‘But, brother,’ put in Govindopant, ‘it’s late, brother. And the morning train will soon pass by. The Police Inspector. . ’
‘Well, brother. But let me eat?’
‘Yes, eat on. But, mind you. . ’
‘The morning train comes up only when the shadow is on the line, brother. It has hardly touched the stones.’
‘Oh, yes! But, brother, hurry on. Anyway.’
Then the three went on tearing and munching the jawar bread. The women sat leaning against each other. It was too hot to be lying on the earth. The monsoon would break out soon — and then one would open one’s mouth.
All of a sudden a whirlwind rose over the fields. It seemed as though the earth vomited, spurting and flooding dust to the almighty skies. Round and swift it swept, brushed over the sands, swirled over the trees, and rushed into the air — and fell with a groaning, rasping cough. The stones on the railway lines glittered hot and bitter. Their glitter seemed the glitter of fangs. The clouds began to heap up. They roared. They grunted. And thunder shot against thunder. Then all of a sudden there was a commotion in the heavens, and lightning flew across the air, splitting a tree. The tree caught fire and burst into flame. The flame of sunshine danced with the flame of lightning. . And rain pelted against the earth.
Dattopant and Sonopant and Govindopant sheltered themselves beneath a tree. They lighted their hookahs and puffed away. The air was filled with crackling noises. And the earth pulsed with breath.
Suddenly there was a cry of something strange. ‘It is the horse,’ said Govindopant. ‘No, it is the women,’ insisted Dattopant. It was a strange noise indeed. Between the two swishes of rain the noise squeaked. ‘The train!’ said Sonopant. ‘No, brother, not yet time,’ replied Dattopant. ‘Perhaps it’s the thunder,’ put in Govindopant. ‘No, brother, it’s the train,’ repeated Sonopant. And a thunder ground through the heavens hushing his breath across the sheets of rain. ‘The train, surely, listen!’ cried Sonopant, trying to gather his velvet coat and turban. Dattopant put his ear to the ground. Another thunder boomed in the air and rushed through the entrails of the earth. ‘The lightning, brother. The lightning!’ he explained with conviction. He didn’t want to get soaked in the rain. Besides, one couldn’t see. .
Clutter-clutter — clutter-clutter. There was a distinct noise. ‘The train! The train!’ cried Govindopant, and ran towards his horse.
Clutter-clutter — clutter-clutter. ‘The train! The train!’ shrieked Dattopant and plunged into the storm.
Curtains follow curtains. It is like a prison-house — the storm. Walls of curtain that tear with a violent breath. Curtain again. Then suddenly the trees, like policemen, hard, gory, smeared with black running blood. Clutter-clutter — clutter-clutter — like a leopard the rain scratches on the back, brusque, snarling, satisfied. Puddles soft as goat’s flesh, but sticky and dogged. Then the eruption of lightning — a whole world of trembling glory. Curtains again, curtains, watery curtains. To tear them, smite them, grapple them. Clutter-clutter — clutter-clutter— clutter-clutter. His telegraph pole. His coat. His turban. Tassel, kerchief, cummerbund. Clutter-clutter. Clutter. Pandopant and Vithobopant in prison. The Police Inspector, fat, bearded. Whipping. Blood. Prison. Iron bars. Sheets and sheets of rain. Curtain on curtain. Water. Go across. Police Inspector. Clutter-clutter. Clutter-clutter. Clutter-clutter. Clutter. Rama, Rama, there — the train!
Dattopant jumped forward and the train squashed him with a thud.
It was a ballast train. The Viceroy’s Special followed it. Special trains like kings need heralds. Life is not bought at the market.
Govindopant did see the Maharaja. He was god-like — like Raja Sivaji.
That afternoon the bailiff-drum led the funeral. Tira-tira— Tira-tira — Tom-tom — Tom-tom — Tira-tira — Tira-tira — Tom-tom— Tom-tom. . And the fire consumed the body. In Khandesh the fire burns as elsewhere.
COMPANIONS
Alas till now I did not know
My guide and Fate’s guide are one.
It was a serpent such as one sees only at a fair, long and manycoloured and swift in riposte when the juggler stops his music. But it had a secret of its own which none knew except Moti Khan who brought him to the Fatehpur Sunday fair. The secret was: his fangs would lie without venom till the day Moti Khan should see the vision of the large white rupee, with the Kutub Minar on the one side and the face of the Emperor on the other. That day the fang would eat into his flesh and Moti Khan would only be a corpse of a man. Unless he find God.
For to tell you the truth, Moti Khan had caught him in the strangest of strange circumstances. He was one day going through the sitaphul wood of Rampur on a visit to his sister, and the day being hot and the sands all scorching and shiny, he lay down under a wild fig-tree, his turban on his face and his legs stretched across a stone. Sleep came like a swift descent of dusk, and after rapid visions of palms and hills and the dizzying sunshine, he saw a curious thing. A serpent came in the form of a man, opened its mouth, and through the most queer twistings of his face, declared he was Pandit Srinath Sastri of Totepur, who, having lived at the foot of the Goddess Lakshamma for a generation or more, one day in the ecstasy of his vision he saw her, the benign Goddess straight and supple, offering him two boons. He thought of his falling house and his mortgaged ancestral lands and said, without a thought, ‘A bagful of gold and liberation from the cycle of birth and death.’ ‘And gold you shall have,’ said the Goddess, ‘but for your greed, you shall be born a serpent in your next life before reaching liberation. For gold and wisdom go in life like soap and oil. Go and be born a juggler’s serpent. And when you have made the hearts of many men glad with the ripple and swing of your shining flesh, and you have gone like a bird amidst shrieking children, only to swing round their legs and to swing out to the amusement of them all, when you have climbed old men’s shoulders and hung down them chattering like a squirrel, when you have thrust your hood at the virgin and circled round the marrying couples, when you have gone through the dreams of pregnant women and led the seekers to the top of the Mount of Holy Beacon, then your sins will be worn out like the quern with man’s grindings and your flesh will catch fire like the will-o’-the-wisp and disappear into the world of darkness where men await the birth to come. The juggler will be a basket-maker and Moti Khan is his name. In a former life he sought God but in this he sits on the lap of a concubine. Wending his way to his sister’s for the birth of her son, he will sleep in the sitaphul woods. Speak to him. And he will be the vehicle of your salvation.’ Thus spoke the Goddess.
‘Now, what do you say to that, Moti Khan?’
‘Yes, I’ve been a sinner. But never thought I, God and Satan would become one. Who are you?’
‘The very same serpent.’
‘Your race has caused the fall of Adam.’
‘I sat at the feet of Sri Lakshamma and fell into ecstasy. I am a Brahmin.’
‘You are strange.’
‘Take me or I’ll haunt you for this life and all lives to come.’
‘Go, Satan!’ shouted Moti Khan, and rising swift as a sword he started for his sister’s house. He said to himself, ‘I will think of my sister and her child. I will think only of them.’ But leaves rustled and serpents came forth from the left and the right, blue ones and white ones and red ones and copper-coloured ones, long ones with short tails and short ones with bent tails, and serpents dropped from tree-tops and rock-edges, serpents hissed on the river sands. Then Moti Khan stood by the Rampur stream and said, ‘Wretch! Stop it. Come, I’ll take you with me.’ Then the serpents disappeared and so did the hissings, and hardly home, he took a basket and put it in a corner, and then he slept; and when he woke, a serpent had curled itself in the basket. Moti Khan had a pungi made by the local carpenter, and, putting his mouth to it, he made the serpent dance. All the village gathered round him and all the animals gathered round him, for the music of Moti Khan was blue, and the serpent danced on his tail.