kept there only for a short time. I thought you would be kept only a short time – that’s why –’

  ‘In holy business can we be glancing at a wristwatch all the time? That child has been crippled with a dreadful disease from childhood. It is now much better. It is some wasting disease –’

  ‘Do you perform Poojas for his sake?’

  ‘Yes, every Friday. It is the Pooja that enabled young Markandeya to win over Yama, the God of Death.’

  ‘Oh!’ Margayya exclaimed, interested but not willing to show his ignorance.

  ‘Every child knows that story.’

  ‘Yes, of course, of course,’ Margayya said non-committally. He felt he ought to say something more and added: ‘Those people,’ indicating over his shoulder a vast throng of wise ancestors, ‘those people knew what was good for us.’

  ‘Not the people you mean, but those who were there even before them,’ corrected the priest in a debating spirit.

  ‘All right,’ Margayya agreed meekly.

  The priest asked him further on: ‘What do you gather from the story of Markandeya?’

  Margayya blinked, and felt like a schoolboy. He said ceremoniously: ‘How can I say? It’s for a learned person like you to enlighten us on these matters.’

  ‘All right. What was Markandeya?’ asked the man persistently.

  Margayya began to feel desperate. He feared that the other might not rest till he had exposed his ignorance. He felt he ought to put a stop to it at once, and said: ‘It’s a long time since I heard that story. My grandmother used to tell it. I should like to hear it again.’

  ‘Ask then. If you don’t know a thing, there is no shame in asking and learning about it,’ moralized the priest. He then narrated the story of Markandeya, the boy devotee of God Shiva, destined to die the moment he completed his sixteenth year. When the moment came, the emissaries of Yama (the God of Death) arrived in order to bind and carry off his life, but he was performing the Pooja – and the dark emissaries could not approach him at all! Markandeya remained sixteen to all eternity, and thus defeated death. ‘That particular Pooja had that efficacy – and it’s that very Pooja I am performing on behalf of the child, who is much better for it.’

  ‘Will the child live?’ asked Margayya, his interest completely roused.

  �
�How can I say? It’s our duty to perform a Pooja; the result cannot be our concern. It’s Karma.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Margayya, somewhat baffled.

  They now reached the little temple at the end of Vinayak Mudali Street. There under a cracked dome was an inner shrine containing an image of Hanuman, the God of Power, the son of Wind. According to tradition this God had pressed one foot on the very spot where the shrine now stood, sprang across space and ocean and landed in Lanka (Ceylon), there to destroy Ravana, a king with ten heads and twenty hands, who was oppressing mankind and had abducted Rama’s wife Sita.

  The priest was part and parcel of the temple. There was a small wooden shack within its narrow corridors, where he ate his food and slept. He looked after the shrine, polished and oiled the tall bronze lamps and worshipped here.

  Margayya hesitated at the entrance. It seemed already very late. ‘I’ll go now,’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you come in and see the God, having come so far?’ asked the priest. Margayya hesitated. He was afraid to ignore the priest’s suggestion. He feared that that might displease God. As he hesitated, the priest drove home the point: ‘You stopped me there at the park to say something. You have been with me ever since and you have not spoken anything about it.’ Margayya felt caught. He found himself behaving more and more like a schoolboy. He remembered his old teacher, back there in his village, an old man with a white rim around his black pupils that gave him the look of a cat peering in the dark, whose hands shook when he gripped the cane, but who nevertheless put it to sound use, especially on Margayya’s back, particularly when he behaved as he behaved now, blinking when he ought to be opening his lips and letting the words out. Later in life Margayya remedied it by not allowing any pause in his speech, but the disease recurred now and then. This was such a moment. He wanted to talk to the priest and seek his advice, but he felt reluctant to utter the first word. As he stood there at the portals of the temple he feared for a second the old whacking from a cane. But the priest only said: ‘Come in.’