The Cat and Shakespeare (14 page)

‘Tomorrow I’ll bring the cat to court,’ he said, as if asking the judge’s permission. Of course, what wrong could Govindan Nair have done? Could you ever see a man so innocent? Anybody could see he played with children and the scale. And when one side was heavy, he put two kids on the other side to make the balance go up. Then he brought the needle to a standstill, holding it tight. Thus the balance was created among men. When two things depend on each other for their very existence, neither exists. That is the Law of law.

‘The cat, sir, will do it,’ he said. The judge consented.

Next day I sent Usha with Shantha (the baby was left at home with Tangamma to look after him). The cat was carried in a big cage.

When the court opened its deliberations, the Government Advocate said: ‘My Lord, we are facing judgment against judgment. We must be careful. We have, as witness, a cat.’

‘Why not? We are in Travancore.’

‘I thought so too, Your Lordship. Why should we follow the proceedings of any other court of the world, were it His Majesty’s Privy Council in London? If a cat could be proved to prove any evidence we might set a precedent.’

‘My Lord,’ said Govindan Nair, rising. Crowds had gathered at the courthouse. Such a thing had never happened before. It was not even a political case. (There was no Gandhi in it.) Women were somehow convinced that Govindan Nair was an innocent man. Some of them had seen him in the ration shop. Others had gone to have ration cards issued. Some had noticed him give way to ladies when the bus was overcrowded. Such things are never forgotten by women. They always feed the child in their womb whether the child be there or not. Who knows, some day . . .

‘My Lord, I am not sure this copy of my signature is correct. Could I have the original?’

‘The original is in the files,’ said the court clerk.

‘How could it be wrong?’

The cat escaped from Shantha’s hand and ran all over the court. Nobody wanted to stop the proceedings or to laugh. Either would be acknowledging that the cat was there. It went right over to the Government Advocate and sat in front of him as if it were going towards itself. The silence was so clear, one could see the movement of the cat’s whiskers. One had no doubt the cat was there. And it knew everything. Each movement was preceded by a withdrawal, recognition, and then the jump. The cat jumped straight on to the judge’s table. And before the attendants could brush it away, it leaped down and fell over one of those huge clay office inkpots kept under tables, and, turning through the back door, went into the record room. The court clerk was looking at the file. The cat did nothing. It stood there. The attendants came and stood watching the cat. Then the cat lay down on the floor and started licking its fur. Govindan Nair was burring something in the court. The attendants, seeing the cat doing nothing, went back to the court.

The cat suddenly jumped on to the shoulder of the clerk and started licking his neck. He felt such sweetness in this, he opened file after file. The cat now jumped over to the table and sat. Usha came from the back, led by an attendant, and took the cat in her arms. The clerk had indeed found the paper.

‘May I see it, Your Lordship?’ asked Govindan Nair.

‘Yes, here it is,’ said the judge, but at the last moment he held it back. For just as he was handing the paper over, the light from the ceiling—a sunbeam, in fact—pierced through the paper, or maybe it was just electric light. Underneath the signature was another signature. When the judge had read it, he handed it over to the Government Advocate. He read it and said: ‘Bhoothalinga Iyer himself signed this. How did this happen?’

‘Yes, sir. That is how it was. Rama Iyer made a slight mistake. After all Bhoothalinga Iyer and he are both Brahmins. He wanted to save Bhoothalinga Iyer. It is plain as could be.’

‘Then why did you admit all that you have admitted?’

‘I have in all honesty admitted nothing.’

‘Oho,’ shouted Tirumalachar.

‘Go on,’ said the judge.

‘Sir, why do we admit then that a chair is a chair?’

‘Why, have you not seen a chair?’

‘Ho, ho!’ shouted the crowd.

‘Has anyone seen a chair?’ asked the judge.

‘Nobody has,’ said the Government Advocate. He was plainly taking sides with the accused.

The judge said: ‘I sit on a chair.’

‘Who?’ asked Govindan Nair.

The judge in fact rose up to see who sat on the chair. He went round and round the table looking at who? There was such silence, the women wept. The cat jumped on to the dais. The attendants said nothing. The Government Advocate was chatting happily with Govindan Nair. Who said there was a case? The clerk was looking for the file to put back the paper. Usha put a garland around the neck of Govindan Nair.

That was the fact. Govindan Nair was not set free. He was free. Nobody is a criminal who has not been proven criminal. The judge had to find himself, and in so doing, he lost his seat. Who sits on the judge’s seat became an important subject of discussion in Travancore High Court. Since then many learned treatises have been written on the subject.

It was all due to Govindan Nair. He had, while in prison, written out a whole story to himself. Bhoothalinga Iyer had signed the paper. It had nothing to do with ration permits. It had to do with Bhoothalinga Iyer’s extramarital propensities. In this business he came across virtue. So instead of going to Benares he gave the money to the widow of a Brahmin, an Iyengar woman in fact. (The breasts and other things were added to make the story comply with film stories.) The story came true as he wrote it. He was sure that it was a fact. He told himself again and again and told it in court again and again. At night the prison wardens were surprised to see him talking to himself. Actually he thought he was addressing the court. He even made and remade the necessary gestures. Wardens could think he was practising acting. He recited his prose precisely till he knew every situation by heart. That is why he was so cocksure in open court. After all, only a story that you write yourself from nowhere can be perfect. You can do with it what you want to do with it. (Abraham wrote romantic poetry and he said it did with him what it wanted. So, eventually, he married Myriam, etc.) But Govindan Nair had the liberty the judge did not have. Only the Government Advocate knew everything. A fact is a prisoner. You are free, or you become the prisoner, and the fact is free, etc., etc. So the Government Advocate knew the accused was no accused. He was one with the accused. That showed why the cat went to the Government Advocate first. The cat also kissed the clerk on the neck.

Bhoothalinga Iyer’s signature was revealed by a sunbeam. Was Bhoothalinga Iyer then in Coimbatore?

Mr Justice Gopala Menon was the son of the late Peshkar Rao Bahadur Parameshwara Menon, and he had only three months of service before retirement. He took leave preparatory to retirement and went to the Himalayas, so people said. Govindan Nair laughed and remarked: ‘You no more find the truth in the Himalayas than you find it in the
Indian Law Register.
You may find it on your garden wall and not know it was it. You must have eyes to see,’ he said desperately to me.

‘What do eyes see?’ I asked, as if in fun.

‘Light,’ he said, tears trickling from his dark eyes.

You only see what you want to see. But you must see what you see. Freedom is only that you see what you see.

Normally the story should have stopped there. But is life normal? Is the cat in the court normal? Are big breasts and a necklace rising and falling at the feet of a ration clerk normal? Is death normal? Is Shantha’s life with me normal (she not married to me and such a wife)? And Saroja such a married spouse (and living far away where the Dutch once landed, those able-bodied men), and she keeping Vithal and telling him: ‘Your father is no father. Your real father is the sun. Worship him.’ And when he falls and rises in prostration every morning, Vithal finds a box of peppermints, round as the sun. This is to prove his paternity. Are the wars normal? Hitler smashing the British in Libya? Are the Japanese normal, those semi-divine, semi-human beings who, never seeing their Emperor, die for him, crash airplanes against British warships, walk through Burmese jungles on famine rations and defeat the bulldog British? And the one plus one that makes two—is that normal, tell me? What then is normal? My new baby is normal. He feeds on his mother’s breasts and for the rest he sleeps or cries. Usha looks after him as if it were her own child.

A child for a woman is always her own child. All children belong to her by right. Who made the world thus? I say you made it. Whoever said it was made, made it. Otherwise how can you say it was made? Making itself is an idea born of the world. When making seeks making in making, pray, who sees a world? You say World, and so making comes into existence. Is one the proof of the other? Are you my proof, I ask of you, whoever you may be? Suppose I were to take you to a lonely island and say, coo. The whole island will say coo. Then you say the whole island says coo, forgetting that you said coo. And when you said who said coo, you seek your breath and you know breath said coo. Did you see the origin of your breath? And did you see the origin of your breath? And did you see him who knows you breathe, etc., etc.? It is not so simple as all that. No question is simple. So no answer is normal. Yet must I have stopped where I left off? But I must give you other news. I must prove the world is. For Love is where happening happens as non-happening. What can happen where everything is, etc., etc.?

To prove the world is, I build a house two storeys high. To speak the truth, Shantha’s land was sold for eighteen thousand rupees. (The Revenue Board at last gave its decision soon after our child was born.) She paid some of her mother’s debts and she and her mother moved to my house completely. We paid the Mudali (who comes every Friday to see Usha and takes her to his wife, from where the child returns rich in gifts of sweets and dolls and many choli-pieces) the second instalment. In regard to the third, we waited for Govindan Nair to come out of jail. He sent word privately that we should not worry. Anyway, the Mudali was so kind to us, a month or two would make no difference to him. Thus with the little money Shantha still had—we started the second storey. Were it only one room and large veranda, it would still do. We just wanted a little more sea air. From the upper terrace we look over the coconut trees (and actually see some eagles’ nests), and far away we see the white of the sea. When the Maharaja goes on his Arath procession in the full October evening we will be able to see the elephants and the horses though we could never guess where the sword will be dipped in the sea and the Brahmins will bathe. But when night falls and the procession returns, how beautiful it will look, the clusters of linked lights moving back to the temple, and then all the million million temple lights will be aglow. That is why I said to Usha: ‘How can we leave Shantha and the child? We shall see the Arath from here.’ Usha said, ‘Of course, and Tangamma will come and stand on our terrace.’ Modhu, her eldest born, and Govindan Nair will go to the procession. The cat will sit on the edge of the new terrace and see the procession go to the sea.

The cat has become something of a problem to us. It feeds only on white-cows’ milk, not even cows’ milk will do. Govindan Nair says there are some chemical processes in white cows which are not to be found in black cows, that is why Narayan Pandita Vaidyan always says: ‘Take this trituration, sister, and after that you must drink white-cows’ milk.’ Strange, these limitations man seems to put on himself. However, there it is, the cat appears to understand it better. If Shantha is in her ‘three days’, and she should by chance touch the white saucer of milk, the cat will not come anywhere near it. If I ever get angry with the cat, it does not get angry with me, but will beg me for milk. Thus it shows what a fool I am. How can you get angry with such a silent thing? Have you ever seen it bite or tear? No, never. Usha can lie by the cat as the baby lies by her, and nothing ever happens, not even a scratch on the nose. Sometimes the cat disappears and one does not see it for a long time. The Mudali, who loves the cat, says it goes on its
swayamavara
¹⁴
rounds. It must seek its mate. But nobody has ever seen our cat meow on our terrace and call for a mate. Then one day it appears on the wall. We never ask it where it has been, it goes back to its white-cows’ milk (and the saucer) as if it had never been anywhere. Mysterious are feline ways.

Mysterious, you could say, are man’s ways too. He goes shopping or barking as he likes. I say barking because Govindan Nair’s shout is so much like a bark sometimes. He must speak to tree and mongoose as if they were under his authority. Everything in the world seems to obey—or must obey—Govindan Nair. I sometimes wonder what would, say, the river Parrar do, if he said: ‘Turn this way and go to the Coromandel Sea.’ It might become a Coromandel river. He still comes and says many things I just begin to understand. Shantha says in the evening: ‘What a strange man. He seems wanting to devour the whole world with fire. Then he sits down and talks to you as if he were sending a child to sleep. Who is he?’ Who, indeed, is Govindan Nair? He says he is a Nair and all Nair land has floated down to Antarctica. Perhaps they keep a record there? But here, what do we know? He has bought himself a bicycle, too. He gave us the next seven thousand rupees a few months after he came out of jail. We gave it to the Mudali. He took the whole sum but kept only four thousand. With the other three thousand, he had a gold belt and two diamond earring made for Usha, and a nose ring for Shantha. (Rather, his wife came home with betel leaf and nut, and this was offered with ceremony.) Shantha looks so lovely with her straight nose, her rich black hair and her diamond nose ring.

A third storey was what I wanted to build, so that I could see up to the end of the sea. Govindan Nair laughed and said, ‘Mister, can you see the back of your head?’ I said no. ‘To see the end of the sea is just like saying: I see the end of your nose. Can you see the end of my nose? Have a good look at it. Can you see it there? Just there. Yes, just here. Can you see it?’ he asked. I said, ‘No, how can I see a point?’ ‘Then how can you see the sea?’ he asked. ‘The drop makes the ocean, is an ancient saying.’ ‘So what shall I see when I build a house three storeys high?’ I said. He said: ‘The day that it is finished you will die. I have your horoscope. It is all drawn up. Jupiter enters the seventh house, and with moon in the fifth, death is certain.’ The cat jumped on to my lap and sat in comfort, her head held high.