The Mahatma said: ‘Friend, I fear you are trying to put them on good behaviour before me. I would love it better if they ran about and played normally, and picked up those flowers dropping on the ground, which they want to do. I’m very keen that children should be free and happy.’
True to his custom the Mahatma took out the garlands and fruits given to him on the way, called up the children, and distributed them. Their father fidgeted, his nerves on edge lest someone should suddenly misbehave. The sky was turning red beyond the railway line. A bell sounded inside his little office. He ran to it, and came back with more dew drops clouding his face: ‘The seven down has left Periapur. It’ll be here in fifteen minutes. At the stroke of eighteen forty-two.’ He looked anxious in case the train might defeat his promise.
The Mahatma said: ‘You may attend to your work in your cabin, don’t bother about us.’
‘May I?’ he asked desperately. ‘I’ve to write the fare records, sir, and prepare the line to receive the train.’
‘Certainly, go on,’ said the Mahatma.
For the first time during all these weeks Sriram felt depressed and unhappy. The thought of having to live a mundane existence without Mahatmaji appalled him. Not even the proximity of Bharati seemed to mitigate his misery. As the sound of the approaching train was heard, he looked so stunned that Mahatmaji said: ‘Be happy. Bharati will look after you.’ Sriram looked at Bharati hopefully. Mahatmaji added: ‘Remember that she is your Guru, and think of her with reverence and respect, and you will be all right and she will be all right.’ Sriram took time to digest this sentence. The train steamed in. Mahatmaji entered a third-class compartment.
Gorpad, a cold-headed stoic whom no parting moved, told Sriram: ‘Now you know what your duties are, and how to do them. Sister, you will receive our instructions. Namaste,’ and climbed into Gandhiji’s compartment. His party followed him in.
The first bell rang, and then the second. The station-master came out, and said: ‘The seven down generally halts here only two minutes, but today we have detained it for three and a half minutes, sir.’ He looked despairingly at the crowd of passengers from other carriages gathered before Mahatmaji’s window. The engine was humming. The engine driver from one end and the guard from the other had left their stations in order to see the Mahatma, who returned their greetings and asked: ‘How can the train move sir, when its heart and soul are here?’ The engine driver withdrew with a grin on his face. The Mahatma said to the other people, ‘Now, you will all have to go back to your places.’ The crowd dispersed and the station-master waved his flag.
Gandhiji told Sriram: ‘Write to me often. I’ll also promise you a fairly regular correspondence. In the future you know where lies your work. Become a master-spinner, soon. Don’t be despondent.’
‘Yes, master,’ said Sriram; the parting affected him too much.
Bharati merely said in a clear voice: ‘Namaste, Bapu.’
Bapu smiled and put out his hand and patted her shoulder. ‘You will of course keep up your programme and write to me often.’
‘Yes, of course, Bapu.’
‘Be prepared for any sacrifice.’
‘Yes, Bapu,’ she said earnestly.
‘Let nothing worry you.’
‘Yes, Bapu.’
The sky became redder and darker, and the seven down moved away, taking the Mahatma to Trichy, and then to Madras, Bombay, Delhi and out into the universe. Night fell on the small station, and the little station-master proceeded to light his gas-lamps and signals.
Though the Mahatma’s physical presence was no longer with him, Sriram had a feeling that his movements were being guided. His home now was a deserted shrine on a slope of the Mempi Hill, overlooking the valley. Down below, the road zigzagged and joined the highway which ended a mile off at Koppal Station. He often saw the mail runner trudging up a curve, with a bag on his shoulder, a staff on one arm (the staff had little bells tied to its end, heralding his arrival even a mile away). Sriram expected no mail but he loved to watch the runner till he stepped on a rock, and took a diverging crosscut, leading him to various estates and villages on the higher reaches of the Mempi Hills.
This place seemed to have been destined for him, built thousands and thousands of years ago by someone who must have anticipated that Sriram would find a use for an abandoned building. The place was a ruin, a few sculptures showed along the wall, the masonry was crumbling here and there. There was an image of some god with four hands in an inner sanctum overgrown with weed. But it was the most comfortable ruin a man could possess. There were stately pillars in a central hall, with bricks showing; there were walls without a ceiling, but from which exotic creepers streamed down; one of the stubborn, undisturbed pieces of sculpture was a Bull-and-Peacock over the large portal, which had very large knobbed wooden doors that could not be moved at all on their immense hinges. This was no great disadvantage for Sriram since no one came this way, and even if they did, he did not have anything to lock up. If he wished to be out of sight, he had only to slip away beyond a curtain of weeds, into a cellar. He could hear the train arrive and depart far away. He could hear the voices of villagers as they moved up in groups from the villages down below to the estates above. His possessions were a spinning wheel, a blanket on which to sleep, and a couple of vessels, some foodstuff, and a box of matches. He lit the wick of a small lantern whenever he wanted to work at night. He had set duties to perform every day when he woke up with the cries of birds. ‘Oh, God, it’s much better in Kabir Street,’ he used to think. ‘The birds make so much uproar here that they won’t allow a man to sleep in peace.’ In spite of this he got up from bed. He was going through a process of self-tempering, a rather hard task, for he often found on checking his thoughts that they were still as undesirable as ever. He had thought that by practising all the austerities that he had picked up in Gorpad’s company, he could become suddenly different. Mahatmaji had blessed his idea of self-development. He had said: ‘Spin and read Bhagavad Gita, and utter Ram Nam continuously, and then you will know what to do in life.’
Sriram carried a change of dress and went downhill to a brook and bathed. He felt so invigorated after the cold bath that he sang aloud all alone in his wilderness. He went on repeating: ‘Raghupathi Raghava Raja Ram, Pathitha Pavana Seetha Ram – Mahatmaji’s litany. When he sang it, he had a feeling of being near him and doing something on his orders. He was overcome with such a sense of holiness that he nearly danced with joy when he went back to his retreat. He carried the two pieces of dress he had washed in the brook and put them out to dry on the green fence surrounding the shrine. He was very proud of wearing cloth made with his own hand. Bharati had taught him how to insert the cotton thread, how to turn the wheel, and how to spin. Gandhiji had presented him with a spinning wheel in one of the villages with the explanation: ‘This is the key to your future.’ Sriram had felt too respectful to ask what he meant. But he took the wheel with proper reverence and literally put it close to his heart, although it was a heavy cumbrous apparatus.
Bharati tried to teach him how to use it during their sojourn in one of the villages. He tried his hand at spinning and made countless blunders while learning. He never managed to produce more than a couple of inches of yarn at a time, without snapping – it looked more like bits of twisted cotton wool than yarn. Bharati could not restrain her laughter when she saw his handiwork. She remarked: ‘You will waste all the cotton in India and Egypt before you make yourself a yard of yarn.’ After this she held his fingers down at the correct pressure at the spinning point, but when she took away her hand, Sriram let go his fingers too, and the cotton fell down and became worthless for any purpose.
All through the tour he had worked at it, his lessons starting the moment they came to a halt for the day. Every day Mahatmaji enquired: ‘Well, what is the progress?’
And before he could answer Bharati generally broke in and said: ‘Two more inches Bapuji; in all he has produced six inches today, but the count
must be specially measured. It must be a five count yarn, probably the same count as a lamp-wick!’
The Mahatma said: ‘Well, there will be a time soon when he will give you a hundred count, don’t be too proud, little daughter.’
‘I’m not,’ Bharati said. ‘I’m merely mentioning the facts.’
‘How proud she is! Do you know she won her prize in a khadi competition some years ago? Her yarn is kept in an exhibition.’
‘She scores one over me in everything,’ Sriram reflected. ‘It’s because of the excessive support she gets. She is being spoilt. That is what is wrong with her. She thinks no end of herself
‘I’m sure Bharati will teach you how to excel her,’ said the Mahatma, and Bharati lived up to this promise. She allowed Sriram no rest, night or day. Whenever there was the slightest respite from travel, she came up with, ‘Now, what is the programme of the great pupil?’ And Sriram dragged the wheel out, took the little packets of cotton, and started nervously. He dreaded making a mistake and provoking the girl’s mirth. He hated her for her levity, and for making him feel like a fool so often. But he kept up a desperate effort. He slipped, he made her laugh, he struggled in the grips of unholy thoughts when she stooped over him, held his hand, and taught him the tricks. He concentrated until his mind was benumbed with the half whispering movement of the spinning wheel. His fingers ached with holding a vibrant ever-growing thread, and his eyes smarted.
Finally he did emerge a victor, nearly twelve weeks after Mahatmaji had left. Sriram had stationed himself for his novitiate at one of the spinning centres, about fifty miles from Malgudi. Bharati was perfectly at home there and proved herself to be a task-mistress of no mean order; she did not let go her grip on Sriram until he had spun enough yarn free from entanglement for a dhoti and a short shirt. It was a result of continuous work over weeks. But it was worth it. She became very excited at the success of his efforts. She tore off the blank edge of a newspaper and wrote on it in minute letters: ‘This is to say that Sri Sriram is henceforth to be called a master-spinner, and he must be respected wherever he goes.’ She helped him to bundle off the yarn to a central depot at Madras and secure in exchange woven cloth of the same count. Sriram suddenly felt that he was the inhabitant of a magic world where you created all the things you needed with your own hands. His regret was that he still could not make the hundred count, and that his yarn was somewhat rugged. But Bharati said: ‘The forty count is the real cloth that can be used: hundreds are merely for show and prizes, don’t worry about it.’
On the day he got his khadi clothes, a simple dhoti and a jiba (cut and stitched on the spot by the village tailor), he took off the clothes he had been wearing (mill manufactured), heaped them in the middle of the street, poured half a bottle of kerosene over the lot, and applied a match; his old clothes caught fire and burned brightly. A few members of the spinning centre stood around the fire and watched. Some of the villagers looked on with interest.
Sriram explained to the gathering, fascinated by the leaping flames: ‘I will never again wear clothes spun by machinery.’ The dhoti and jiba were heavy, it was as if a piece of lead were interwoven with the texture. But he felt it was something to be proud of. He felt he had seen and reached a new plane of existence. He sat down and wrote to the Mahatma, ‘Burnt my old clothes today. Spun forty count. Bharati satisfied.’
Mahatmaji immediately wrote back to him: ‘Very pleased. Keep it up. God bless you.’
Bharati came uphill at dusk. Sriram became fussy: ‘How can you walk barefoot in all these places?’
‘Why not? We are not born with sandals on our feet. I have not yet got the leather from Wardha, and I shall have to manage with this until we get it. But – ‘she said with a sigh, ‘there is probably no one there who can attend to our wants. We don’t even know how many of them are in prison. The government have stopped giving even that information.’
They were sitting on the cool mud floor, with a lamp between them. Sriram studied her face, so full of lines nowadays as if the burden of the country were on her back, with Mahatmaji in prison since the August of 1942. Bharati (along with Sriram) was a little cog in a vast complicated machinery working, in spite of the police hunting down politics everywhere, to eject the British from the land.
Sriram said again: ‘You should not walk barefoot.’
‘Why not? India’s three hundred and sixty million walk barefoot.’
Her national statistics bored him. He said sharply: ‘They may, but it doesn’t mean you should also walk barefoot. There may be cobras about, this place is full of such things.’
‘Bah, as if cobras would not bite if trodden upon with sandalled feet!’
‘You are too argumentative.’
‘I tell you I am not able to get the usual leather from Wardha,’ she complained, and then added: ‘I am not afraid of you, and I don’t have to explain to you why I am like this or like that. I am not afraid of cobras either, or the lonely road. Otherwise I should not be here.’
‘Of course, you need not be afraid of me,’ said Sriram. ‘Only you expect others to be afraid of you.’
‘Yes, because I am your Guru.’
Sriram felt, ‘The whole thing is extremely false. She ought to be my wife and come to my arms.’ He wondered for a moment, ‘What is it that prevents me from touching her? What can she do? She is all alone in this place. Even if she shouts nobody will hear her for ten miles around.’ He revelled in this terrific possibility. But it was only a dream.
She explained her mission: ‘I am leaving for Madras tomorrow, and you won’t see me for some time.’
‘When? Where are you going?’
‘I have been summoned for instructions. The police are watchful, no doubt, but I can manage to go and return without any trouble.’ She started to leave.
He wondered, ‘Why has she come to tell me this? What is the matter? Can I interpret it as her love for me? No one would come two miles barefoot just to say there would be nothing to do for the next three days. She must have come with some other motive. Probably she likes me very much, waits for me to take her hand and tell her what I have in mind; and then she would yield to me.’ Absurd to think that she was just his ‘Guru, Guru indeed! Absurd that a comely young woman should be set to educate a man! Educate him in what? He chuckled at the thought. She said: ‘You have become suddenly very thoughtful. Why?’ He touched her arm: the lonely atmosphere was very encouraging, but she pushed his hand down gently, remarking, ‘You rest here till I am back with instructions,’ and she turned and was off down the road saying, ‘Don’t show yourself too much outside.’
He said: ‘I will escort you halfway.’
‘It’s not necessary,’ she said and was off.
Sriram watched her go down hill. ‘Some day, someone is going to abduct her; she doesn’t seem to feel she is a woman,’ he thought and turned in. He stood brooding over the ruins around him. Far away a train halted and proceeded on its journey, its shaded A.R.P. lights crawling along the landscape. He hoped that the girl would reach her village safely, without any mishap.
Three days later she turned up bringing instructions, and from that moment Sriram’s activities took a new turn. Bharati came to him bearing a can of paint and a brush. She handed them over to him with the air of an ordnance chief distributing weapons from the armoury. She said: ‘They have assigned to you all the plantations above. It means a lot of walking. You must not miss any of the dozen villages on the way. The villagers will help you everywhere. We shall be at work in Malgudi and the surroundings. Be careful, I will see you again sometime. With Mahatmaji in prison, we have to carry on the work in our own manner. We must spread his message everywhere.’
The Mahatma had in his famous resolution of August 1942 said: ‘Britain must quit India,’ and the phrase had the potency of a mantra or a magic formula. Throughout the length and breadth of the land, people cried ‘Quit India.’ The Home Secretary grew uneasy at the sound of it. It became a prohibited phrase in polit
e society. After the Mahatma uttered the phrase, he was put in prison; but the phrase took life and flourished, and did ultimately produce enough power to send the British away. There was not a blank wall in the whole country which did not carry the message. Wherever one turned one saw ‘Quit India.’
On the following day Sriram trudged up the mountain path carrying his little tin can, brush and a rag, in a satchel slung over his shoulder. He stopped at the first village on the way, selected the most suitable wall, which happened to be the outer wall of a new house, on whose pyol the village children were learning the alphabet. Their lips had been reciting the letters of the alphabet in a chorus, which incidentally lulled their teacher into a slight doze, but their eyes were following the bullock-carts rattling down the road in a caravan, buses flying past and disappearing in a cloud of churned-up dust, and people passing to and fro. The day was bright and the glare on green trees and boughs and hedge creepers was enticing; their eyes wandered, their minds wandered. And so when Sriram came up to write on the wall they slipped out of their class with a feeling of profound relief. The elders of the village too suspended their normal occupations and stood around to watch.
Sriram dipped the brush in paint and fashioned carefully, ‘Quit India’ on the wall. He wished that he didn’t have to write the letter ‘Q’, which consumed a lot of black paint. It was no use wasting all the available paint on a single letter. He wondered if, for economy’s sake, he could manage without drawing its tail. They were launching on a war with a first-rate, war-equipped nation like England, all their armament being this brush and black paint and blank walls. They could not afford to squander their war resources in writing just a single letter. It also seemed to him possible that Britain had imported the letter ‘Q’ into India so that there might be a national drain on black paint. He was so much obsessed with this thought that he began to write a modified ‘Q’, expending the very minimum of paint on its tail so that it read, until one scrutinized it closely, ‘Ouit India’. The villagers asked: ‘How long ought this to be on our wall, sir?’