Greatest Short Stories (17 page)

Mr. Subramaniam slept soundly that night and was as good as dead to the world.

The next morning he felt the existence of a slight hangover.

When he had sufficiently recovered his sense it was about noon. He finished his previous day ’s letter to the Nawab Sahib and sent that in, requesting him to sign the documents.

There was no answer. Only the jemadar duly returned to the hall and sat smoking the hubble bubble.

And when Mr. Subramaniam made so bold as to inquire about the papers, the jemadar replied that the Nawab Sahib was still asleep, but that he was due to wake up soon, for there was to be a midday meal in honour of Mr. Subramaniam to which various friends of the Nawab Sahib were coming.

Mr. Subramaniam felt more frustrated than flattered on hearing the announcement. And then, there was the residue of guilt in his callow soul about his fall the previous evening. So he began to pace up and down the verandah of the guest house again and, fatigued by this useless occupation, he sat back in the armchair and tried to cultivate patience.

The warmth of the morning conduced to a light slumber and he only awoke when the jemadar shook him and told him the meal was ready and the guests had arrived.

If the dinner at the club had been a comparatively mild seven-course meal, the lunch at the Nawab Sahib’s house was hospitality in the proper sense of that word, as it is understood in Aliabad. ‘There were saffron tinted ‘Pilaos’ and rich ‘Kormas,’ tasty ‘kababs’ and fish, and fowl, cooked in the most luscious gravies. And even though Mr. Subramaniam took a little of everything, his stomach which was about the size of his fist or less, took in more than was good for him. And he found himself feeling drowsier and drowsier and could not even cope with the polite conversation about finance which Mr. Ram Ratan Gupta had started, far less bring the Nawab Sahib, his host, to talk of anything so concrete as those documents.

Nawab Luqman Ali Khan himself took the initiative to remind him during lunch that, after siesta that afternoon, he would bring out the papers to the guest house and go over them if Allah willed it so.

But Allah did not will it so. For though Mr. Subramaniam kept a vigil against all the seductions of sleep that afternoon, the Nawab was deep in slumber till the evening. And then he came like a whirlwind to ask Mr. Subramaniam to get dressed to go to the dinner to which Mr. Ram Ratan Gupta had graciously invited them. ‘Don’t worry about the papers,’ he added, ‘I have got them out and they are lying on my beside table to sign first thing tomorrow morning.’

So vociferously persuasive was the Nawab Sahib in imparting this information, that Mr. Subramaniam could not put a word in edgeways. And perforce, he went in and began to dress for dinner.

The dinner in Mr. Subramaniam’s honour, given by Mr. Gupta was as rich and sumptuous as the lunch given by Nawab Luqman Ali Khan; only, the number of vegetable dishes exceeded the meat dishes. But the general nature of hospitality was the same till Mr. Subramaniam began to recognise the unmistakable pattern of grace in Aliabad. There even followed the ‘chain effect’; Nawab Haidar Ali even followed the ‘chain effect’; Nawab Haider Ali suggested that it was his turn to invite Mr. Subramaniam now and that he would be happy if the honored guest, and the rest of the company, would come to the hunting lodge of his estate that very evening, for he had received a message from his shikaris, to say that a tiger had eaten the goat tied near the ‘Machan’ and was likely to repeat its visit. The laws of Aliabad hospitality demanded an acceptance of his noble suggestion and the company got into cars and was off into the depths of the night, illumined by a million stars.

The food and drink had broken the defences in Mr. Subramaniam’s soul enough for him to lend himself to the seductions of this drive. Never before in his life had he tasted the delights of so novel an adventure as a tiger hunt. And, though he felt a slight hazard in this game, the fresh air, and the impact of the dense forests through which they were passing, made him forget everything and yield to a ‘No care’ attitude. As for those documents how could one think anything so obscene in the midst of this vast anonymity where nature seemed to cancel out all questions, especially banking?

And later the exhaustion of the tense wait for the tiger to appear, as they sat on top of the ‘Machan’ blotted out even his sense of individuality.

The tiger did not oblige the hunters by appearing. And, after a’ hearty breakfast, served in Nawab Haidar Ali’s hunting lodge, the party of mankind had begun to resume its hold on work.

Mr. Subramaniam slept the clock round.’

And when he woke up, he suddenly found himself in a panic. It was strange how this confusion had come on him. But he sensed disaster. And, true to his prognostications, disaster it was that overtook him. For the Jemadar came and told him that the Nawab Sahib had been urgently called away to his estates in Madhopur and had left a message that Mr. Subramaniam Sahib was to wait till his return.

‘But when will he return?’ asked Subramaniam. ‘Nawab Sahib did not say ’, answered the Jemadar. ‘How long does he go for when he does go to his estate?’ ‘May be a month, may be a week, “huzoor”.

Mr. Subramaniam let out an involuntary shriek of horror, which he later tried to disguise as the belchings of an overtaxed stomach. His whole body was warm with the heat of anger, resentment, fear and forced ingratitude.

‘Go and fetch the papers from the Nawab’s bedside table’, he said to the jemadar.

The jemadar paused for a moment and looked askance at him.

Mr. Subramaniam understood. He took a ten rupee note from his pocket and gave it to the servant.

‘Fetch the papers and get my luggage ready ’, he said.

‘And hurry up for God’s sake, hurry up!…’

The jemadar obeyed the commands of the honoured guest implicitly, What was more, he put the documents, Mr. Subramaniam, and the luggage, into the Ford which was waiting outside the hall and bade him a most respectful farewell.

Mr. Subramaniam took the night train back to Bombay, having to sleep on the floor of the second class carriage because he had not booked his birth in advance.

He was shivering with the ague of a terrible fear when he arrived at Victoria Terminus, the next morning, for he was sure that he would be sacked as soon as he appeared at the bank.

But Mr. Hormusji Pestonji Captain understood all as soon as the papers were put before him without the signature of the Nawab on them. He only asked Mr. Subramaniam, to look for the documents on which the first and only signature of Nawab Luqman Ali Khan appeared. And he had a rubber stamp made of this precious mark, impression or whatever you would like to call it. And he soon had the necessary papers ready to sanction the loan to the entrepreneur who had set his heart on preventing the people of India from going blind. And he cursed himself for not having thought of this simple expedient earlier.

‘What is there so wonderful in a sala signature!’ he said like an efficient Parsi..

Mr. Subramaniam lifted his eyes from the desk and signified agreement with a terrific forward movement of his abject little head and torso.

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From
Reflections on the Golden Bed and Other Stories
.

18

The Two Lady Rams
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When his Majesty the King Emperor (or whichever Government department it was that acted on His Majesty ’s behalf) conferred the title of knighthood on Lalla Jhinda Ram, in recognition of his sundry services to the British Empire, His Majesty ’s Government did not realise the awful domestic predicament into which they would put him. Of course, there is no way in which His Majesty the King Emperor, sitting seven thousand miles away from India, can ever get to know anything about the private lives of his subjects. And the department acting in his name which draws up the Birthday or New Year ’s Honours lists, though it is possessed of fairly well-documented confidential dossiers about the temperament, religious, political and social opinion of almost all notable persons as well as notorieties and particularly about the services rendered to the Sarkar by them, is singularly inept and formal about the human details of their lives. In the circumstances, the crisis which the honour of Knighthood precipitated in Lalla Jhinda Ram’s house, was as inevitable as a sudden blow from Destiny, and brought more sorrow in its train than the joy which such a rise to eminence and respectability brings with it. For Jhinda Ram had two wives and, naturally, both of them insisted on being called Lady Ram.

Of course, Lalla Jhinda Ram was fairly well able to cope with this crisis in the early stages, as he merely ignored the tension between his wives which began to manifest itself in long sulks and occasional snatches of unmentionable dialogue after the news of the award came through. Jhinda Ram was too busy receiving and answering the numerous congratulations which were arriving, and in his furtive colloquies with that part of himself which did not really believe that he, Jhinda Ram, contractor, whose father was a small shopkeeper, had suddenly been lifted from his five foot five of corpulence to an exalted height equal to that of six foot six Sahib. Apart from the vertical advantages which he had attained, there was the pleasurable feeling of the extension of this personality in girth on the horizontal plane, as it were, through the aura of glory that already radiated from him, as he contemplated himself and smiled to the full-length mirror in stolen side-long glances when none of his servants were looking. As his wives had been wrangling for the last seven years, that is to say, ever since the young, twenty-five-year-old Sakuntala came and ousted the fifty-year-old Sukhi, he regarded their renewed bitterness as only another phase of the quarrel which he had dodged by segregating them in two different parts of his house.

But the quarrel took a serious turn as soon as Jhinda realised that, with the news of the award of Knighthood, there was the invitation to attend the Garden Party which was to be held the next day at the residence of His Excellency the Governor, specially for the ceremony of investiture of all those dignitaries who had been granted titles, medals and scrolls of honour.

For, the invitation which came from Government House was for Sir Jhinda and Lady Ram. And as the new Knight only asked his younger wife, Sakuntala, to buy a new sari and get ready for the occasion, the news of this discrimination travelled through the servants to the part of the house where the old wife, Sukhi, was segregated. And there was trouble.

Perhaps, however, trouble is too mild a word for what happened. For it was a veritable war that broke out in the comparatively peaceful house of Sir Jhinda, and trenches were dug, or rather, barricades raised, and if there was no gunpowder used, it was only because women in India have not yet learnt all the tricks of AI Capone as the men have through the talkies.

The bungalow, in which Lalla Jhinda Ram and his two spouses lived, had been specially built before his second marriage, in the now famous Purdah style which has become current in Hindustan. Its front, which looked out into Lawrence Road, was like the front of an ordinary English bungalow, with a verandah decorated by palm trees and hanging plants, leading through a narrow hall into a large living-room. On either side of this commodious salon, were a suite of bedrooms and boudoirs, bounded by a walled square, which was itself divided by a high wall running right through the middle of the compound.

Until the beginning of the war over the question as to who was to be called Lady Ram and go with Sir Jhinda to the investiture at Government House, both Sukhi and Sakuntala had more or less followed a convention not to interfere with each other but to keep to their different households, attended by servants who all lived a common life in a row of one-roomed houses outside the bungalow. Lalla Jhinda Ram slept alternate nights in the suites of the two wives and spent the few hours during which he was at home in the day time in the English style gol kamara or, living-room. And life went on smoothly enough, except when these unwritten agreements were violated in any way. Even if there were differences over any undue favour that the lord and master was known, through the gossip of the servants, to be showing to one wife over the other, they were settled through the ‘Long sulk method’ of boycott or through the malicious gossip campaign conducted with the help of partisan servants or relations. And, as both wives enjoyed an equal status under custom, and the rankling bitterness of the old wife was alleviated by the consideration that her husband had only married a second time for the perpetuation of the race since she was barren, life had passed smoothly enough.

But in the crisis which matured before the investiture, a question of principle suddenly arose. For the English, who still allowed the Hindu Mitakshara Law to be practised side by side with the Indian Penal Code which they had imposed, and who, therefore, allowed a man to marry three or four wives, had made no ruling whether all or any of these wives could assume the title of Lady in case the husband was suddenly raised to a Knighthood or Viscountcy, or Earldom, Dukedom or anything like that. The question presented itself to Sukhi, the older wife, that if she was not allowed to call herself Lady Jhinda Ram, she, the less-favoured of the two wives, would lose all the prestige that belonged to her as a mater familias, and that she would be as good as thrown on the rubbish-heap in full view of that chit of a girl, Sakuntala, who had so far regarded her as a kind of mother-in-law and been fairly respectful to her.

So, early in the morning, after she heard that Sakunatala alone had been asked by the master of the house to go to the Garden party at Government House, Sukhi outflanked the wall that divided the suite of rooms from her young rival’s and walked straight through the English — style living-room and opened her attack.

‘Eater of her masters, this is the last humiliation which you had to cast on me!’ she began. ‘But I’ll pull every hair on your head and blacken your face!!!’

Sir Jhinda and Lady Sakuntala Ram had hardly yet awakened from their deep slumber. On hearing., this violent language, they scrambled out of bed, lest Sukhi should really mishandle them.

‘Go to your rooms,’ Sir Jhinda said peremptorily, rubbing his eyes.

‘I will stay here if I like,’ said the loud Sukhi. ‘I am the owner of the whole of this house. You had nothing before I brought a lakh of rupees in my dowry!… What did this bitch bring with her — nothing but a fair complexion and a snub nose.’

‘Go, go, gentle woman!” protested Sakuntala meekly. ‘Go to your own part of the house and don’t eat my life.

Whereupon Sukhi let loose a flood of curses, imprecations and innuendoes and silenced them both.

Unable to bear the continued flow of her abuse Sir Jhinda ultimately had to resort to force majeure. Like a knight of old he summoned the true sense of chivalry towards his young love and, taking Sukhi by the hair, tried to drag her away to her part of the house. Strangely enough the old woman did not respect her lord and master any more, for she resisted like a tiger and, upturning the table in the livingroom, barricaded herself there and waxed eloquent about the misdeeds of Sir Jhinda and Lady Ram all day.

Sir Jhinda was sufficiently perturbed by her stand to go and telephone the A.D.C. to His Excellency the Governor to ask for an appointment to see him on an urgent matter.

The A.D.C., who was busy with arrangements for the Garden Party next day, stalled, presuming that Sir Jhinda Ram was only after some deal or contract as usual, and though the commissions the Sahib had received from this knight had always been generous, Captain Forbes had made his pile and did not want to get involved in these shady negotiations any more.

But as the battle between his two wives was still raging at noon, when Sir Jhinda returned home for the midday meal, the knight was very distressed and thought of a typically Indian and very unorthodox manner of approach to the whole question. Always, in time of trouble in the old days any man could go right up to the king, Sir Jhinda knew; so he would go and see the Governor of the province, the king’s representative, the shadow of the monarch.

He had, however, reckoned without his hosts. For, as he drew upto the gates of Government House, the sepoy on sentry wanted to see his pass. And no lies that Sir Jhinda could concoct about his being the contractor, who had to superintend the supply of cutlery for the Garden Party, would satisfy the soldier of the king.

‘ The Garden Party is in the afternoon’, the sepoy said.

‘Lat Sahib is at tiffin. And there are strict orders that no one should disturb his siesta.’

Sir Jhinda, humiliated before his chauffeur, got into his car and returned homewards. On the way, he exercised all his wits to discover some way to solve the infernal crisis in which he found himself. But howsoever he looked at the problem, he knew a few things were certain: (1) that Sukhi would never let him rest all his life if she was not called Lady Ram and taken to the Garden party; (2) that Sakuntala would never let him come near her if, after having told her to prepare for the Garden party, he now withheld this pleasure from her; (3) that there was no way of contacting the Governor or A.D.C., and that it was no use seeking advice of any of the gentry in the town, because they would be malicious and make a joke of what was a question of life and death for him.

‘Forgive, me, Lallaji’, said the chauffeur, turning round as Jhinda Ram got out of the car in the drive of his bungalow, ‘forgive me for being so officious as to make a humble suggestion…

‘What do you know of all this?’ said Sir Jhinda Ram, angry but humble, for he knew his servants knew all about his predicament. ‘speak, what have you to say?’

‘Maharaj, forgive me who is not good enough to clean the dust of your shoes… But why don’t you take both the Bibis to the Party?’

‘Acha,
mind your business,’ said Sir Jhinda Ram gruffly, and dismissed the driver.

But in his heart of hearts he thought how obvious and simple a solution to the whole problem this was. Why, if he could marry two wives in law, he certainly ought to have a right to call them both Lady Rams. There was no precedent for this, but he would create the precedent. And, anyhow, the governor could not turn one of his wives out if he took them both to the party. The only difficulty was the invitation card, which was only for Sir Jhinda and Lady Ram… But that was easy. He would alter the words to ‘The two Lady Rams’, as he had altered many more intricate documents in the past.

‘Ohe’
, he called to the chauffeur, ‘Go and tell both the Bibis to get ready for the Garden Party. And get my bearer to serve my tiffin.’

With that quality of tact which the driver had displayed to Sir Jhinda, he respectfully approached both the wives and told each of them separately that she alone was going to the garden party. Sakuntala had already been confident about her husband’s choice, but Sukhi’s vanity was tickled by the special emphasis that the chauffeur laid on the Master ’s ultimate choice of her. This appeased her wrath for the while, so that she began to prepare for the occasion.

The duplicity of the driver afforded Sir Jhinda enough time to eat his midday meal in peace and even to have his siesta, a bath and a change of clothes. And when the two wives appeared, both dressed in the most flashing saris and found they had been tricked, they dared not, out of respect for their prolonged toilet, gouge each other ’s eyes out. Besides, the clever driver took charge of them and Sir Jhinda, bundled them into the car and sped towards Government House.

The sentries at the gates of the holy of holies presented arms to the honoured guests as the car slid into the drive.

And, apart from the lifted eyebrows of the butler as he sonorously announced ‘sir Jhinda and the two Lady Rams’ to His Excellency and Her Excellency, who stood receiving the guests at the head of a marquee, nothing untoward happened. As a matter of fact, Her Excellency made it a point to compliment the two Lady Rams on their wonderful saris, and His Excellency was cordiality itself when he presented the Star of the Knight Commander of the Indian Empire to Sir Jhinda Ram.

There were a few young boys and girls who chuckled as they furtively whispered to each other ‘Look there! — the two Lady Rams!’ But then the youth of today, in Government House and outside, is notorious for its complete disregard of all manners, codes, conventions, rules and regulations. And such disrespect was only to be expected.

Since that day Sir Jhinda and the two Lady Rams are a familiar feature of all ceremonial occasions in our capital. And no Empire Day, cricket match or horse race is complete without them. For they are three staunch pillars of the Raj which has conceded to them privileges unknown in the annals of the Angrezi Sarkar of India.

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From
Tire 1ractor and tire Corn Goddess and Other Stories.