The next day he came to the blanket shop and took the man along to meet Margayya at his office. Margayya effusively seated him on the mat, and went on with his work. He interrupted himself only for a moment to declare: ‘Still no light! As our landlord, you should look to our convenience.’
‘Certainly – I have ordered everything, it’s coming,’ he said in his routine manner. Dr Pal said: ‘Our friend Guru Raj has some cash, and wants your advice as to what he should do –’
‘He is himself an old business man. Why does he need my advice?’ said Margayya.
The blanket man said: ‘After all, you are an experienced banker. Your advice will be valuable.’ As he hesitated, Margayya threw a look at Dr Pal and he got up and went away unobtrusively. Margayya drew nearer and in a confidential whisper asked: ‘Are you really serious about depositing your cash with me? No doubt I can offer you an interest of twenty per cent on your deposit which you can draw monthly.’ The blanket merchant gasped, ‘Twenty per cent? Did I hear you all right?’
‘Yes, I said twenty per cent,’ said Margayya. ‘I know what I am talking about.’
‘The banks are offering only three per cent.’
‘I’m not concerned with them. I’m not a bank, but I can guarantee you twenty per cent.’
‘How do you manage it?’
‘Well, that is my look out,’ Margayya said. ‘I have a business which yields me more; I have investments which give me probably twenty-five per cent. I keep five per cent and turn over the twenty per cent to the depositor; after all,’ he said with a very virtuous look, ‘I am using your money. Unlike the banks and cooperative societies, I believe you are entitled to the larger share as the owner of money. You see, I have made enough money,’ he said with an air of sanctity. ‘I don’t want more. I only want to be of help to people, that is all,’ he said vaguely.
At the end of his talk Guru Raj took out five thousand rupees in cash and placed them on the table. Margayya swept them into his desk and wrote out a receipt. ‘This is the receipt. Any time you want your money back, just take it to my accountant and collect your five thousand. But as long as you don’t cash it, you can collect the interest on every first. As long as you do not withdraw the principal, you can draw the interest.’
The blanket merchant went away with his head in the clouds. Twenty per cent! ‘I have to dispose of a hundred blankets a day if I have to make that money. How does this man manage?’ On the following month when he went to Margayya’s, the accountant gave him the cash. When he got this interest as a reality, the man was aghast and cried: ‘That man Margayya is a wizard. How does he manage it?’
Very soon the word ‘Wizard’ came to be bandied about freely whenever anyone referred to Margayya. His methods were too complex for anyone to understand. The banks were puzzled. The deposits in their possession were all going. People speculated how the wizard did it. No one had any clear idea. Nor could they get any enlightenment from Sastri or Dr Pal. Margayya assigned to them only portions of certain duties, and attended to all things personally, and they never had a full knowledge of what exactly he did. The whole town seemed to talk of nothing but this all day. People said that he underwrote shipments arriving at Madras Port or Bombay and made money; that he discounted bills of lading, that he paid interest on capital out of a sheer desire to impress. But the fact was there that he seemed to need new clients each day, and Dr Pal had proved invaluable in this task. He had now earned for himself a second-hand Baby Austin, and brought into Margayya’s at least a dozen new clients each day. Margayya calculated: ‘If I get twenty thousand rupees deposit each day and pay fifteen in interest, I have still five thousand a day left in my hands as my own –’
PART FIVE
He might have been a movie celebrity. He could never take a few steps in the road without people gaping and pointing at him. It was now necessary for him to have a car, for it became a nuisance to walk in the roads. All sorts of people saluted him respectfully and stood aside while he passed. It made him feel very awkward. All sorts of people tried to make friends with him. All sorts of people tried to waylay him and explain their difficulties. One wanted help to get a daughter married, another to send his son to Madras for higher medical studies, a third applied for help to extricate his lands, or to buy rice for the next meal, and so on and so forth. In addition to this, public bodies seemed to have suddenly become aware of his existence – a Flood Relief Fund here, a Gandhi Fund there, Earthquake Relief for a far-off country, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Promotion of Child Welfare, Education, and the War Fund: the most constant demand was from the War Fund of the local district authorities. People called on him at all sorts of places and all sorts of hours – in the street, at home, or in his office. Quite a flood of visitors waited for him. All applications for charity instead of rousing pity only angered Margayya: ‘What do they take me for? A Magic Pot? … I work hard and wear myself out not in order to give gifts but to keep. Who came to my help in those days when I was in difficulties?’
He had to barricade himself at home and in his office. At his office he had to move out of his original place and take another room and shut himself in. He left the disposal of his visitors and applicants to Dr Pal, who just told people: ‘This is only a bank not a charity home,’ and sent away whoever came for cash. He was tactful where it was necessary, and diplomatic or downright rude where it was necessary. Sometimes he was visited by high Government officials who asked: ‘Well, what is your contribution to the War Fund?’
Dr Pal said: ‘Our boss is a convinced Congressman. We don’t believe that this is our war … unless the Congress High Command orders him to pay, he will never give a pie: he is a man of strict principles. Why should we contribute for a fund with which the British and U.S. fight their enemy – not our enemy; our enemy is Britain not Germany. When the Congress commands us to gather funds for fighting this enemy, you will see Margayya placing his entire wealth at the disposal of the country.’ Or he said: ‘Governor’s War Fund! Nothing doing! Sir … somebody or other they’ve sent from England as our Governor pockets half the war fund he collects, isn’t it a fact? If he takes twenty thousand in cash for the war fund, he takes a similar sum in kind, in the shape of a casket or something, for domestic consumption. Can you disprove it? Till you can do that you cannot expect Mr Margayya to contribute anything. He is a man of strict principles.’ Or if it was a highly placed police or income-tax official who was making the request, Dr Pal said: ‘Margayya has been thinking over it. You may rest assured he will send in his contribution very soon.’ And he advised Margayya to send off a cheque. ‘It will not do at all to get into disfavour with these folk – after all they will be using the money for defeating the Nazis.’ He also told Margayya: ‘You must have a car. You simply should not be seen in the streets any more: you have passed that stage. If you like a walk, go along the river, but don’t walk in the streets.’ Margayya allowed the other to buy a car for him.
It was necessary for him to use a car also for another reason: at the end of a day, Margayya carried a huge bag of cash – notes of all denominations were in the old mail sack which he had picked up at an auction. ‘Very good material,’ said Margayya of the sack, which came near bursting when Margayya closed for the day. He now worked far into the night with the aid of kerosene lamps. The moment he reached home, he counted the notes again, bundled them up in tidy little batches, the lovely five-rupee and ten-rupee and the most handsome piece of paper – the green hundred-rupee note. He counted his cash over and over again, and locked it up in his safe and shut the door. It would be nearly midnight when he finished the counting and rose to have his dinner. His wife waited for him patiently and sat down for food after he had had his dinner. He hardly noticed that she waited for him: his mind was fully occupied with various calculations. He hardly spoke during the dinner. If she asked: ‘Shall I serve?’ he merely answered back without looking up: ‘Don’t bother me. Do what you please: only don’t bother me.’ He ate very little – j
ust the quantity that a boy of ten would eat. It worried her secretly. She tried to improve it by putting more rice and stuff on his plate, but he just pushed it all aside, got up, and went back to work by the lamp, for further additions. She never knew when he went to bed, because even after she had finished all her work and gone to bed, she still saw him bent over his registers. She saw him with a drawn look and felt moved to say: ‘Shouldn’t you mind your health?’
‘What’s wrong with me? I’m all right. If you feel you need anything, go ahead and buy it and do what you like. Take any money you want. Only leave me alone.’
She felt it would be best to leave him alone. He seemed to have so little time left for rest that she concluded it would be better not to encroach upon it with her own comments. ‘Balu has only taken after his father – his sullenness and silence,’ she concluded. It became a household where perfect silence reigned. She was only secretly worried over his thin appearance and the dull weariness about his eyes. She often wanted to ask him: ‘Why should you work so hard? Haven’t we enough? And what are you aiming at?’ But refrained from uttering it. She knew it would only annoy him. Perfect silence reigned in the house.
In the course of time, at the end of a day he brought home not one bag, but quite a number of them. It was no longer possible to count the currency notes individually. He could only count and check up the bundles – and even that took him beyond midnight. For now his fame had spread far and wide and it was not only the deposits of well-to-do people that arrived at his counter, but also those of smaller tradesmen and clerks and workers – who brought in their life’s savings. ‘If I have a hundred rupees, better hand it to Margayya, for he will give me twenty rupees per month for a lifetime. He is our saviour.’ Margayya accepted any deposit that came to him, however small it might be. He explained: ‘I like to make no difference between rich and poor in this business, which exists after all for serving society. We should not make distinctions.’
‘I heard,’ said Pal, ‘they are thinking of conferring on you a title for your services.’
Margayya was really alarmed to hear it: ‘What for?’
‘For doing the greatest Public Service. If you only found the time to go round and see the number of people who are happy and secure through your help … There is a talk in Government circles of giving you at least a Public Service medal.’
In his home the large safe was filled up, and its door had to be forced in, and then the cupboards, the benches and tables, the space under the cot, and the corners. His wife could hardly pass into the small room to pick up a sari or towel: there were currency bundles stacked up a foot high all over the floor. Presently Margayya ordered her to transfer trunks and effects to the room upstairs. She patiently obeyed him. Very soon this room had also to be requisitioned: more sacks emptied themselves into the house every day.
‘They have carried in five sacks today,’ said his brother in the next house.
‘Do you really say all that is money?’ asked his wife excitedly.
And then they heard Margayya going upstairs and a kerosene light burned far into the night. His brother’s family would have given anything to know what Margayya was doing up there so late. His brother’s wife strained her ears against a small crack in the wall and heard Margayya say to his wife; ‘You will have to clear out of the upstairs room too.’
‘Where shall I put my trunk?’
‘Keep it in the store-room for the present.’
‘Is it a safe place? I have some gold jewellery.’
‘Oh, there are more valuable things for me to keep in the rooms. Don’t make a fuss.’
‘All right,’ she said docilely.
‘Only till I build a vault somewhere,’ he said, feeling that he ought to be a little more mollifying. ‘I must have a strong-room built somewhere: I wish I could find the time to attend to it.’
It was about seven in the evening. The lights had not been lit yet. Margayya’s eyes pained him and he felt weak and weary. He had been skipping his morning food these days because he had lost the taste for it: he drank a cup of diluted buttermilk, kept himself on a few cups of coffee throughout the day and had his food only at night after closing his cash. ‘With work ahead, I have no patience for food.’ He went to his office almost as soon as he got up from bed: he washed and changed and rushed off, and returned home at indefinite hours. He said to his wife: ‘Opening the office is in my hands, but the closing is in the hands of other people.’ He had to cut out even his snuff – the one thing he liked and still enjoyed. Dr Subbu of the Reliance Medical Hall, one of his investors, advised Margayya to give up snuff. He consulted him with regard to a persistent pain at the back of his head, which kept him sleepless at night. The doctor examined him when he came over to collect his interest.
He said: ‘Probably your snuff irritates the optic nerves. Why don’t you stop snuff? Anyway, come over to my clinic for a thorough examination. We want to see you kept in the fittest condition possible, you know.’ He laughed like many other doctors of his kind at his own joke.
Margayya gave up snuff with a resolute will, and felt better for it. It was not quite so easy to give it up, but he said to himself: ‘If I do not sleep at night properly, I might mess up my calculations and then God knows what will happen.’ He had mitigated his headache, but a sort of dizziness perpetually hung about his head.
Dr Subbu said when he visited him next: ‘Why don’t you take a holiday at Kodaikanal Hills? It’ll do you good. Can’t you afford a holiday?’
Margayya shook his head sadly: ‘Not possible in this life. I’m tied up too much with various things – ‘He figured himself as being in the centre of a tangled skein. ‘If I move even slightly,’ he began, but merely said: ‘I cannot afford to move even slightly this way or that.’
His accountant, Sastri, was bundling up currency, stuffing it into mail sacks, and preparing statements. All his customers had left. Margayya felt ill. He sat in his room with his head resting on his arms. He called out: ‘Sastri, hurry up with your stuff
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sastri from his corner. ‘Your son is here to see you, sir.’ The door opened and Balu entered and took his seat opposite to him.
‘Balu, come in,’ Margayya said, feeling happy at the sight of his son. ‘It must be more than two weeks since I saw you. How is your family?’
‘Baby has some stomach trouble and is crying.’
‘Must be teething, I suppose. Take your mother there and show her the child. She will be able to do something: she understands these things better.’
‘You never come to our house. I took Brinda to see mother today –’
‘Oh! That’s good … otherwise … I wish I could go over to your house … Well, I suppose when the pressure here lessens, I suppose I shall… I am virtually a prisoner here. Your cook is all right, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but he is sometimes very impertinent. I want to send him away, but Brinda is too patient. She spoils him.’
‘Don’t quarrel with her. Leave these things to her. She is right.’
Now the common topics of conversation seemed to be over. There was a moment’s silence. Balu sat moving a pebble on Margayya’s desk as a paperweight.
‘Why don’t you buy a better paperweight and a good table and chair instead of squatting like this on the ground, father?’ asked Balu.
He merely replied: ‘I don’t need all those luxuries.’ He locked up his desk and made preparations to start out, calling: ‘Sastri, is the statement ready?’
‘Almost, sir,’ replied Sastri, giving his customary reply.
‘I want to talk to you seriously, father,’ said Balu nervously.
Margayya looked at his face apprehensively before saying: ‘I am not quite well today. Tomorrow I will come to your house.’
‘No, I must speak to you now. You have got to listen to me,’ said Balu authoritatively.
‘Oh!’ said Margayya. ‘Wait a minute then.’ He quickly passed out of the room, went over to Sastri and whis
pered: ‘Don’t bring in the cash bags yet,’ returned to his seat, and settled down. He sat looking at his son fixedly, without saying anything.
The boy sat biting his nails for a moment. He did not know how to begin. His voice shook as he said: ‘Father … I … I want more money.’
‘Oh!’ Margayya said, with a feeling of relief. ‘I thought as much. Why do you hesitate? How much do you want?’
The boy felt encouraged by his kindness. He brightened up. Still he felt hesitant to answer the question. The father encouraged him: ‘Come on, Balu, speak boldly. I always like a fellow who talks freely and openly and boldly. Have I refused you anything so far?’
The boy preferred to ignore this question: ‘I … I want to ask you something … I want more money –’
‘That is all right,’ replied Margayya irritably. ‘I’ve told you I’ll give it you. How much do you want?’
‘It depends. It depends on … what you have … I have no idea what you have. How can I say?’
‘What do you mean? I do not understand you,’ said Margayya, feeling puzzled. ‘If you cannot talk clearly, you had better see me again some other time. I am not quite well,’ he said sharply. He liked to have things clear cut as in interest calculations: vague indefinite talk annoyed him. He got up saying: ‘I wish to go home and lie down. Come with me if you like.’
‘No, can’t talk to you there. Mother will be there. I don’t like to talk before her.’
Margayya called out: ‘Sastri, get the car ready,’ and made a move towards the door. The boy sprang up and blocked the door, with arms spread out. ‘You must let me talk to you and not go –’
Margayya did not like scenes in his office. He threw a look at Sastri, but he was engrossed in his accounts. Margayya went back to his seat calmly and sat down. He was completely bewildered. This was the first time he found his son so talkative – it was a revelation to him. The boy, though not docile, was always taciturn and quiet and never so aggressive. He asked for money, which was granted, and yet what happened? He had said, ‘It depends on how much you have’! Margayya could hardly believe his ears. He sat in his seat and patiently waited. He felt weak and fatigued. He wanted so much to lie down.