Malgudi Days (31 page)

‘If we had electric lights we could at least have switched them on and seen that creature, at least to know what it is.'

‘All in good time, all in good time, sir, this is no occasion for complaints.' He led the exorcist to the shop entrance. Someone flourished a flashlight, but its battery was weak and the bulb glowed like embers, revealing nothing. Meanwhile, the cat, sensing the presence of a crowd, paused, but soon revived its activity with redoubled vigour and went bouncing against every wall and window bar. Every time the clanging sound came the shopman trembled and let out a wail, and the onlookers jumped back nervously. The exorcist was also visibly shaken. He peered into the dark shop at the door and sprang back adroitly every time the metallic noise approached. He whispered, ‘At least light a candle; what a man to have provided such darkness for yourself and your tenants, while the whole city is blazing with lights. What sort of a man are you!'

Someone in the crowd added, ‘Only a single well for twenty families, a single lavatory!'

A wag added, ‘When I lie in bed with my wife, the littlest whisper between us is heard on all sides.'

Another retorted, ‘But you are not married.'

‘What if? There are others with families.'

‘None of your business to become a champion for others. They can look after themselves.'

Bang! Bang!

‘It's his sinfulness that has brought this haunting,' someone said, pointing at the shopman.

‘Why don't you all clear out if you are so unhappy?' said the shopman. There could be no answer to that, as the town like all towns in the world suffered from a shortage of housing. The exorcist now assumed command. He gestured to others to keep quiet. ‘This is no time for complaints or demands. You must all go back to bed. This evil spirit inside has to be driven out. When it emerges there must be no one in its way, otherwise it'll get under your skin.'

‘Never mind, it won't be worse than our landlord. I'd love to take the devil under my skin if I can kick these walls and bring down this miserable ramshackle on the head of whoever owns it,' said the wag. The exorcist said, ‘No, no, no harsh words, please . . . I'm also a tenant and suffer like others, but I won't make my demands now. All in proper time. Get me a candle—' He turned to the shopman, ‘Don't you sell candles? What sort of a shopman are you without candles in your shop!' No one lost his chance to crucify the shopman.

He said, ‘Candles are in a box on the right-hand side on a shelf as you step in—you can reach it if you just stretch your arm . . .'

‘You want me to go in and try? All right, but I charge a fee for approaching a spirit—otherwise I always work from a distance.' The shopman agreed to the special fee and the exorcist cleared his throat, adjusted his coiffure and stood before the door of the shop proclaiming loudly, ‘Hey, spirit, I'm not afraid, I know your kind too well, you know me well, so . . .' He slid open the shutter, stepped in gingerly; when he had advanced a few steps, the jug hit the ventilator glass and shattered it, which aggravated the cat's panic, and it somersaulted in confusion and caused a variety of metallic pandemonium in the dark chamber; the exorcist's legs faltered, and he did not know for a moment what his next step should be or what he had come in for. In this state he bumped into the piled-up kerosene tins and sent them clattering down, which further aggravated the cat's hysteria. The exorcist rushed out unceremoniously. ‘Oh, oh, this is no ordinary affair. It seizes me like a tornado . . . it'll tear down the walls soon.'

‘
Aiyo!
' wailed the shopman.

‘I have to have special protection . . . I can't go in . . . no candle, no light. We'll have to manage in the dark. If I hadn't been quick enough, you would not have seen me again.'

‘
Aiyo!
What's to happen to my shop and property?'

‘We'll see, we'll see, we will do something,' assured the other heroically; he himself looking eerie in the beam of light that fell on him from the street. The shopman was afraid to look at him, with his grisly face and rolling eyes, whose corners were touched with white sacred ash. He felt he had been caught between two devils—difficult to decide which one was going to prove more terrible, the one in the shop or the one outside. The exorcist sat upright in front of the closed door as if to emphasize, ‘I'm not afraid to sit here,' and commanded, ‘Get me a copper pot, a copper tumbler and a copper spoon. It's important.'

‘Why copper?'

‘Don't ask questions . . . All right, I'll tell you: because copper is a good conductor. Have you noticed electric wires of copper overhead?'

‘What is it going to conduct now?'

‘Don't ask questions. All right, I'll tell you. I want a medium which will lead my mantras to that horrible thing inside.'

Without further questioning, the shopman produced an aluminium pot from somewhere. ‘I don't have copper, but only aluminium . . .'

‘In our country let him be the poorest man, but he'll own a copper pot . . . But here you are calling yourself a
sowcar
, you keep nothing; no candle, no light, no copper . . .' said the exorcist.

‘In my village home we have all the copper and silver . . .'

‘How does it help you now? It's not your village house that is now being haunted, though I won't guarantee this may not pass on there . . . Anyway, let me try.' He raised the aluminium pot and hit the ground; immediately from inside came the sound of the jug hitting something again and again, ‘Don't break the vessel, ' cried the shopman. Ignoring his appeal the exorcist hit the ground again and again with the pot. ‘That's a good sign. Now the spirits will speak. We have our own code.' He tapped the aluminium pot with his knuckles in a sort of Morse code. He said to the landlord, ‘Don't breathe hard or speak loudly. I'm getting a message: I'm asked to say it's the spirit of someone who is seeking redress. Did you wrong anyone in your life?'

‘Oh, no, no,' said the shopman in panic. ‘No, I've always been charitable . . .'

The exorcist cut him short. ‘Don't tell me anything, but talk to yourself and to that spirit inside. Did you at any time handle . . . wait a minute, I'm getting the message . . .' He held the pot's mouth to his ear. ‘Did you at any time handle someone else's wife or money?'

The shopman looked horrified, ‘Oh, no, never.'

‘Then what is it I hear about your holding a trust for a widow . . . ?'

He brooded while the cat inside was hitting the ventilator, trying to get out. The man was in a panic now. ‘What trust? May I perish if I have done anything of that kind. God has given me enough to live on . . .'

‘I've told you not to talk unnecessarily. Did you ever molest any helpless woman or keep her at your mercy? If you have done a wrong in your childhood, you could expiate . . .'

‘How?'

‘That I'll explain, but first confess . . .'

‘Why?'

‘A true repentance on your part will emasculate the evil spirit.' The jug was hitting again, and the shopman became very nervous and said, ‘Please stop that somehow, I can't bear it.' The exorcist lit a piece of camphor, his stock-in-trade, and circled the flame in all directions. ‘To propitiate the benign spirits around so that they may come to our aid . . .' The shopman was equally scared of the benign spirits. He wished, at that pale starlit hour, that there were no spirits whatever, good or bad. Sitting on the
pyol
, and hearing the faint shrieking of a night bird flying across the sky and fading, he felt he had parted from the solid world of men and material and had drifted on to a world of unseen demons.

The exorcist now said, ‘Your conscience should be clear like the Manasaro Lake. So repeat after me whatever I say. If there is any cheating, your skull will burst. The spirit will not hesitate to dash your brains out.'

‘Alas, alas, what shall I do?'

‘Repeat after me these words: I have lived a good and honest life.' The shopman had no difficulty in repeating it, in a sort of low murmur in order that it might not be overheard by his tenants. The exorcist said, ‘I have never cheated anyone.'

‘. . . cheated anyone,' repeated the shopman.

‘Never appropriated anyone's property . . .'

The shopman began to repeat, but suddenly stopped short to ask, ‘Which property do you mean?'

‘I don't know,' said the exorcist, applying the pot to his ear. ‘I hear of some irregularity.'

‘Oh, it's not my mistake . . .' the shopman wailed. ‘It was not my mistake. The property came into my hands, that's all . . .'

‘Whom did it belong to?'

‘Honappa, my friend and neighbour, I was close to his family. We cultivated adjoining fields. He wrote a will and was never seen again in the village.'

‘In your favour?'

‘I didn't ask for it; but he liked me . . .'

‘Was the body found?'

‘How should I know?'

‘What about the widow?'

‘I protected her as long as she lived.'

‘Under the same roof?'

‘Not here, in the village . . .'

‘You were intimate?'

The shopman remained silent. ‘Well, she had to be protected . . .'

‘How did she die?'

‘I won't speak a word more—I've said everything possible; if you don't get that devil after all this, you'll share the other's fate . . .' He suddenly sprang on the exorcist, seized him by the throat and commanded, ‘Get that spirit out after getting so much out of me, otherwise . . .' He dragged the exorcist and pushed him into the dark chamber of the shop. Thus suddenly overwhelmed, he went in howling with fright, his cry drowning the metallic clamour. As he fumbled in the dark with the shopman mounting guard at the door, the jug hit him between his legs and he let out a desperate cry, ‘Ah! Alas! I'm finished,' and the cat, sensing the exit, dashed out with its metal hood on, jumped down onto the street and trotted away. The exorcist and the shopman watched in silence, staring after it. The shopman said, ‘After all, it's a cat.'

‘Yes, it may appear to be a cat. How do you know what is inside the cat?'

The shopman brooded and looked concerned. ‘Will it visit us again?'

‘Can't say,' said the exorcist. ‘Call me again if there is trouble, ' and made for his cubicle, saying, ‘Don't worry about my
dakshina
now. I can take it in the morning.'

When pressed to state his age, Ranga would generally reply, ‘Fifty, sixty or eighty.' You might change your tactics and inquire, ‘How long have you been at this job?'

‘Which job?'

‘Carrying that grinding wheel around and sharpening knives.'

‘Not only knives, but also scythes, clippers and every kind of peeler and cutter in your kitchen, also bread knives, even butcher's hatchets in those days when I carried the big grindstone; in those days I could even sharpen a maharaja's sword' (a favourite fantasy of his was that if armies employed swords he could become a millionaire). You might interrupt his loquaciousness and repeat your question: ‘How long have you been a sharpener of knives and other things?' ‘Ever since a line of moustache began to appear here,' he would say, drawing a finger over his lip. You would not get any further by studying his chin now overlaid with patchy tufts of discoloured hair. Apparently he never looked at a calendar, watch, almanac or even a mirror. In such a blissful state, clad in a dhoti, khaki shirt and turban, his was a familiar figure in the streets of Malgudi as he slowly passed in front of homes, offering his service in a high-pitched, sonorous cry, ‘Knives and scissors sharpened.'

He stuck his arm through the frame of a portable grinding apparatus; an uncomplicated contraption operated by an old cycle wheel connected to a foot-pedal. At the Market Road he dodged the traffic and paused in front of tailor's and barber's shops, offering his services. But those were an erratic and unreliable lot, encouraging him by word but always suggesting another time for business. If they were not busy cutting hair or clothes (tailors, particularly, never seemed to have a free moment, always stitching away on overdue orders), they locked up and sneaked away, and Ranga had to be watchful and adopt all kinds of strategies in order to catch them. Getting people to see the importance of keeping their edges sharp was indeed a tiresome mission. People's reluctance and lethargy had, initially, to be overcome. At first sight everyone dismissed him with, ‘Go away, we have nothing to grind,' but if he persisted and dallied, some member of the family was bound to produce a rusty knife, and others would follow, vying with one another, presently, to ferret out long-forgotten junk and clamour for immediate attention. But it generally involved much canvassing, coaxing and even aggressiveness on Ranga's part; occasionally he would warn, ‘If you do not sharpen your articles now, you may not have another chance, since I am going away on a pilgrimage.'

‘Makes no difference, we will call in the other fellow,' someone would say, referring to a competitor, a miserable fellow who operated a hand grinder, collected his cash and disappeared, never giving a second look to his handiwork. He was a fellow without a social standing, and no one knew his name, no spark ever came out of his wheel, while Ranga created a regular pyrotechnic display and passing children stood transfixed by the spectacle. ‘All right,' Ranga would retort, ‘I do not grudge the poor fellow his luck, but he will impart to your knife the sharpness of an egg; after that I won't be able to do anything for you. You must not think that anyone and everyone could handle steel. Most of these fellows don't know the difference between a knife blade and a hammerhead.'