I had not too much time to waste today; I had come by the first bus in the morning and the last bus was leaving at six. At four o’clock there was still no sign of an agreement. I was still hoping that the tailor would be called off; and as if some customer of his had been hit by a thought-wave from me, an errand boy from the shop came up panting with the statement, ‘The trouble-maker is back, and won’t go until he can talk to you.’

  The tailor lost his head at the mention of the trouble-maker, whoever that beneficent soul may have been. ‘Has he no other business than bothering me for those miserable jackets of his wife’s? This is the fifth time he has visited me!’

  ‘Perhaps his wife has barred the house to him until he brings home the jacket,’ I commented under my breath.

  ‘Throw his pieces out. Fling his pieces in his face,’ cried the irate tailor.

  ‘But you have locked them up,’ said his errand boy seriously.

  ‘That settles it. I’ll be back soon,’ the tailor said and rushed out in a rage. I felt relieved, lighter in my chest. This was my chance. Now I had the committee in my pocket. I told Muthu hurriedly, ‘Before my bus leaves, I must see this elephant on his feet. We will discuss the other things later.’

  ‘But how to get him up? Kumar,’ he appealed, ‘please, please stand up!’

  One of the stragglers, a young urchin who had been watching us with a thumb in his mouth, took out his thumb and said suddenly, ‘I know how to make an elephant get up.’

  ‘How? How? Come on, do it!’ I said eagerly, pulling his hand from his mouth and propelling him forward.

  He grinned, showing a toothless gum, and said: ‘If you get me a frog, I can make him get up.’

  ‘What! How will you do it?’

  ‘When a frog is put under an elephant, it’ll jump, and the elephant will jump with it,’ he said.

  I was even prepared to dig a crowbar under Kumar and lever him up if necessary, but a mahout arrived at the crucial moment. He was attached to the timber yard five miles up in a mountain jungle. They had sent a desperate summons to him four days ago by a lorry-driver who passed that way, and only today had the man found time to turn up. He arrived just when we were hesitating between applying a jumping frog or a crowbar, wanting to do something before the tailor should return. The mahout wore a knitted vest and over it a red sweater and a white dhoti coming down to his knees, a combination calculated to strike terror into the heart of any recalcitrant elephant. He pushed his way through the ring of watching loungers, and looked us all up and down questioningly. ‘Why is he lying down?’ he asked.

  ‘That is what we would like to know,’ said Muthu. ‘He has been like this for four days.’ The mahout looked at Kumar questioningly, put his face close to the elephant’s and asked, ‘What is your secret?’ in a soft murmur. He told us, ‘Keep away. He doesn’t like a big audience for his speech, you understand? Move off, and he will tell me.’ We moved away. He put his face close to the large trunk of the elephant, murmuring something, and after a while we turned to look as we heard a swish proceeding from a very thin green switch in his hand, which lashed the underside of the elephant within his reach. He repeated it at intervals of a second and the elephant was on his feet. He flourished the green switch (it looked no different from any trailer of a plant), and said, ‘This is . . . ,’ he gave us the name of some obscure plant grown in mountain thickets. ‘This is more serviceable than one’s own brothers emanating from the same womb,’ he explained. ‘I have still to see an animal that does not respect this stick.’ As he flourished it the elephant blinked and gave a loud trumpet. I only hoped that it would not bring the tailor scrambling in. The trumpeting was loud and prolonged.

  The mahout leaned on the side of the elephant as if posing for a photograph and smiled at the gathering. He seemed to fall into a mystic trance as he drew the switch across his nose. ‘Now get me a broken coconut and a little jaggery and a piece of sugar cane.’

  We sent a youngster running to fetch these. While waiting for his return, the mahout leaned on the elephant and regaled us with his memoirs; he recounted the tales of all the elephants that he had coaxed and taken to the various zoos in the country and he spoke of a chance that he once had of taking an elephant to Tokyo or New York, which was frustrated by his brothers who did not like the girl he had married and wanted to punish him for not marrying according to their own arrangements. From Kerala, far-off Kerala, this mahout had brought a girl to marry, but his brothers advised him to pay off the woman and raised among themselves two hundred rupees. The mahout went up to her with the money and asked her to go back to Kerala. She quietly said, ‘Keep your money, only tell me if there is any deep well or tank near by where I can drown myself. I want you to know that I have come to you not for your money. If I can’t be worthy of being your wife, I shall be quite happy to be dead at your feet, rather than go back to my village with two hundred rupees.’ He explained, ‘Two hundred rupees, not just two rupees, and she did not want it. I immediately told my brothers that I did not care for them, told them to do their worst and married the girl. You think that I married her on the money from them? Not me. I returned it to them. I actually threw it out of the door and told them to pick it up, and borrowed a hundred rupees on which I am still paying interest of five rupees a month, and married her. Such a wonderful woman. She won’t eat her food unless I am back home, even if it is midnight. What can I do? Sometimes I have to be out for days and days, and what does she do? She starves, that is all,’ he said, and added, ‘A dutiful wife.’

  He never finished his narrative to tell us how it prevented his going to Tokyo or New York, for at this moment the elephant coiled his trunk around his back, and he patted it and said, ‘Now we are friends, he wants me to sit on his back.’ He tapped the elephant’s knee, and took hold of its ear, and pulled himself up even as he was talking. By this time the youngster had brought the coconut and jaggery. The mahout stooped down to take them, and held them out to the elephant, saying something. The elephant just picked up the bamboo tray, raised it and sent it flying across the field. Muthu was crestfallen, ‘See, that’s what he does to food!’

  ‘Never mind,’ said the mahout. ‘He is not hungry, that is all. I would myself fling the dinner plate at my wife’s face if I did not feel hungry and she persisted. Now I am ready, where is he to go?’

  ‘Ride him to the town,’ I said promptly. ‘I will meet you at the toll-gate outside the city.’ And before we knew what was happening, he had flourished his green switch and was off,” all of us trooping along behind. All the children let out a shout of joy and ran behind the elephant. I was not very happy about the amount of public notice the whole business was receiving. It might stir the tailor up once again. Muthu walked with a look of triumph beside the elephant. I felt triumphant too in a measure.

  To put our ideas in proper perspective the mahout leaned down to say, ‘Because he is trotting don’t imagine he is not ill. He is very sick. I have my own medicine for his sickness, but you want to see an English doctor; try him and come back to me. I never stand in anybody’s way of doing something, although I know what English doctors can do. They will sooner or later call me . . . ’

  This made Muthu once again thoughtful. He suddenly remembered that he had come out without thanking the goddess. He ran back to the temple, lit a piece of camphor before the Goddess and rejoined the procession. At the Market Road, when the procession passed in front of the tea-shop, he invited the mahout to stop for a moment, and ran into his shop.

  The mahout said, ‘If you can, reach me a glass of tea here, otherwise I can’t get down. If I get down, Kumar will also sit down immediately, that is his nature.’ Kumar seemed to understand this, I could detect a twinkle in his small red eyes, and he swayed his head in appreciation. Muthu brought out a tray covered with buns and a tumbler of tea, and held it to the mahout. The flies that swarmed in his shop sought a diversion by settling in a mass on the back of the elephant for a ride. The mahout sat comfortably in his seat, set the tray before him and started to drink his tea. And now the tailor came flouncing out of his shop, demanding, ‘Everyone get out of the way and tell me what is happening.’

  The mahout thought the remark beneath his notice and looked down from his eminence with indifference. This irritated the tailor. He repeated, ‘This is our elephant. Where are you taking him?’ The tailor’s sense of ownership was comical, and everyone laughed. Muthu, who had gone back to his seat at the counter, now said, ‘He knows how to handle the elephant, don’t worry. He is taking it out for its own good.’

  ‘What? To the city? I will never have it, never, never . . . ’ He stamped his feet like a petulant child.

  The mahout was confused. He looked puzzled and asked, tying a towel around his head as a turban, ‘What does it mean? Am I stealing an elephant?’

  Muthu came out of his shop, put his arm around the tailor, and said, ‘Come and have tea,’ and managed to say at the same time to the mahout, ‘Yes, yes, you go, it is getting late, remember where you will be met . . . We will look to other things.’

  The mahout flourished his green switch ever so gently and the elephant was on the move again, with the trail of children behind it. Soon his green turban vanished from the landscape around a bend.

  The tailor was disconsolate until Muthu poured oblatory tea into him, unwashed glass after unwashed glass. ‘At this rate,’ I said to myself, ‘Muthu will be a bankrupt, if he has to treat all his elephant associates to tea. He will close down his business, and then who will pay for the elephant doctor at the other end?’

  I sat on the plank bridging two empty kerosene tins in front of Muthu’s shop, watching the scene with detachment. Now that the elephant was gone, a big worry was off my mind. I didn’t care what the tailor thought or said. Refreshed by tea and buns, he came out of the shop, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, and passed me without a word. But his look, the brief one that he cast in my direction, was enough to indicate what he thought of me – an abductor of elephants. He was soon out of view in his own shop four doors off. I could hear him say to someone, ‘Take away those pieces if you cannot wait. I promised you the jackets only at the end of this week.’

  I could not hear the rest of his sentence as the dreaded jeep drew up in front of me on the road. Vasu had come down the hill. He looked at me from his seat and said, ‘Coming along? I am going back to the town.

  I hesitated for a moment. The bus had been due any time the last ninety minutes. Still there was no sign of it. But how could I go with this man? We were facing each other for the first time after months. I didn’t like to tell him about myself or my mission here. I would be at his mercy if I climbed into his jeep. I said, ‘I am not coming back yet.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked persistently. ‘What do you want here? You want to spend the night here?’

  He was blocking the road; a lorry was trying to pass, the driver sounding his horn impatiently. Vasu merely waved his arm, ‘You have enough clearance, get along.’

  ‘There is a ditch.’

  ‘All right, get into the ditch. Don’t disturb me now. Don’t you see that I am talking to a gentleman?’

  The lorry-driver edged close to the drain and passed. Vasu said to me, ‘I will take you back home.’

  ‘You may go,’ I said.

  He indicated the back seat. ‘I have nothing there today. I knew that you would swoon at the sight of a dead creature. That is why I came without any today.’

  How did he know my movements? Perhaps he had been watching me all the time. In any case I did not like to talk to him about it. I merely said, ‘I have another conveyance. You may go, thank you.’

  ‘What other conveyance?’ he persisted. ‘Your bus has broken down at the tenth mile up, axle gone. Men, women and children are sitting by the roadside. They will have to be there until . . . I don’t know. If anyone has a gun there he may shoot a tiger or a rogue elephant that may prowl around tonight. If you are keen on catching the bus, I will take you there and leave you with that crowd.’

  I wondered for a moment if there might be truth in his report. As I hesitated he commanded, ‘What are you waiting for? If you want to spend the night with that tea-shop crowd, go ahead, please yourself. I have things to do, if you don’t mind,’ he said cynically.

  He had irritated me at first, but I suddenly realized that this was a good chance to establish contact with him again. He spurned me and picked me up again as it suited his fancy: this was a galling thought no doubt, but it was better than being continuously ignored. So I climbed into the jeep without a word. He drove off. We remained without speaking for some time; he drove at his usual reckless speed, swearing at bullock carts, threatening to smash them up and calling insults at passers-by. He was disappointed when they accepted his bullying unprotestingly, but when one or other of the cartmen turned round with a frown or a swear-word, he was delighted, and he nudged me and confided, ‘That is how I like to see my countrymen. They must show better spirit; they are spineless; no wonder our country has been a prey to every invader who passed this way.’

  I could not accept his view, and so I asked, ‘Do you want everyone to be a blustering bully in this country?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply. He was in an extraordinarily good humour. I wished he would continue thus. It was becoming dark and the lights were on in the homesteads on the way. He said, ‘How busy are you nowadays?’

  ‘Well, the usual quantity of work.’

  ‘And the usual quantity of gossip-mongering?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked rather sharply.

  ‘No offence, no offence,’ he said with mock humility. ‘Just my fun, that is all. I meant those chair fixtures in your press.’

  ‘Why can’t you leave them alone?’ I asked. ‘They hardly ever think of you; why should you bother about them?’

  ‘No offence meant, no offence meant,’ he said with a great display of humility. ‘I just wanted to know. I am their well-wisher, and I just wanted to know how they are faring, that is all.’

  ‘Look here, Vasu,’ I said, with a sudden access of foolhardiness, ‘you should leave others alone; it will make for happiness all round.’

  ‘I can’t agree with you,’ he said. ‘We are not lone dwellers in the Sahara to live self-centred lives. We are members of a society, and there is no point in living like a recluse, shutting oneself away from all the people around.’

  There was no use arguing with him. I once again became aware of my mounting irritation and wanted to guard against it. I said, moderating my tone, ‘After all the poet has done a remarkable performance with his life of Krishna. He is completing Radha Kalyan, that is the marriage of Krishna with Radha, and his book will be out soon.’

  ‘H’m,’ Vasu said with a half-interest, ‘and what about the other?’ He was referring to his favourite target, the journalist.

  ‘Well,’ I said, with considerable pride, ‘his plans are almost ready for starting a small news-sheet in this town; he is already issuing printed manifestoes.’

  He remained thoughtful for a moment and said, ‘I like people to do something, whatever it may be.’

  So the journalist and poet had secured this man’s approval, I reflected. I wanted to tell him, but could not, that it was impertinence on his part to think that the world waited for his approval. He was pleased to think that humanity could move only after securing a clearance certificate from him. There was no use arguing with him as he was one of those strong men who had no doubt at all about their own conclusions. He asked suddenly, ‘I want to know if you are willing to print a book I am writing. I have been busy with it for some weeks now.’

  ‘Aha!’ I cried unable to restrain myself. It was unthinkable that he could be busy with a literary composition. He brightened up on hearing my interest and said, ‘It is a monograph on wild life. Every day our papers are full of speeches and meetings on the problem of preserving wild life, and most people don’t know what they are talking about. I have some very important points to make on the subject. What has happened in this country is that amateurs have invaded every field. People just talk their heads off. I have made many important points in my book, and I want it to be ready for the conference on wild life at the end of this year.’

  ‘But that conference will be for the preservation of wild life?’ I asked.

  ‘What if it is? My book is also about better methods of preserving wild life. This cannot be achieved by refusing game licences to honest folk, or by running behind animals with cries of sympathy.’

  I restrained my interest. I did not want to get involved in his affairs again. I dreaded the prospect of having him again in my parlour, sharpening his wits against the poet and my other visitors. I maintained my reserve and silence for the rest of the journey as the jeep sped along the dark highway.

  Chapter Eight

  The poet was in a grand exalted mood. He had completed the portion of his poem where Krishna meets his future wife Radha, and their marriage is to be celebrated. He had written several hundred lines of crystal-clear monosyllables; he had evolved his own prosody and had succeeded. His manuscript was ready, several little exercise books stitched by himself and wrapped in brown paper, closely filled with writing in green ink. He had written till late on the previous night. His eyes were red with sleeplessness, but his face glowed with triumph. With the marriage, the book would make about ninety-six pages. Sastri had printed the book at the rate of four pages a month over a space of countless months and it had now assumed the shape of a volume. Sastri himself was excited at the completion of the volume with the marriage episode. He brought in the proofs of some pages, and hesitated for a moment. When Sastri stood thus I always knew he had something to say, and I hoped that if I did not turn round and meet his eyes he would be gone. As I bent over my paper, I was aware of his shadow behind me. ‘What is it, Sastri?’ I asked sharply. He looked at the poet and both of them smiled. So I knew it was a good piece of news, and felt relieved. ‘When a poet has arrived at the stage of the marriage of a god, it would be auspicious to celebrate the occasion.’ He went on to explain how the celebration was to be conducted. I was fond of the poet and anything that was going to give him a place in our society was welcome to me.

 

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