The English Teacher

by R. K. Narayan

  It was nearing six. I looked over the wall of our next house, and saw my child playing with half a dozen children. I asked: ‘Come on, child, are you coming out with us for a walk?’ She hesitated. Her friend suggested: ‘Let us play here. Let father go out and return.’ She accepted the advice and said: ‘I am not coming, father, you may go.’

  I and the headmaster walked down to the river-bank, sat on the sand, and watched the sunset. He told me: ‘Some twenty years ago when I passed my B.A. at the university, they wanted me to take law; and then wanted to rush me into an office chair, but I resisted. I loved children and wanted to start the school. How can anyone prevent me from doing what I want? I had been hustled into a marriage which did not interest me, and I was not going to be hustled into a profession I did not care for.

  ‘I was the only son of my father, but he said such bitter things that I left home. We had a fine house in Lawley Extension, you wouldn’t believe it. I was brought up there, it is the memory of those days which is rankling in my wife’s heart and has made her so bad and mad. I walked out over the question of employment; and went back home only on the day he died. And then my wife thought I would occupy that house after his death, but not I. I don’t know what he has done with it. He had married a second time after my mother died and I think she and her children or his brothers must be fighting for it. I don’t want that house, I have no use for it, I don’t want any of his money either. But my wife expects me to be fighting for these rights. I can’t enjoy these rights even if I get them, and I think it is a waste of one’s precious hours of living to be engaged in a contest.’

  ‘But your wife and children could be in better circumstances …’

  ‘You think so? No chance of it, my friend. She will create just those surroundings for herself even in a palace.’

  ‘But you have not put her in a very happy locality …’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I chose it deliberately. It is where God resides. It is where we should live. And if we have any worth in us the place will change through our presence. But my wife does not believe in anything like it. She thinks my school a fool’s idea; won’t send the children there. I did my best. But it is no use. She has a right to send them where she likes. I think she sends them to the gutter and pigsty: you saw what they are like. She is an impossible type. But my only hope is that there may be a miraculous transformation some day and that she may change. We should not despair for even the worst on earth.’

  ‘Till then don’t you think you should concede to her wishes and move to a better place?’

  ‘No. First because it is a duty for me, and secondly because she will carry the same surroundings wherever she goes. You see, the trouble is not external.’

  The river flowed on against the night. I listened to him; he appeared to me a man who had strayed into a wrong world.

  ‘How did you get this idea of a school for children?’ I asked.

  ‘The memory of my own young days. Most of us forget that grand period. But with me it has always been there. A time at which the colours of things are different, their depths greater, their magnitude greater, a most balanced and joyous condition of life; there was a natural state of joy over nothing in particular. And then our own schooling which put blinkers on to us; which persistently ruined this vision of things and made us into adults. It has always seemed to me that our teachers helped us to take a wrong turn. And I have always felt that for the future of mankind we should retain the original vision, and I’m trying a system of children’s education. Just leave them alone and they will be all right. The Leave Alone System, which will make them wholesome human beings, and also help us, those who work along with them, to work off the curse of adulthood.’ He was seized with a fit of coughing. He recovered from it, paused, and said: ‘I will tell you a secret now. I strictly want to live according to my own plan of living and not subordinate it for anybody’s sake, because the time at my disposal is very short. I know exactly when I am going to die. An astrologer, who has noted down every minute detail of my life, has fixed that for me. I know the exact hour when I shall be … that lady will have the surprise of her life,’ he said and chuckled. ‘That’s why I’m so patient with her.’

  We walked back home. I invited him in: ‘No, no, not fair. But be assured I shall make myself completely at home whenever I like. I hope you won’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘Treat this as your own home.’

  ‘Good Lord! No. Let it always be your home,’ he said with a smile and bade me good-night.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I missed my friend’s sittings continuously for three or four weeks. He was ill for a few days, and then he had some work or other on hand, and then guests, all of which prevented his giving me a sitting. I went there and turned back with a feeling of disappointment, and on the fourth Wednesday I went there hoping again. There was only a garden servant to answer me. My friend had left a note behind: ‘Awfully sorry. Have had to start for Trichinopoly on some urgent business, at an hour’s notice. Can’t say when I shall be returning, but I will write to you.’ He had gone with his entire family. I asked: ‘May I go and rest a while near the pond?’ The servant gave me permission. I sat there on the pyol of the shrine as the evening declined. The still surface of the pond, the lotus, the evening breeze, all had a reviving effect, but the sense of disappointment was very keen within me. I shut my eyes and visualized the form of my wife. The casuarina murmured. I said aloud: ‘Are you all here, can’t you devise some means of communicating with me, O great spirits?’ I felt ridiculous talking to myself thus. My words fell on a deep silence and died without a response – the faintest would have made me happy, but it was not there. I repeated my appeal in a low tone and felt ashamed of myself for appearing to be talking to myself. For the first time in months, I felt desolate. The awful irresponsiveness of Death overwhelmed me again. It unnerved me. All the old moods returned now. It looked as though they had been in bondage all these days and were now suddenly unleashed. I was overwhelmed.

  I went home and slept badly that night. I kept asking myself: ‘I have been clinging to the veriest straw, thinking that I was on land. Now the straw has snapped and I know my position. I can only drown. I’m drowned, and did not know it all these days. I was clinging to a grass blade at the brink of a well.’ I went about my business next day with a heavy heart. As soon as she saw me in the morning my daughter was seized with a doubt and asked: ‘Father, you are angry!’ ‘No, no,’ I said, and with a great effort of will played with her and saw her off to school. I hated my food, I hated my work, I loathed my friends. That day I continuously lost my temper with the boys. A student in the B.A. class rose in his seat to have a doubt cleared. He was a first-class student, always serious and well-behaved: but I snapped: ‘Will you sit down? I can’t stand all these interruptions …’

  ‘But, sir …’

  ‘That’ll do. Because you obtain more marks than your neighbours, you needn’t …’ He looked crushed, and sat down. I could never forget the expression on his face, nor forgive myself for it. At the end of the period I called him aside and said: ‘Well, what did you want?’

  He at once mentioned his difficulty. I cleared it and added: ‘Don’t worry so much about these things – they are trash, we are obliged to go through and pretend that we like them, but all the time the problem of living and dying is crushing us …’ ‘Yes, sir, but for the examination …’ he added. And I said: ‘I’m sorry, my dear fellow, if I have been rude to you. A lot of things are weighing on my mind …’ ‘I understand, sir,’ he said and went away. I showed less tolerance to Gajapathy. At the quadrangle when we passed each other at the end of a day he said: ‘Krishnan, I must have a word with you.’ I stopped without a word and waited for him to speak. He said: ‘Can I speak to you now?’ I said sharply: ‘Yes, why not now?’ ‘Here?’ he asked. ‘Yes, what’s wrong with here?’ ‘You seem to be upset over something.’ ‘Nothing. All is perfect in th
e world. I’m all attention.’ He took me to his room, seated me in a chair and said: ‘First, I want to tell you that Brown feels we have been neglecting the history of literature. He saw the test papers of the fourth year and is disappointed. He thinks the boys will ruin themselves in the public exam.’

  ‘Well, what are we to do?’

  ‘He wants you to take a special period for them in the history of literature.’

  ‘Why do they make so much of the history of literature? They have to make a history of every damned thing on earth – as if literature could not survive without some fool compiling a bogus history. If he won’t mind my saying this to the boys, I will accept the special classes …’

  ‘Don’t be frivolous,’ Gajapathy said. ‘Your college habits have not left you yet …’

  ‘Far from it. I see more clearly now between fatuities and serious work.’

  He had grown more tolerant with me these days. He waited for me to finish my lecture and gave me his own advice and orders. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I cannot but obey you. But I will tell the boys what’s sense and what is nonsense. I will tell them that they are being fed on literary garbage and that we are all the paid servants of the garbage department.’

  As I was standing at the door of my house, Leela’s teacher passed along the street. I saw him at a distance and tried to pretend I had not seen him and turned in. It vexed me to see people and talk to them. It was a tremendous strain. I sat in my room waiting for him to pass. But he stopped and cried ‘Krishnan.’ I was bound to meet him. I went to the gate and greeted him. I didn’t like to call him in. So I rushed out to dispose of him in the doorway. He asked: ‘Not well?’

  ‘Quite well. I have never been in better health.’

  ‘Coming out for a walk in the evening?’

  ‘Sorry, I have another engagement.’

  ‘Where is your daughter?’

  ‘Gone out to play.’ We carried on thus for a few minutes, for my part brief sentences and monosyllables.

  Till late in the evening I sat alone at a corner of the river. ‘A long dip in this river, or a finger poked into a snake hole – there are two thousand ways of ending this misery. But the child, the child … She will be looked after by God, and by everyone. She is an entity. She was able to go on without her mother, and she could equally well carry on without her father. I have put by a little money for her.… Well, she will be looked after quite well – God bless her.’ Far off I saw the glow of a funeral pyre over the walls of the cremation ground, and I sighed for it. It seemed to be the greatest aspiration one could have. ‘Exactly where she was placed and burnt …’ I recollected her pale face, with the flies on it, and the smile on her lips, and broke down at the memory. I recovered and said to myself: ‘This is also my end. Oh, God, send me to those flames at once.’ I saw a picture of myself being carried there and the funeral ceremonies. And this vision seemed to give me a little peace.

  Thus days followed, bleak, dreary, and unhappy days, with a load on the mind. I felt as though I had been filled with molten lead.

  And then came a letter one morning from my friend, ‘I’m sorry to have remained silent so long. I have been up to my ears in litigation and it looks as though all these affairs are going to take more and more of my time. But anyway, I will arrange these things and return in a few weeks. My house here is in the extension with a fine small compound, and a room all to myself, where I spend the larger part of my day in reading when I don’t talk over matters with lawyers and witnesses. You see, I had to come away suddenly because an uncle of mine passed away, and there are all kinds of arrangements to be made in regard to property. He married three times and has numerous children, and you know how many complications can arise out of that!

  ‘Anyway, my purpose in writing to you today is not to trouble you with my affairs, but a different one. I have a feeling that we might attempt an experiment while we are out of each other’s reach. I want to see if we can manage a sitting – a sort of in absentia business. For spirit matters, space is of no account, and so there is no reason why we should not succeed. On Sunday at 4 o’clock in the evening I propose to try the experiment. So please keep yourself in your room and link up with me mentally with a request to your wife to communicate. As far as possible keep all other business from your mind. At precisely 4.30, you may consider it closed. I will send you the result of this sitting by post immediately.’

  This offered me a new lease of life. Two days before me. All the weariness melted.

  On Sunday I cajoled my daughter into spending her time at the school with the old lady and then shut myself in my room and lay down in my chair and closed my eyes. The clock showed two minutes to four. I stilled myself. My heart was palpitating with excitement. I had to hold my breath for a moment before it could be stilled. I opened my eyes and saw that it was four and said: ‘Oh, dear wife, my friend at the other end and I have linked up. Please communicate.’ I visualized my friend sitting in his room, and I fancied myself occupying a chair beside him, and my wife communicating through him. I shut my eyes and remained in a sort of half-sleep till 4.35.

  Two days later the postman brought me a long envelope, as I was just starting for the college. With the books under my arm, I tore open the letter, and pulled out two long sheets of paper covered over with pencil writing. There was a covering letter from my friend.

  The message read: ‘It is a long time since I spoke to you through your friend. I have a feeling as if I were sitting on a wall. On one side I see your big friend. On the other side I see you, lying in your green canvas easy-chair and also trying to be present here at the same time … Seeing you now in your old chair, as you shut your eyes and try to keep your mind still, I forget for a moment that we are in two totally different mediums of existence …

  ‘The most important thing I wish to warn you about is not to allow your mind to be disturbed by anything. For some days now you have allowed your mind to become gloomy and unsettled. You are not keeping very strong either. You must keep yourself in better frame …

  ‘We must thank your friend who has yielded to our suggestion, to try these absent sittings. I’m sure you will benefit by them. Please think yourself as being able to establish communication with us direct. You will have to prepare yourself for it. There will be a change in your state. Moreover you should not expect your friend to be troubled by you all your life. You must make yourself fit for it, and this communication will restore to you health and better nerves because of the greater harmony that comes into your life; but you must also do your bit to utilize this harmony. You must keep your body and mind in perfect condition, before you aspire to become sensitive and receptive; I have learnt a great deal after coming here; believe me if it is peace of mind you want, you cannot have it better than from us …’

  ‘How do I become sensitive?’ I asked.

  The following Sunday we again linked up at the same hour. On Monday morning the postman brought me the message: ‘Don’t feel sorry. It hurts me more than you can imagine. So please keep your mind free from choking thoughts. I wish to give you a picture in words.

  ‘A weary and thirsty traveller was returning home from a long day’s march. The setting sun had touched all the objects around him with a rosy magic. The birds were returning to their nests. A rumbling brook rolled along. He sat down and quenched his thirst with water. He saw a black bird sit on a thorn and whistle. A batch of white cranes flew across, tinted by the sunset. Their rhythm and their colour filled the traveller’s heart with an indescribable joy. He said to himself, “Worshipping and wondering, how much life’s journey is made easier for one who can see nature and God every moment!” He returned home fatigued in body, but his soul was in the rapture of a song.

  ‘I don’t know what you are going to make of this. Somehow, this picture has been haunting my soul all along: and a great inexplicable satisfaction reigns in my heart because I have communicated it to you. I have set a song to s
ing this to me. When I sit down and sing it, a most heavenly sunset, birds of wonderful colours, and the serenity of the brook, everything comes up palpably and we can even converse with the traveller. And the melody. It is just created out of thought, in a manner which you cannot grasp. The responses of our world are immediate and fine; you have a glimpse of it only in your striving; there your deeper mind impels you, there it is a striving; here it is an achievement. Your striving itself is proof of its reality here; to be realized when the obstructions of your state are cleared …

  ‘I don’t know if you think I’m becoming a poet as well. I have given you many thoughts lately for writing by impressing them on your mind; you might have caught them if you had continued your old habit of occasionally writing verse. Some day I hope we shall together produce a great epic. I’m not joking. I’m in earnest. Nobody may think much of these efforts. They may appear, just as the picture of the weary traveller does, obvious or obscure to others, but certainly you will like them because they are your dear wife’s efforts.’

  In about ten days my friend returned to his garden and we were able to have a sitting as before. I was very happy to be back at the old seat beside the lotus pond.

  After the preliminary remarks and suggestions my wife asked abruptly: ‘When are you starting an attempt at your own psychic development?’

  ‘How can I say?’ I replied.

  ‘Oh! if you do not know what you are going to do or not do, who else can?’

  I felt snubbed and explained: ‘I didn’t mean that. I should like to be told when and what to do. I look to you for guidance!’