An Astrologers Day and Other Stories Part 5

Keep off, we dont want your foot dust for this village Now in his madness, he looked down on it. He raised his foot and stamped everything down into a multi-coloured jam. They were still half wet. He saw a donkey grazing in the street. He gathered up the jam and flung it at the donkey with the remark : Eat this if you like. It is a nice village And he went out on a second round. This was a quieter outing. He strode on at an even pace, breathing deeply, with the clay helmet on, out of which peeped his grey hair, his arms locked behind, his fingers clutching the fateful letter, his face tilted towards the sky. He walked down the Market Road, with a feeling that he was the sole occupant of this globe : his madness had given him a sense of limitless freedom, strength and buoyancy. The remarks and jeers of the crowds gaping at him did not in the least touch him.

While he walked thus, his eye fell on the bulb of a tall street lamp : Bulb of the size of a Papaya fruit !

he muttered and chuckled. It had been a long cherished desire in him to fling a stone at it ; now he felt, in his joyous and free condition, that he was free from the trammels of convention and need not push back any inclination. He picked up a pebble and threw it with good aim. The shattering noise of gla.s.s was as music to his ears. A policeman put his hand on his shoulder : Why did you do it ?

Singh looked indignant :

I like to crack gla.s.s Papaya fruit, GATEMANS GIFT 33 that is all/ 1 was the reply. The constable said : Come to the station.

Oh, yes, when I was in Mesopotamia they put me on half ration once, he said, and walked on to the station. He paused, tilted his head to the side and remarked : This road is not straight A few carriages and cycles were coming up to him. He found that everything was wrong about them. They seemed to need some advice in the matter. He stopped in the middle of the road, stretched out his arms and shouted : Halt !

The carriages stopped, the cyclistsjumped off and Singh began a lecture : When I was in Mesopotamia I will tell you fellows who dont know anything about anything. The policeman dragged him away to the side, and waved to the traffic to resume. One of the cyclists who resumed, jumped off the saddle again and came towards him with : Why ! It is Singh, Singh, what fancy dress is this ? What is the matter ?

Even through the haze of his insane vision Singh could recognize the voice and the person the Accountant at the office.

Singh clicked his heels and gave a salute : Excuse me sir, didnt intend to stop you. You may pa.s.s He pointed the way generously, and the Accountant saw the letter in his hand. He recognized it although it was mud-stained and crumpled.

Singh, you got our letter ?

Yes, sir, Pa.s.s. Do not speak of it . , .

What is the matter ?

He s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand. Why havent you opened it !

He tore open the envelope and took out of it a letter and read aloud : The General Manager greatly appreciates the very artistic models you have sent, and he is pleased to sanction a reward of Rs. 100 and hopes 34 GATEMANS GIFT it will be an encouragement for you to keep up this interesting hobby.

It was translated to him word for word, and the enclosure, a cheque for one hundred rupees, was handed to him. A big crowd gathered to watch this scene.

Singh pressed the letter to his eyes. He beat his brow, and wailed :

Tell me, sir, am I mad or not ?

You look quite well, you arent mad, said the Accountant. Singh fell at his feet and said with tears choking his voice : You are a G.o.d, sir, to say that I am not mad. I am so happy to hear it.

On the next pension day he turned up spruce as ever at the office counter. As they handed him the envelope they asked : What toys are you making now ?

Nothing sir. Never again. It is no occupation for a sane man he said, received his pension, and stiffly walked out of the office.

5.

THE ROMAN IMAGE.

THE Talkative Man said : Once I was an archaeologists a.s.sistant. I wandered up and down the country probing, exploring, and digging, in search of antiquities, a most interesting occupation, although cynics sometimes called us grave-diggers. I enjoyed the work immensely. I had a master who was a famous archaeologist called Doctor something or other. He was a superb, timeless being, who lived a thousand years behind the times, and who wanted neither food nor roof nor riches if only he was allowed to gaze on undisturbed at an old coin or chip of a burial urn.

He had torn up the earth in almost all parts of India and had brought to light very valuable information concerning the history and outlook of people of remote centuries. His monographs on each of his excavations filled several shelves in all the important libraries. And then, as our good fortune would have it, he received an inspiration that Malgudi district was eminently diggable. I am not competent to explain how he got this idea, but there it was. Word was brought to me that the great man was staying in the dak bungalow and was in need of an a.s.sistant.

Within an hour of hearing it I stood before the great man. He was sitting on the floor with the most crazy collection of articles in front of him pots and 35

36 THE ROMAN IMAGE.

beads and useless coins and palm leaves, all of them rusty and decaying. He had a lens by his side, through which he looked at these articles and made notes. He asked me : What do you know of the archaeological factors of your district ?

I blinked.

Honestly I didnt know there was any archaeology in our place. He looked at me through his old spectacles, and I realized that my living depended upon my answer. I mustered up all the knowledge of elementary history I had acquired in my boyhood, and replied : Well, nothing has so far been done in any methodical manner, although now and then we come across some ignorant villagers ploughing up old unusual bits of pottery and metal.

Really, he asked, p.r.i.c.king up his ears.

And what do they do with them ?

They simply throw them away or give them to children to play with, I replied.

Oh, too bad, he muttered.

Why couldnt you have collected these things in one place ?

I will take care to do that hereafter, sir, I said ; and that settled it. He engaged me on the spot at fifty rupees a month, and my main business was to follow him about and help him.

I had my wits alive, and within a month I was in a position to lead him by the hand. Not the slightest object escaped my notice. I picked up everything I saw, cleaned and polished it, and held it up for his opinion. Most times, I am sorry to confess, they were useless bits of stuff of known origin namely, our own times. But I am glad to say that once I scored a hit.

We camped one week-end at Siral a village sixty miles from the town. It is a lovely ancient place, THE ROMAN IMAGE 37 consisting of a hundred houses. Sarayu River winds its way along the northern boundary of the village.

The river here is broader than it is anywhere else in the district. On the other bank of the river we have the beginnings of a magnificent jungle of bamboo and teak. The most modern structure in the place was a small two-roomed inspection lodge. The doctor occupied one room and I the other. We were scouting the surroundings for a mound under which was supposed to be a buried city. This discovery was going to push the earliest known civilization three centuries farther back and rival Mohenjadaro in antiquity. We might be pardoned if we set about our business with some intensity. Our doctor somehow seemed to possess an inexplicable feeling of rivalry with the discoverers of Mohenjadaro and such other places. His greatest desire was to have a monopoly of the earliest known civilization and place it where he chose. This seemed to me a slight weakness in his nature, but pardonable in a great man, who had done so much else in life. This is all beside the point. Let me get on with the story. One day I had gone to the river for a bathe. It was an exhilarating evening ; I had done a good days work, a.s.sisting the doctor to clean up and study a piece of stained gla.s.s picked up in a field outside the village. The doctor kept gazing at this gla.s.s all day. He constantly shook his head and said :

This is easily the most important piece of work which has come under my notice. This bit of gla.s.s you see is not ordinary archaeological stuff, but a very important link. This piece of gla.s.s is really Florentian, which went out of vogue in A.D. 5. How did this come here ? It is not found anywhere else in the world. If the ident.i.ty of 38 THE ROMAN IMAGE this is established properly we may ultimately have a great deal to say about the early Roman Empire and this part of India. This will revolutionize our whole knowledge of history. He talked of nothing but that the whole day. He trembled with excitement and lost all taste for food. He kept on muttering : We must tread warily and not overlook the slightest evidence. Keep your eyes open. We are on the eve of great discoveries . And I caught this excitement and acquired a permanently searching look.

I was in this state when I plunged into the waters of Sarayu that evening. I am a good diver. As I went down my hand struck against a hard object in the sandy bed. Feeling with my fingers, I found it to be a stone image. When I came to the surface again I came up bearing that image with me. Dripping with water, I sat on the river step, without even drying myself, and examined the image.

This takes us on to an entirely new set of possibilities !

exclaimed the doctor in great joy. He keenly examined it by our tin lantern. It was a stone image a foot high, which had acquired a gla.s.slike smoothness, having been under water for years.

It had an arm, an eye, the nose, and the mouth missing. There were a few details of ornament and drapery which the doctor examined with special care.

It was 3 a.m. when he went to bed. An hour later the doctor peeped in at my doorway and announced : This is a Roman statue. How it came to be found in these parts is an historical fact we have to wrest from evidence. It is going to give an entirely new turn to Indian history.

Within the next two months all the important papers and periodicals in the world published details THE ROMAN IMAGE 39 of this discovery. Papers were read before historical a.s.sociations and conferences. I came to be looked upon as a sort of saviour of Indian history. For the doctor insisted upon giving me my due share of fame.

University honours came my way. I was offered lucrative positions here and there. It was finally decided that the image was that of a Roman Emperor called Tiberius II. It would be out of place to go into the details that led to this conclusion : but you need have no doubt that the doctor had excellent reasons for it. Besides the study of the image itself he went through some Roman texts which mentioned South India.

For the next few months we toured about a great deal lecturing on this subject and demonstrating. I went with my doctor to Madras and started work on a monograph on the subject. It was to be a monumental work covering over a thousand pages of demy size, full of photographs and sketches. You can understand why it should be so big when I tell you that it was going to be a combined work on early Roman history, Indian history, archaeology, and epigraphy. My name was going to appear as the joint author of the work. I realized that here was my future fame, position, and perhaps some money too. The doctor left me in entire charge of this work and went away to Upper India to continue a piece of work which he had already been doing. I sat in a large library the whole day, examining, investigating, studying, and writing. I became a fairly important person in learned societies. I worked from seven in the morning to eleven in the evening almost without a break, and throughout the day I had visits from people interested in the discovery. Papers and journals 40 THE ROMAN IMAGE contained paragraphs now and then Archaeologist a.s.sistant working on monograph and its progress was duly reported to the public. And then there came a time when the press could announce : Monograph on which has been working for months now will be ready for publication in ten days.

It is expected that this is going to make the richest contribution to Indian history My fingers were worn out with writing. My eyes were nearly gone. I looked forward to the end of the work ; and then as my doctor wrote : You can have a holiday for three months in any hill station you like and forget the whole business The ma.n.u.scripts piled a yard high on my table. It was at this stage that I had to visit Siral once again. I had to obtain measurements of the spot where the image was found.

I left my work at that and hurried to the village.

I plunged into the river and came up. I sat on the river step, still dripping with water, noting down figures, when a stranger came and sat near me. We fell to talking, and I told him about my work, in the hope of drawing out further facts. He was a rustic, and he listened to me without emotion. At the end of my narration he remained peculiarly moody and asked me to repeat facts about the image. He compressed his lips and asked : Where do you say it came from ?

Rome Where is that ?

In Europe, I said. He stood still, puzzled, and I amplified : Where the European people live

I dont know about that but if it is the image which you found in these parts I can tell you something about it. It is without nose and arm, isnt it ?

THE ROMAN IMAGE 41.

I a.s.sented, not knowing what was coming. He said : Follow me, if you want to know anything more about this image. He led me up the bank, along a foot track which wound through the jungle. We reached a hamlet a mile off. He stopped in front of a little shrine and said : That image belonged to this temple. He led me into the shrine. We had to go stooping into it because of its narrow doorway and low roof. At the inner sanctum there was an image of Mari with a garland of yellow chrysanthemums around her neck, lit by a faint wick lamp. On one side of the sanctum doorway stood a dwarapalaka (doorkeeper) a winged creature a foot high. My friend pointed at the image and said : This formed a pair with the one you picked up, and it used to adorn that side of the doorway. I looked up where he pointed. I noticed a pedestal without anything on it. A doubt seized me.

I want to examine the figure, I said. He brought down the wick lamp ; I examined by its flickering light the dwarapalaka.

Is this exactly like the one which was on that side ?

It was a superfluous question. This image was exactly like the image I had found, but without its injuries. Where was this made ?

I had it done by a stone-image maker, a fellow in another village. You see that hillock ? Its stone is made into images all over the world, and at its foot is a village where they make images.

Are you sure when it was made ?

Yes, I gave an advance of twenty rupees for it, and how that fellow delayed ! I went over to the village and sat up night and day for two months and , got the pair done. I watched them take shape before 42 THE ROMAN IMAGE my eyes. And then we collected about fifty rupees and gave it to him. We wanted to improve this temple. I put back the lamp and walked out. I sat down on the temple step.

Why do you look so sad? I thought youd be pleased to know these things, he said, watching me.