Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 2

by Khushwant Singh

  ‘But you just now said Kerala,’ the teller pointed out.

  But by this time I had collected my wits. I realized now that I had been double-crossed but the bank had nothing against me.

  ‘Oh, Kerala first, then Ceylon, you know, Candy, Anuradhapura Galle Face,’ I brought out. ‘He had planned to be away for three weeks and left the cheque for the staff salaries with me. Then I found that I had to rush off to Delhi – flew in just this morning. Meanwhile, Mr Shah must have got back earlier than he had expected to and, knowing that I was away and anxious as always about the salaries of the factory workers, made out another…’

  I don’t know how much of this they took in, how much they believed. It didn’t matter. What was important was that they heard me through and returned my cheque with a printed slip which said: Balance insufficient: refer to drawer. It took all my will power to walk the few steps from the counter to the door. No one tried to block my path.

  Out in the street, I leaned against the stone wall till my fit of shivering had passed, then I took out the cheque book and examined it. There should have been eight cheque forms still in it; there were only seven. So Shah had cut out one of the cheques and kept it for his own use.

  Clever Mr Shah; smart, dynamic, action oriented. You certainly are all that and, who knows, you may even have read that article on which I had built up my plan. You will go far. And, at that, in gambling terms my own loss was, well, not altogether crippling. My capital investment was a little over Rs 700 and I have a good radio set to show for it, to say nothing of two of the most substantial meals I’ve had in months.

  But what will never cease to cause me sleepless nights is something else. How was it never discovered that a whole Rs 15,000 meant for the party had not reached its coffers? And does that mean that there is more room for manoeuvre in campaign funds than I had believed possible? I kept wondering how much the traffic will bear, if you know what I mean, because I have a perfectly foolproof scheme worked out for the next general elections. I can hardly wait for 1976 to come.

  THIRTEEN

  Temple Mouse

  MANOHAR MALGONKAR

  In the bar of the Ashoka, in Bangalore, a chela awaited a chamcha. The chela who held a degree from a commerce college and had done a postgraduate course in business management had turned down a job in a major bank to become a disciple of Swami Mayananda because his study of business opportunities had shown him that India’s holy men were not only her richest men, but also that they were big business, and provided the best opportunities for advancement in life for people like himself.

  To be sure he was not one of the senior chelas of his swami, but he was an ambitious young man who was determined to supersede the dozen or so other men who outranked him in the swami’s entourage and become his Pattashishya or Chief Disciple before the coming spring when he was scheduled to set out on his first-ever trip to America.

  As such, much depended on the success of his present mission, which was to woo the chamcha and somehow get him to persuade his principal, the film star Nagesh Kumar, to accept Swami Mayananda as his spiritual guide, or at least to pretend that he held the swami in high esteem.

  Nagesh Kumar, who had no less than six jubilee hits running in Bombay at the same time and was said to have been signed up for his next sixty-four films, was one of the top ten among India’s film stars, and the chela had persuaded his swami that Nagesh Kumar’s accepting him as his guru would serve to rocket him among the top ten of India’s gurus.

  Since the chela knew that the only way of approaching a film star was through his chamcha and that even a chamcha was not ordinarily accessible to callers outside the closed circuit of the film world, he had presented himself as a reporter from Cinelite who wanted to gather some background material for a cover story on Nagesh Kumar. True to his business training, he had also tried to find out all he could about the chamcha himself, but all he had discovered was that he had once been a student of Nemichand High School in Nagpur. It wasn’t much, but it was something, a snippet to be held in reserve and exploited only if an opportunity presented itself.

  He had been waiting for nearly an hour when he saw the chamcha coming through the door. He ordered a double Scotch for his guest and a tomato juice for himself, and rose to greet him.

  Shoulder-length hair, dark glasses, large-as-coffee saucers, smuggler-imported maxi cigarette dangling from his lips, the chamcha reached for the drink and glanced at his day-date watch. ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can give you, Mr…what did you say your name was?’

  ‘Five minutes is enough time for what I have to say,’ the chela said unperturbed, ‘as well as for another drink. My name is Rao, S. Rama Rao. The S stands for Swami. But let me order another drink first, so there’s no waiting.’

  While the other drink was being ordered, the chamcha sat down and put up his feet on the table.

  ‘It’s like this,’ the chela began. ‘You’ve heard of Swami Mayananda?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s quite well known really, head of one of the biggest maths, with a large following in the south…well, certainly as well known as the Maharishi was before the Beatles and Mia Farrow adopted him.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ the chamcha said, stirring the ice in his glass with his forefinger.

  ‘Well, Swamiji is planning a trip to America to propagate his method of attaining total serenity through a secret mantra which takes only four minutes to recite. Only four minutes a day to achieve total serenity. Imagine the impact it will make in America.’ He smiled and looked expectantly at his guest who pointedly looked at his watch and nodded absent-mindedly.

  ‘Swamiji is in the vicinity, as it happens, and since Nagesh Kumar too is here on location, if the two were to meet…’

  ‘So that you can photograph the two together and advertise that Nagesh is one of your swami’s followers, so that when he goes to America, he automatically sets off with a big bang. Clever, oh, very clever. Who thought of it – you?’

  ‘Yes. And of course I have authority to…to compensate you for any help you‘re able to… you know…’ the chela trailed off, knowing that what he was saying had registered, for the chamcha was smiling approvingly and nodding.

  ‘What’s a math?’ he asked. ‘A sort of temple, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, sort of – a temple with a large estate.’

  ‘And what’s your position in it?’

  ‘Oh, a very minor one,’ the chela said with a laugh. ‘I‘m what you might call a temple mouse. But then I have every hope of being promoted to…to something like the position you hold in Nagesh Kumar’s circle.’

  ‘Achh so!’ the chamcha said and, still smiling, picked up his glass and drained it. ‘My boss is a busy man – very busy,’ he added.

  ‘And mine a rich man – very rich,’ the chela answered and laughed in relief, knowing that he had struck the right note. Now the bargaining had begun and all they had to do was to decide on a figure. The chamcha reached for his second glass and asked: ‘Say, didn’t you say you were from some film rag?’

  ‘I did, but that was a bit of a…you know, chalaki to get you to see me,’ the chela said, and then added, ‘a liberty I was sure you’d condone as soon as I explained that I was an old schoolmate.’

  ‘You were at school with me?’

  ‘The Nemichand High School in Nagpur. A little after you, but everyone was still talking about you.’

  The chamcha put down his glass. ‘What were they talking about?’

  ‘Well, you know…about you. What you did. You know what schools are. Everyone had something to say…’

  ‘Filthy lies,’ the chamcha pronounced, and it took a second or two for the chela to realize that something had gone wrong.

  ‘It was a put-up job. School politics in which the staff took sides. The whole gang was gunning for me for months and made out I had swiped Das‘s answer papers. Swine!’

  ‘Look,’ the chela tried to make amends. ‘Actually I k
now nothing about…about what you’re supposed to have done. I only mentioned the school because I knew you’d always do all you could to help an old schoolmate. In fact…’ He was about to blurt out that he had never been to the Nemichand School or even to Nagpur when the expression on the chamcha’s face stopped him.

  The chamcha gnashed his teeth with an audible sound. ‘God, you’ve a nerve! First you come telling me lies about being a reporter from Cinelite and then more lies about the staff and students at the school, that they didn’t go on maligning me for years. Well, let me tell you this. You and your swami can go to hell for all I care. One thing I’ll see to is that Nagesh Kumar doesn’t even spit on the pair of you – not even if you were to offer me ten thousand rupees.’

  The chela, who had been authorized to offer up to just that sum, realized that he had overplayed his hand, but he prided himself on his business training and his ability to keep his cool under stress. He shook his head and said in his normal voice: ‘I see that you‘re no businessman… but I didn’t expect you to be one. I, on the other hand, pride myself on being one. If your man won’t cooperate, all I have to do is to find someone who will. There are others. Besides, Swami Mayananda is not merely a very rich man. He has supernatural powers.’

  ‘Balls!’ said the man who had been a high-school dropout.

  ‘This was a small thing I was asking. Perhaps it was just as well that it didn’t come off. Nagesh wouldn’t have done for America. Who knows him there, eh? We need international names – one of Hollywood’s top ten. Someone like Rod Macqueen or Shirley Sommers or Nancy Shore…’

  ‘All of whom were at school with you, no doubt,’ remarked the chamcha and emitted a rude sound. Then he strode out, leaving his second drink untasted.

  The hotel suite overlooked the Gateway of India and the sea, but Sam Weinreb, last of the Movie Moguls, sat with his back to the view. He was short and tubby and bald and wore a towelling robe. He had had a massage and a sauna and resembled a boiled lobster, and his face was obscured partly by large glasses and partly by a large cigar. He shook the ash from the cigar on to the carpet and said: ‘But why not, gawd dammit! They laid it on for what’s-his-name all right when they made the Sabu movie. There must have been hundreds of elephants in it. All I’m asking for is a lousy dozen.’

  Rasiklal Modi, the distributor for Paragone Studios’ pictures in India, was dressed in a closed-collar silk coat and a snow-white dhoti and chappals and an embroidered cap, and this was the first time he had come into direct contact with the head of the company which had built up the fortune of his family. ‘Things have changed a lot in this country, Sir,’ he explained, ‘since the time Elephant Boy was made. The elephants for that picture were provided by the Maharaja of Mysore.’

  ‘Then go and ask him for them. Tell him I‘ll pay him double what…’

  ‘There are no Maharajas any more,’ Rasiklal said, and proceeded to explain to Mr Weinreb what had happened to them.

  ‘Okay, the princes have gone. Does that mean there are no elephants in this country?’

  ‘Well, not as many as there were. Some of the state governments keep them for dragging timber…’

  ‘Government, you said. Say, I used to know a guy who was well in with your government guys here. Chet something…Bowles. That’s it, Chet Bowles. Get Chet on the phone; he’s our ambassador or sump’n in Delhi.’

  ‘Mr Bowles left India seven years ago,’ Rasiklal pointed out.

  For a few seconds, Sam Weinreb smoked and scowled and grunted. Then he said: ‘Gawd dammit. I want those elephants and I don’t care how you get them and what it costs. I‘ll have Nancy Shore and Adrian Frost breathing down my neck two weeks from now, and if you knew what those two cost these days if you have to outbid Paramount and Mirich…. Well, there’s seven million riding on this movie.’

  ‘Dollars?’ Rasiklal asked.

  ‘Yah. And this is said to be the land of cobras and holy men, but above all, elephants. Where are the elephants? Surely someone’s got them. All I want is a couple dozen frames…a procession and then a charge from what you call a mast elephant. The whole thing won’t take ten days…. What were you saying?’

  ‘That the only people who can still afford to keep elephants are the heads of some of our maths.‘

  ‘Mast? – same as rutting elephant?’

  ‘No, sir, maths. They’re religious estates; some of them really vast. And the heads of these maths are swamis – you know, the holy men you were speaking of. Difficult to approach and not really interested in money.’

  ‘Crap!’ Mr Weinreb pronounced. ‘If not money, they must be interested in something – girls, pot, a Caddie, blue films, something. Well, find out and go and give it to them and get me the elephants. Go and find out, man, charter a plane, go and see each one of these swamis but get me those goddamned…’

  ‘Please, please, Mr Weinreb! Calm yourself, please. What I was about to tell you is that I have been in touch with one of them, Swami Mayananda, and in fact I have his man waiting outside, a young man called Rama Rao, S. Rama Rao.’

  ‘I don’t give a frog’s fart what the man’s name is so long as he’s able to get me the elephants. Ask him how much and give it to him.’

  ‘That’s just it, Mr Weinreb. I didn’t know how to explain it to you, Sir, but what he wants, apart from a really nominal fee for the use of his elephants, is that both your stars as well as you yourself, Sir, should be the swami’s guests at the math for a couple of days…’

  ‘What’s that?’ Mr Weinreb gasped and sat up with a jerk so that his robe slipped off his shoulders. ‘Go visiting with him?’

  ‘Yes Sir; it‘s in the south, near Bangalore.’

  ‘And is there potable water?’

  ‘Please, Sir, what did you say?’

  ‘Oh, never mind, we can always carry our own water. Say, it’d be quite a gimmick…what d’you know…me an’ Nan Shore and Dan Frost hobnobbing with a real swami in real native clothes. Say, why didn’t I think of it before? Let me get our PR on this…make a great bang-up splash. Get me long distance… yah, Hollywood, say I want to speak to Jimmy Dance…and get me New York too…yah, ask for Julie…’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And call this young man in and give him a Scotch… and, say, how about calling me Sam, eh? All my friends call me Sam.’

  In the Star’s dressing room of the Raminik Studios in Mahim, Nagesh Kumar was going through the final stages of being made up to look like an airline pilot, when the door opened and his chamcha walked in. The star motioned to the make-up men to leave the room so that he and the chamcha could talk privately.

  ‘He’s turned down Siripat,’ the chamcha reported. The port’s still open.’

  ‘That makes six?’

  ‘Seven. Weinreb says if he doesn’t find an Indian actor for the forest ranger’s part, he’ll get one from Hollywood. The trouble is that whoever he gets for the part must not be taller than Adrian Frost.’ He stopped because he knew how sensitive his own principal was about his lack of inches.

  Nagesh tugged at his hair in a gesture that had seldom failed to draw applause from his fans. ‘If only one could get to see this Weinreb…get him to take a look at a few reels,’ he mused.

  ‘Nagesh, I know you’re the man for the forest ranger’s part,’ his chamcha said loyally. The only man.’

  ‘It’s a big part too, yaar, almost as big as Adrian Frost’s – and it’s made for me.’

  ‘What about sending Mr Weinreb a few reels of Nangi Gudia?’ the chamcha asked.

  ‘When he doesn’t even answer letters? – or take telephone calls? And now he’s not even accessible, because he’s gone and holed up in some math in the south and taken both his stars with him. Crazy. And someone was telling me that Paragone Studios is handling all the publicity for the swami’s American trip.’

  ‘It’s come in the papers too.’

  ‘Mad!’ And Nagesh Kumar tugged at his plentiful hair.

  That was when the chamc
ha asked: ‘You wouldn’t care to go and see Mr Weinreb in the math, would you?’

  Nagesh Kumar gave a hollow laugh. ‘How the hell can one get inside a math? I hear they‘re like fortresses.’

  ‘I have a feeling that I can get you an invitation,’ the chamcha said. ‘From the math itself.’ And then remembered to add: ‘No doubt it’ll cost a lot of money.’

  ‘Never mind the money, yaar. But you don’t really think you can bring it off, can you?’

  ‘I‘m pretty sure I can,’ the chamcha said. ‘I’ve been making a few discreet inquiries and just discovered that the man who has become Mayananda’s Pattashishya, you know, the Chief Disciple, was at school with me. Man called Rama Rao. S. Rama Rao. Bright young man and hard as nails, but…I have a feeling he would be willing to help out an old schoolmate…’

  ‘What’re you waiting for then, yaar?’ Nagesh said complainingly. ‘Go and see your friend at once. Yes, go today, now…. Ah, there’s the bell for the damned scene.’ He turned to look at himself in the mirror and added: And remember to take your friend a present – from me, understand?’

  FOURTEEN

  The Landlady

  INDER MALHOTRA

  ‘Hi…ii…ii,’ she cooed rather than shouted. And yet, in spite of the distance between them, he could hear her clearly over the din of the party that strangely resembled the humming of angry bees. Her tone was dulcet; her manner a trifle too flighty. And Bhisham Arora winced as he realized that she was about to burst into a schoolgirlish giggle so characteristic of her. But he was prepared to forgive Urmil a great deal.

  Any woman in her mid-forties who could be so stunningly beautiful and so engagingly uninhibited as Urmil without even trying to hide her age was entitled to her foibles, even to an occasional departure from impeccable taste.

  There wasn’t much space on the raw silk settee she was sitting on but she patted it by her side nonetheless. He plonked himself there gratefully, squeezing himself in with difficulty but without complaint.