‘What do you charge for your firewood?’
‘Ten eight a maund.’
‘Go and tell it to the trees.’
‘Let us make it ten, then.’
‘Do you think me such an idiot?’
‘You can take a round of Benares, and come back. You will always come to us. We sell the best firewood. And we sell it cheapest.’ By now you are face to face with your buyer.
‘And how much do you want, of sandalwood?’
‘Just plain firewood is what we want. We are not maharajas. Make it six rupees and four annas.’ The customer is touching the firewood to see if it’s dry.
‘What are they?’
‘The tarai teak. Boy or man?’
‘Boy of fourteen. Died of dysentery.’
‘I’ll make it eight rupees, for it’s a mere boy.’
‘Six-eight and not a pice more.’ As he tries to go out Jamnalal had woken up. His children were already up and crying. He gave them few shouts and then he came out.
‘He seems a good man. Make it seven-eight, Madho.’
‘You’re a nice boss,’ says Madho. ‘Do you want to sell your goods for less than you bought them with? And how long will you run your shop, boss?’
Nevertheless the bargain is made. Seven rupees is what it will be. When Madhobha felt he liked someone (whose body he wanted to see) all the curs knew that the dead was a good person. And the curs will come in prococession behind Madhobha because it’s a good soul that’s dead. And when the pyre is lit, this time all the curs bark. There’s more mystery in the world than you know. In Kalabhairav’s temple, sometimes you can see monkeys, devotees of Hanuman come. Between the dog and monkey there’s marriage in Benares. Madho has a great following among the dogs and the monkeys because he worships Hanuman. ‘Hé Rama. Raghu Rama. Sita Rama.’
Sometimes Madho likes to sit by the pyre and weep with the dead’s relations. ‘Ho Ho Ho,’ he cries and says: ‘What shall I do without you, son?’ as if the dead were made of his. He likes people. He will do anything for anybody. But just don’t shout up when he’s seeing his Mohini. Then he becomes so fierce he can tear a porcupine to his very skin. Once, he almost tore his boss into a million bits. ‘Get out, you slave, you pig. Or I’ll hang your skin on the ghats for the vultures.’ The next morning he remembers nothing. Did he really shout back like that? ‘Oh Shiva-Shiva, forgive the sinner.’ Then he recongnizes the flowers behind his ears, and remembers.
‘Oh father,’ he says to his boss, ‘forgive this heavy sleeper.’
‘But you looked so awake?’
‘Did I? I must have been dreaming.’
‘You were so frightening. I thought you would do what you said.’
Madhobha fell on his boss’s feet and beat his cheeks and begged pardon, and went to serve the new customer. There’s always work in Benares. And it pays.
IV
Muthradas of Vrindavan1 sold his camels, and came to die in Benares. His family had always traded with Kathiawar and West Rajasthan selling beads and bangles (some of these made in Benares — of wax and broken mirrors — and that’s how Muthradas first came to Benares, as a boy of eleven (but this was so long ago, when the sepoy mutiny was still remembered by the elders, and the good Victoria Queen had taken over her big empire to rule and decided to give it a just administration) and they also sold, did the Kanakmal’s family, winter blankets and cheap Kanpur prints for the peasant women. They naturally traded in kumkum and turmeric (‘and fresh from Benares ghats’ would always be added on for the benefit of each customer); but what Muthradas enjoyed most when still a boy were the autumnal deserts (on his way to Jaisalmer, Bhuj or Amber) when the rain-grass had not yet disappeared and birds were still with the young. Muthradas would suddenly wake to an auspicious dawn — as if all of Lord Krishna’s cattle had been awakened by the flute (as the tradition says), and they tugging at their tethers to rush to him, the milkmaids behind them and the cowherds behind them again — you could hear the long-drawn amme, amme, of the matronly cows (those who’d had eight and nine calves, and their udders touched their knees) and the narrow shrill low of the young calves. But when you looked round you only saw the peacocks pecking at their grains under the babul trees, and far away other camels with other Mohammeds leading the caravan.
Mohammed was a tall old Muslim from Ajmer, and for him, his beads and his Friday prayers meant more than all the treasures you could give him — and his loyalty to his masters came next only to his knee-bent prayer. He and his fathers had served generations of this Kanakmal’s family, and some Kanakmals had even given them land (this lay some two miles off the Agra road where the Jamuna suddenly makes a bend and turns on herself before going towards Bori Ghat) and you could see, if you so wished all the eight or nine camels of the Kanakmal’s buried there one after the other with Muradabadi incense-holders, Ajmeri bier-cloth, and all, and it brought such brightness to the countryside. The fact of the fact is, what makes truth makes joy. What could make truth better than an ancient loyalty? ‘Salt is silver when the tongue is lord,’ thus goes a saying. If you’ve eaten of Kanakmal’s salt, generation after generation, to be loyal to them is like asking the feet to obey the head, is it not so, sir, dear sir? Remember life is only a caravan, as the saying goes: Does one know what a fresh dawn would bring, once the desert night is over?
For Muthradas the dawns of the Mewar deserts were as precious as gifted kingdoms — he revelled in their intrepid beauty. He sometimes thought of his wife, Lakshmi, too. They had been married for four years now — it was all vague and incoherent — but he could still recollect the music, and the elephant ride. Lakshmi was a bright girl, six years of age, and from a luminescent family — they had many hangings of brocade in their houses, and many hookahs in their reception halls, with embroidered white wall-pillows. But plague and cholera came, and one by one it took away one member of the family after the other, and as you know, such calamities did happen in those days — while one pillar after the other, as it were, fell only an elder aunt, a sister and the big step-brother remained. Word came that Lakshmi was all the time weeping, sitting under a ladder and counting her days. She wanted to go to the home of her lord and husband. But what could Muthradas do? He was too small, and after all a woman comes to the house only when your moustache has stuck up the lip. Muthradas scratched his chin and found it smooth. A wife meant something to that little thing between the legs, but that hallowed night was far, far away. One becomes a man (and has children and all that) when one is grown up. At eleven years of age, you take summer lessons from the Munshi in reading and accounting, and ride with uncle Ramachand to Kathiawar for the autumn sales. And you came back long before Shivaratri — though sometimes you went to Benares instead, for the festival, and bought mirrors and things for the marriage season. Thus life.
The Rajasthani peacocks are an eyeful to gaze at — they are magical when they touch each other by the beak. Sometimes a cheetah cub has been left behind, and the village is all gathered round this lost orphan. Why could the villagers not see, thought Muthradas, that it weeps — it weeps like Lakshmi does, perhaps. Would they have a pet cheetah when they have a larger house, in Vrindavan? No, for the cheetah eats meat, and no decent person ever eats meat, except, the low-class people, and the Europeans, who also eat the pig, so the elders say. However Mohammed does not eat the pig. But then Mohammed is not of this world. He has all those ancestors buried on his field, near where their camels lie, and he is all of them made into one thought. And then he is ever in prayer. Those who pray are good, so Mohammed is good. Therefore, it is he who does not eat meat, though he eats mutton but no beef. Which makes it simple why Mohammed must go and get Lakshmi to the house.