Arul Doss took a few moments to understand, then swayed with laughter. Tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Well, I have been a servant in this department for twenty-nine years, but I’ve never heard a crazier proposal. All right, all right.’ He was convulsed with laughter as he turned to go. Margayya looked at his back helplessly. He cast his eyes down and surveyed himself: perhaps he cut a ridiculous figure, with his dhoti going brown for lack of laundering and with his shirt collar frayed, and those awful silver spectacles. ‘I hate these spectacles. I wish I could do without them.’ But age, age – who could help long-sight? ‘If I wore gold spectacles, perhaps they would take me seriously and not order me about. Who is this Secretary to call me through the peon? I won’t be ridiculed. I’m at least as good as they.’ He called out: ‘Look here, Arul Doss.’ With a beaming face, Arul Doss turned round. ‘Tell your Secretary that if he is a Secretary, I’m really the proprietor of a bank, and that he can come here and meet me if he has any business –’
‘Shall I repeat those very words?’ Arul Doss asked, ready to burst out laughing again.
‘Absolutely,’ Margayya said. ‘And another thing, if you find yourself thrown out of there, you can come to me for a job. I like you, you seem to be a hard-working, loyal fellow.’ Further parleys were cut off because a couple of villagers came round for consultation, and started forming a semi-circle in front of Margayya. Though Arul Doss still lingered for a further joke, Margayya turned away abruptly, remarking: ‘All right, you may go now.’
‘Please,’ said a peasant, ‘be careful, sir. That Arul Doss is a bad fellow.’
‘I’m also a bad fellow,’ snapped Margayya.
‘It’s not that. They say that the Secretary just does what this fellow says. If we go in to get just one single form, he charges us two annas each time. Is that also a Government rule?’ asked the peasant.
‘Go away, you fools,’ Margayya said. ‘You are people who have no self-respect. As long as you are shareholders, you are masters of that bank. They are your paid servants.’
‘Ah, is that so?’ asked the peasant. And the group looked up at each other with amazement. Another man, who had a long blanket wrapped round his shoulder, a big cloth turban crowning his head, and wore shorts and was barefoot, said: ‘We may be masters as you say, but who is going to obey us? If we go in, we have to do as they say. Otherwise, they won’t give us money.’
‘Whose money are they giving away?’ asked Margayya. ‘It is your own.’
‘Margayya, we don’t want all that. Why should we talk of other people?’
‘True, true,’ said one or two others approvingly.
Encouraged by this, the peasant said: ‘We should not talk about others unnecessarily.’ He lowered his voice and said: ‘If they hear it they may –’
Margayya’s blood rushed to his head: ‘You get away from here,’ he thundered. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with people without self-respect, who don’t know their importance and strength. What better words can we expect from someone like you who wraps himself in that coarse blanket at this time of the day? What better stuff can we expect from a head weighed down by so many folds of a dirty turban?’ The peasant was somewhat cowed by Margayya’s manner. He mumbled: ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, sir. If I did would I be here?’
‘That’s all right. No further unnecessary talk. If you have any business, tell me. Otherwise get out of here. Before dusk I have to attend to so many people. You are not the only one who has business with me.’
‘I want a small loan, sir,’ began the peasant. ‘I want to know how much more I have to pay to clear the balance loan.’
‘Why don’t you go in there and ask your Arul Doss?’
‘Oh, they are all very bad, unhelpful people, sir; that’s why I never like to go there, but come to you first. Why do we come to you, sir, of all persons in this big city? It’s because you know our joys and sorrows and our troubles, our difficulties and –’
‘All right, all right,’ Margayya said, cutting him short, yet greatly mollified by his manner. ‘I know what you are trying to say. Don’t I?’ He looked round at his clients. And they shook their heads approvingly, making appropriate sounds with their tongues, in order to please him.
After all these bouts he settled down to business. He had a busy day: filling up forms, writing applications, writing even petitions unconnected with money business for one or two clients, talking, arguing, and calculating. He was nearly hoarse by the time the sun’s rays touched him on the nape of his neck, and the shadows of the banyan tree fell on the drive leading to the Co-operative Bank. He started to close his office. He put back his writing-pad, neatly folded up some pieces of paper on which he had noted figures, scrutinized again the little register, counted some cash, and checked some receipts. He arranged all these back in the small tin box, laid a few sheets of loan application forms flat on top of them so as to prevent their creasing, restored to its corner the ink-bottle, and laid beside it the red wooden pen. Everything in its place. He hated, more than anything else, having to fumble for his papers or stationery; and a disordered box was as hateful to him as the thought of Arul Doss. His mind was oppressed with thoughts of Arul Doss. He felt insulted and sore. What right had he or anyone to insult or browbeat him? What had he done that they themselves did not do? He would teach this Arul Doss a lesson – no matter at what cost …
At this moment he heard a step approaching, and looking up saw a man, wearing a brown suit, standing before him. His hands were in his pockets, and behind him at a respectable distance stood Arul Doss. The man looked very smart, with a hat on his head; a very tidy young man who looked ‘as if he had just come from Europe’, Margayya reflected. Looking at him, he felt himself to be such a contrast with his brown dhoti, torn shirt, and the absurd little tuft under the black cap. ‘No wonder they treat me as they do,’ he said to himself. ‘Perhaps I should have exercised greater care in my speech. God knows what that Arul Doss has reported … I should not have spoken. This fellow looks as if he could do anything.’ Margayya looked at Arul Doss, and shuddered, noting the wicked gleam in his eye. He soon recovered his self-possession: ‘I am not a baby to worry about these things. What can anybody do to me?’ He resolutely fixed his gaze on the hard knobs on his box, gave its contents a final pat, and was about to draw down the lid when the other man suddenly stooped, thrust his hand inside and picked out a handful of papers, demanding: ‘How did you come by these? These are our application forms!’
Margayya checked the indignation that was rising within him: ‘Put them back, will you? What right have you to put your hand into my box? You look like an educated man. Don’t you know that ordinary simple law?’ In his indignation he lost for a moment all fear. Arul Doss came forward and said, ‘Take care how you speak. He is our Secretary. He will hand you over to the police.’
‘Stop your nonsense, you earth-worm! Things have come to this, have they, when every earth-worm pretends that it is a cobra and tries to sway its hood … I will nip off your head as well as your tail, if you start any of your tricks with me. Take care. Get out of my way.’
Arul Doss was cowed. He withdrew a little, but he was not to be dismissed so easily. He began: ‘He is our Secretary –’
‘That’s all right. It’s written all over him,’ yelled Margayya. ‘What else can he be? He can speak for himself, can’t he? You keep away, you miserable ten-rupee earner. I want none of your impertinence here. If you want an old piece of cloth, torn or used, come to me.’ The Secretary seemed to watch all this with detachment. Arul Doss fretted inwardly, tried to be officious, but had to withdraw because the Secretary himself ordered him away. ‘You go over there,’ he said, indicating a spot far off. Arul Doss moved reluctantly away. Margayya felt triumphant, and turned his attention to the man before him. ‘Secretary, you will put back that paper or I will call the police now.’
‘Yes, I want to call the police myself. You are in possession of something that belongs to our office.’<
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‘No, it belongs to the shareholders.’
‘Are you a shareholder?’
‘Yes, more than that –’
‘Nonsense. Don’t make false statements. You’ll get into trouble. Reports have come to me of your activities. Here is my warning. If you are seen here again, you will find yourself in prison. Go –’ He nodded to Ami Doss to come nearer, and held out to him the loan application forms. Arul Doss avidly seized them and carried them off like a trophy. The Secretary abruptly turned round and walked back to the porch of the building, where his car was waiting.
Presently Margayya bundled up his belongings and started homeward. With his box under his arm and his head bowed in thought he wandered down the Market Road. He paused for a moment at the entrance of the Regal Hair-Cutting Saloon, in whose doorway a huge looking glass was kept. He saw to his dismay that he was still wearing his spectacles. He pulled them off quickly, folded up their sides and put them into his pocket. He didn’t feel flattered at the sight of his own reflection. ‘I look like a wayside barber with this little miserable box under my arm. People probably expect me to open the lid and take out soap and a brush. No wonder the Secretary feels he can treat me as he likes. If I looked like him, would he have dared to snatch the papers from my box? I can’t look like him. I am destined to look like a wayside barber, and that is my fate. I’m only fit for the company of those blanket-wrapped rustics.’ He was thoroughly vexed with himself and his lot.
He moved to the side of the road, as cyclists rang their bells and dodged him; jutka-men shouted at him, and pedestrians collided against him. His mind was occupied with thoughts of his own miserableness. He felt himself shrinking. Two students emerged laughing and talking from the Bombay Anand Bhavan, their lips red with betel leaves. They stared at Margayya. ‘They are laughing at me,’ he thought. ‘Perhaps they want to ask me to go with them to their rooms and give them a hair-cut!’ He kept glancing over his shoulder at them, and caught them turning and glancing at him too, with a grin on their faces. Somebody driving by in a car of the latest model seemed to look at him for a fleeting second and Margayya fancied that he caught a glimpse of contempt in his eyes…. Now at the western end of Market Road he saw the V.N. Stores, with its owner standing at the door. ‘He may put his hand into my pocket and snatch the glasses or compel me to give him a shave.’ He side-stepped into Kabir Lane, and, feeling ashamed of the little box that he carried under his arm, wished he could fling it away, but his sense of possession would not let him. As he passed through the narrow Kabir Lane, with small houses abutting the road, people seemed to stare at him as if to say: ‘Barber, come early tomorrow morning: you must be ready here before I go for my bath.’ He hurried off. He reached Vinayak Street, raced up the steps of his house and flung the box unceremoniously under the bench. His wife was washing the child on the back veranda. At the sound of his arrival the little fellow let out a yell of joy, through the towel.
‘What’s happened to make you come back so early?’ asked Margayya’s wife.
‘Early! Why, can’t I come home when I please? I am nobody’s slave.’ She had tried to tidy herself up in the evening after the day’s work. ‘She looks …’ He noticed how plebeian she looked, with her faded jacket, her patched, discoloured sari and her anaemic eyes. ‘How can anyone treat me respectfully when my wife is so indifferent-looking?’ His son came up and clung to his hand: ‘Father, what have you brought me today?’ He picked him up on his arm. ‘Can’t you put him into a cleaner shirt?’ he asked.
‘He has only four,’ his wife answered. ‘And he has already soiled three today. I have been telling you to buy some clothes.’
‘Don’t start all that now. I am in no mood for lectures.’ His wife bit her lips and made a wry face. The child let out a howl for no reason whatever. She felt annoyed and said: ‘He is always like this. He is all right till you come home. But the moment you step in, he won’t even finish washing his face.’
‘Where should I go if you don’t want me to return home?’
‘Nobody said such a thing,’ she replied sullenly. The little boy shouted, put his hand into his father’s coat-pocket and pulled out his reading glasses, and insisted upon putting them over his own nose. His mother cried: ‘Give those glasses back or I’ll…’ She raised her arm, at which he started yelling so much that they could not hear each other’s remarks. Margayya carried him off to a shop and bought him sweets, leaving his wife behind, fretting with rage.
In the quiet of midnight, Margayya spoke to his wife seriously: ‘Do you know why we get on each other’s nerves and quarrel?’
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Now let me sleep.’ And turned over. Margayya stretched out his hand and shook her by the shoulder. ‘Wake up. I have much to tell you.’
‘Can’t you wait till the morning?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He spoke to her of the day’s events. She sat up in bed. ‘Who is that secretary? What right has he to threaten you?’
‘He has every right because he has more money, authority, dress, looks – above all, more money. It’s money which gives people all this. Money alone is important in this world. Everything else will come to us naturally if we have money in our purse.’
She said: ‘You shouldn’t have been so rude to Arul Doss. You should not have said that you’d employ the secretary. That’s not the way to speak to people earning five hundred rupees a month.’
‘Let him get five thousand, what do I care? I can also earn a thousand or five thousand, and then these fellows will have to look out.’ Much of his self-assurance was returning in the presence of his wife. All the despair and inferiority that he had been feeling was gradually leaving him. He felt more self-confident and aggressive. He felt he could hold out his hand and grab as much of the good things of life as he wanted. He felt himself being puffed up with hope and plans and self-assurance. He said, ‘Even you will learn to behave with me when I have money. Your rudeness now is understandable. For isn’t there a famous saying: “He that hath not is spurned even by his wife; even the mother that bore him spurns him.” It was a very wise man who said it. Well, you will see. I’ll not carry about that barber’s box any more, and I’ll not be seen in this torn dhoti. I will become respectable like anyone else. That secretary will have to call me “Mister” and stand up when I enter. No more torn mats and dirty, greasy saris for you. Our boy will have a cycle, he will have a suit and go to a convent in a car. And those people’ (he indicated the next house) ‘will have to wonder and burst their hearts with envy. He will have to come to me on his knees and wait for advice. I have finished with those villagers.’
He became like one possessed. He was agitated, as if he had made a startling discovery. He couldn’t yet afford to keep away from the place where he worked. He went there as usual, but he had taken care to tidy himself up as much as possible. He wore a lace-edged dhoti which he normally kept folded in his box. It was of fine texture, but much yellowed now. He had always kept it in his box with a piece of camphor, and he now smelt like an incense-holder as he emerged from his small room, clad in this gorgeous dhoti. It had been given to him, as it now seemed a century and a half ago, on the day of his wedding when he was sitting beside his wife on a flower-decked swing, surrounded by a lot of women-folk joking and singing and teasing the newly-weds, after the feast at night. He sighed at the thought of those days. How they had fussed about him and tried to satisfy his smallest request and keep him pleased in every way. How eminent he had felt then! People seemed to feel honoured when he spoke to them. He had only to turn his head even slightly for someone or other to come rushing up and inquire what his wishes were. He had thought that that would continue for ever. What a totally false view of life one acquired on one’s wedding day! It reminded him of his brother. How he bargained with the bride’s people over the dowry! He used to be so fond of him. His brother’s face stood out prominently from among the wedding group in Margayya’s memory, as he sat in the corner, beyond the sacrificial smoke,
in their village home. Margayya sighed at the memory of it; they had got on quite nicely, but their wives couldn’t. ‘If women got on smoothly …’ Half the trouble in this world is due to women who cannot tolerate each other.
His wife was amused to see him so gaudily dressed. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to a wedding party?’ ‘This is the only good one I have. They will never see me in that again,’ he said, indicating his discarded dhoti. ‘Keep it and give it to Ami Doss. He may come for it.’ He was pleased with his own venom aimed at the distant Arul Doss. This quiet pleasure pricked his veins and thrilled his body. He put on a new shirt which he had stitched two years ago but had not had the heart to wear – always reserving it for some future occasion. The child too seemed to be quite pleased to see his father in a new dress. He clapped his hands in joy and left him in peace, concentrating his attention on apiece of elephant made of lacquer-painted wood. Margayya had elaborately tied up his dhoti, with folds going up, in the dignified Poona style, instead of the Southern fashion, looked down upon by people of other provinces. He explained to his wife: ‘You see, if we are treated with contempt by people it is our fault. Our style of tying dhoti and our style of dressing – it is all so silly! No wonder.’ He talked like a man who had just arrived from a far-off land, he spoke with such detachment and superiority. His wife was somewhat taken aback. She treated him with the utmost consideration when she served him his frugal meal. Usually he would have to ask, ‘Food ready? Food ready?’ several times and then pick up his plate and sit down and wait indefinitely as she kept blowing the fire. If he said: ‘Hurry up, please,’ she would retort: ‘With my breath gone, blowing on this wet firewood, have you the heart…’ etc. But today she said: ‘Your plate is there, food is ready.’ She served him quietly, with a sort of docile agreeableness. ‘I got this brinjal from the back garden,’ she said. ‘You didn’t know I had a garden.’ ‘No. Nice stuff,’ he murmured agreeably. Even the little fellow ate his food quietly, only once letting out a shout when he thought his mother wouldn’t serve him his ghee. On that occasion he threw a handful of rice in his mother’s face. She just ignored it, instead of flying at him, and the episode ended there. At the end of the meal Margayya picked up his plate as usual to wash and restore it to its corner in the kitchen. But she at once said: ‘Oh, don’t, I will attend to it.’ He got up grandly and washed his hands, wiping them on a towel readily brought to his side by his wife. She gave him a few scented nuts and a betel leaf and saw him off at the door as he went down the street. He had opened his little box and picked up a few papers, which he carried in his hand. It looked better. He walked with the feeling that a new existence was opening before him.