A Tiger for Malgudi (12 page)

‘Marvellous idea,’cried Madan.‘Next four days, we’ll shoot the maximum footage. I’ll get a second unit from Madras immediately ...’

‘Better you give your hero a close view of the tiger, so that he may flail and hug and tackle realistically. Has he seen the tiger?’

‘Yes, from a distance — always from a distance, that’s my problem. I notice that he shuts his eyes and trembles when he has to pass that cage! I was afraid how he would react to the tiger at close quarters...’

‘How soon will your second unit arrive?’

‘Within twenty-four hours.’

‘No need to hurry,’said Captain.‘They may take three days. Meanwhile it is important that your giant and the tiger are introduced to each other; your artiste has to know what he is doing. As for Raja, as a general rule, it’ll be good to give him a glimpse of his adversary.’

Madan was too preoccupied to question the logic of it or the need. It was one of the many routine remarks and suggestions that floated in the air during a film shooting and vanished. Madan summoned his assistant and instructed,‘Send a telegram to XL at Madras to dispatch the second unit within two days, one cameraman and a sound unit, and light unit...’

‘Where is the need, sir,’asked the cameraman, overhearing the instruction while packing up,‘while you are not utilizing the first unit? What have we achieved the whole day?’

‘None of your business to question. Be ready when you are asked,’Captain said sternly. Captain felt it was time to support Madan and establish his authority, and said,‘Shut your ears to our talk, understand? Open only when you are being addressed. In any event keep your mouth always shut, that’ll help us all.’The cameraman was cowed by Captain’s ringside manner and left, others trooping behind them.

From within his circle, where he had returned after the canteen visit, Jaggu cried,‘May I come out too?’

‘Oh, poor fellow, they have forgotten you ... Come.’

With a sigh of relief like a released animal Jaggu stepped out of his confinement of the Magic Circle. He was led into the make-up shed, and after a while came out without his costume, clad in a lungi and shirt with the paint off his face. There was relief in his face as he sat down on a bench to rest his legs after hours of standing. He lit a
beedi
and smoked it with contentment; he had eaten well at the canteen. One of Captain’s circus hands who had escorted the tiger cage came up to him and said,‘Chief wants you to come ...’

‘Why?’

‘To present you a cat ...’

‘Why a cat?’he asked with extreme innocence. The men who had come to summon him made a few merry jokes about a birthday gift and so forth. They led him through a gate into a stockade built for the cameraman, with platforms for taking top shots and enough gaps between the railings for the camera to follow the action in a larger enclosure. He saw a man with a whip in one hand and a chair in the other standing and commanding,‘Raja, come out.’ The whip cracked and a tiger jumped out of its cage.‘Race round,’ commanded the man. The tiger ran around, while Jaggu stood petrified, unable to believe his eyes.

Madan was watching him with attention and said,‘Fellow looks nervous but must get used to the idea even if we are faking the shot ...’He watched the giant’s discomfiture with glee. At one point the tiger lunged forward with a roar in Jaggu’s direction and dashed against the stockade. Jaggu let out a howl,
’Amma!
Save me!’ calling on his long-dead mother, and blindly smashed his way out.

Madan was saying to the Captain,‘This is a thing which you might use in an emergency, but generally to tame any wild thing ...’He produced a gadget, which when pressed shot out a thin metal rod, and at a touch delivered a shock, working on a battery. Madan explained,‘Only fifteen volts, but enough to keep any animal well behaved ... You can try it if you like.’

‘On Raja? Never, sir. My whip is enough.’He would not touch the gadget. He shook his head.‘I’d be ashamed to employ this on any animal. No trainer worth his name can be proud of it if his animal is coerced and beaten down with such a contraption. It’s no training. It’s stampeding an animal into obedience with electric shock ...’

‘Well, I don’t know what you mean: you are doing it all the time.’

‘If you don’t see the difference, it’s no use explaining further. I don’t want short-cuts and hope that I do not destroy the natural pride an animal possesses ... I’ll take care of it.’

Although Madan could not admit that Captain actually practised all this theory, but was only letting his eloquence flow on, he just put away the gadget with,‘All I need is your cooperation.’

Of that word, he was very fond, as Captain noted with amusement ; he repeated,‘Cooperation! Cooperation! That you can have in plenty, but not the tiger bullied and stunned with electric shocks ...’

‘Oh, come, come — it’s not worse than the whip. In Hollywood they are using it all the time.’

‘Probably even on the human stars, who may need to be kept awake!’

 
‘I was for a moment lost in the fun of hearing
“Amma”
from this mountain of a baby. Where is he gone? Don’t let him get away. Stun him if necessary,’said Madan, sending his men after Jaggu.

Captain could not help laughing at the huge character running away in panic, shouting for his mother’s help.‘That fellow didn’t even notice that he was in a different enclosure from the tiger — didn’t notice the bars intervening. Didn’t trust them, I suppose ...’

Madan began to look concerned when his men did not turn up. ‘Where could he have gone? Gone only five minutes ... Where are the fellows who ran after him? They are also gone! Everyone seems to be too ready to desert us today ...’He was rambling on irrelevantly in his anxiety and trying to put the blame on everyone.

Captain was apparently getting a lot of enjoyment out of it.‘If you had kept the camera on and shot this sequence of a giant running away at the sight of the tiger, it’d have been the greatest hit...’

‘While all the time I want him to be heroic and tackle a tiger in keeping with his size!’Madan said ruefully.

Presently the searching party returned and reported: ‘Nowhere.’

‘What do you mean by it?’Madan asked angrily.‘He is not a tot to be lost sight of ... can’t be hiding behind a blade of grass.’

‘We beat about every bush, every ditch and crag. We went up over a mile in three directions.’

‘He must be found, otherwise I’ll be ruined,’lamented Madan.

‘Just take your car and try,’suggested Captain.

Madan started his car and drove down the road recklessly.‘If he is not found, I’ll be ruined,’he kept saying to himself.

Madan was back within an hour with the giant stuffed like a baggage in the narrow back seat of his car, which had only two doors and could release a back-seat passenger only by folding down the front seat. It was like locking up a prisoner. Madan looked happy and relieved.‘I found him in old
Mari
shrine. Some instinct told me he must be there; other places could not conceal him.’He addressed Jaggu:‘The Goddess would not protect you. You know why? Because you tried to cheat me. Goddess doesn’t like persons who try to cheat.’

‘I don’t like tigers,’Jaggu said.

‘We don’t care what you like or dislike,’Madan said.‘You are under contract with me. I told you the story before signing the agreement. If you act like a coward now, I will hand you over to the police.’

‘But I didn’t know it’d be a big tiger, it tried to kill me.’

‘Didn’t you see the bars between you and the tiger? We will see it doesn’t touch you. You will be safe.’

Jaggu was on the point of tears.‘Leave me, sir, I am no good for this. Let me go back to my village. I’ll display my strength and make my living.’

Madan was unmoved by all this pleading.‘They will have you in chains and put you to break stones ...’

‘I won’t mind it, sir,’he said, habituated to breaking stones and chains for a living at all fairs. As a threat it misfired. While all this talk was going on, Madan hadn’t yet released him from the back seat. The giant did not know how to come out of it. He said, ‘Please, sir, let me out. My knees are paining, I can’t sit here ...’ When that had no effect, he said,‘I’ve got to . ‘..’indicating he had to relieve himself.

Madan opened the door, pushed the seat forward, and hustled him out of the car. The giant got out and raced toward a bush. Madan shouted,‘If you try to trick me again, I’ll release the tiger out of the cage and set him on you.’He directed two men to follow him. When he returned with the two bodyguards, Madan said, ‘You must cooperate with me and I’ll make you rich — a famous man. Your photo will be on all walls and papers ... They will present their notebooks and beg you to sign ...’

‘No, sir, I was never taught how to read or write ... If they had only put me to school I would have been different. I don’t like tigers. Please save me ...’

‘You have signed or put your left thumb impression to an agreement in which you have agreed to act along with a tiger. But let me tell you, you will not be required to come close to the tiger. I will see that you are not hurt. Also remember the tiger is not all — it’s only a part. I have written a story in which you knock down the tiger, kill it, and then marry a beautiful girl ... I’m sure you will like it.’

He was horrified.‘Oh, no, I’m married ... I’ll go back to the village to give her money, whatever I earn ...’

‘All right, all right, you can take a lot of money for her.’

His bodyguards took him away at a signal from Madan and kept him company, enjoying a lot of jokes at his expense about bigamy. They led him away to a secluded spot on the location and said, ‘Our boss has a beautiful bride for you ... and yet you try to run away.’

Jaggu was horrified.‘Oh! I can’t, my wife will — ’

‘Oh, your wife! Don’t mind what she says. She is a country girl, but our boss has reserved for you a princess — oh, you will have to go through with it whether you like it or not. You have signed an agreement ...’

‘Don’t you know that a film star should have at least two wives?’

‘It is a government order,’said another.

‘Our hut in the village is small ...’Jaggu pleaded.

‘You are going to be rich and can afford two houses for two wives.’

‘You can sleep with one half the night, get up and go in a car to the other the other half of the night ... Lucky fellow!’

‘My wife will not like it ... I don’t want two wives.’

‘Wait till you see the other one ... You will save her from the tiger, and she’ll call you her lord and saviour and darling for your trouble ...’

Jaggu looked distressed and brooded over the terrible prospects that lay before him. He lit a
beedi
and thought over it.‘No, no,’he said to himself,‘I can’t accept a tiger ...’

‘It’s all written down like fate, nothing can be changed,’they taunted him.

He was rehearsed endlessly and made to go through the motions of wrestling with an unseen tiger. Madan himself was fatigued demonstrating, out of the range of the camera, the gestures, which the giant had to copy while the camera was shooting. Though the hero was the only one in the cast for the present sequence, the film personnel of two units created quite a crowd, and were all over the place.

At the other end of the lot Captain was handling Raja. He had extended the time for shooting by several weeks, since Madan had agreed to pay heavily for the extension, and Captain felt it was a sound way of making money during the interval between two camps. Although he was indifferent generally in money matters, now a certain degree of greed was overcoming him, a gradual corruption through contact with the film world. He began to think, ‘What a lot of money this film business turns over. Let me collect the loot, while this fool of a Madan is about it.’He told his wife, ‘Possibly after this, Madan may come up with an idea for making a full circus-picture, that’ll be a good break for us ...’

She welcomed the idea.‘Don’t discourage him. “Cooperate” with that fellow, as he always says. If he wants more days for shooting, grant it ... We could always delay the opening of the next camp. Anyway I’m tired and bored with the circus. Let us try something new for a change. We lose nothing. We may be free from all this dust and noise and ticket-selling for some time.’

‘We have to depend upon Raja now too much, and beg him to “cooperate” but his act is rather difficult. He is required to stand on his hind legs and fall forward. Every day I’m trying to make him understand, but it’s proving difficult ...’

‘Why don’t you try the electrical gadget?’

‘I won’t hear of it. Impossible.’

At this point their pleasantries came to an end and she castigated him for being impractical and sentimental.‘After all he’ll be limp for a few minutes, when you can manoeuvre him for the camera. I’m prepared to handle your Raja with the electric staff if you lack the guts. I am confident I can manage. Give me two men, Sam and the other fellow — what’s his name? Muniswami ...’

‘Very well,’Captain said,‘I’ll keep away tomorrow, you try...’

‘I mean it,’she said.

‘You mind your business,’he said.‘Tumble on your trapeze and read a novel if you can’t spend your time. If you feel dull without work, why don’t you spend a week at Lovedale, visiting the boys?’

‘So that you may breathe freely? You always find my presence irksome!’

‘Not always but sometimes. Whatever you want to do, keep off my animals. They won’t obey you because you are my wife.’

‘Ah, ah, you are modest, aren’t you?’

 
I did not like it in the least. Day after day I had to do the same thing over and over again. Captain came up at the same hour. The whip and the chair were back in use. A motley crowd around, outside the enclosure, watching me perform acts which I never understood. In the circus ring also there would be many men, but they all helped the show, carried out Captain’s orders, brought in whatever was required for the show, and took it away after the act. They moved slowly and never spoke much. But here were men who were ordering each other all the time. A man at the camera was commanding everybody, shouting at the top of his voice all the time,‘More left, no not so much, go back, light ...’When he said ‘light’, a blinding radiance would appear. I missed all the good things I had got used to in the circus. There one performed one’s duties and quickly went back home. The band music, and the men and women seated around in chairs, and their voices and the lights were very welcome and became a part of one’s life. But here, outside the ring, they behaved as if they were seized with fever ...