Malgudi Days (6 page)

‘Yes, presently,' replied the doctor. He walked off to his car, sat in the back seat and reflected. He looked at his watch. Midnight. If the will was to be signed, it must be done within the next two hours, or never. He could not be responsible for a mess there; he knew the family affairs too well and about those wolves, Subbiah and his gang. But what could he do? If he asked him to sign the will, it would virtually mean a death sentence and destroy the thousandth part of a chance that the patient had of survival. He got down from the car and went in. He resumed his seat in the chair. The patient was staring at him appealingly. The doctor said to himself, ‘If my word can save his life, he shall not die. The will be damned.' He called, ‘Gopal, listen.' This was the first time he was going to do a piece of acting before a patient, simulate a feeling and conceal his judgement. He stooped over the patient and said, with deliberate emphasis, ‘Don't worry about the will now. You are going to live. Your heart is absolutely sound.' A new glow suffused the patient's face as he heard it. He asked in a tone of relief, ‘Do you say so? If it comes from your lips it must be true . . .' The doctor said, ‘Quite right. You are improving every second. Sleep in peace. You must not exert yourself on any account. You must sleep very soundly. I will see you in the morning.' The patient looked at him gratefully for a moment and then closed his eyes. The doctor picked up his bag and went out, shutting the door softly behind him.

On his way home he stopped for a moment at his hospital, called out his assistant and said, ‘That Lawley Extension case. You might expect the collapse any second now. Go there with a tube of———in hand, and give it in case the struggle is too hard at the end. Hurry up.'

Next morning he was back at Lawley Extension at ten. From his car he made a dash for the sick bed. The patient was awake and looked very well. The assistant reported satisfactory pulse. The doctor put his tube to his heart, listened for a while and told the sick man's wife, ‘Don't look so unhappy, lady. Your husband will live to be ninety.' When they were going back to the hospital, the assistant sitting beside him in the car asked, ‘Is he going to live, sir?'

‘I will bet on it. He will live to be ninety. He has turned the corner. How he has survived this attack will be a puzzle to me all my life,' replied the doctor.

When a dozen persons question openly or slyly a man's sanity, he begins to entertain serious doubts himself. This is what happened to ex-gateman Govind Singh. And you could not blame the public either. What could you do with a man who carried about in his hand a registered postal envelope and asked, ‘Please tell me what there is inside?' The obvious answer was: ‘Open it and see . . .' He seemed horrified at this suggestion. ‘Oh, no, no, can't do it,' he declared, and moved off to another friend and acquaintance. Everywhere the suggestion was the same, till he thought everyone had turned mad. And then somebody said, ‘If you don't like to open it and yet want to know what is inside you must take it to the X-ray Institute.' This was suggested by an ex-compounder who lived in the next street.

‘What is it?' asked Govind Singh. It was explained to him. ‘Where is it?' He was directed to the City X-ray Institute.

But before saying anything further about his progress, it would be useful to go back to an earlier chapter in his history. After war service in 1914-18, he came to be recommended for a gatekeeper's post at Engladia's. He liked the job very much. He was given a khaki uniform, a resplendent band across his shoulder and a short stick. He gripped the stick and sat down on a stool at the entrance to the office. And when his chief's car pulled up at the gate he stood at attention and gave a military salute. The office consisted of a staff numbering over a hundred, and as they trooped in and out every day he kept an eye on them. At the end of the day he awaited the footsteps of the General Manager coming down the stairs, and rose stiffly and stood at attention, and after he left, the hundreds of staff poured out. The doors were shut; Singh carried his stool in, placed it under the staircase and placed his stick across it. Then he came out and the main door was locked and sealed. In this way he had spent twenty-five years of service, and then he begged to be pensioned off. He would not have thought of retirement yet, but for the fact that he found his sight and hearing playing tricks on him; he could not catch the Manager's footsteps on the stairs, and it was hard to recognize him even at ten yards. He was ushered into the presence of the chief, who looked up for a moment from his papers and muttered, ‘We are very pleased with your work for us, and the company will give you a pension of twelve rupees for life . . .' Singh clicked his heels, saluted, turned on his heel and went out of the room, his heart brimming with gratitude and pride. This was the second occasion when the great man had spoken to him, the first being on the first day of his service. As he had stood at his post, the chief, entering the office just then, looked up for a moment and asked, ‘Who are you?'

‘I'm the new gatekeeper, master,' he had answered. And he spoke again only on this day. Though so little was said, Singh felt electrified on both occasions by the words of his master. In Singh's eyes the chief had acquired a sort of godhood, and it would be quite adequate if a god spoke to one only once or twice in a lifetime. In moments of contemplation Singh's mind dwelt on the words of his master, and on his personality.

His life moved on smoothly. The pension together with what his wife earned by washing and sweeping in a couple of houses was quite sufficient for him. He ate his food, went out and met a few friends, slept and spent some evenings sitting at a cigarette shop which his cousin owned. This tenor of life was disturbed on the first of every month when he donned his old khaki suit, walked to his old office and salaamed the accountant at the counter and received his pension. Sometimes if it was closing he waited on the roadside for the General Manager to come down, and saluted him as he got into his car.

There was a lot of time all around him, an immense sea of leisure. In this state he made a new discovery about himself, that he could make fascinating models out of clay and wood dust. The discovery came suddenly, when one day a child in the neighbourhood brought to him its little doll for repair. He not only repaired it but made a new thing of it. This discovery pleased him so much that he very soon became absorbed in it. His back yard gave him a plentiful supply of pliant clay, and the carpenter's shop next to his cousin's cigarette shop sawdust. He purchased paint for a few annas. And lo! he found his hours gliding. He sat there in the front part of his home, bent over his clay, and brought into existence a miniature universe; all the colours of life were there, all the forms and creatures, but of the size of his middle finger; whole villages and towns were there, all the persons he had seen passing before his office when he was sentry there—that beggar woman coming at midday, and that cucumber-vendor; he had the eye of a cartoonist for human faces. Everything went down into clay. It was a wonderful miniature reflection of the world; and he mounted them neatly on thin wooden slices, which enhanced their attractiveness. He kept these in his cousin's shop and they attracted huge crowds every day and sold very briskly. More than from the sales Singh felt an ecstasy when he saw admiring crowds clustering around his handiwork.

On his next pension day he carried to his office a street scene (which he ranked as his best), and handed it over the counter to the accountant with the request: ‘Give this to the Sahib, please!'

‘All right,' said the accountant with a smile. It created a sensation in the office and disturbed the routine of office working for nearly half an hour. On the next pension day he carried another model (children at play) and handed it over the counter.

‘Did the Sahib like the last one?'

‘Yes, he liked it.'

‘Please give this one to him—' and he passed it over the counter. He made it a convention to carry on every pension day an offering for his master, and each time his greatest reward was the accountant's stock reply to his question: ‘What did the Sahib say?'

‘He said it was very good.'

At last he made his masterpiece. A model of his office frontage with himself at his post, a car at the entrance and the chief getting down: this composite model was so realistic that while he sat looking at it, he seemed to be carried back to his office days. He passed it over the counter on his pension day and it created a very great sensation in the office. ‘Fellow, you have not left yourself out, either!' people cried, and looked admiringly at Singh. A sudden fear seized Singh and he asked, ‘The master won't be angry, I hope?'

‘No, no, why should he be?' said the accountant, and Singh received his pension and went home.

A week later when he was sitting on the
pyol
kneading clay, the postman came and said, ‘A registered letter for you . . .'

‘For me!' Any letter would have upset Singh; he had received less than three letters in his lifetime, and each time it was a torture for him till the contents were read out. Now a registered letter! This was his first registered letter. ‘Only lawyers send registered letters, isn't it so?'

‘Usually,' said the postman.

‘Please take it back. I don't want it,' said Singh.

‘Shall I say “Refused”?' asked the postman. ‘No, no,' said Singh. ‘Just take it back and say you have not found me . . .'

‘That I can't do . . .' said the postman, looking serious.

Singh seemed to have no option but to scrawl his signature and receive the packet. He sat gloomily—gazing at the floor. His wife who had gone out and just returned saw him in this condition and asked, ‘What is it?' His voice choked as he replied, ‘It has come.' He flung at her the registered letter. ‘What is it?' she asked. He said, ‘How should I know. Perhaps our ruin . . .' He broke down. His wife watched him for a moment, went in to attend to some domestic duty and returned, still found him in the same condition and asked, ‘Why not open it and see, ask someone to read it?' He threw up his arms in horror. ‘Woman, you don't know what you are saying. It cannot be opened. They have perhaps written that my pension is stopped, and God knows what else the Sahib has said . . .'

‘Why not go to the office and find out from them?'

‘Not I! I will never show my face there again,' replied Singh. ‘I have lived without a single remark being made against me, all my life. Now!' He shuddered at the thought of it. ‘I knew I was getting into trouble when I made that office model . . .' After deeper reflection he said, ‘Every time I took something there, people crowded round, stopped all work for nearly an hour . . . That must also have reached the Sahib's ears.'

He wandered about saying the same thing, with the letter in his pocket. He lost his taste for food, wandered about unkempt, with his hair standing up like a halo—an unaccustomed sight, his years in military service having given him a habitual tidiness. His wife lost all peace of mind and became miserable about him. He stood at crossroads, clutching the letter in his hand. He kept asking everyone he came across, ‘Tell me, what is there in this?' but he would not brook the suggestion to open it and see its contents.

So forthwith Singh found his way to the City X-ray Institute at Race Course Road. As he entered the gate he observed dozens of cars parked along the drive, and a Gurkha watchman at the gate. Some people were sitting on sofas reading books and journals. They turned and threw a brief look at him and resumed their studies. As Singh stood uncertainly at the doorway, an assistant came up and asked, ‘What do you want?' Singh gave a salute, held up the letter uncertainly and muttered, ‘Can I know what is inside this?' The assistant made the obvious suggestion. But Singh replied, ‘They said you could tell me what's inside without opening it—' The assistant asked, ‘Where do you come from?' Singh explained his life, work and outlook, and concluded, ‘I've lived without remark all my life. I knew trouble was coming—' There were tears on his cheeks. The assistant looked at him curiously as scores of others had done before, smiled and said, ‘Go home and rest. You are not all right . . . Go, go home.'

‘Can't you say what is in this?' Singh asked pathetically. The assistant took it in his hand, examined it and said, ‘Shall I open it?' ‘No, no, no,' Singh cried, and snatched it back. There was a look of terror in his eyes. The assembly looked up from their pages and watched him with mild amusement in their eyes. The assistant kindly put his arms on his shoulder and led him out. ‘You get well first, and then come back. I tell you—you are not all right.'

Walking back home, he pondered over it. ‘Why are they all behaving like this, as if I were a madman?' When this word came to his mind, he stopped abruptly in the middle of the road and cried, ‘Oh! That's it, is that it?—Mad! Mad!' He shook his head gleefully as if the full truth had just dawned upon him. He now understood the looks that people threw at him. ‘Oh! oh!' he cried aloud. He laughed. He felt a curious relief at this realization. ‘I have been mad and didn't know it . . .' He cast his mind back. Every little action of his for the last so many days seemed mad; particularly the doll-making. ‘What sane man would make clay dolls after twenty-five years of respectable service in an office?' He felt a tremendous freedom of limbs, and didn't feel it possible to walk at an ordinary pace. He wanted to fly. He swung his arms up and down and ran on with a whoop. He ran through the Market Road. When people stood about and watched he cried, ‘Hey, don't laugh at a madman, for who knows, you will also be mad when you come to make clay dolls,' and charged into their midst with a war cry. When he saw children coming out of a school, he felt it would be nice to amuse their young hearts by behaving like a tiger. So he fell on his hands and knees and crawled up to them with a growl.