At the precise moment of his death, Sridhar was not thinking of MSG, or Savithri, or Bapuji, or even his own death. He was thinking of Queen Victoria Primary School.
He was born in the corner house near the railway tracks, one furlong from the railway station. He had to cross the tracks every morning to go to the Queen Victoria Primary School. He would stop near the tracks, waiting to hear the distant gad-gad-gad of the 8:35 Mysore Express as it approached. He waited for the sound because he wanted to cross in front of the train. But even as the smoke from the train became barely visible, his heart would go thump-thump-thump and he would run across the tracks to the other side and wait-wait-wait for the train to cross, always resolving that he would cross a little later the next day, a little closer to the thundering train.
In his mind, Mysore was a place of great adventure. Everytime his grandmother told him stories about kings and princes, he always pictured them happening in Mysore, though he had never seen Mysore.
When he grew up, he went to Curzon Senior Secondary school, which was on the same side of the town, so he didnt' have to cross the tracks anymore. Slowly he forgot about the tracks and the 8:35 Mysore Express. But he felt a vague personal pride whenever somebody talked about Tipu Sultan, because Tipu had been ruler of Mysore, the citadel of his fantasies. Though he didn't know it, he liked Tipu more than Hyder Ali because Tipu looked a bit like his father, in the picture on the wall of Ghani stores. (The Bhai in Ghani stores was a nationalist who would secretly tell the children about the Congress and Gokhale. The picture was actually not that of Tipu. Bhai himself didn't know whose it was, but he always called it Tipu.)
The first time Sridhar saw Mysore, he felt betrayed and almost cried. He had taken the 8:35 Mysore Express, with a strange feeling as he saw it from the inside for the first time. He was going to join St. Johns Arts College. His father was travelling with him. They got off at the junction and took a tonga to the hostel. The tonga's seat was dark green and torn. The sponge showed below the seat cover, looking like pus oozing out of a sick wound. He would remember that seat for the rest of his life.
But he got over his initial disillusionment, and soon joined the buzz of life at St. Johns. He was one of the average boys, not popular but not obscure either. He did reasonably well in his classes, and played on the college cricket team. He batted at No. 5 and bowled leg spin. He was competent though not spectacular, except for one match when he scored 32 not out and took 3 wickets, two of them clean bowled. Before he realized it, two years were gone and his father was already talking to the Tasildar about getting him a clerk's job in the Municipality offce back home.
In the final year literature class, he met M.S. Gopala Iyer, or MSG as he was called. MSG was a legend in the college. He had passed the IAS exam, but refused to join the British administration. He lectured with authority born from confidence and practice. When he declaimed FriendsRomansCountrymen, you wanted to go kill Cassius and Brutus because Anthony was telling you do so--in spotless English, wearing a spotless turban and a spotless dhoti and a spotless full-sleeve shirt. That word summed up MSG: spotless. His patriotism was legendary. He had gone to jail every year for the last ten years. It was said that Bapuji knew him personally. Pandit Nehru had stayed with him when he came to Mysore.
Sridhar first went and talked to MSG because his half-yearly exam paper was misgraded. One question had not been graded at all. MSG looked at the paper, and said, "Well, young man, I don't think it will make a difference to your total." Sridhar blushed, mumbled something and was about to run outside. But he looked up and saw MSG smiling. He smiled back, looking a little stupid. MSG gave him two marks (out of six, I think), added it to the total and entered it in the register. Then he started talking. He talked about the Salt Satyagraha and Hind Swaraj and Bapuji and the Congress. Sridhar listened, open-mouthed. He went again next week. MSG took him along to the Congress meeting. He stood below the stage, listening.
It was his first love, though he didn't know it. He talked like MSG. He wore khadi, and stopped playing cricket. He no longer visited home every weekend. When he went, he bitterly quarreled with his parents. He stopped wearing leather and made it a point to walk through the untouchables' (Harijan's) colony when he had to go into town, though it was a slightly longer route. When Bapuji was passing Mysore by the train, he volunteered to manage the crowd. He courted arrest during a dharna, but was released because he was a college student. He even started saying waugh-tuh instead of vaatur as he had done earlier. He often went to MSG's house, and became the household favourite. MSG's mother would call him "paiya" and serve him idli with hot sambar.
Before he realized it, the annual exams had come and gone. He had done reasonably well, only so as to not disappoint MSG. He wanted to stay back and join the Congress movement, but MSG insisted that he should go home for the summer vacations. "You'll probably get married. But if you don't, come back. We have work for you," he said smiling. Sridhar frowned and shook his head vigorously.
He went back home and immediately visited the local Congress office. He was somewhat disappointed to find that the Congress Secretary was Kittanna, his mother's cousin who had always made him get "just two betel leaves and a little lime" from Ghani stores, without ever settling his account. But he tried to volunteer anyway. He was somewhat disappointed to find that they did not plan any dharnas. At any rate, the Mayor himself often visited Kittanna to play chess in the Congress office. He went to the Harijan's street to teach the children, but after two attempts, he realized that the parents would rather send the children to work, and they were tolerating his lessons only because he was a Brahmin. He gave up, and sat at home. He placed an order for a charkha, and waited for it to come from Mysore. He sat at home reading a Kannada translation of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
His father soon broached the topic of the clerk's job at the Municipality office. Sridhar flared up, called his father a Quisling, and left the house in a huff when his mother started crying. He came back at night. His mother was still crying. "You talk so much about Bapuji. Does he not preach non-violence? How can you talk like that to your father and hurt him?" she said. He apologized to her and his father, but said he will not join the foreign government anyway. The scene repeated itself twice every week for a month.
One day his father asked him to get dressed, because they were visiting some relatives. They had fought the night before, so he quitely obeyed. They went to his Kittanna's house. He realized he was about to get engaged to Parvathi, Kittanna's 17 year-old daughter. He flew into a rage, and shouted at everyone and started to leave. As he was leaving, he saw in the side room a somewhat pretty girl looking at him with fear, her kaajal slowly running down her cheeks along with the tears. At that moment, his mother came to him and said, "Your own MSG would be ashamed of you, hurting a young girl's heart like that. Doesn't MSG himself have a wife, and does it hinder his deshbhakti? If you are a real patriot, you would do your duty anyway, wife or no wife." He frowned, and angrily mumbled, "Do whatever you want. I don't care. I am going now." Then he walked out. He heard that evening that he had gotten engaged in absentia. Strangely, he felt happy. He wrote a long letter to MSG about his plans for joining the Congress movement in August. He added a little postscript about his wedding, with some appropriately witty quote from Samuel Butler about marriage.
The marriage was held from July 18 to 21. The celebrations were grand, though he insisted on wearing a khadi dhoti instead of the traditional silk one. Two days after his marriage, the Shanti Muhurtam was set. That evening, he was talking to his father and Kittanna. He talked about leaving for Mysore the next week. His father smiled and said, "What's the hurry? Why don't you join the Municipality next week, work for a few months and then go? Your MSG will be happy if you get some clerical experience. You can manage the Congress better there." He flared up. Words were exchanged. Kittanna said something about his daughter being cheated. Sridhar's father almost sobbed. His mother cried openly.
Amidst all this, they sent him to a room where Parvati was waiting for him. He saw her, and felt an uncontrollable rage. "Do they think I will fall for this? I am not a cheap womanizer like your father. I have principles, and I will stand by them." She looked at him with her child-woman's eyes. Her eyes became moist, but she seemed too afraid to cry. He paced up and down the room for 15 minutes. He turned to look at her. She was sleeping, folded over like a child. He felt a stab of pity and remore, and went to cover her up with a blanket. She awoke as he approached, her face turned towards his. With a sudden lust, he kissed her, and had her. She seemed stunned, but quietly yielded. Maybe she would have got into it, but he was done before she could even stir. He lay on his back near her. After a while, she said, quietly, "Can I go now? Amma said to come see her afterwards."
He turned to her in rage. He had been fooled. They had taken him in after all. He was just an animal, no better than Kittannna. He looked at her, and noticed for the first time that she had her father's broad nose and big lower lip. With great fury, he slapped her and walked out of the room. As he left, he saw the blood on the sheets.
He walked straight towards the railway line. The night was muggy. In the distance, he saw the Municipality office lights. He walked, thinking of Bapuji and Satyagraha and how he could never more be a part of any of it. He walked faster. He heard a distant horn. It sounded like MSG's precise deep voice crying Vande Mataram. He was walking on the railway tracks. He saw a distant light. It seemed like MSG's half-moon monocle shining under the new light bulb in his house. He walked towards it. Gad-gad-gad. The lights were gettig bigger and bigger, like Parvathi's eyes. He walked towards them. Gad-gad-gad. Kittanna's widowed mother-in-law was grinding the betelnut for him. Gad-gad-gad. He thought of Queen Victoria Primary. That was the last thing he thought of.
He was born in the corner house near the railway tracks, one furlong from the railway station. He had to cross the tracks every morning to go to the Queen Victoria Primary School. He would stop near the tracks, waiting to hear the distant gad-gad-gad of the 8:35 Mysore Express as it approached. He waited for the sound because he wanted to cross in front of the train. But even as the smoke from the train became barely visible, his heart would go thump-thump-thump and he would run across the tracks to the other side and wait-wait-wait for the train to cross, always resolving that he would cross a little later the next day, a little closer to the thundering train.
In his mind, Mysore was a place of great adventure. Everytime his grandmother told him stories about kings and princes, he always pictured them happening in Mysore, though he had never seen Mysore.
When he grew up, he went to Curzon Senior Secondary school, which was on the same side of the town, so he didnt' have to cross the tracks anymore. Slowly he forgot about the tracks and the 8:35 Mysore Express. But he felt a vague personal pride whenever somebody talked about Tipu Sultan, because Tipu had been ruler of Mysore, the citadel of his fantasies. Though he didn't know it, he liked Tipu more than Hyder Ali because Tipu looked a bit like his father, in the picture on the wall of Ghani stores. (The Bhai in Ghani stores was a nationalist who would secretly tell the children about the Congress and Gokhale. The picture was actually not that of Tipu. Bhai himself didn't know whose it was, but he always called it Tipu.)
The first time Sridhar saw Mysore, he felt betrayed and almost cried. He had taken the 8:35 Mysore Express, with a strange feeling as he saw it from the inside for the first time. He was going to join St. Johns Arts College. His father was travelling with him. They got off at the junction and took a tonga to the hostel. The tonga's seat was dark green and torn. The sponge showed below the seat cover, looking like pus oozing out of a sick wound. He would remember that seat for the rest of his life.
But he got over his initial disillusionment, and soon joined the buzz of life at St. Johns. He was one of the average boys, not popular but not obscure either. He did reasonably well in his classes, and played on the college cricket team. He batted at No. 5 and bowled leg spin. He was competent though not spectacular, except for one match when he scored 32 not out and took 3 wickets, two of them clean bowled. Before he realized it, two years were gone and his father was already talking to the Tasildar about getting him a clerk's job in the Municipality offce back home.
In the final year literature class, he met M.S. Gopala Iyer, or MSG as he was called. MSG was a legend in the college. He had passed the IAS exam, but refused to join the British administration. He lectured with authority born from confidence and practice. When he declaimed FriendsRomansCountrymen, you wanted to go kill Cassius and Brutus because Anthony was telling you do so--in spotless English, wearing a spotless turban and a spotless dhoti and a spotless full-sleeve shirt. That word summed up MSG: spotless. His patriotism was legendary. He had gone to jail every year for the last ten years. It was said that Bapuji knew him personally. Pandit Nehru had stayed with him when he came to Mysore.
Sridhar first went and talked to MSG because his half-yearly exam paper was misgraded. One question had not been graded at all. MSG looked at the paper, and said, "Well, young man, I don't think it will make a difference to your total." Sridhar blushed, mumbled something and was about to run outside. But he looked up and saw MSG smiling. He smiled back, looking a little stupid. MSG gave him two marks (out of six, I think), added it to the total and entered it in the register. Then he started talking. He talked about the Salt Satyagraha and Hind Swaraj and Bapuji and the Congress. Sridhar listened, open-mouthed. He went again next week. MSG took him along to the Congress meeting. He stood below the stage, listening.
It was his first love, though he didn't know it. He talked like MSG. He wore khadi, and stopped playing cricket. He no longer visited home every weekend. When he went, he bitterly quarreled with his parents. He stopped wearing leather and made it a point to walk through the untouchables' (Harijan's) colony when he had to go into town, though it was a slightly longer route. When Bapuji was passing Mysore by the train, he volunteered to manage the crowd. He courted arrest during a dharna, but was released because he was a college student. He even started saying waugh-tuh instead of vaatur as he had done earlier. He often went to MSG's house, and became the household favourite. MSG's mother would call him "paiya" and serve him idli with hot sambar.
Before he realized it, the annual exams had come and gone. He had done reasonably well, only so as to not disappoint MSG. He wanted to stay back and join the Congress movement, but MSG insisted that he should go home for the summer vacations. "You'll probably get married. But if you don't, come back. We have work for you," he said smiling. Sridhar frowned and shook his head vigorously.
He went back home and immediately visited the local Congress office. He was somewhat disappointed to find that the Congress Secretary was Kittanna, his mother's cousin who had always made him get "just two betel leaves and a little lime" from Ghani stores, without ever settling his account. But he tried to volunteer anyway. He was somewhat disappointed to find that they did not plan any dharnas. At any rate, the Mayor himself often visited Kittanna to play chess in the Congress office. He went to the Harijan's street to teach the children, but after two attempts, he realized that the parents would rather send the children to work, and they were tolerating his lessons only because he was a Brahmin. He gave up, and sat at home. He placed an order for a charkha, and waited for it to come from Mysore. He sat at home reading a Kannada translation of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
His father soon broached the topic of the clerk's job at the Municipality office. Sridhar flared up, called his father a Quisling, and left the house in a huff when his mother started crying. He came back at night. His mother was still crying. "You talk so much about Bapuji. Does he not preach non-violence? How can you talk like that to your father and hurt him?" she said. He apologized to her and his father, but said he will not join the foreign government anyway. The scene repeated itself twice every week for a month.
One day his father asked him to get dressed, because they were visiting some relatives. They had fought the night before, so he quitely obeyed. They went to his Kittanna's house. He realized he was about to get engaged to Parvathi, Kittanna's 17 year-old daughter. He flew into a rage, and shouted at everyone and started to leave. As he was leaving, he saw in the side room a somewhat pretty girl looking at him with fear, her kaajal slowly running down her cheeks along with the tears. At that moment, his mother came to him and said, "Your own MSG would be ashamed of you, hurting a young girl's heart like that. Doesn't MSG himself have a wife, and does it hinder his deshbhakti? If you are a real patriot, you would do your duty anyway, wife or no wife." He frowned, and angrily mumbled, "Do whatever you want. I don't care. I am going now." Then he walked out. He heard that evening that he had gotten engaged in absentia. Strangely, he felt happy. He wrote a long letter to MSG about his plans for joining the Congress movement in August. He added a little postscript about his wedding, with some appropriately witty quote from Samuel Butler about marriage.
The marriage was held from July 18 to 21. The celebrations were grand, though he insisted on wearing a khadi dhoti instead of the traditional silk one. Two days after his marriage, the Shanti Muhurtam was set. That evening, he was talking to his father and Kittanna. He talked about leaving for Mysore the next week. His father smiled and said, "What's the hurry? Why don't you join the Municipality next week, work for a few months and then go? Your MSG will be happy if you get some clerical experience. You can manage the Congress better there." He flared up. Words were exchanged. Kittanna said something about his daughter being cheated. Sridhar's father almost sobbed. His mother cried openly.
Amidst all this, they sent him to a room where Parvati was waiting for him. He saw her, and felt an uncontrollable rage. "Do they think I will fall for this? I am not a cheap womanizer like your father. I have principles, and I will stand by them." She looked at him with her child-woman's eyes. Her eyes became moist, but she seemed too afraid to cry. He paced up and down the room for 15 minutes. He turned to look at her. She was sleeping, folded over like a child. He felt a stab of pity and remore, and went to cover her up with a blanket. She awoke as he approached, her face turned towards his. With a sudden lust, he kissed her, and had her. She seemed stunned, but quietly yielded. Maybe she would have got into it, but he was done before she could even stir. He lay on his back near her. After a while, she said, quietly, "Can I go now? Amma said to come see her afterwards."
He turned to her in rage. He had been fooled. They had taken him in after all. He was just an animal, no better than Kittannna. He looked at her, and noticed for the first time that she had her father's broad nose and big lower lip. With great fury, he slapped her and walked out of the room. As he left, he saw the blood on the sheets.
He walked straight towards the railway line. The night was muggy. In the distance, he saw the Municipality office lights. He walked, thinking of Bapuji and Satyagraha and how he could never more be a part of any of it. He walked faster. He heard a distant horn. It sounded like MSG's precise deep voice crying Vande Mataram. He was walking on the railway tracks. He saw a distant light. It seemed like MSG's half-moon monocle shining under the new light bulb in his house. He walked towards it. Gad-gad-gad. The lights were gettig bigger and bigger, like Parvathi's eyes. He walked towards them. Gad-gad-gad. Kittanna's widowed mother-in-law was grinding the betelnut for him. Gad-gad-gad. He thought of Queen Victoria Primary. That was the last thing he thought of.
